Kissing & Killing Cousins

There are now concerns that the new Shiite dominated government in Iraq could have close ties to Iran and a theocratic bent because of the overwhelming turnout and support that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was founded in Iran, received. He has close ties to the Ayatollahs in Iran as does Moktada al-Sadr and Ahmet Chalabi who also got elected.

The fact is there are deep ethnic and cultural divisions between the Arian Iranians and Arab Iraqis. Since Arab warriors conquered much of the Asian continent some 1,300 years ago, Iraq has served as an Arab front line of defense against Persian ambitions. The latest round was the Iraq-Iran war of 1980 to 1988.

The Persian king Cyrus was the first to besiege and conquer Baghdad in 539 BC. The Iran-Iraq conflicts haven’t stopped since.

Baghdad was built to the north of Babylon in 762 A.D. as a Babylon clone and was the city from which the Abbasid rulers -- the caliphs -- ruled the Muslim world for five centuries.

Secular Iraq is also the front-line Arab country for true democracy. It, like Palestine, can show all Arab and Muslim countries how they can become democratic – already has in Lebanon and Egypt. How dictatorial presidents, kings, sheiks and emirs can be confronted by well-organized opposition parties, strong parliaments, a constitution and independent judiciaries.

The Iraqi election can propel a violent democratic wave across the region. It was a critical event with major implications for the region, especially in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria where the ruling families now face the reality of being removed by people power inspired by the Iraqis and Lebanese. The consequences can be deadly.

Non Election

The euphoria following the January 30, 2005, Iraqi election was misplaced. The pre-election suicide bombing in the mess hall on the U.S. military base outside Mosul that killed 24 people and left hundreds wounded was the first warning shot that the election for a 275- member constitutional assembly was a non-starter. The mortar attacks on the fortified Green Zone compound during the inauguration of the new National Assembly, was the opening salvo of the looming civil war. The chaotic pandemonium of the second session in March 2005, that became a secret session after journalists were forcibly evicted, was the unofficial start of the civil war.

The election of Sunni Hajem al-Hassani as speaker, a few hours after 40-60 insurgents mounted a daring suicide assault on Abu Ghraib that wounded 44 U.S. troops, was the clarion call how futile the election was.

The election should have been delayed for at least six months to allow time to mitigate the alienation and sense of occupation felt by many Iraqis, especially by the marginalized Sunni-led insurgents. Hopes for a rebuilt democratic nation were overwhelmed by fear and violent carnage, rendering the election meaningless to most Iraqis because they are more concerned about the lack of kerosene for cooking, electricity and gasoline to drive their vehicles. The posters said it all. “We don’t want elections,” one read. “We want electricity”.

In oil-rich Iraq it is only logical that as long as there is a fuel crisis an election is irrelevant. Why not delay it until after the energy crisis is solved?

The election that once looked like it might produce a government with nationwide legitimacy increasingly intensified divisions between the obvious beneficiaries – the Shiites and Kurds – and the estranged Saddam Hussein Sunnis who knew they had nothing to gain by going to the polls except violence or death. By delaying the election several months, the U.S. could have attracted greater Sunni participation. Without broad participation by all Iraqi groups, the election had little chance of producing a legitimate government that could survive without U.S. military support. The election only accelerates another failed state similar to warlord Somalia from which the U.S. peace force was expelled. “Each political party has its own armed militia, the country is in the hands of gangs,” Hasni Abidi, an Iraqi analyst, said, adding that Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone showed “the transfer of sovereignty was illusory”.

With a majority of people in America on the eve of the Iraqi election saying the war was a mistake, wouldn’t it have made sense to delay the election until civil order was restored?

Going ahead with the election with pronouncements that the election will lead to peace because 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces appeared “relatively calm”, while Baghdad and the three other Sunni provinces are mired by the Sunni dominated insurgency, was shortsighted. Sunnis willing to run for office or willing to work with the government do not have the backing of the Sunni population. The Sunnis elected to the parliament do not have the standing in the Sunni community necessary to force acceptance of the government on the people.

The resentment by Sunnis started with their wholesale dismissal from the military and government positions and accelerated with the physical destruction of their communities in Fallujah and Mosul. A coalition of Sunni political leaders led by Adnan Pachachi, a respected moderate, repeatedly called for the postponing of the January election to allow time for broader participation. His pleas were ignored. Instead President Bush reiterated his “revolutionary” foreign policy and the “job” of the U.S. and those who wanted peace was to “be aggressive in the spread of freedom”. Aggressive behavior is not free. It is very costly in human lives and the future angry generations it spawns.

Osama bin Laden, a Sunni himself, released a video prior to the election urging the Iraqi people to boycott the election. The biggest Sunni party withdrew from the elections alltogether. Estimates put Sunni participation at 25 percent. Many Sunnis that braved the violence to go to the polls were turned away because there were not enough ballots. In other cases some polls in Sunni strongholds did not even bother to open. The low Sunni turnout does raise legitimate questions about the credibility of the election.

Forcing premature elections will not bring democracy or stability to Iraq. The U.S. could not ensure the safety of Iraqis who wanted to go to one of the 5,500 polling stations, which for security reasons were disclosed only at the last minute. America could not even protect its own having lunch in a mess hall on a military base! The Bush White House was told it was losing the battle against the insurgents and that the U.S. forces can’t stop the pre-election intimidation of prospective voters and polling officials.

Most of the electorate believed they were voting for a president, not a constitutional assembly. The ongoing violence not only prevented the 7,700 candidates running from campaigning, but from announcing their names until the ballots were handed out for fear of being assassinated.

The inevitable result was that a Sunni minority overwhelmed by a Shiite and Kurdish majority launched even more violent attacks that now require even more U.S. and coalition troops to quell. Sabotage and attacks by insurgents still average 50 a day over six months after the election. “The situation in Iraq is getting worse,” Iraq-born Mustafa Alani, who observes the region from the Gulf Research Centre in the United Arab Emirates, said several months after the election. “The attacks on police and security forces are nonstop and this is not a good sign. Security is a key – there can be no political stability or economic progress without security.” The election not only destabilized Iraq, but has the potential to destabilize Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and other neighbors.

The election of a constitutional assembly was supposed to be the first building block for a stable democratic Iraq. It was to be the key to U.S. strategy in Iraq. How could the key open the door to a truly democratic Iraq if a religious group boycotts the election because it feels marginalized?

Out of a population of 25 million and more than 230 political parties and groups, 15.2 million, including 1.2 million living abroad, were eligible to vote of which 14 million registered to vote. Only an estimated eight and a half million turned out, which gave the Shiites a predominant majority in the parliament. The Shiites received 48 percent of the vote -- the first Shiite dominated government in an Arab country in 11 centuries.

Surreal Dominoes

The Iraq and Vietnam wars have made a mockery of American idealism. The sadism and depravity displayed in both countries by U.S. troops symbolized everything that is wrong with America’s unchecked aggressive military policy. A surreal policy that has to be closely reexamined. John Adams, the second U.S. president, said: “Great is the guilt of unnecessary war.” The responsibility, guilt and reckoning of sending men and women into an unnecessary war has to be shouldered by We the Apathetic People, not just the commander-in-chief. Something has gone terribly wrong with America’s system of checks and balances.

The Vietnam and Iraq wars are rationalized with the same “domino theory”. In Vietnam, America’s policy-makers worried that Vietnam’s neighbors would fall under the influence of communist regimes, one after the other, just like dominoes if America didn’t go to war. In Iraq, they hope to spread democracy to Iraq’s neighbors, one by one, just like dominoes. The fact is Iraq, like Vietnam, is a crusade, not a domino game, and crusades have tarnished America’s moral authority. America’s military and moral might do not give it the right to abuse and violate basic human rights under a political guise.

Just as the Cold War blinded U.S. policy-makers to the realities in the field in Vietnam, the war on terrorism appears to have had the same effect on Bush administration policy toward Iraq. “Like the Cold War, the war on terrorism is potentially unlimited in scope and time. And in Iraq, it has too frequently followed the excesses and failures of the Cold War script that saw the most egregious manifestations in Vietnam,” Mark Philip Bradley, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, correctly concludes.

Was Vietnam a necessary war? Scholarly appraisals of U.S. decision-making suggest it was not. Yet the logic of the Cold War appeared to make it so. The same can be said about the logic of terrorism and the war in Iraq.

The U.S. foreign policy apparatus run at the outset of the Vietnam War was run by the Christian fundamentalist Dulles brothers: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles. John Foster Dulles refused to even shake hands with China’s Foreign Minister, Zhou Enlai, at the 1954 Geneva Armistice talks on Vietnam because Chou was a “godless man”.

The Bush Christian fundamentalist White House is on the same surreal moral and religious crusade in Iraq. Faith-based wars have always been costly in lives, resources and moral stature. Under Bush, Iraq has become the theoretical playground and employment agency for right-wing Christian fundamentalists. Bush’s family members, friends and financial backers have secured lucrative contracts even though they were unqualified. For example, Thomas Folley, a Connecticut businessman and Republican fund-raiser, got the top post for private-sector development, even though he had no relevant experience. He was succeeded by Michael Fleischer, the brother of former Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer. He was also unqualified for the post.

Any wonder Iraq is in such a mess and America’s intentions are questioned? “The U.S. went to Mars, yet has failed to repair electricity in Iraq after a whole year. I can’t believe that they are inept. It must be intentional,” Abdal Karim Hani, a former government minister imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, said, echoing the sentiments of many of his countrymen. America’s crusade in Iraq is the terrorists’ best recruitment tool.

Jihadists can easily justify their accusations that America is godless and depraved by pointing to the humiliations of Abu Ghraib, which was no different than what the Vietnamese did with the atrocities at My Lai.

Vietnam and Iraq were religious and economic wars of America’s choice. America’s moral and geopolitical credibility has suffered greatly as a result. The Iraq War was supposed to banish the ghosts of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, unless America changes course, Iraq will be worse than Vietnam. Iraq will become America’s Algeria. In the Algerian war of independence, 1954-1962, cities not jungles also played a central role in the fighting. The same lawlessness and use of excessive force we see today in Iraq prevailed – to no avail! Look at Algeria today – a country run for decades by a military dictatorship because extreme fundamentalists were poised to win the parliamentary elections.

Inauguration

The contrast between the Bush 2005 inauguration and the new Iraqi leaders was a juxtaposition of Saddam’s last presidential inauguration and Bush’s egg-pelted 2001 inauguration. The new 2005 leaders in America and Iraq are appointees of the oil industry. Iraq became America’s unacknowledged 51st state which, like many other states in the union, was annexed through violent occupation.

President Bush opened his inaugural celebrations with a lavish two-hour tribute to the military, but ominously warned servicemen and women that “much more will be asked of you in the months and years ahead”. “In Afghanistan and Iraq, the liberty that has been won at great cost now must be secured,” Bush said at the close of the tribute.

Democracy is losing the war not just in Iraq, but in America, on an unprecedented scale. Fear permeates and dominates the lives of all Americans -- just as it does Iraqis -- as they watched the inauguration ceremonies of their leaders funded and propped up by the oil industry. Leaders whose populace wonder who really elected them and who they truly represent. Both Baghdad and Washington D.C. appeared more like cities under siege as the curtains of steel security fences and concrete barriers went up to protect the democratically elected leaders of the two countries.

The word “freedom” was used 24 times by President Bush in his 2005 inauguration speech now referred to as his “freedom speech”. More than half a million American soldiers have died throughout history – including 140,415 on the Union side in the Civil War – in the pursuit of “freedom”. The protracted “freedom on the march” in Iraq is demoralizing the military, America and the world.

The Bush 2005 “freedom” inauguration was the most lavish and extravagant presidential swearing-in in history. It was also the most heavily guarded with unprecedented security. No different than the inauguration of the Iraqi Constitutional Assembly. The $40 million U.S. inaugural party tab was picked up by 120 wealthy donors, most notably ExxonMobil, Chevron, Texaco and Occidental Petroleum, who have all written checks for the maximum amount permitted. For that, they got two tables at a candlelight dinner to be attended by President Bush, along with tickets to other events involving key players on Capitol Hill.

ExxonMobil gave a further $50,000 towards the Black Tie and Boots Ball, whose guests included the President, House majority leader Tom Delay and House Energy and Commerce Secretary Joe Barton. With the Iraqi oil squabbles resolved to their satisfaction, the proposal to open up the Arctic National Wildlife refuge in Alaska to tap into the estimated 16 billion barrels of oil that lie beneath its frozen surface was surely explored over champagne, as was the pending Energy Bill, which will give the energy industry $31 billion in tax breaks and incentives.

The difference America faces, and refuses to recognize or come to terms with, is that Iraqis, like the Vietnamese and every other liberation movement at the sunset of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st, are not “heathens” fighting born-again Christians with bows and arrows. Unlike Native-Americans, Hawaiians and even Puerto Ricans, the Iraqis and Vietnamese do what they have been doing for centuries. Fight to the death for what is rightfully theirs.

America, like its Commander-In-Chief on inauguration day 2005, was thinking no different than all foreigners in Iraq – and many Iraqis -- how do I get out of this place? Any wonder President Bush did not mention the word Iraq once in his second inaugural speech?

America, like all major cities in Iraq, is under siege by the same oiligarchy and Islamic terrorist insurgents. Insurgents who have created a democratic quagmire, not just in Iraq, but America! The insurgents roaming the streets of Baghdad and Iraq with impunity are no different than the gangs of lobbyists in Washington D.C. that control the Capital and America.