Paradoxes doom Bush’s new strategy in Iraq
President George W. Bush’s paradoxical “new strategy” in Iraq is doomed by its own contradictions as much as by Iraqi and regional paradoxes and would in no time prove that the U.S. president’s go-it-alone approach will only extend the failure of the 2003 military invasion in developing into a permanent occupation, amid wide spread world and American calls for withdrawal and political solution.
“The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq,” Bush said in a speech on January 10; on scrutiny however the “change” he promised boils down essentially to upholding the same course but trying to change the tactics; on deeper scrutiny even the “new” tactics are unmasked as the same old ones.
His speech was more a noisy acknowledgement of failure in Iraq than a robust declaration of a new strategy for success: Four years on, he was still unable to declare that “we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops” in Iraq; “the opposite happened. The violence … overwhelmed the political gains;” “Their strategy worked,” he announced, referring to “Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents;” there are now “death squads” and “a vicious cycle of sectarian violence.” “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me,” he concluded, and took the responsibility for the “mistakes (that) have been made.”
However Bush stopped short of honestly admitting his failure, though the “message came through loud and clear;” according to him the “failure” is not yet the reality of the day in Iraq, but only a possible threat that “would be a disaster for the United States” and should be averted. Hence his “new strategy” to avert the imminent “disaster;” and this was his first paradox because he could not correctly diagnose the U.S. predicament in Iraq and consequently he could not prescribe the right course.
“The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security,” Bush said; accordingly he resorted to more military force. Of course the “success” he meant was that of the U.S. invasion and not the success of any political process that would save the Iraqis from their disastrous and tragic status quo created by the invasion itself. Here lies his second paradox: The four-year military failure has been brought about by the failed “political process” his administration sponsored in Baghdad’s Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi government and the huge U.S. embassy, and by the absence of a credible Iraqi national reconciliation political process.
The latest U.S.-air covered “Iraqi” 3-day military attack on the civilian Haifa Street, which controls the bridges linking eastern to western Baghdad, one kilometer away from the Green Zone, was a humiliating symbol of the failure of both the U.S. military strategy and the U.S.-sponsored political process. How could this resounding failure be rectified by the meager increase in U.S. troops by 21,000, which Bush announced, to accomplish a mission that 140,000 could not accomplish over four years?
The prerequisite for any credible Iraqi national reconciliation process is the withdrawal of the occupying forces, or at least setting a definite timetable for their withdrawal, something that Bush was keen to completely ignore in his “new strategy” speech, which was his third paradox.
The Iraqi resistance - which surprisingly was active on the ground on the first days of the U.S. occupation and all throughout ever since undermined his strategy - is the integral backbone of any credible Iraqi national reconciliation political process; Bush has not only ruled it out of his political process for the past four years but singled it out as the main target of his new military campaign, thus sliding his county into the 4th paradox of his “new strategy.”
His 5th paradox is more like shooting oneself in the legs. According to Bush, the sectarian violence is the source of insecurity in Iraq. His speech however had no mention whatsoever of either the U.S. or Iranian-sponsored militias, the major culprits in the death squads, ethnic and sectarian cleansing, assassinations, kidnappings, random killings and other sever human rights violations, all which created a hell of an insecurity environment across Iraq, but mainly in Baghdad.
Adding insult to injury Bush, in his 6th paradox, wanted the Iraqis to sweep his waste: “Only Iraqis can end” the sectarian violence, he said, absolving himself of the responsibility for the sectarianism that mushroomed with the rumbling and roaring of his invading tanks and war planes to shake the very fabric of the Iraqi society and break into the peace of their daily life.
Destroying the Iraqi state could not but drive people to seek security and services in tribal or sectarian brotherly protection, or to look for them under the protection of armed gangs. In the absence of the state, destroying a secular ruling ideology creates the empty space that could only be filled by sectarian, ethnic, tribal and gangster players. Bush did exactly that; his country should be held accountable as long as her forces remain in Iraq; only when these forces leave can “only Iraqis” sweep away their waste.
