The White House is in a panic, fearing that the failing occupation of Iraq may ignite a domestic political conflagration during this election year ‹ and the recent capture of former President Saddam Hussein offers scant relief.
Even President George Bush's neoconservative Praetorian Guard has assumed a defensive posture, worried that the growing guerrilla resistance may sabotage their Commander-in-Chief's reelection campaign.
The Iraqi armed struggle for national liberation is becoming the most decisive factor in determining the U.S. presidential race, probably more important than who is selected as the Democratic party nominee to oppose Bush. In a Gallup public opinion poll released Dec. 29, 98% said "the situation with Iraq" was important in determining how they will vote.
If Washington crushes the liberation war in the next few months and manages to create a puppet government and army in Iraq that will do the Bush administration's bidding, the president will campaign as the ever-victorious "Bush of Baghdad," and likely gain four more years in power. But If the resistance continues to grow, Bush may be unhorsed on the political battlefield.
The Iraqi defenders cannot defeat the powerful U.S. military machine, but as commanding Gen. John Abizaid warned in December, it may "break the will" of the American people to continue the war by creating chaos and abundant GI casualties.
The White House fears the resurrection of the Vietnam Syndrome ‹ that is, the disinclination of the majority of people in the United States to support an aggressive military adventure against a small third-world country if and when it becomes too costly in American lives, time and treasure. And if the peace movement acts in concert to win over disheartened supporters of the war to the organized antiwar side, it could spell doom for the political party in power, as it did for the Democrats in 1968. (The opposition Republicans largely supported the war in the late 1960s, as do most Democratic politicians today despite some latter-day cosmetic criticisms, but Richard Nixon won the presidency on the strength of the Vietnamese resistance and the antiwar forces.)
The Republican regime hopes that Hussein's imprisonment and a sensational show trial coinciding with the closing months of the election campaign will divert public attention from Bush's fabrications and miscalculations. This could backfire, however, if Hussein manages to use the trial as a platform for revealing a number of sensitive secrets about past U.S. collusion with Iraq that Washington prefers to keep hidden.
So far, aside from a temporary boost for Bush in opinion polls, Hussein's imprisonment has only proven that the burgeoning resistance ‹ contrary to earlier administration allegations ‹ is independent of his leadership.
Mismanagement of the brutal occupation, combined with the unanticipated resistance that developed after Bush announced military victory eight months ago, has forced the White House to change some of its original plans and to reconsider a few favorite ambitions.
Washington's most important war objectives are the installation of a puppet government in Baghdad responsive to U.S. diktat; the transformation of Iraqi society into a dependent, pro-American entity with the trappings of capitalist democracy; obtaining permanent U.S. military bases; privatization of the economy, mainly by selling off Iraq's substantial state-owned enterprises and resources to foreign buyers; securing super-profits for U.S. corporations and investors; and influencing decisions on pricing and distribution of Iraqi oil. These are the reasons President Bush launched the war in the first place. Other explanations (such as the alleged weapons of mass destruction, Hussein's supposed connections with Al-Qaeda, and the "liberation" of Iraq) are lies.
The White House still clings to this plan but is preparing modifications because it is encountering many unexpected difficulties in addition to the resistance. Not the least of these problems are that the Iraqi people were offended by Bush's pre-selected candidates for political leadership, the Shi'ite Muslim majority may rebel unless Washington makes important concessions, and evidence that the entire Arab Muslim population (Sunni and Shia), with the exception of a relative handful of quislings, wants the U.S. to quickly leave the country. (The minority Kurds to the north, who are Sunni but not Arab, are less resentful of the occupation because they seek Washington's support for obtaining autonomous status within Iraq as a prelude to their quest for an independent Kurdistan ‹ a prospect the Arabs oppose, as does the U.S. so far.)
At this stage, Washington is concentrating on two courses of action to stave off a political debacle ‹ (1) attainment of a military victory over the resistance and (2) achieving a satisfactory resolution to mounting differences with the Shi'ites over the timing of elections and composition of the new government and the U.S. insistence upon exerting a continuing influence over Iraq.
The military plan is based on escalating the violence against the resistance, using every means from air attacks, large-scale roundups of suspected opponents, and indiscriminate shootings in civilian areas, to assassinations of former Ba'athist party operatives and others on a fairly large scale, dubious "interrogation" techniques (i.e., torture), and destroying homes of relatives of suspected liberation fighters. The U.S. military has been receiving instructions in urban counterinsurgency from the Israeli army, its experienced regional subaltern.
Compounding the brutality of the occupation army is a colonial attitude toward the Iraqi people on the part many American military officers. Two quotes in the New York Times in December are outstanding examples. Infantry Capt. Todd Brown told the newspaper "You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force ‹ force, pride and saving face." Battalion commander Lt. Col. Nathan Sussaman was quoted, as he directed GIs who were surrounding an entire small town with a razor sharp fence, "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them." Such comments have been uttered by colonial brigands against subject peoples throughout centuries of imperialism.
The Pentagon is working feverishly to recruit poor, jobless Iraqis to the new U.S.-controlled army, police, and intelligence services. In a country of nearly 25 million people with 70% unemployment this is not the most difficult undertaking. The purpose of organizing these forces is to interpose them between the resistance fighters and U.S. troops in order to lower the toll of GI dead and wounded in deference to the "syndrome." In effect, the U.S. is fostering a civil war between Iraqis in the resistance and Iraqis who are economically press-ganged into the police and military. In the process, Washington's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) ‹ the dictatorship ruling Iraq ‹ is relying almost exclusively on former officers and personnel who served the former Ba'athist regime, including the feared domestic intelligence branch.
The Bush administration's design is for Iraqi turncoats to handle most of the fighting against the resistance, while the occupation army enjoys sanctuary behind well-defended fortress enclaves, emerging only in critical situations. This is an old trick learned from the racist British Empire, which administered India for many decades with a small army and civil service while recruiting a large force of poor Indian soldiers known as sepoys to do the dirty work. Some of the sepoys rebelled against Britain but in Iraq there is speculation that virtually all will turn against the U.S. at the appropriate moment. Many of the Iraqi recruits are presumed to be joining for this specific purpose.
(Part 2 tomorrow - This articles appears in the Jan. 4 issue of the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter)