On Nov 21, 2006, at 3:14 PM, www.leninology. blogspot.com wrote:
>
>> You only have to look at the policies: putting Ahmed Chalabi in charge
>> of the Higher National Committee for the Eradication of the Ba'ath
>> Party
>> as his personal patrimonial plaything was one thing;
>
The US didn't put Chalabi in charge of de-Baathification. His newfound
allies in the UIA did. A reminder: The US had tried to prevent the UIA
from winning the Jan. 2005 elections.
>> integrating the Badr
>> into the security services another;
>
Again, this happened because decisions by the UIA Interior Minister
after the elections.
>> pushing through a sectarian constitution
>> was the decisive political moment in the development of the civil
>> war dynamic.
>
Who drafted the constitution? The Shiite and Kurdish parties. When the
Sunnis objected and sought revisions, who advocated on their behalf? The US.
>>
>> The US has pursued sectarianism in order to create a state with weak
>> capacity and legitimacy, (but with a strong counterinsurgency stance)
>
Let's remember something. The US fought tooth and nail to prevent free
elections. It was forced to allow them only after the Shiites threatened
armed rebellion. During the election, most of the parties ran blatantly
sectarian campaigns. Only a handful of parties campaigned on a
cross-sectarian platform of national unity, notably Iyad Allawi's INA -
i.e., the very party that the CIA was not-so-covertly aiding. The
non-sectarian parties got crushed and the Shiite parties swept the
board. That didn't happen because of the US, it happened despite the US.
Seth