Last Gasp of the Imperial Misadventure

Dr. Gill:

Iraq is over – at least as far as the USA is concerned.

Yes, we are still there. And yes, we may even have a temporary surge in forces, but there is no doubt that we have lost it.

The loss – as in case of Vietnam, is not due to any of US military mistakes (although one can debate endlessly how long the US should have stayed in) – but strictly from the lack of public will back home – the fuel that is necessary to keep this machine going.

But who are the real losers – the people of that country – and not just because they are getting killed in droves.

They are the losers because the light of democracy burns so close to them that they can practically touch it yet they have chosen to close those eyes and turned their attention inwards and they have succumbed to ancient calls of hate and they have become hostage to that old embrace of the killer instinct – the worst of the dark knights – which, once it grabs hold – will seldom let go.

There lies the country of Iraq – dying of its self-inflicted wounds when it was so close to a recovery due to forcibly-administered medicines – with every neighbor looking on without the slightest empathy and only counting what THEY can get for themselves when the patient dies – how they can best divvy up the proceeds!

And everyone coolly blaming the ONLY Good Samaritan who took the trouble to come from far away and offered his own blood to help them live and breathe freedom!

It is indeed a grievous mess – and not just for that country – but for that whole region – because it has established once more that only brute force prevails in that region and not reason or compassion or common-sense but fear is what the population responds to!

HP: 126

Your observation that there was always peace between Shias and Sunnis (gives me pleasure if it were really true) in the Muslim history is very general, I have read the history of Islam and it pained me every time when I read about the violence which existed between these two sects (including other bloodsheds for different reasons) at varioue periods of time. The first battle that pitted Muslims against Muslims was between Aisha and Ali and the seeds of continuing strife were sown.

I wish what you are implying were true because if we cannot resolve our religious differences peacefully even after the passage of fourteen or fifteen centuries, it is really a shame.

What is happening in Iraq was truly triggered by the war but tell me why the Shias are killing the Sunnis and Sunnis killing Shias, if they are historically peacefull people? It is always the third party which is responsible for our shortcomings. We refuse to take responsibikity for our misdeeds.

It is Shias who are killing the Sunnis and Sunnis killing Shias in Iraq. Why can`t they stop this carnage and work together for emancipating their country from foreign occupation?

The recurring troubles almost every year between Shias and Sunnis particularly near Muharram in Pakistan are not caused by the Americans. I wish we could kive peacefully among ourselves. We don`t have tolerance for differing religious viewpoints.

Mohammad Gill

#114 by freethinker
“It was not my intention here to outline why the U.S. army is in Iraq and continuing its occupation.”

I think I never asked for the reasons....this appears to be a case of sawal gandum jawab channa.

I did ask to show me instances of Shia Sunni violence from the Arab History. Instead you quoted Iqbal’s couplet.

I think it is time you get your history straight.

There was no Shia Sunni divide when Hussain was murdered. The group that was then known as Shian-e Ali or friends of Ali took up Hussain’s cause and that group was later known as Shia. It took almost 100 years for this group to snatch power away from the Ummiads. The shia Caliphate was known as the Abbasids. They ruled Iraq for a long time but there is no history of their taking any revenge or even making life difficult for Sunnis. Btw, even the Ummiads for as long as they ruled Baghdad never murdered the Shian e Ali group even though they were political opponents.

The level of the reported violence between the Sunnis and Shia is a new phenomenon despite a long history of political disputes. Having political dispute does not necessarily mean that Shia and Sunnis were chopping each others heads off in Iraq before the US got there.

This is the newest implantation of the age old colonist policy of divide and rule….So don’t get caught up in the so called violence and start saying that the US army is haplessly mired in the conflict. The occupation army has created this situation…..

Re: # 126 Islamabad Bob

[...The occupation army has created this situation…..]

Ha ha... Islamabad Bob never gives up... :)

#117 by PewResearch

Just some rhetorical observations:

``Tom Friedman``

This must be the same Tom Friedman who had predicted two years ago that Iraq will be fully democratized in six months and the insurgency over. I mean, he is a real expert on Muslim and Middle Eastern affairs.

``Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”

That is exactly why Americans are so disgusted with them that they want to leave these insignificant `small tribes` of ingrates to their own primitive ways, and to head back immediately. The additional 20,000 are there to just help with the packing :)

Re: # 123 Zeenuts

``...who had predicted two years ago that Iraq will be fully democratized in six months and the insurgency over...``
Any references? Otherwise go to jahanum!!

....there is an interesting difference between how the israeli prime minister and the us president have handled their respective war defeats......

.....israel has never lost in an outright war in the middle east....it even won a major war in six days........its only real loss has been in an occupation of a portion of lebanon.....but never in a war.......similarly, usa has to go back to vietnam to look at a loss......after that, it has bombed and occupied quite a few countries without much problem.....

....hence it is second nature for usa and israel to assume that, if they want(ed) they could invade any country and easily defeat them....in the un, the usa would handle everything for israel and for itself.......

......hence the defeats in lebanon and iraq have been a watershed point for both, as well as for arabs.....its the first time, any arab country has actually defeated the israelis and americans.......something that was unheard and even unthought of......

.........if one follows israeli newspapers (which i have found far far more objective than the us media), one can tell that israelis are in a state of shock......it is how the leaders of usa and israel have handled the situation that is interesting.......

.......israeli leadership, the moment it saw defeat, retreated and ended the war.......it withdrew its forces and took the blame......when, in fact, if could have easily, like the usa, continued bombing its opponent, getting its own and lebanese killed or no reason.....the prime minister took the blame, thereby possibly destroying his political career and his party`s........the miltiary leadership either resigned or was sent packing, including the very top commanders.......the govt. took the hit and the blame......

........the usa leadership has done the exact opposite.....instead of accepting its defeat and the stopping the senseless killing of people, it is continuing to extend the war to make it look like an operation that is still going on.....rather than what it is, i.e. a defeat......in the process doing a lot of damange to its own party, but most of all, to the people in iraq......

.......it will be the interesting to see the situation, when the usa has to finally retreat from iraq.......it will be sugar-coated in some manner, but will be a retreat, just the same......what impact will it have on the arab population.........if the iraqis are able to hold their country together, their stock and respect will go sky high in the middle-east, having defeated an invading super-power........

on the other hand, iraq could end up like an afghanistan, with oil.......a nation completely destroyed by an invading superpower, which has not been able to recover for 30 years......

Re: # 122 Bulleya
``...hence the defeats in lebanon (of Israel)...``

That is sick analysis showing just what Kakul teaches! Israel winswhen Warren Buffett`s company* there is fully back in business - not when Nasrallah is out of business. Because that will only happen, not by war, but when Arabs wake up and realize that he is just another fraud, just another Nasser, whose strategy would condemn the flower of Arab youth - who deserve and need so much better - to another decade of making potato chips, not microchips. Nasrallah can win in the long run only if he can condemn the flower of Israel`s youth to the same fate.
Israel has the most companies listed on NASDAQ (except Canada). Its GDP is more than that of any Arab country (except Saudi Arabia) - and Nasrallah won! It has more high tech companies than the rest of the Arab world combined - and Nasrallah won!



*The most important thing you need to know about Israel today and how it has performed so far in the war with Hezbollah is Warren Buffett. Say what? Well, the most talked-about story in Israel, before Hezbollah started this war, was the fact that on May 5, 2006, Mr. Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and the world`s most successful investor, bought an 80 percent stake in the privately held Israeli precision tools company, Iscar Metalworking, for $4 billion - Mr. Buffett`s first purchase of a company outside America.

#119 by freethinker

.... however our friend of #117 believes it was perfectly legal, and whatever Kofi Annan siad about it being illegal was just his `own` opinion :)

In continuation of my post 118, let me mention, lest we forget it, the United Nations called U.S.`s attack on Iraq illegal.

Mohammad Gill

parthaab and bjkumar: #115 and 116

The reasons for invading Iraq given in my post #119 are from Richard Clarke`s book verbatim. He was a member of the Senior Executive Services and Chief Counter-terrorism Adviser in President Bush`s administration at the time of his resignation. I believe he knew mor than you and I of the internal actions and mechanism of Bush`s administration.

As to Bush`s good intentions you mentioned, it is all subjective.

America`s invasion of Iraq was a naked aggression and all aggressions are well-intentioned. You know it as well as I know it.

Mohammad Gill

Re: # 118,

Dr. Gill, It would be rather a simplistic and naive person to accept wholesale, the current media propaganda that Bush initially had only good intentions for Iraq.

If that were the case, he would nt have needed an excuse like WMD to attack the country. Saddam was by and large doing nothing on the international level, having been weakened considerably by economic sanctions. Iraq was already sufferring, but due to his dads sanctions.

The whole world knew that Bush was on the look out for a muslim nation for revenge on the 9/11 attacks, and Saddam, as a `dictator` fitted the media bill. And that a war would cripple the country and eventually divide it on sectarian lines, after an ethnic blood bath, in the absence of any internal security and warring factions. This, the whole world knew BEFORE even the WMD were claimed by Powell.

How could the CIA have possibly not known what the whole world knew before the attack?

It is quite pathetic to read the sorry posts by Pakistani ‘intellectuals’
like Romair (Bulleya), Tahmed32, Zeemax, HP and others. Romair is fixated on
the American quagmire in Iraq. Tahmed is busy defending why Pakistan is not a failed state. All these champion cheerleaders of Pakistan’s sick polity and its tinpot dictatorship ignore the Shia Sunni tribal warfare that has gripped Iraq resulting in 35,000 dead this year. This age-old tribal warfare has had its spillover from Arabia in Pakistan and they are busy (as is usually the case with the male, Pakistani elites, who are amongst the most irresponsible elites in the world) remaining deafeningly silent on what ails the Muslim world and their country, in particular. Rather, they will deflect attention to virtually every other deficit in the world, but ignore the steady descent of Arabs and their country into the murderous history of the 7^th
century.

The Sunni Saudi king’s comments on the Shia-Sunni conflict and the
assertion that ‘Sunni Islam will remain dominant’ meant as a warning to Iran, is further evidence in support of this Mideast maxim: In Middle East tribal politics there is rarely a happy medium. When one side is weak, it will tell you, “I’m weak, how can I compromise?” And when it’s strong, it will tell you, “I’m strong, why should I compromise?”. Read this excellent opinion piece by Tom Friedman of the NY Times. Yet, our grown, adult, male, ‘mature’ Pakistani champions are busy ignoring reality and engaged in the most irresponsible of behaviors.

Tom Friedman asks: How could it be that Danish cartoons of Muhammad led to mass violent protests, while unspeakable violence by Muslims against Muslims in Iraq every day evokes about as much reaction in the Arab-Muslim world as the weather report? Where is the Muslim Martin Luther King? Where is the "Million Muslim March" under the banner: "No Shiites, No Sunnis: We are all children of the Prophet Muhammad."… I raise this question because the only hope left for Iraq — if there is any — is not in a U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. That may be necessary, but without a Muslim counternihilism strategy that delegitimizes the mass murder of Muslims by Muslims, there is no hope for decent politics there. It takes a village, and right now the Muslim village is mute. It has no moral voice when it comes to its own…."The Koran describes the Prophet Muhammad as a Prophet of Mercy," said Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani- born director of Boston University`s Center for International Relations. "Muslims begin all their acts, including worship, with the words: `In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful.` The Koran also says, `To you, your faith, and to me, mine.` But unfortunately, these mercy-focused, peacemaking ideas are lost [today] in the overall discourse in the Muslim world about reviving lost glory and setting right the injustice of Western domination.

That last phrase about ‘lost glory’ particularly resonates with Tahmed32’s positions, who is quick to jump to talk about ‘missiles and bombs’ when I last made a meaningful attempt to follow his thread to ‘discuss the future’. However, if I had heeded Tom Friedman’s advice, “The most underestimated emotion in Arab politics is humiliation,” I should have learned to stay away from arguing with him on the basis of reason and logic.

Romair, you may find this of interest regarding the American intervention in Iraq, ‘The Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi had it right: “Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”’

Dr. Gill,

Don`t be too hard on the Amrikkans. The US involvement in Iraq was well-intentioned - unlike either the iron-hand of the Saddam or the killers who are currently out there killing civilians.

Re: # 116

``Dr. Gill,
Don`t be too hard on the Amrikkans. The US involvement in Iraq was well-intentioned.....``(BJ)

why not -- the Iraqis did not invade Washington that son of a Bush invaded Baghdad -- Dubya`s involvement was il-intentioned ignorant -- it was demented diabolical and dastardly -- and every word Dr Gill wrote including the ``placement of articles`` is well placed and 100% correct.

BJ for heavens sake don`t forget your colonial past.....``The US involvement in Iraq was well-intentioned....`` -- is as `well intentioned` as the British `involvement` in India was....

....the dirty word is occupation not involvement.

HP: #110

Thanks for writing a detailed discussion on American misadventure in Iraq. You took issue with my article on several grounds. I’ll try to respond to some of them here.

Regarding Shia-Sunni divide, I had used the phrase “the stronger faction had always dominated the weaker.” Domination does not necessarily imply violence. There is however evidence of violence also in history. In fact this divide began with violence.

Iqbal wrote:

Qatl-e-Hussain asl mein marg-e-Yazid haiy
Islam zindah hota haiy har Karbla kay ba’ad

Ever since, we are engaged in reviving Islam on the lines of Karbla.

It was not my intention here to outline why the U.S. army is in Iraq and continuing its occupation. I had given the reasons why Bush invaded Iraq from Richard Clarke’s book “Against All Enemies” in my book review which was published at Chowk on April 12, 2004. Five of the reasons outlined by Clarke are as follows:

“The justification for invading Iraq was due to the following five reasons “attributed to three senior advisers (Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz) and to President Bush:

•To clean up the mess left by the first Bush administration when, in 1991, it let Saddam Hussein consolidate power and slaughter opponents after the first U.S. – Iraq war;
•To improve Israel’s strategic position by eliminating a large hostile military;
•To create an Arab democracy that could serve as a model to other friendly Arab states now threatened with internal dissent, notably Egypt and Saudi Arabia;
•To permit withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia (after twelve years), where they were stationed to counter the Iraqi military and were a source of anti-Americanism threatening to the regime;
•To create another friendly source of oil for the U.S. market and reduce dependency upon oil from Saudi Arabia, which might suffer overthrow someday.”

However, President Bush had a plan to invade Iraq even before he became president and many of our brothers facilitated him by casting votes ‘en mass’ for him in 2002.

Whether it is ‘last gasp’ or not, only time will determine although I do hope it is the ‘last gasp’. When President Bush invaded Iraq, majority of the Americans were with him; now they have deserted him and are working to stop him from entering into further misadventures.

Be well,

Mohammad Gill