Rice's Circular Colonial Logic
All Pressure off Reform in Baghdad after Crocker/Petraeus Report
Colonial logic is always circular. Thus, Condi Rice: the US needs to stay in Iraq to protect the US from Iraq. Also, the US needs to stay in Iraq to protect Iraq from Iran. The next part of the circle will be that the US needs to stay in Iran to accomplish both of these aims much more efficiently.
Robert Reid of AP reports that Iraqi politicians in Baghdad feel *no* pressure to move forward quickly with reforms or reconciliation, in part because they are assured that Bush will keep a big US troop presence in Iraq through early January 2009. Money graf:
' Iraq's national security adviser was asked Wednesday to explain why the government has been so slow to enact power-sharing agreements that Washington deems necessary for lasting peace. He had nothing new to offer. "Of course we want to do it, but they are so complicated," Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said. '
Fred Kaplan thinks the senators showed more gumption in receiving the Crocker/ Petraeus report than had the congressmen.
Tina Susman of the LAT reports on reactions to the testimony among Iraqis. Her general conclusions are that the fundamentalist Shiite bloc, which is in power, liked the upbeat parts; the Sunni Arab bloc, which is in opposition, liked the negative/ realistic parts; an ordinary Iraqi said the US troops were hated occupiers but shouldn't leave yet because they were helping keep order. And secular ex-Baathist and former appointed prime minister Iyad Allawi thought it was irrelevant and didn't bother to listen in:
' There is nothing new that it was going to tell us," said Allawi, whose Iraq National Accord holds 22 seats in the parliament. "What's going on here is not that good: sectarianism, violence, no institutions, services almost totally halted." A few minutes earlier, a loud bomb had gone off at a busy intersection about half a mile from his Baghdad office. Police said the blast killed one civilian and injured five. '
Susman also reports that the "al-Anbar model" of paying and arming Sunni tribes and mafias to fight the Salafi Jihadis probably won't work in other provinces. One US military officer asserted, "There is no Anbar model."
Hundreds of Shiite and Sunni Iraqis marched in protest on Wednesday against the barrier the US military is putting in to separate the Ghazaliya (Sunni) and Shu'la (increasingly Shiite) neighborhoods in Baghdad. Such physical separation of districts has been a major tool for the military in cutting down on death squad violence.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/13/2007 02:27:00 AM
17 Comments:
Professor Cole -
Looks like we'll need your translation skills once again:
However, his hard-line rhetoric resurfaced when Ahmadinejad said Israel "cannot continue its life."
Let me guess, this will be spun to mean he said "the life of Israelis must be ended" or some such.
I've expressed no firm opinion about Ambassador Crocker but I have consistently disagreed with Juan's assessment of Gen Petraeus from the very day Bush appointed him.
He's a rank careerist. Admiral Fallon isn't so charitable
WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
IPS
In all the recent news, I have failed to find information on resolution of the Kurdistan resolving its issues with the central government. It seems that all this military "progress" is just paving the way for the Kurds to separate.
Dear Professor Cole
They are at it again. This is becoming as boring as those emails from the son of the ex chairman of the Nigerian Central Bank asking if I would mind a few million dollars for him.
The Office of Special Plans rides again?
N. Korea, Syria May Be at Work on Nuclear Facility
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 13, 2007; Page A12
North Korea may be cooperating with Syria on some sort of nuclear facility in Syria, according to new intelligence the United States has gathered over the past six months, sources said. The evidence, said to come primarily from Israel, includes dramatic satellite imagery that led some U.S. officials to believe that the facility could be used to produce material for nuclear weapons.
The new information, particularly images received in the past 30 days, has been restricted to a few senior officials under the instructions of national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, leaving many in the intelligence community unaware of it or uncertain of its significance, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Some cautioned that initial reports of suspicious activity are frequently reevaluated over time and were skeptical that North Korea and Syria, which have cooperated on missile technology, would have a joint venture in the nuclear arena.
Tony Blair also wanted a long-term (permanent)British presence in Iraq to look-after UK's interest. Reality and the UK military ended his comical little-bit of imperial dreams.
Rice's grand Middle East plans and imperial dreams will have the same fate. The USA wants a couple of divisions in the ME, no more, to own it. This is not an Empire, is it?
The US top generals do not want the luntics in Washington to keep destroying their beloved military. They are working on switching support from the pr-American Iraqis, who want permanent US presence, to the nationalists, including Sadr, who want guarantees of US departure.
The Washington elite's fantasy talk is cheap, Reality aint.
Dear Professor Cole
I expect you have seen this curious piece in Salon
"The war as we saw it"
Two of the active-duty U.S. soldiers who wrote a controversial Op-Ed in the New York Times questioning the direction of the Iraq war died Monday in Baghdad. Here are their words
The poor sods died in a Trafic Accident!!
The political situation in Anbar, has undoubtably improved. But in doing an analysis of why it has, we must take into account where we are taking our starting point of our standard from. Compared to say when Saddam was in power, Anbar is in chaos today.
What has really happened is a divergence of the political agenda in al Anbar. Al Qaeda wanted to set up a new country there, they wanted to literally set up an alternative to the tribal leadership that is in power now, representing Sunni interests in Baghdad.
They began to attack the real base of rule in Anbar, the tribal militas. To these militas , the difference between outsiders (muslim or not) taking over things and killing locals is not significant.
Thus the people voted with their feet. Zarqawi was sold out, and al qaeda removed from power BY THE PEOPLE.
The US allience with the tribes is one that will last only as long as the US stays out of local politics.
The Sunni experiment with using salafis to act as a cover for more conventional warfare is over for now. This model works in Afghanistan where the people are mostly ethnic Pushtoon or Baloochi and consider NWFP part of Afghanistan rather than Pakistan. So, so-called 'foreigners' from Pakistan entering Afghanistan are not really conidered outsiders.
However the locals there do indeed have limits on their tolerance of salafi outsiders. Local leaders wiped out a band of Uzbecki 'al qaeda' in NWFP when they attempted to copy Zarqawi model.
This proves that the situation is at root political. People really want to control their own destiny, they may be religious muslims but they dont seem to want to live in a new state run by Salafis from other countries...
To locals, they just want to rule themselves, or through their own manner of consent. For now they may accept US tanks in exchange for stability, but the source of that stability coems from the locals, not the US tanks.
Lets not forget that.
Regarding circular colonial logic, Chalmers Johnson writes in Blowback that the Pentagon has at different times stated that the US military presence in Japan is (a) to protect Japan from its neighbours and (b) to protect Japan's neighbours from Japan.
I thought the United States stood for tearing down walls not building them. What have we become?
Hundreds of Shiite and Sunni Iraqis marched in protest on Wednesday against the barrier the US military is putting in to separate the Ghazaliya (Sunni) and Shu'la (increasingly Shiite) neighborhoods in Baghdad. Such physical separation of districts has been a major tool for the military in cutting down on death squad violence.
What I find interesting is that both Sunni and Shiites Iraqi protested together against these walls. What does it tell us ? Isn't it a rather good sign concerning the possibility of keeping a united Iraq ? I think that the US often paints ongoing power conflict between different Iraqi factions as sectorial fights, while they aren't. Apparently, the Iraqi in the streets don't always perceive things that way either. The Sunnis are opposed to the occupation and thus to the actual governement set up by the US. Does it mean that they are all sectarians ? I'm not convinced of it, although if the US blows on the fire long enough to cause troubles.
Are these walls really intented to protect Iraqi against sectarian attacks ? I doubt it is the only goal. Given the information transpiring, concerning the security situation in the Green zone, I wonder whether the real goal of these walls isn't to create a kind of buffer zone around the Green zone itself : after all didn't we hear that the Green zone suffers dayly attacks ? that personal working in the Green zone can't go out without a life jacket ? Only a maps would tell it : maps of the location of the walls and maps indicating from where the attacks on the Green zone are launched.
LAT: "...the central government promised $120 million to help Anbar province recover from years of fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents."
I hate being cynical, but wouldn't this more accurately read: central government promised $120 million in bribes to gangsters, insurgents and tribal leaders in exchange for their promise to reduce their level of violence against the US and the Iraqi Central Government?
U.S. National Interest in Iraq left Undefended?
.
We and the Brits have left the oil rich part of Iraq and its vital international port for shipments, i.e. the most important part of Iraq, to Iranian influenced warring bands of Shiites.
Elsewhere our troops are attacked one hundred and seventy five times a day.
(177.8 attacks a day on troops Reuters 7.20.07)
What in the holy christ are we exactly doing there? Defending the contractors in non National Interest territory???
If we're staying in Iraq in such force to defend the Emerald Palace when we've already lost control over most areas of strategic interest, that's like defending your ego when you're in quicksand. Or like getting a boob job with the last of your cash when the Doc says you've got cancer.
Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, Bush's buddy the other day in al Anbar has been killed. I wonder if he is going to run on the Anbar success story again with his speech?
With Ramadan here we know nothing will get done in Baghdad as the Middle East grinds to a halt for the next month.
justin raimondo: Surging Toward IRAN : “Amid all the back-and-forth between the administration and its critics about how to measure "progress" in Iraq, what gets lost is the question asked by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) at the Petraeus-Crocker hearings:
"I have to ask this question: where is this going? … Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate we are doing now. For what? The president said let's buy time. Buy time? For what?"
...refuting this [Administration's] farrago of half-baked fantasies doesn't require any special knowledge, only a basic understanding of the current situation in Iraq and a bit of common sense. For example, why would Shi'ite militias go after the Shi'ite government in Baghdad – when, in reality, they are the armed wings of the parties that make up that government?
Even more egregious is the contention that "it is increasingly apparent to both Coalition and Iraqi leaders" that "Iran seeks to turn the Iraqi Special Groups into a Hezbollah-like force" to "fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state."
...A proxy war is being fought in Iraq, but it isn't one pitting the Iranians against the Iraqis: the U.S. is the proxy, fighting on behalf of Israel against Iran and Syria.
In answer to questions from the senators, Petraeus gave away the show when he bluntly stated, "We cannot win Iraq solely in Iraq." Oh no, we have to conquer most of the rest of the Middle East, including Iran, Syria, and who-knows-where-else before we can even begin to talk about ‘winning’ in Iraq.
I have emphasized... that nothing short of complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq is going to avert a regional war in the Middle East, because that's exactly what's on the administration's agenda. That's what Bush and Petraeus are buying time for – what Norman Podhoretz calls World War IV.”
The General Petraeus's comment exposes yet another of the Bush administration's Hypocrisies:
http://perlustration.blogspot.com/2007/09/general-petraeus-exposes-bush.html
Here's an article about the Petraeus that America should know:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world
/americas/article2956422.ece
Sorry I had to break the link into two parts.
Couldn't get the INDEPENDENT link. Can you mail it to me at
Vigiliante.sozadee@gmail.com
?
Thanks!
Post a Comment
<< Home