Iraq: Analysis of chaos

Bush's unplanned knee-jerk policy unleashes Armageddon in Iraq

George Bush was warned by the international community and a substantial slice of the more analytical, independent media outlets (among these PRAVDA.Ru) to consider his policy on Iraq very carefully. He was warned about what would happen. He chose not to listen.

Six days before the election, the country is in utter chaos. Car bombs explode on a daily scale, sowing havoc among the civilian population and military forces, driving deep wedges into the fabric of Iraqi society. Foreign fighters pour into the country to join the Iraqi Resistance. The attacks against the foreign invading forces have been matched with mindless violence against civilians, massacring women and children along with the menfolk.

A sizeable section of the Sunni population has declared it will boycott the elections and with open warfare being declared on the remainder of the population by Al-Zarqawi, there is a strong possibility that the election result will be extremely unbalanced, providing tinder for the flames of civil war to burn out of control in the foreseeable future.

The US forces have now joined Washington in sowing a tissue of lies, playing down the threat from the Resistance, which numbers 200.000 instead of the 25.000 claimed. Around 50.000 would be active fighters with broad support among 150.000 Sunni. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former British representative to the Coalition Authority, declared recently in an interview with the BBC that the multinational forces had lost primary control and given the scale and frequency of the attacks, so have the Iraqi authorities.

Analyst Anthony Cordesman, from Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, claims that the Iraqi forces are unable to cope and are being sent to their deaths.

Therefore where is the way out for the American and British forces in the near future? There is only one. Having removed the point of equilibrium which was the only cement holding Iraq together as a State, not only Saddam Hussein (whose power was considerably reduced in recent years anyway) but the Baґath Party, the Anglo-American alliance has created all the conditions for a nightmare of unprecedented proportions to blow up in the faces of London and Washington, especially if this war is as protracted as it now appears inevitable and a second phase and second front is opened up, in the UK and USA.

All of this was wholly and perfectly avoidable, if only these Anglo-Saxon marauders had listened to the voices of common sense coming from the Axis of Reason in Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Brasilia, Beijing. But no, they had to press ahead, to bully the UNMOVIC teams out of Iraq because they were unable to find what never existed: WMD.

Bush even declared that Saddam Hussein "stiffed the world". Well, it appears blatantly obvious that the one stiffing the world was Bush.  

The question now is how to move forward? Given that Washington and London have created a horrific scenario in  a country which was only stable because the Ba'ath regime kept it together in an iron grip, with every day that passes, a Federal State of Iraq seems more of a good idea.

Giving strong local autonomy to the various ethnic, religious and cultural groups within the country, perhaps with regional Parliaments, would address local issues on a local scale and would pull the carpet from the feet of the foreign fighters, who would have no place in a new Federal State of Iraq.

Neither would the invading forces. All foreign fighters out of Iraq, for a start.

It is clear that the sooner the British and particularly, the American, forces leave the country, the better, although to do this in a large-scale pullout would leave power vacuums occupied by those forces who have learnt that there is a good living to be made through fighting because the power of the gun is also the power of the dollar.

If enough people learn that wielding a gun gives them almost unlimited power and more wealth than they would ever make tilling the land or shepherding sheep, as has now happened, it takes years to convince them to lay down their arms - so the scenario for future instability is not a possibility but a certainty.

Therefore the hand-over to international policing forces, such as those which operate in the Balkans, would have to be substantial but phased out over a period of time. Certainly, this would bring the international community onboard and would relieve the pressure on Washington and London, who have clearly bitten off more than they can chew.

This would also give the newly elected Iraqi government (because the election has to go ahead) the environment it needed to work together with the international community as a whole, and not only the lunacy flowing through the veins of Washington and London at present,  and forge a Constitution acceptable to the considerable number of moderate Iraqis whose only ambition is to live together in peace.

As usual, this is the will of the vast majority of Iraqi citizens and as usual it is their voice which is drowned out by machine-gun fire and the blast of RPGs.

If Washington and London had not been so keen on jumping the gun, the transition from Saddam to post-Saddam Iraq would have taken place anyway, without the enormous troubles and without the tens of thousands of deaths. The point is now not to punish Washington and London for the mess they have made but to help them clear it up, on condition that the two pupils are given a black mark, a detention and promise never to behave in this manner again.

A zero in the subject of International Affairs for the bad boys, Bush and Blair.