America's Fear of Defeat

talhakhubaib — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:30:34 +0000

It is quite clear that the administration of US President George Bush would have never agreed to hold a regional conference of Iraq's neighbors - including, in particular, Iran and Syria, whom the US have always accused of negatively interfering with the affairs of Iraq, as well as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the UN, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and the Arab League (AL) - unless it had retracted its former position against the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton committee. Why did the Bush administration make this U-turn on this issue?

Facts on the ground in Iraq were the main motive for such change. The solution the US administration has initially proposed as a way out of the Iraqi swamp was to send some 21,000 additional troops to take part in a final push that aims to bring security to the Iraqi capital and the Anbar province.

But according to a report published by Britain's 'The Guardian' yesterday, an elite group of army officers advising the new US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, have, after deliberations and studies, arrived to the conclusion that they still have six months to achieve victory in Iraq or face a Vietnam-style collapse that would force the army to make a sudden pullout.

Those officers, who have diverse military and academic backgrounds, were reportedly aware of the fact that they were working under pressure of time, and that the situation was getting worse. There are many reasons why the situation was deteriorating. The number of troops is not enough, the international drive is beginning to collapse, and it is most likely that violence will increase in southern Iraq with the withdrawal of the British troops. Also, the rising death toll and the potential subsequent collapse of the political well, both in Washington and Baghdad, will cause the morale to collapse.

And just as whatever remains of the support from the US public opinion or Congress to Bush's policy begins to erode, especially after the Democrats have won a majority in the Congress, signs of imminent crumple are also beginning to appear in the current Iraqi government led by Nouri al-Maliki.

An announcement made yesterday by veteran Iraqi politician Adnan Pachachi on behalf of the Iraqi list spearheaded by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi summed up the current situation in Iraq saying it is witnessing "rapid and dangerous deterioration in all aspects of life, as evident by the massive material and human depletion, compounded by a deepening and increasingly complicated crisis of power, and the arrival of the political process at a dead-end".

After calling for ending the "crisis of power" in Iraq by working to build a wide national front that "includes all those keen on saving the country," Pachachi added that the political process was suffering from the fierce competition between "centers of power" at the expense of the sublime interests of the society and the State, "motivated by narrow sectarian and material gains…which led to the loss of any hope by the people of establishing a true rule of law and institutions…the proliferation of crime, killing ,violence, and the sabotaging of national unity."

The Americans' dismantling of the central Iraqi State and their subsequent failure in its re-establishment on the bases of equality between all Iraq citizens in rights and duties regardless of their sectarian affiliations, faiths, or ideologies, made it difficult for one to be upbeat on the chances of restoring the national Iraqi fabric anytime soon.

In the absence of an Iraqi leadership that is above sectarian and ethnic bias, it would be hard to imagine that this ancient Arab country will ever be able to remain integrated, especially since the purpose of the US occupation was to weaken it, control its oil wealth, and put an end to its status as a cornerstone of the Eastern Front in the face of Israel.

If the Americans fear and try to avoid a defeat in Iraq similar to their defeat in Vietnam, the Arabs, and the rest of Iraq's neighbors, must put ahead of them the objective of avoiding the division of Iraq and restoring it to stability, not only for the sake of the security and prosperity of Iraqis, but because it is a part of the regional stability.

If the US invaders will be leaving sooner or later, the people of Iraq and its neighbors are there to stay.

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talhakhubaib — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:28:55 +0000

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America's Fear of Defeat

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