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Bush administration elaborates plans for bloodbath in Iraq
By Bill Van Auken
18 December 2006
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Reports on the Bush administrations discussions on a
change of course in Iraq indicate that Washington is preparing
a major new bloodbath as part of a desperate attempt to salvage
its nearly four-year-old bid to conquer the oil-rich country.
The New York Times Sunday carried an article entitled
The Capital Awaits a Masterstroke on Iraq, which indicated
that the options under discussion include what amounts to support
for a genocidal war against Iraqs Sunni population as well
as the deliberate unleashing of a region-wide sectarian conflict
between the predominantly Sunni Arab countries and the Shia majorities
in Iran and Iraq.
This proposalknown widely in Washington as the 80
percent solution, the percentage of the Iraqi population
comprising Shia and Kurdsthe Times writes, basically
says that Washington should stop trying to get Sunnis and Shiites
to get along and instead just back the Shiites, since there are
more of them anyway and theyre likely to win in a fight
to the death. After all, the proposal goes, Iraq is 65 percent
Shiite and only 20 percent Sunni.
The plan reportedly has been promoted by Vice President Dick
Cheney, one of the principal architects of the Iraq war from the
beginning.
A key consideration, the article adds, is control of Iraqs
oil fields. The longer America tries to woo the Sunnis,
the more it risks alienating the Shiites and Kurds, and theyre
the ones with the oil, the Times states. A
handful of administration officials have argued that Iraq is not
going to hold to together and will splinter along sectarian lines.
If so, they say, American interests dictate backing the groups
who control the oil-rich areas.
An off-shoot of the plan, which the Times cynically
describes as something some hawks have tossed out in meetings,
is a suggestion that the US could reap the benefits of a region-wide
sectarian conflagration. America could actually hurt Iran
by backing Iraqs Shiites; that could deepen the Shiite-Sunni
split and eventually lead to a regional Shiite-Sunni war,
the Times writes. And in that, the Shiitesand
Iranlose because, while there are more Shiites than Sunnis
in Iraq and Iran, there are more Sunnis than Shiites almost everywhere
else.
At the same time, there are growing indications that a proposed
surge of tens of thousands more American combat troops
into Iraq will have as its first objective taking on the militia
loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, meaning a brutal assault
on the impoverished Shia masses of Baghdad.
The formulation of such mutually contradictory policies appears
to be less the product of diplomatic and military calculation
than political insanity. Underlying what seems like madness is
the desperation and disorientation at all levels of the American
state over the deep crisis that its policy has produced.
What predominates is the conception that provided it carries
out a sufficient level of killingwhether in a genocidal
slaughter of Sunnis, a bloodletting against the Shia, or a combination
of the twoUS imperialism can somehow extricate itself from
a humiliating defeat in Iraq.
The leaks concerning the strategies now under consideration
only underscore the abject criminality of the war as well as the
desperate crisis that is gripping the American political establishment,
which remains deeply divided over how to confront the political
and military debacle confronting the US occupation.
Less than two weeks after the release of the report by the
bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the Bush administration has repudiated
the panels prescriptions for reducing the US military role
in Iraq and pursuing diplomatic initiatives aimed at winning cooperation
from the neighboring countries of Iran and Syria.
The White House, backed by the Republican right and the most
ruthless sections of the American ruling elite, is instead preparing
what amounts to a re-invasion of the ravaged country and the pursuit
of a broader regional war, ultimately aimed at toppling both the
Iranian and the Syrian regimes.
It was reported late last week that the Pentagon has already
ordered the 3,500 troops of the Second Brigade of the 82nd Airborne
Division, currently based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to prepare
for deployment to Kuwait next month. This would be the first contingent
for what is anticipated to be a surge of between 30,000
and 50,000 additional troops.
Not only is the political establishment deeply divided over
the way forward in Iraq, but the US military command as well.
Some, such as Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Armys chief
of staff, Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, and Gen.
John Abizaid, the senior commander of US forces in the Middle
East, have questioned the value of a surge of American
troops into Iraq, noting that such an increased deployment could
not be sustained and warning that it could serve to further delay
Iraqi forces taking over security operations.
On the other hand, a number of recently retired senior commanders
have advocated the escalation, and the scheme is reportedly supported
by Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, who assumed command of combat troops
in Iraq last week. Odierno commanded the Armys 4th Infantry
Division in Anbar Province in 2003 and 2004, gaining a reputation
for heavy-handed counterinsurgency operations and repression that
is credited by many with generating much of the popular support
for the Iraqi resistance.
We are going to go after anyanyindividual
who attacks the government, who attacks the security forces and
who attacks coalition forces no matter who they are and no matter
who they are associated with, he said at a ceremony in Baghdad
last Thursday.
The remark appeared to be a warning that the immediate target
of the new offensive now being prepared will be the Mahdi Army,
the Shia militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. According to press
reports, the Pentagons uniformed command has been unanimous
on its insistence that any increased deployment in Baghdad be
accompanied by unrestricted rules of engagement for US forces
going after Sadrs followers.
Such an offensive would signal not only a US-engineered coup
against the current Iraqi government, in which Sadrs movement
holds substantial power, but also a massive loss of civilian life,
as an all-out war would be waged in the crowded Shia slums of
Baghdads Sadr City.
Barely six weeks after growing popular opposition to the war
in Iraq produced a stunning defeat for the Bush administration
at the polls, there is every indication that the White House intends
not only to continue the war, but to escalate it substantially.
The Democratic leadership, meanwhile, exhibits no such conviction
or determination as it prepares to assume the leadership next
month of both houses of the US Congress.
On Sunday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared
in a television interview that he is prepared to support the proposed
surge in Iraqi troop deployment if it served as part
of a broader strategy to achieve the Baker-Hamilton commissions
proposal for reducing the number of troops in Iraq by early 2008.
If the commanders on the ground said this is just for
a short period of time, well go along with that, Reid
said, adding that an escalation for two to three months would
be acceptable, but not one that dragged on for 18 months or 24
months.
The Democratic Senate leaders qualms were dismissed by
one of the prominent advocates of the surge, former
Army vice chief of staff Gen. Jack Keane, who pointed out, It
will take a couple of months just to get forces in. Keane
said that it would take at least one and half years for an expanded
force to suppress Iraqi resistance.
Meanwhile, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, considered
the most liberal Democrat in the US Senate, appearing on the Fox
News channel, voiced opposition to the increased troop deployment,
but rejected any move to cut off funding for the warthe
only means, short of impeachment, that the Democrats have to rein
in the escalating militarism of the Bush administration.
One thing about the Democrats is we will support the
troops, Kennedy declared, adding, We are not going
to pull the line, in terms of the troops.
Pressed by interviewer Chris Wallace as to why he was unprepared
to support a vote to defund the war in Iraq, when Democrats had
pursued just such a course during the Vietnam War, Kennedy stressed
that This is a different situation than Vietnam and
we are not at this point at this time.
What is different is that in Iraq, decisive sections of Americas
ruling elite remain determined to pursue the goal of establishing
US domination over one of the largest reserves of petroleum in
the world by means of military force and colonial-style domination.
While there are intense divisions over how this goal is to
be pursued, the defense of the geo-strategic interests of American
capitalism is upheld by every faction of the political establishment.
It is for this reason that the Democrats have served as the Bush
administrations accomplice in this war since voting to authorize
an unprovoked invasion more than four years ago.
The growing threats to escalate the assault against the Iraqi
people and potentially unleash a conflagration that could spread
throughout the Middle East and worldwide demonstrate that the
popular opposition to the war cannot find expression through the
present two-party political set up in America.
Even before the new Congress convenes, it has become starkly
apparent that the struggle to end the war in Iraq and to hold
those who are responsible for launching this war politically and
criminally responsible can be advanced only through the emergence
of a new independent political movement of working people in opposition
to the American financial oligarchy and both of its parties.
See Also:
Washington pushes ahead with plans for
Iraq regime change
[16 December 2006]
Bush administration preparing to boost
US troop strength in Iraq
[15 December 2006]
Bush administration conspires to replace
Iraqi government
[14 December 2006]
Opposition in Baghdad among Kurdish,
Shiite parties to Iraq Study Group
[13 December 2006]
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