``...Ibrahim Jaafari, head of the Shia Islamist Daawa party and a member of the governing council, came next on the list of influential Iraqis. Among council members, Adnan Pachachi, the Sunni former foreign minister, came some distance behind Mr Jaafari. Mr Pachachi is regarded as the apparent favourite for the ceremonial post of president when a caretaker government takes over...''
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This is directed as an imaginary argument to an Iraqi. Somebody who was westernized, worked in social services or education, and has some doubt about their country and its people's future under any US occupation. I imagine us sitting in an outside cafe, me drinking coffee and smoking. They are sipping tea and arguing in front of on-lookers who join in....
Whoever these people are (in the above quote), they need to en mass resign the CPA council, along with at least one well known secular academic or legal personality, and hopefully at least two prominent women.
It is way passed time for Iraq to openly, politically, and formally revolt against the US occupation, and do it before June 30. Iraq as Iraq, needs to get a UN mission, with an ambassator going on its own, before the US can weld in place their own puppet ambassador or creat any excuse for a `provisional government'.
If these people have freedom of travel, they need to write, sign and agree on a formal resignation statement, a separate statement of intent to form a legitimate government of Iraq, select one member as spokesman/woman and have that person make arrangements underground to get to Paris or Berlin en route to an emergency meeting with Kofi Annan Annan and at least three members of the Security Council including France, Germany and at least one Muslim member if there are any serving in a rotation seat. If that is Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, then forget it. Pick Jordan.
Read the announcement below. Understand it. June 30 means nothing. Since when has an occupation force of a foreign power ever left on its accord without being thrown out by force or overwhelming political circumstances?
Now is the time to force the US out of Iraq with overwhelming political circumstances. As the old black power slogan goes, SEIZE THE TIME!
Most of the world that cares, will be there as political support. Certainly the vast majority of Iraqis support it. At least a solid third of the US population will support it. Probably a significant percent of the US troops will have to think twice about what they are doing in Iraq. In the US this would amount to a serious escalation of the occupation war, which the US will immediately label terrorism. Nevermind. Remember George Bush is the most hated and mis-trusted man in the world.
Make this a political announcement and officially, formally, and politically refuse to negotiate with the US. Demand a UN forum and a declared independent Iraq representative as an advanced condition for any negotiations with the US---that of course would include the Security Council members noted above.
A formally announced political revolt, using the occupation itself as illegitimate subsequent to an internationally condemned invasion, failure of the CPA, Abu Ghraib, and the latest brutal massacres by US military are sufficient. Keep it simple and plain.
France, Germany, and Russia will be overcome with glee. If Iraqis wait or fiddle around with internal squabbling and power manipulations of their own, they will loose this chance and face a grim, protracted, and ugly guerilla war as one future, or an endless subjugation like Abu Ghraib surrounded by a sea of US lies while their people and country are bled dry by neoliberal economic hose jobs of one sort and another. Think giant enema.
Iraq needs to be represented as Iraq. The US does not represent Iraq. At this point in time all negotiations concerning Iraq in a UN forum are illegitimate. Make it so.
Read the blah, blah, blah below and think about what this means. The Security Council agrees that an `interim government' should consult with its own military occupiers? That is a farce. Does the name Vichy ring a bell?
``Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 5/20/2004, UNITED NATIONS (AP) The United States and other key Security Council nations have agreed that an arrangement must be made for Iraq's interim government to consult regularly with the U.S.-led force that will remain in Iraq the June 30 transfer of power.
But exactly what the arrangement will entail remains a subject of debate as the 15 council members tackle issues that need to be in a new U.N. resolution covering the hand over of authority from the U.S.-led coalition to an Iraqi government...''
CG
ps. I've read endless threads about how the US left has no alternatives. Bullshit. Here is one.