MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The US sinks in an Iraqi quagmire worse than Vietnam

HUBRIS BRINGS THE UNITED States, with a little help from the United Kingdom, to its knees in Iraq. It manufactured a crisis, ignored the United Nations, believed it could defy the world, invaded Iraq with little understanding of the country and its culture, sure that it would be welcomed with open arms and flowers from a grateful nation that could not wait to rid the ogre in its midst, Mr Saddam Hussein. It had might on its side and, as the sole superpower, no rivals. When the first salvo was fired, officials in Washington could not believe their good fortune. The mighty Iraqi army disappeared into the Iraqi desert and countryside, the country was firmly under its control, although its optimistic forecasts based on arrogance and belief that no power on earth could stop them from its civilisational mission. It was the Crusades no less. The Christian powers would subdue the Muslim yet again. President Bush, we are told misused the world when discussing the conflict with Muslim nations, but it was far from his mind even now.

Washington's neo-conservatives insisted Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the UN weapons inspections team was dragging its feet, the delay would hurt security and peace, and they could not wait. The US and UK unilaterally and eagerly rushed into this quagmire, and cannot now understand why they could be so wrong. The plan for war had none for the peace. And pay the price. Washington would not listen to advice, not even from the UK, and now that it is struck in Iraq, cannot get the United Nations, or the world, to come to its aid. The Iraqis, not to be undone, paints the invasion force in their country into a corner. And discourage foreign help by attacking the UN, the Red Crosxs, embassies of nations which do provide some help. So successful is this that Washington had had to change its focus on how it would run Iraq by a policy which is made on the run.

Those who planned the invasion are not to be seen. The arrogance is now replaced with a helplessness. The constant pressures on American forces in Iraq, the daily attacks now double at 35 a day since the war officially ended, the heavy toll of men and machines, its crude terror and punishment reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's for innocent or minor infractions, the belief that it can do as it likes now that it occupies Iraq, is matched by a slow but sure escalation in which the global Muslim protagonist is slowly but surely taking charge. But the defiance is still iraqi controlled. No one likes one's country to be invaded and raped, none more so than a proud people like the Iraqi. In the twentieth century, Iraq was under British control for four decades, but with a constant deadly guerrrilla war throughout, its violent overthrow in the 1950s and the Baathist party controlled it as dictatorially and harshly as the British. Now it is a return to foreign rule yet again. Let us not forget that it was for centuries before the British under the Turkish Ottoman rule.

But Washington insists that this resistance is a mere law-and-order problem. It insists all is well, that the press reports it unfairly, that foreign terrorist groups hve joined the local Saddam Hussein remnants and incredulously now insist that once Saddam Hussein is killed or captured, all is well. Nothing could be further from the truth. It broke down the system when it occupied Iraq. It made enemies overnight of those who could have helped it: the army, the police, the civil service, anyone of the previous regime were disbanded or dismissed. They could not be trusted as remnants of the Saddam regime, left to their own devices, are now invited to return. But on Washington's terms. The damage is done. Especially when it demanded of Iraqis a firm commitment of their belief in Washington's superiority.

The harsh reality is that the US-led coalition is on the run. On May 1, when President Bush declared the war in Iraq over. It does not have a policy, and acts in panic and shock. It expected the war to be over before the hot summer broke, but had to fight beyond what President Bush calls victory. The six months since shows how shallow that is. Washington dictates the peace but it does not know the ground, replaced one intolerable dictatorship with another, but without the understanding grace of a functioning nation. Saddam Hussein restored basic services throughout Iraq three months after the Gulf War in 1991. Six months after the second, the US does not know where to begin. But Washington and London insist they are winning the peace despie mayhem and terror from a surprisingly well-organised opposition. It does not matter where that comes from: the now mythical Saddam Hussein and his guerrilla force, Iraqi nationalists who do not wanted to be ruled by an Occupation army, organised Muslim groups from outside the country or a combination of all three. Washington faces a well-entrenched and -orgainised resistance.

It is like no other Washington has faced. Except perhaps in its fight for independence against the British in the 18th century. it ignored one important principle: that one would fight to the death for one's country even if it is ruled by a tyrant. In the Second World War, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the people, who had no love lost for its tyrant, Josef Stalin, nevertheless fought to throw out the invader. Washington can rant and rail for all it likes, but the Iraqi is not about to give it an easy ride. The defiance and the obvious disarray in Washinton has energised the Muslim not only in the Muslim world but worldwide, already smarting President Bush's war on terror. The most sophisticated society in the Middle East is now turned into a religious battleground to oust an occupation force. He knows Washington is on the run, and piles on the pressure.

This should frighten Washington. In its war on terror, after passenger planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, it targetted Muslims worldwide. And chillingly promised to ignore the rule of law and treat the Muslims it captured as it likes as in Guantanamo Bay. As the rhetoric and war unfolded, the Muslim responded, and supported any move to challenge Washington and its allies. Friendly countries became enemies, forcing the United States into a security purdah worldwide. Muslims in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan - US allies - join hands with Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Indonesia, Malaysia to support the resistance in Iraq. The governments in these countries cannot prevent it. Nor could the United States. The Muslims as a community is aroused, and there is little Washington could do about it. Nor when it makes fundamental mistakes in Iraq. It does not understand Arabic, especially in its Iraqi sophistication, the culture, and uses the gun to prove his presence by force. It holds only the cities, the roads are unsafe, the countryside is in the hands of the resistance, and shows is frustration and anger by alienating the Iraqis in the cities with every move.

What is worse is that President Bush flounders over Iraq, is defensive so he could be re-elected, and knows he has done more damage to the United States than the Muslim ever could. The Muslim forces, disparate and diffused, are united in the conviction that they are right, are on the march. Washington knows it, and can do little to prevent it. The anger rises every time Washington and its war-on-terror ally makes a needless point. Indonesia, which did not have a fundamentalist Islamic image, almost certainly now has, helped in no small measure by Australia's political decision to rub Indonesia's noses into the ground over the Bali bombing. Countries do not forget a cultural hurt like this, as Canberra would no doubt find out years or decade hence.

How did Washington get into this mess? Panic set in on the 11 September 2001 attacks on its financial and military nerve centres and - if the fourth plane had hits its target - the political centre, the White House. Every move at the time suggested it did not or could not think through. In confusion and fright, it insisted upon a policy of putting the Muslim in his place. But it did not know how to. It showed. It decided it was the Al-Qaeda network of its once-favourite terrorist, Osama bin Laden, and waged war in Afghanistan to teach him a lesson. It threw out the Taliban government in Kabul, installed an American citizen, Mr Hamid Karzai, as president and worked to turn Afghanistan into an American conclave. it does not understand the dynamics of Afghanistan. The superficial peace one is told Afghanistan is, is the quiet before the storm that must come. So in Iraq. Its first choice as Iraq's new leader, after the fall of Saddam, is another citizen, Mr Ahmad Chalabi. Washington wants to micromanage every aspect of life underf its control, only to lose sight of what it aims for. But at least it is in Afghanistan as an intervener in a local dispute, as in Vietnam, and therefore could bring the international community with it. It could not for its unilateral military invasion of Iraq. When it needs help, it is the enemy which gets it.

Which is why it is wrong to compare this conflict in Iraq with Vietnam. The US went into Vietnam in the Cold War in which it backed the South Vietnam government against the Soviet-backed North Vietnam. it was a war of proxies of two superpowers. The Anglo-American occupation of Iraq is as unilateral as British intervention in Iraq in the 1920s, when the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs. In Vietnam and Indochina, the US came to defend Democracy against "godless" Communism. In Iraq, it invaded to throw out a dictator it once supported, bring back colonialism, and prevent Iraq from every becoming a threat to Israel. Let us not forget that Iraq, with Syria and Lebanon, were the most sophisticated and modern Muslim societies in the Middle East. Lebanon still is but under the weight of internal conflicts amongst the three dominant religious groups - Christianity, Sunni and Shia Muslim. The US invasion had as a long-term design a similar conflict amongst the three major groups in Iraq: the Kurds, the Sunni and Shia Muslims. Syria is in its sights as Iran already is. The Muslim is clear in his mind he is the target. Washington is alone, and is made the lonelier as its allies are told in no uncertain terms to stay away.

[This is my column in the latest Harakah, published on 05 November 2003]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com