Here are five predictions for the short-term in Iraq. After that, some context and explanations.
1. Maliki will be gone shortly. Not only is he an ineffective Iraqi Prime Minister, but he had the temerity to stiff Bush at the summit's first meeting. Bad move! Dubya has no tolerance for that kind of push-back. Bush did a Brown/Rumsfeld on the Iraqi Prime Minister ("heckuva job, Maliki-man"), which in Bushworld is the kiss of death. Expect him to be forced out, or a coup to topple him.
2. I think we can anticipate Iraq's "Tet Offensive": There may soon be a major, frontal assault by the insurgents against and perhaps even inside the Green Zone in Baghdad, along with coordinated major attacks all around the country. This assault will serve as a clear demonstration of how vulnerable and untenable the U.S. position is in Iraq. That will be the beginning of the end of the U.S. Occupation.
3. Events on the ground (large ethnic population shifts inside, mass emigration outside) will lead to de facto recognition that Iraq is splitting into three relatively autonomous zones: Sh'ia, Sunni, Kurd. Whether there will be a weak central organizing authority is unclear, though that is likely, at least in the beginning, to parcel out the oil revenues.
4. The Bush Administration will seek to negotiate with whoever is in charge in Iraq to maintain control of its large military bases in that country. Eventually, even those "permanent" bases will be abandoned as a result of violent Iraqi opposition to their existence.
5. Bush will seek, through one delaying tactic after another, to postpone the inevitable U.S. retreat from Iraq. His aim is to make it through January 2009, so that America's acknowledged defeat in Iraq does not happen on his watch. If a Republican cannot be inauguarated that month as the new President, all the better for Bush: the defeat in Iraq will happen under the Democrats. But it is highly unlikely that Bush will make it to 2009, maybe not even through 2007.
IN SEARCH OF SCAPEGOATS
For most Americans, as the recent midterm elections made clear, the issue is how do we get our young men and women out of Iraq as quickly and safely as possible. For the Administration, it would appear that the issue is how to avoid blame for the catastrophe of Bush's war and occupation.
In Iraq, it looks like the scapegoats are going to be the Maliki government specifically and the Iraqi people in general.
Domestically, the scapegoats being targeted are the Democrats, activist peace groups, liberal bloggers, and the American people as a whole who didn't have the patience to wait for Bush's certain "victory" in Iraq. (The Republicans will conveniently omit mention of the huge number of traditional conservatives and military leaders who abandoned Bush's senseless war.)
In all of this maneuvering to locate the appropriate blame-patsies, there will be no acknowledgement by the Bush Administration that its policies might have had the slightest thing to do with the chaotic horror that is Iraq today. However, the American electorate was not so addicted to reality-avoidance: At the midterm elections, the citizens, in no uncertain terms, correctly fingered the Bush Administration as the progenitors of this unconscionable, unnecessary war.
HOW IRAQ FELL APART
Bush has been a loser all his life. He determined from the outset of his residency in the White House to reverse that syndrome in the post-9/11 era by engaging in an amazingly ambitious imperial adventure that, in his simplistic mind, was bound to succeed: unleashing America's enormous military might on a country ill-equipped to respond in kind, and with no Superpower that could stop the U.S.
The idea was that the "coalition" forces would quickly topple the Saddam regime, establish a friendly government in its place (originally with puppet Chalabi as the new Iraqi leader), build hardened military bases there, and set about re-shaping the geopolitical face of the Middle East. The Bush legacy as an effective, heroic "winner" would follow.
Everything was going swimmingly. Iraq fell easily, Saddam was captured, there was little resistance. Two months after the invasion. Bush proudly proclaimed that the U.S. had "prevailed" in the war -- "Mission Accomplished."
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
A recent revelation (S.Hersh?) was that the US is building over 100 military bases in Iraq. That's probably where a lot of the missing money has gone. That way they can continue "handing over" bases to whatever IRaqi regime is in power in perpetuity. They can just build more, then hand them over.
The several really large bases will never be abandoned.
Militarily, you set up a base where it can't be easily approached, unlike the Green Zone, and you defend it forever in the service of oil profits. This is their current long haul, worst case scenario, I'm sure.
They never, ever, ever intend to leave Iraq. They intend to concoct more excuses for staying.
And Democrats have no intention of forcing them out. There's too much money and power at stake under the desert sands.
Bernard, I think you underestimate the significance of recent events. Bush has been Cheyney's front man from the outset, and the current power struggle between Gates and Cheyney will dictate future policy.
The bellweather is Rice. Her practise of advancing via sycophantic relationships with poweful people has run out of steam, but she has a lot to offer both Gates and Cheyney. Will Gates court her or dismiss her? There's probably little love lost between her and Cheyney, but Cheyney will need her to halt Gates' takeover, and he is very practised in manipulation. If she publicly supports Gates then Cheyney might as well start packing.
by
cam (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 55 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 10:20:39 AM
4 comments
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