Pres. Bush's PR blitz to shore up support for the occupation of Iraq has drawn ever greater attention to the question, How long is the US staying?--especially with total-cost estimates running into the trillions [Update, March 30: On the high side? Who can say?]. The scripted answer, until "Victory," simply evades the question. Victory can only mean the achievement of some end. What end? The erstwhile "clear mission"--disarming Sadaam--was indeed "accomplished" at least three (if not 15) years ago. Vengeance for 9/11 was misdirected and, in any case, has surely been exacted many times over. If the aim is planting the seed of democracy in the Islamic heartlands, the purple fingers prove we've done that (even if that exercise was less an election than an "ethnic census"). To tend the growth of democracy from that seed? Spurious growths thrive in democratic ground. The crucial distinction between populism and democracy is easily lost in translation--as evidenced by the recent appeal by Afghan leaders to democracy, to justify executing a Muslim convert to Christianity. Must we stay till the spurious growth is pruned back for once and all? That's contrary to the idea of planting a local democracy. So, if our aim is "victory," what is that, and how might we tell that it's been achieved? Noam Chomsky, taking questions at washingtonpost.com this afternoon (March 24), was asked:
Question: Why do you think the US went to war against Iraq?
Noam Chomsky: Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, it is right in the midst of the major energy reserves in the world. Its been a primary goal of US policy since World War II (like Britain before it) to control what the State Department called "a stupendous source of strategic power" and one of the greatest material prizes in history. Establishing a client state in Iraq would significantly enhance that strategic power, a matter of great significance for the future. As Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, it would provide the US with "critical leverage" of its European and Asian rivals...
Makes sense, doesn't it? The only sane aim was to establish a dependable client state--or a military enclave--on top of all that lovely oil. Ted Koppel, in the New York Times (Feb. 24: registration required), remarked upon
the Bush administration's touchiness about charges that we acted -- and are still acting -- in Iraq ''because of oil''... Now that's curious. Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century....[T]he construction of American military bases inside Iraq, bases that can be maintained long after the bulk of our military forces are ultimately withdrawn, will serve to replace the bases that the United States has lost in Saudi Arabia.
But the fractious Iraqis--forming as portmanteau a category as "the Yugoslavians"--won't cooperate in forming a client goverment unless it suits their several, incompatible, bitterly sectarian aims. Oil production was supposed to pay for rebuilding Iraq, but in fact it has yet to return to pre-invasion levels, is now only a third of what the US was counting on, and has been in steady decline. Because no stable client state is in the offing, permanent bases--enclaves--have to be a prime US objective, even if the Iraqi people oppose them. According to Nicholas Kristof, in the New York Times (Feb. 14; registration required):
Here's the single most depressing tidbit I've seen from Iraq lately: a new poll has found that among Sunni Arab Iraqis, 88 percent support violent attacks on U.S. troops. So at least in the Sunni Triangle, the biggest problem isn't Syria or terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but ordinary Sunnis who want to see our soldiers blown up. So how should we handle this?
First, we should announce unequivocally that we will not keep American military bases in Iraqi territory....But 80 percent of Iraqis said the U.S. sought permanent military bases in Iraq (frankly, they're right), while 70 percent called for a full U.S. withdrawal within two years.
[Of all the mistakes made the] craziest of all is our refusal to renounce long-term bases in Iraq. Keeping alive the bases option increases the antagonism toward us, adds to the risk that Iraq will completely fall apart and leads to more maimed Americans. It's not worth it....
As Gen. George Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, told Congress in the fall, the U.S. presence ''feeds the notion of occupation,'' while reducing the troop presence would begin ''taking away an element that fuels the insurgency.'' And Gen. John Abizaid, who speaks Arabic and has extensive Middle Eastern experience, added, ''We must make clear to the people of the region that we have no designs on their territories or resources.''
General Abizaid is right, so it's time to renounce publicly the pipe dream about bases. There's a parallel with Saudi Arabia, where we clung to U.S. bases because we thought they gave us a strategic advantage and flexibility. But those bases outraged Saudi nationalists and gave fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden a cause that rallied supporters. Instead of an advantage, we gained an albatross -- and now we're doing the same in Iraq.
Kristof's conclusion is that our strategic goal--a stable oil supply--is not achievable by establishing permanent bases. ("Permanent" in this context means: for as long as we have that oil monkey on our backs.) And suddenly the Republican Congress has begun to scrutinize the White House budget request for more base-building in Iraq, as reported in today's Los Angeles Times (March 24):
The bulk of the Pentagon's emergency spending for military construction over the last three years in Iraq has focused on three or four large-scale air and logistics bases that dot the center of the country. The administration is seeking $348 million for base construction as part of its 2006 emergency war funding bill. The Senate has not yet acted on the request.
By far the most funding has gone to a mammoth facility north of Baghdad in Balad, which includes an air base and a logistics center. The U.S. Central Command said it intended to use the base as the military's primary hub in the region as it gradually hands off Baghdad airport to civilian authorities....
Even as military planners look to withdraw significant numbers of American troops from Iraq in the coming year, the Bush administration continues to request hundreds of millions of dollars for large bases there, raising concerns over whether they are intended as permanent sites for U.S. forces.
Questions on Capitol Hill about the future of the bases have been prompted by the new emergency spending bill for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week with $67.6 billion in funding for the war effort, including the base money.Although the House approved the measure, lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon explain its plans for the bases, and they unanimously passed a provision blocking the use of funds for base agreements with the Iraqi government.
"It's the kind of thing that incites terrorism," Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said of long-term or permanent U.S. bases in countries such as Iraq.
Paul, a critic of the war, is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would make it official policy not to maintain such bases in Iraq. He noted that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden cited U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia as grounds for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Gosh, it's as though Congressional Republicans are listening to Nicholas Kristof instead of Dick Cheney (or has he moved on from base-building in Iraq to reactor-building in India?) The story continues:
The debate in Congress comes as concerns grow over how long the U.S. intends to keep forces in Iraq, a worry amplified when President Bush earlier this week said that a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq would not occur during his term....
State Department and Pentagon officials have insisted that the bases being constructed in Iraq will eventually be handed over to the Iraqi government.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said on Iraqi television last week that the U.S. had "no goal of establishing permanent bases in Iraq."
And Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We're building permanent bases in Iraq for Iraqis."
For the Iraqis! And just what they'll need once the power comes back on. The story continues:
But the seemingly definitive administration statements mask a semantic distinction: Although officials say they are not building permanent U.S. bases, they decline to say whether they will seek a deal with the new Iraqi government to allow long-term troop deployments.
Asked at a congressional hearing last week whether he could "make an unequivocal commitment" that the U.S. officials would not seek to establish permanent bases in Iraq, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander in charge of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, replied, "The policy on long-term presence in Iraq hasn't been formulated." Venable, the Pentagon spokesman, said it was "premature and speculative" to discuss long-term base agreements before the permanent Iraqi government had been put in place.
Hmm. We're building permanent bases as gifts to be leased back to us, on a long-term basis, from a permanent Iraqi government, if there ever is one. But our policy on a long-term military presence in Iraq hasn't been formulated. Donald Rumsfeld was quoted three years ago, in the New York Times, (April 19, 2003), as saying, "The subject of a footprint for the United States post-Iraq is something that we're discussing and considering. But that will take some time to sort through." Some time, indeed. But he'd better hurry: it's not easy to obtain an objective until you have one.
If the Iraqis can't use them, and won't lease them back to us, and Congress won't pay to finish them or to lease them or to run them, and they would only be an albatross around our necks if we did lease them, then...as the Iraqis step up the bases will just have to "stand down," out where the lone and level sands stretch far away.
But if the US cannot attain its only sane objective in going to war, what could possibly count as victory?
Explaining that we've won is going to be one heckuva job.
[Update, April 2: The AP asks "Will US Airpower Remain in Iraq?" The situation is compicated by the fact that Iraqi troops haven't been trained to call in air support, and can't be trusted to anyway. On the bright side:
The U.S. command in Baghdad says it expects Iraqi security forces to control 75 percent of this country's territory by the end of summer, as U.S. units increasingly withdraw from the action and into large bases - and some possibly from Iraq completely.
It should be noted that most of Iraq's population occupies less than a quarter of its territory.]
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