IRAQ: EXIT THAT IS NOT EXIT

DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI traces the motive behind the continued US occupation of Iraq.

Written by

DR. S. Ausaf Saied Vasfi

Published on

August 16, 2022

DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI traces the motive behind the continued US occupation of Iraq.

A dwarfed, diminished place in world affairs is, after Iraq, waiting in the wings for the United States of America. History recorded a similar plight of Great Britain after the Suez and of France after Algeria. The World War II illusion is fast evaporating into thin air.

Why?

Morality has deserted and uprightness abandoned the aggressor. The great powers of the yore stand in their birthday suits at the world thoroughfare today. They inspire neither awe nor respect, neither at the world level nor at the individual plane.

An example: the anti-war protesters hurled shoes and eggs at the former British prime minister in Dublin on September 4 before signing his book A Journey. The slogan on the lips of the protesters was “Blair has blood on his hands”. So happens to be the case of all the US allies.

POIGNANT PART

The significant part of the tragedy is not that. The poignant part of the farce is that Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush Jr. have not learnt any lesson from what they have done to themselves and of course to their victims.

In his magnum opus, Mr. Tony Blair makes Iraq-size blunders and is not sorry for his decision to enter the US-led war. He disagreed in a TV interview that the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan had increased Muslim radicalisation, asserting that “wicked and backward-looking radical Islam is the greatest threat to global security.”

We feel enormous difficulty in dealing with “illiterate literates”. The former British Prime Minister does not know that nothing like radical Islam exists anywhere. So, naturally, is the case with the “wicked” and “backward looking” Islam. Islam is just Islam whether you accept it or reject it. It has no varieties or hues or colours. There is no difference in the version of Islam in Bangladesh or in the United States. Islam cannot be edited for Mr. Blair’s convenience. Nothing can be deleted from it nor can be added to it. It is a compact whole. What Mr. Blair and his admirers are confusing is that some people follow the ideology in letter and spirit while others do not. That makes little difference in Islam. It remains what it is.

LESSON LEARNT?

The point is: has the US and its reluctant allies learnt any lesson from Iraq? The anti-war demonstration in Dublin says at least some have. They should have because it was an issue-less war. A pointless, provocation-less confrontation.

Till now $1 trillion have been spent upon it by the invader. While the American casualty figure stands at 4,400, the Iraqi civilian deaths happen to be around 100,000. Was this massive bloodshed worthwhile? This foolish bloodletting was purportedly done in the search of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Have these Iraqi weapons, which abound in the arsenals of the aggressors, been discovered and destroyed? The Al-Qaida reached there at a much later stage when the Allies had already started carpet-bombings over there.

SELF-CREATED

Another unanswered question: has the victory, like the one on Nazism or Communism, been won by the US in Iraq? The decimation of any Hitler is not that difficult. But what about an “enemy” who has been laboriously created by the swash-buckling, tom-boyish United States itself? It is the West as a whole, particularly the US foreign policy, with marked emphasis on the protection and promotion of Israel that is responsible for what they misleadingly call radical Islam. If you torment even a worm, it is bound to strike. That is the thinking of Muslims the world over.

Some observers believe that after the end of the combat mission in Iraq the next step is likely to be withdrawal from Afghanistan. We beg to differ.

LISTEN CAREFULLY

First, who told you that the US is leaving Iraq for good?  What Mr. Obama said on August 31 is for “domestic consumption”. Listen what his appointees in Iraq are saying. To quote Maj Gen Stephen Lanza, chief US military spokesman in Iraq: “In practical terms, nothing will change, we are already doing “stability operations”. What are stability operations? It is new packaging of the old policy. Word combat has been substituted with stability. Joint raids by the US special forces and their Iraqi counterparts will continue as usual. Washington has decided to keep 50,000 military personnel in Iraq till January 2011. Their withdrawal is not certain.

“If the Iraqis ask us that they might want us to stay longer, we would consider that,” said Gen. Ray Odeirno, US commander in Iraq. Soon after the Iraqi commander, Gen. Babakar Zakari, like an obedient boy, expressed his view: “The US army must stay until Iraqi army is fully ready by 2020.”

PRIVATISING OCCUPATION

Also note the fact that after the promised withdrawal by the end of 2011, the victims would not be in-charge of their national security. The presence of 100,000 “security contractors”, comprising of 11,000 foreign mercenaries is being beefed up and superimposed to safeguard interests of US in Iraq. In this move, you can see the process of privatisation of the US occupation. It is the idea of the US state department.

Henceforth foreign mercenaries only would die, not Americans.

OUR VIEW

According to our reading, the motive behind the continued occupation of Iraq is Iraqi oil. This move is likely to undermine the OPEC clout which has hitherto not been defeated by the West. Through control over Iraqi oil the US might impede the Chinese bonhomie with the Central Asian Muslim States as well.

Had the late Mr. Saddam Hussein the wisdom not to flagrantly overrun Kuwait with a view to ultimately overthrow the Saudi regime and occupy the Haramain so that he could impose his uncalled for leadership over the Islamic world, this ominous day would not have come in the life of one-fourth of mankind.