Goodbye Iraq, Hello Afghanistan (Pepe Escobar- Asia Times)

[Clara T]

THE ROVING EYE
Goodbye Iraq, hello Afghanistan
By Pepe Escobar

Saddam Hussein shouts "Down with Bush" in the heart of the Green Zone, British soldiers beat up barefoot Iraqi teenagers and US Vice President Dick Cheney is out shooting people (not Iraqis; a fellow American, and a campaign contributor to boot). Cutting right across this theater of the absurd, Iraqi politicians have manufactured their own, choosing a new prime minister who happens not to be that new.

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Chaos as a non-exit strategy
What does all this political bickering mean compared with the unbearable suffering endured by the bulk of Iraq's population? It spells nothing but doom. Disgruntled Sunni Arabs will keep refining their double-track strategy of playing politics and military defiance. The Sunni Arab guerrilla - not to mention al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers - will keep raising hell (attacks against Americans and "collaborators" now average 77 per day; they were 55 one year ago).

"Hell" in this case involves no fewer than 10 million of Iraq's 26 million people; 6 million in Baghdad plus the heavily populated province of Nineveh (home of Mosul, the country's second-largest city), and also Salahuddin and Anbar provinces. Attacks also proliferate in Diyala province and Babil province just south of Baghdad, not to mention powder keg Kirkuk in the north, where Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs are at one another's throats to control the oilfields.

Baghdad - which accounts for 25% of the country's population - has virtually no water or electricity. The Americans for their part may have become more "invisible", retreating from main urban centers, but their air war is even more devastating. The White House/Pentagon policy is now a "back to the future" of turning Iraq into Afghanistan, where warlords, religious or secular, and tribal sheikhs defend their mini-states armed to their teeth, and criminal gangs run parallel to death squads. There isn't a remote possibility of forging a government of national unity under these circumstances.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB15Ak03.html

[tocqueville]

1. very good article, worth the reading

... "Which suits Washington fine. The only way for the United States to prolong its Iraqi adventure is to perpetuate chaos; Iraq as the new Afghanistan. Few dispute that the US invaded Iraq for its oil resources, mostly untapped, and that it's located in the heart of the world's energy system. Thus, if the US controls Iraq, it extends its strategic power.

Washington neo-conservatives, from Cheney to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, may have dreamed of unlimited strategic power by controlling Iraq. What they got instead is a loose Iran/Iraq alliance. And they still could get something even more nightmarish, as American academic Noam Chomsky put it, "A loose Shi'ite alliance controlling most of the world's oil, independent of Washington and probably turning toward the East, where China and others are eager to make relationships with them, and are already doing it."

The new Jaafari government can count on less than US$19 billion a year in oil income - a pitiful sum, due to relentless guerrilla war and non-stop sabotage operations. Most of the income will go to the Ministry of the Interior, some will go to snail's-pace reconstruction projects, and some will go into paying debts. Just as during Allawi's government in 2004, billions can be expected to disappear in corrupt schemes.

According to a number of polls, as many as 80% of Iraqis want the US out as soon as possible. In 2005, during the previous Jaafari government, more than 120 parliamentarians (out of 275) were demanding a fixed timetable for the US to go. The new parliament will inevitably have to align itself with the majority of the Iraqi population's wishes..."