One-Finger Salute

Unintentional Admission of the Day

Pay attention to the phrase to the right of "IRAQ".

Happy May Day...er, "Loyalty Day"

As today is 1 May, I'd like to wish my dedicated readership a happy International Workers' Day. Long live the proletarian struggle, and smash those capitalist pigs while you're at it.

This greeting does not extend to any Americans who have chanced across this site. No, "comrades", instead I wish you a happy "Loyalty Day". Why not put up an extra-large picture of the president to show how loyal you are?

There's no mention of punishments for disloyal Americans, but it seems like this would be the perfect occasion to bring the "cat-o-nine-tails" back into use.

(A loyal American nod to Atrios.)

Sharon's "Roadmap": Prevent Any Peace for 30 Years

Ha'aretz has published an analysis of why Israel's far-right leadership is happy with the new "road map" for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. The article includes (buried at the bottom) Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's solution for the conflict, which has nothing to do with any Palestinian "state" by 2005:

A senior security official recently told [Ha'aretz journalist Akiva] Eldar of a conversation with Sharon, in which the prime minister said Israel must stick to its guns for the next 30 years, at which time alternative technologies will reduce the need for oil, thus sapping Arab influence on Europe and the world.

Many in the Bush administration have a similar position, believing that if you have enough power and will, there is no need to concede.

In addition to being a devoted peacemaker, Sharon is also apparently a dedicated future technologist. But if this report is correct, his talents do not extend to demography - various studies indicate a major demographic "problem" for Israel (i.e., the indigenous Palestinians will once again be numerically superior in Mandate Palestine) in 30 years' time. What then?

The most likely possibility will be for Israel to employ the same tactic that served well during the Oslo years. This involves making demands of the Palestinians that cannot be met and appearing to have a "peace process" going on while it continues to expand its illegal colonies in the West Bank and Gaza:

...they [rightist opponents of a settlement with the Palestinians] know that Sharon has raised the required threshhold to so high a level that it is unrealistic to believe any Palestinian could reach it... For his part, Bush... can also discreetly bet on Abu Mazen to lose. If the scenario plays out as neocons hope, he can appear to have a peace process going, but will have no need to pressure Israel into concessions.

In 30 years, Israel may or may not have access to those futuristic energy sources, but Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza will be facing the same thing they face today and have been facing for the last 36 years: dispossession and apartheid - updated using that future technology that is so dear to Sharon's heart.

Some other items:

US Urges "Restraint" After Israeli Army Kills 13: Isn't it a little late for "restraint"? Shouldn't the US have urged Israel to exercise it before this new "overreaction"? The dead - accidentally killed, of course - included two children, aged 2 and 13.

Israel to Bar, Expel Pro-Palestinian Activists: Running them over with bulldozers didn't work. Shooting them in the face and in the back of the head didn't work. They still kept coming. Plus, it looks bad to the outside world. The new policy will probably be a success: Israel has over 55 years' experience in barring and expelling.

US, Disregarding Official Policy, Strikes Deal with "Terror" Group

Still trying to wrap your head around how the United States can be "at war" with a tactic? How about when the US teams up with a group it says is employing the tactic with which it is "at war"?

Forcefully driving home the point that the "war on terror" is a complete sham, US forces in Iraq have signed a "cease-fire" with the Iraq-based Iranian guerilla group Mujahideen-i Khalq. The Mujahideen organization, which opposes the Iranian government, is on the State Department's list of "foreign terrorist organizations".

Isn't it a bit odd that the US is now going around making deals with groups it has designated as "terrorist" - a violation of the very first point of its "Counterterrorism Policy"? Doesn't this defeat the whole point of its "war"? Especially if it is a group that is both "terrorist" and worked hand-in-glove with the Saddam Hussein administration? American officials don't think so, according to the NY Times article:

A State Department official said tonight that the deal was not inconsistent with the broader effort against terrorism. The official said the agreement with the group, which operated with support and protection from Saddam Hussein's government, would help the United States learn more about Iraq's ties to terrorism and the nature of its former government.

"You can't get information out of a dead man," the official said. He said the decision to call a halt to American bombing and other attacks against the group did not reflect any change in its terrorist status. "It's a cease-fire," he said, "that's all it means."

You "can't get information out of a dead man"? Why did the US try to assassinate Saddam Hussein so often then? After all, who would have had more information on Iraq than Saddam? But perhaps that was the point - the US might not have liked it very much if Saddam were in the dock in The Hague or Brussels, telling the whole world about his deals with former American administrations and those chummy meetings with Rumsfeld back in the day, when torturing and gassing people wasn't such a big deal.

Anyway, why is the Mujahideen group (MEK) even on the list? According to the State Department, the MEK killed several US soldiers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s. They also supported the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. For good measure, and as a demonstration of their "ability to mount large-scale operations overseas", members of the group attacked 13 Iranian embassies in April 1992.

Hmm..."large-scale operations overseas"...sounds vaguely familiar...very similar to some important policy statement... now I remember. I know that I am being a bad American, unpatriotic - virtually a Frenchman, for Christ's sake - for not completely controlling my memory - but didn't the president once mention something about "terrorist groups" and "global reach"?

As President Bush said in an address to Congress on September 20, 2001, "Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."

Every "terrorist group of global reach" which isn't helping the US at the moment, that is.

Just as a point of comparison: US military officials hailed the capture of Abu Abbas, leader of the group that hijacked a cruise ship in 1985 and killed an American passenger, as a notable victory in the "global war on terror" and a step towards dismantling the Iraq-supported "terror network". This despite the fact that Abu Abbas had renounced violence and was covered under an immunity clause which was part of the Oslo accords.

Deals with "terrorist" groups and that persistent inability to catch Osama bin Laden - the effectiveness of the "war on terror" speaks for itself.

Why There Won't Be "Democracy" in Iraq

Many self-styled "liberals" supported the war in Iraq in the fervent hope that the US and Britain would bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Though the specific reasoning (if I may use this term to describe the mental activity of these people) varied, this support revolved around two major assumptions: first, that the US's public pronouncements to this effect were genuine, and second, that removal of a brutal dictatorship could only lead to "democracy". Unfortunately for these misguided idealists, the Iraqi people, and the rest of us, neither of these assumptions stands up to even the most cursory examination. History, political considerations, and recent events all indicate that however "free" the post-Saddam Iraq may be, it will not be "democratic".

It is necessary at the beginning to project what sort of policies a democratic Iraq would likely pursue in four major areas in order to show why the US will not tolerate such an eventuality:

• Relations with Iran: Despite Saddam Hussein's closed-society policy, Iraq's relations with Iran were noticeably improving prior to the US-led war. A democratic Iraq, not just one led by a Shi‘a-majority government, would certainly speed up this rapprochement. Barring outrageous provocation, friendly relations between neighboring states are generally seen as desirable in and of themselves, if for nothing else than to promote stability. Ties between Iraq and Iran are not an exception to this rule. In addition, mutual regional interests would draw these two countries together. The two countries have abundant energy and other resources and perhaps the most highly educated populations in the Middle East. Working together, they could dominate the region and beyond (e.g., Afghanistan, some of the former Soviet republics);
  
  
• Position on the Palestine/Israel Issue: Support for the Palestinians runs high among the populace of Iraq, as in every other Arab country. A freely elected government would almost certainly not make any moves towards establishing official ties with Israel. On the contrary, a free, democratic Iraq would be the best ally the Palestinians could hope to have among the Arab states in terms of diplomatic and moral support;
  
  
• Petroleum: The Iraqi population is unlikely to support the privatization of the state oil industry, barring a "reeducation" campaign of the kind being urged by some conservative institutes. Nationalized resources in Iraq, which possesses the world's second largest proven reserves, would keep oil prices relatively high and help OPEC maintain a semblance of control over the market - something the US has been interested in breaking for decades;
  
  
• Relations with Syria: A democratic and "de-Baathized" Iraq would be freed of one of the main causes of the long-standing Syria-Iraq rivalry, which was essentially the rivalry between the two wings of the Baath party over the idea of leadership of the Arab world. Relations between Iraq and Syria, neighbors, fellow Arab states, and natural trade partners, would then improve for reasons similar to those outlined for Iran above. Syria's opposition to Israel, the main cause of the US's problem with Syria, would not matter at all to Iraq (see above).

To sum up, a democratic Iraq would most likely pursue friendly relations with both Iran and Syria, regardless of those countries' internal political situations, maintain a nationalized oil industry, and continue supporting the Palestinians, and in a much more effective manner than under the Saddam Hussein administration. It should be noted that these are hardly radical projections; rather, they are widespread and popular Iraqi positions that one would expect, in anything approaching "democracy", to be expressed as official government policy. In addition, a democratic Iraq also would have the best potential among all the Arab states to be independent of the US's policy dictates; thus, it would be the natural leader of the Arab world.

The primary reason why the US will not allow anything like a democratic government to assume control in Iraq is because all of these positions run completely counter to US strategic interests in the Middle East. Below are the American positions (long-term American, not just of the current administration) on the same four issues discussed above for Iraq:

• Iran: The US will continue to try to "contain" Iran and shun any moves towards rapprochement, several opportunities for which have come and gone over the last decade. Iran, one of the two remaining "axis of evil" countries, continues to present a problem for the US vision of the Middle East. Although issues such as Iran's WMD programs are what right-wing think-tanks and government members are focusing on to justify possible action in the future, there are actually two major factors that condition the US's stance towards Iran. First, its military and ideological support for the Lebanese Hizbollah, the only Arab fighting outfit which has ever effected a real strategic setback for Israeli plans. Although the Lebanese-Israeli border has been largely quiet since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 and although Hizbollah's military wing simply serves as a deterrent at this point against hostile Israeli actions in Lebanon, Israel and the US are seeking to punish Hizbollah to compensate for Israel's defeat in southern Lebanon. Iran's support for Hizbollah and the US's support for Israel mean that the US will not work towards improving ties with the "Islamic republic" under any circumstances. Second, the experience of the Islamic revolution and the storming of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. The US still has not forgiven the Islamic republic for getting rid of the Shah, a stalwart ally in the region, and for the embassy episode, although by this point the latter is simply a small footnote in history. A democratic Iraq would undermine the US's "containment" policy and might even lend material and/or logistic support to Iran's Hizbollah operations;
  
  
• Palestine/Israel: The history of unconditional, unflinching, and unthinking US support for Israel needs no comment here. Suffice it to say that according to US policy, Israel will remain the superpower in the region by any standard (economic, social, and especially military); it will also be the only country allowed to have WMDs. Consult any of the "Palestine/Israel Resources" links to the left to find out more;
  
  
• Petroleum: Oil is the major underlying motive for all US policies in the Middle East. The United States seeks to assure access to energy sources as cheaply and efficiently as possible, regardless of local opinion on the matter (or other considerations such as the environment). As indicated above, a democratic Iraq would most likely retain ownership of its oil production industry and remain in OPEC. Thus, while there would be more potential supplies reaching the market, OPEC would be strengthened, giving the cartel greater control over prices. In addition, a nationalized petroleum industry is subject to domestic political considerations, which may impede access, and in any event is more expensive than privatized control and management. The US's energy interests do not include greater OPEC control over prices or the possibility once again of effective and coordinated political action by the organization (as in 1973). Continued state control of the petroleum industry in Iraq, supposedly to become the regional "model" country, would also run counter to the official American ideology of "free enterprise", opening markets, and privatization;
  
  
• Syria: Syria, as the only major remaining "hard-line anti-Israel" Arab state, is another problem area for the US. Although Syria participated in the 1991 Gulf war as a US ally and although it has been cooperative in the "war on terror", Syria receives, at best, a cold reception from the US due to its support for Palestinian militant and "rejectionist" groups and refusal to make peace with Israel without getting all of its land in the Golan Heights back. There are some indications that Syria (or, less likely, Iran) will be the next US target in the region.

Comparing the policies of the US in the Middle East with those that a democratic Iraq would likely pursue, it is clear that there is a wide gulf between the two. The US would certainly appreciate it if the new, post-Saddam Iraq would adopt policies compatible with its own. In the four critical areas under discussion, this would mean forgoing any improvement in ties with Iran, establishing relations with Israel, or at least keeping any "support" for the Palestinians at the same bland and ineffectual level offered by Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab states with formal peace treaties with Israel, privatizing the oil industry, and dealing with Syria at arm's length, if at all. But Iraq, given a chance, not only would not support these US policies, but would actively undermine them. If the US actually intends to help Iraq become democratic, it would find itself in the situation of having undertaken a major war in defiance of UN and world opinion and invested billions of dollars - over $80 billion has been set aside to date - to enable a country to more effectively counter its policies and assist others in doing the same.

Anyone who believes that the US will act directly against the strategic interests it has pursued in the Middle East, under various administrations, for over 50 years should point out at least one instance where this has been the case. Examples of benevolent, disinterested, "coming-from-the-goodness-of-the-heart" US action are difficult to find anywhere in the world, much less in this important region. Bush and some commentators like to point out the American reconstruction efforts in Japan and Germany following WWII as examples of such benevolence. However, the role these two countries later played in serving as "buffers" against the Soviet Union is conveniently overlooked in many such "analyses", as is the fact that the US still maintains important military bases in both of those countries. US involvement in these two countries, perhaps the historical high-water mark of American foreign policy, was hardly motivated by purely humanitarian concerns.

There are two scenarios for Iraq: either the US lives up to its pronouncements regarding "liberation", "freedom", "democracy" and the like, in which case it will have to abandon its long-standing policies in the entire region, or the US will work to further its clear and historically well-defined interests, in which case there cannot be democracy in Iraq. Since it is not likely that the US will radically alter its basic approach to the Middle East, the latter scenario is the most likely course of events. It should be clear from these considerations alone that the Bush administration was not serious when it spoke of the "liberation" of the Iraqi people and certainly did not mean any of its pronouncements about "democracy".

But there is other evidence which points to the same conclusion. The effects of the US attack on Iraq have been and will continue to be felt well beyond the borders of that country. This is something that many "liberal-hawks", preferring to see Iraq as some kind of little bubble completely disconnected from the rest of the region and the world, did not factor into their support for the war. The single most important indicator that "democracy" was not at all an issue in American planning for Iraq was the absolute disregard for democracy in countries where it, supposedly, already exists. In the United States, the democratic process was suborned by means of falsified evidence, deliberate exaggeration and overstatement of the Iraqi "threat", suppression of dissent and information contradicting the official administration line, and outright lies. The elected governments of other "coalition" countries, such as Britain, Spain, and Italy, threw their lots in with the US in spite of overwhelming popular (i.e., democratic) opposition to the war. In Turkey, the Bush administration repeatedly attempted to convince the government to disregard a parliamentary veto on allowing the US to use Turkey as a base to attack Iraq from the north. Other countries supporting this "war of liberation" to bring democracy to Iraq are themselves not democratic and/or have serious problems with ensuring civil, political, and human rights (e.g., take a look at the Amnesty report for "coalition" member Uzbekistan). The preposterous situation in which the US tramples on democracy at home and in numerous countries in order to bring it to another state is simply ignored by these "liberals", who are seemingly oblivious to the slow erosion of liberties they take for granted and who yet somehow think that their governments will bring to Iraq what they are taking away in their countries.

If the US does not intend to allow genuine democracy in Iraq, the question arises as to what type of governing system will be installed in Iraq. Another dictatorship on the model of Saddam Hussein is unlikely - it would be too outrageous even for the deceitful and hypocritical Bush administration. Better models are located in Jordan and Egypt, two friendly, "pro-Western" authoritarian states. While neither country is run by a Saddam Hussein, neither is free either: press censorship, torture, and severe restrictions on political activity are daily facts of life. The idea is that Iraq, like these countries, will forever be a "developing democracy", eternally making progress towards a "free", "democratic" society but always with problems that just seem like they cannot be overcome. It won't be a democratic society - one of those minor imperfections in an imperfect world - but it will be enough to make the "liberal-hawks" sleep easy at night; that is, if they are not up sleeplessly wringing their hands in anguish over the next government-approved "human rights" crusade, struggling with themselves over whether to support the war or not, the lessons of Iraq added to all the other unlearned lessons of history.

In the meantime, if the US has its way, the Iraqi people will be subjected to unelected leaders who represent the American administration and its corporate sponsors more than they do their own populace. Again, whoever the US installs as "leader" will not be the next Saddam Hussein - at least not right away. But as the new government begins to implement its unpopular policies (possibly including a peace treaty with Israel and the privatization of the oil industry, the main beneficiary of which will be US oil companies), as real democratic reforms do not take place, and as US soldiers do not go away, the small-scale, Hashemite- or Mubarak-type repression could easily give way to something more ugly and familiar.