From: black.hole.4.spam{at}gmail.com (Don Hills)

Adam? Was this written by you under a pseudonym? 


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1930684,00.html
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We have turned Iraq into the most hellish place on Earth

Armies claiming to bring prosperity have instead brought a misery worse
than under the cruellest of modern dictators

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday October 25, 2006
Guardian

British ministers landing in Aden in the 1960s were told always to make a
reassuring speech. In view of the Arab insurrection, they should give a
ringing pledge, "Britain will never, ever leave Aden". Britain
promptly left Aden, in 1967 and a year earlier than planned. The last
governor walked backwards up the steps to his plane, his pistol drawn
against any last-minute assassin. Locals who had trusted him and worked
with the British were massacred in their hundreds by the fedayeen.

Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, was welcomed to London by the
BBC on Monday with two documentaries recalling past British humiliations at
the hands of Arabs, in Aden and Suez. It was not a message Salih wanted to
hear. His government is retreating from its position in May, when it said
that foreign forces should withdraw from 16 out of 18 provinces, including
the south, by the end of this year. Tony Blair rejected this invitation to
go and said he would "stay until the job is done". Salih would do
well to remember what western governments do, not what they say.

Despite Suez and Aden, British foreign policy still lurches into imperial
mode by default. An inherited belief in Britain's duty to order the world
is triggered by some upstart ruler who must be suppressed, based on a vague
desire to seek "regional stability" or protect a British
interest. As Martin Woollacott remarks in his book After Suez, most people
at the time resorted to denial. To them, "the worst aspect of the
operation was its foolishness" rather than its wrongness. When asked
by Montgomery what was his objective in invading the canal zone Eden
replied, "to knock Nasser off his perch". Asked what then, Eden
had no answer.

As for Iraq, the swelling chorus of born-again critics are likewise taking
refuge not in denouncing the mission but in complaining about the mendacity
that underpinned it and its incompetence. As always, turncoats attribute
the failure of a once-favoured policy to another's inept handling of it.
The truth is that the English-speaking world still cannot kick the habit of
imposing its own values on the rest, and must pay the price for its
arrogance.

US and UK policy in Iraq is now entering its retreat phrase. Where there is
no hope of victory, the necessity for victory must be asserted ever more
strongly. This was the theme of yesterday's unreal US press conference in
Baghdad, identical in substance to one I attended there three years ago.
There is talk of staying the course, of sticking by friends and of not
cutting and running. Every day some general or diplomat hints at
ultimatums, timelines and even failure - as did the British foreign
secretary, Margaret Beckett, on Monday. But officially denial is all. For
retreat to be tolerable it must be called victory.

The US and British are covering their retreat. Operation Together Forward
II has been an attempt, now failed, to pacify Baghdad during Ramadan. In
Basra, Britain is pursuing Operation Sinbad to win hearts and minds that it
contrives constantly to lose. This may be an advance on Kissinger's bombing
of Laos to cover defeat in Vietnam and Reagan's shelling of the Shouf
mountains to cover his 1984 Beirut "redeployment" (two days after
he had pledged not to cut and run). But retreat is retreat, even if it is
called redeployment. Every exit strategy is unhappy in its own way.

Over Iraq the spin doctors are already at work. They are telling the world
that the occupation will have failed only through the ingratitude and
uselessness of the Iraqis themselves. The rubbishing of the prime minister,
Nuri al-Maliki, has begun in Washington, coupled with much talk of lowered
ambitions and seeking out that foreign policy paradigm, "a new
strongman". In May, Maliki signalled to Iraq's governors, commanders
and militia leaders the need to sort out local differences and take control
of their provincial destinies. This has failed. Maliki is only as strong as
the militias he can control, which is precious few. He does not rule
Baghdad, let alone Iraq. As for the militias, they are the natural outcome
of the lawlessness caused by foreign occupation. They represent Iraqis
desperately defending themselves from anarchy. It is now they who will
decide Iraq's fate.

The only sensible post-invasion scenario was, ironically, that once
attributed to Donald Rumsfeld, to topple Saddam Hussein, give a decapitated
army to the Shias and get out at once. There would have been a brief and
bloody settling of accounts and some new regime would have seized power.
The outcome would probably have been partial or total Kurdish and Sunni
secession, but by now a new Iraq confederacy might have settled down.
Instead this same partition seems likely to follow a drawn-out and bloody
civil conflict. It is presaged by the fall of Amara to the Mahdist militias
this month - and the patent absurdity of the British re-occupying this
town.

Washington appears to have given Maliki until next year to do something to
bring peace to his country. Or what? America and Britain want to leave. As
a settler said in Aden, "from the moment they knew we were leaving
their loyalties turned elsewhere". Keeping foreign troops in Iraq will
not "prevent civil war", as if they were doing that now. They are
largely preoccupied with defending their fortress bases, their presence
offering target practice for insurgents and undermining any emergent civil
authority in Baghdad or the provinces. American and British troops may be
in occupation but they are not in power. They have not cut and run, but
rather cut and stayed.

The wretched Iraqis must wait as their cities endure civil chaos until one
warlord or another comes out on top. In the Sunni region it is conceivable
that a neo-Ba'athist secularism might gain the ascendancy. In the bitterly
contested Shia areas, a fierce fundamentalism is the likely outcome. As for
Baghdad, it faces the awful prospect of being another Beirut.

This country has been turned by two of the most powerful and civilised
nations on Earth into the most hellish place on Earth. Armies claiming to
bring democracy and prosperity have brought bloodshed and a misery worse
than under the most ruthless modern dictator. This must be the stupidest
paradox in modern history. Neither America nor Britain has the guts to rule
Iraq properly, yet they lack the guts to leave.

Blair speaks of staying until the job is finished. What job? The only job
he can mean is his own.
-------------------------------------------------------

For balance, such as it is, there is this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1931364,00.html
"Bush admits Iraq concerns"


--
Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand
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