Bush
Administration Embarks On Reckless New Tactic In Iraq
By Peter Symonds
13 June, 2007
World
Socialist Web
With
its much-vaunted “surge” showing no signs of success and
American casualties continuing to rise, the US military has begun to
arm and equip sections of the Sunni insurgency, supposedly to fight
against intransigent layers such as Al Qaeda-linked groups. Weapons,
ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies are being provided to selected Sunni
militia. This latest twist in the Pentagon’s strategy in Iraq
can only be construed as another sign of the Bush administration’s
desperation and crisis.
A prominent article in the
New York Times on Monday revealed the extent of the new collaboration,
which was first tested out in the western province of Anbar and is now
being tried in four other Sunni insurgent strongholds—parts of
Baghdad such as Amiraya district and the central and north-central provinces
of Babil, Diyala and Salahuddin. The “Anbar model,” which
is being hailed for sharply reducing attacks on American troops in the
insurgent hotbed of Ramadi, involved a US deal with local tribal sheikhs
to arm their supporters, incorporate them in the Iraqi security forces
and back them to root out and destroy extreme Islamists.
There is, of course, no guarantee
that the money and arms handed to outfits will be used for the agreed
purposes and not turned American and Iraqi government troops. According
to the New York Times, the official requirement that US support be provided
only to insurgent groups that have not attacked American troops is loosely
enforced. Efforts to keep track of weapons and fighters by recording
serial numbers and biometric information can merely have a cosmetic
effect in the maelstrom of war in Iraq where determined armed opposition
to the US occupation intersects with a widening sectarian conflict between
Sunni and Shiite militias.
An article in the Washington
Post on Monday underscored the complexities of dealing with shifting
tribal loyalties and rivalries. It revealed bitter divisions in the
US-backed Anbar Salvation Council. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader
of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organisation in Anbar,
denounced the most prominent figure in the council, Abdul Sattar Abu
Risha, as “a traitor” who “sells his beliefs, his
religion and his people for money”. As Anthony Cordesman, an analyst
with the Centre for Strategic Studies, commented: “The question
with a group like this always is, does it stay bought?”
Regardless of its effectiveness,
the Pentagon’s new tactic makes a mockery of the Bush administration’s
claims to be disarming militias and building a stable, sovereign, democratic
Iraq. In opening up negotiations and concluding alliances with Sunni
Arab tribes and militias, the US military is effectively undermining
the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in
Baghdad. Many of the groups currently receiving American arms were connected
with the Sunni-based Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and are deeply
hostile to the Maliki government.
As the New York Times noted:
“American commanders say the Sunni groups they are negotiating
with show few signs of wanting to work with the Shiite-led government...
For their part, Shiite leaders are deeply suspicious of any American
move to co-opt Sunni groups that are wedded to a return of Sunni political
dominance.” Yet, if the “Anbar model” is any guide,
American negotiations involve not just a military alliance, but a political
perspective for the tribal sheiks to eventually control the provincial
administration and have a greater say in Baghdad.
The arming of Sunni Arab
militia is taking place within a broader context. Confronted with overwhelming
opposition to the war and a profound political crisis at home, the Bush
administration appears to be considering refashioning, but not ending,
the US occupation. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that US military
commanders are drawing up initial plans for the withdrawal of two-thirds
of US troops by late 2008 or early 2009. The remaining soldiers would
form a garrison force that would secure US economic and strategic interests
in Iraq for years, if not decades to come.
Such proposals, however,
confront Washington point blank with a political dilemma: what to do
about the Maliki government? In its reckless and criminal invasion of
Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration relied heavily on Shiite and Kurdish
opponents of the Hussein regime in forming its various puppet regimes.
The US occupation has not only destabilised Iraq and fuelled a sectarian
civil war, but profoundly altered relations throughout the region. As
it ratchets up the pressure on neighbouring Iran, the White House is
dependent on a government in Baghdad dominated by Shiite parties with
longstanding religious and political ties to the Iranian theocracy.
Any reduction of US forces
in Iraq would inevitably strengthen the influence of the Maliki government,
which the Bush administration clearly does not trust to safeguard American
interests, particularly in the event of a US military conflict with
Iran. Within months of Maliki’s installation in May 2006, the
first dark hints appeared in the American press indicating that the
new government might be removed in a US-backed military coup. While
that option appears to have been placed on hold, the Bush administration,
as part of its “surge” strategy, has repeatedly insisted
that the Maliki government measure up to a series of US “benchmarks”.
Stripped of their diplomatic
gloss, these benchmarks boil down to two basic demands: firstly, to
pass an oil law to open up Iraq’s vast reserves to American corporations
and, secondly, to refashion the Iraqi government and state bureaucracy
to incorporate sections of the Sunni elite that held power under the
previous Baathist regime. Neither of these benchmarks has been met.
The first is bogged down in acrimonious wrangling between the Shiite,
Sunni and Kurdish elites over the sharing of oil revenues. The second
is mired in the mistrust of Shiite leaders toward former Baathists,
compounded by hostilities engendered by a bloody sectarian war that
has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Washington’s “benchmarks”
are increasingly taking the form of ultimatums. On Sunday, the new head
of US Central Command, Admiral William Fallon, met with Maliki in Baghdad
to reinforce the message that progress was expected before the Bush
administration’s promised report to Congress in September. As
a New York Times reporter who was permitted into the meeting explained,
Fallon pressed Maliki to “reach out to his [Sunni] opponents”
and focussed on the passage of the oil law by July. Two days later,
former US ambassador to Iraq and now Deputy Secretary of State, John
Negroponte, visited Iraq and met with Maliki to make the same demands.
Aside from any immediate
military motivation, the arming of Sunni militias and the establishment
of “salvation councils” in key Sunni provinces is one means
of corroding the influence of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.
US military support for these militias and tribal groups is establishing
alternative centres of power at the regional level in opposition to
the Maliki regime.
In comments on Sunday, Major-General
Rick Lynch was openly critical of the Maliki government, saying he was
concerned “whether or not that government is a truly representative
government”. He objected to the interference of national officials
in freeing, on what he claimed was a political or sectarian basis, detainees
rounded up by US troops. He said the US military was trying to persuade
the Maliki government to establish “provisional police forces”
from Sunni militia, adding that the plan would go ahead even without
government backing.
Lynch made clear just whom
the US is recruiting in comments in Monday’s New York Times article.
After declaring that American commanders faced difficult choices, he
pointed out that some of the Sunni groups make no secret of their hostility
to the US occupation. “They say, ‘We hate you because you
are occupiers, but we hate Al Qaeda worse, and we hate the Persians
even more’,” Lynch explained.
This last reference is to
the Shiite-dominated Maliki government, which Sunni extremists regard
as nothing more than a pawn of Iran, or Persia. The Sunni parties and
militias in Iraq are not alone. Washington’s closest regional
allies—including the autocratic regimes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan
and Egypt—are bitterly resentful that the US invasion of Iraq
removed the Sunni-based Baathist regime, which they regarded as a bulwark
against Iranian and Shiite influence in the Middle East. In talks with
Vice President Dick Cheney last November, Saudi king Abdullah reportedly
threatened to actively back Sunni militias in a sectarian war against
the Maliki government in the event of a US withdrawal from Iraq.
Aside from the immediate
short-term military considerations, it is not yet clear what the Bush
administration’s broader plan is in the risky business of arming
Sunni insurgents—or indeed if it has a strategy at all. It could
be a means to pressure the Maliki government to meet Washington’s
demands, or to lay the basis for a carve-up of Iraq on a sectarian basis
into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions. It is also possible that Pentagon
planners have the “Afghan model” in mind—a country
fractured among a myriad of local and regional warlords, militia commanders
and tribal leaders, presided over by a largely powerless national government
whose writ does not extend much beyond Kabul.
Whatever the exact political
calculations, the Bush administration is playing with fire. By actively
arming and backing Sunni extremists who regard the “Persians”
in Baghdad as their mortal enemies, the US military is setting the stage
for a further intensification of the country’s sectarian conflict.
Perhaps this is part of US planning. Faced with a choice between a pro-Iranian
regime in Baghdad and the descent of the country into civil war, the
White House may be tending toward the latter.
In opposition to the demand
for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of foreign troops from
Iraq, the objection is often raised that the outcome would be chaos,
civil strife and a catastrophe for the Iraqi people. The Pentagon’s
latest tactic simply confirms that the greatest factor fuelling sectarian
violence in Iraq is the US occupation itself. The very last consideration
in any of the Bush administration’s manoeuvres is the social,
economic and political disaster that its criminal invasion has created
for the Iraqi population.
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