Iraq: Game Over

[kliljedahl]

Robert Dreyfuss
December 22, 2005

Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.He can be reached at his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.

The last hope for peace in Iraq was stomped to death this week. The victory of the Shiite religious coalition in the December 15 election hands power for the next four years to a fanatical band of fundamentalist Shiite parties backed by Iran, above all to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Quietly backed by His Malevolence, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sustained by a 20,000-strong paramilitary force called the Badr Brigade, and with both overt and covert support from Iran's intelligence service and its Revolutionary Guard corps, SCIRI will create a theocratic bastion state in its southern Iraqi fiefdom and use its power in Baghdad to rule what's left of the Iraqi state by force.

The consequences of SCIRI's victory are manifold. But there is no silver lining, no chance for peace talks among Iraq's factions, no chance for international mediation. There is no centrist force that can bridge the factional or sectarian divides. Next stop: civil war.

There isn't any point in looking for silver linings in the catastrophic Iraqi vote. The likely next prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, is a smooth-talking SCIRI thug. His boss, Abdel Aziz Hakim of SCIRI, is the former commander of the Badr Brigade and a militant cleric who has issued bloodthirsty calls for a no-holds-barred military solution to the insurgency. The scores of secret torture prisons by the SCIRI-led Iraqi ministry of the interior will proliferate, and SCIRI-led death squads will start going down their lists of targets. The divisive, sectarian constitution that was rammed down Iraq's throat in October by the Shiite religious bloc will be preserved intact under the new, "permanent government" of Iraq led by SCIRI.

The Kurds, ensconced in northern Iraq, will retreat further into their enclave, content to proceed step-by-step toward what they hope will be a breakaway rump state. Earlier this year, after the January 31 transitional elections, the Kurds made their deal with the Shiite devil, winning in exchange two vital (for them) points: that Iraq will have a virtually nonexistent central government will power reserved for the provincial regions, and that revenues from future Iraqi oil fields will go to those regions, not to the state. All the Kurds want now is to take over Kirkuk, which they will do with force, violence, and ethnic cleansing aimed at Arab residents of the Kirkuk area.

The Sunnis are already charging vote fraud, threatening to boycott or withdraw from the new assembly, and openly predicting that Iraq will now slide into civil war.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Solly Mack]

1. This brings to mind an article you posted a few weeks ago

on the Iraqi Constitution and how self-defeating it was to a stable centralized government. The author pretty well predicted this outcome because of the Constitution.

[kliljedahl]

2. It won't be a democracy, no matter how they try to spin it

It'll be an Islamic theocracy, the last thing Bushco wanted. Many people have been predicting it for months. This election pretty much seals the deal.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Solly Mack]

3. I'm not convinced Bush cares

as long as business can still deal - and a theocracy still does business as usual. It's not like Iran doesn't do business with western countries. It does. Businesses "trade with the enemy" simply by using their subsidiaries on foreign soil as the go-betweens. (such as the Dubai/Halliburton Products & Services Limited subsidiary and the deal made AFTER Halliburton's CEO Lesar claimed they would stop dealing in Iran in early 2005)

Just as the US conducted business with Iraq right up until the illegal invasion.

It would increase the odds of a longterm stable atmosphere for business with a "secular" government, but the Constitution is based on religion and ethnic regions, so there was no way Iraq was going to be secular(or united - central government), even with Bush's man as leader.

A theocracy won't hurt the business of oil.

It's not like "democracy" was Bush's goal for Iraq.

[kliljedahl]

4. "It's not like "democracy" was Bush's goal for Iraq."

I know that, you know that & a lot of others here know that. Unfortunately that's the official story line & most Amerikans don't realize, or choose to ignore, the truth.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Solly Mack]

5. True - but I don't think about those folks. lol

:)

[kliljedahl]

6. I have to

I deal with them every day



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Straight Shooter]

7. Well, now you have a new slap-down for them.

You can tell them to write to bush and thank him for spreading "islamo-fascism," since that's their new code word in their Dictionary of Fear. I'm sure Iran's leaders thank Allah every night for the fool in the Oval Office who does not understand that power without wisdom inevitably leads to downfall.

[Solly Mack]

9. I lived in a small town in Georgia - so I grok.

:)

[many a good man]

8. Why are we in cahoots with Iran/SCIRI ?

All this time we've been giving lip service in support of our puppets (Allawi/Chalabi) while secretly helping SCIRI build itself a huge national army. Seems to me like Bushes are playing footsies with the ayatollahs again.

We're looking at the de facto new Islamic revolutionary republic of West Iran in the south, New Kurdistan in the north and no man's land in the Sunni middle. Oh, and genocide brewing in Kirkuk.

Both Ahminejad and Bush benefit politically by stirring up this hornet's nest --it riles up their respective bases and muzzles the moderates. Putin gets to look like a power player. Sunni-Shia sectarian violence spreads through the Muslim world. Israeli hardliners profit.

The Game isn't Over. Its just beginning.

[Disturbed]

10. Blood for oil, a fair exchange in BushWorld.

"The terrorists want to control the oil. Our way of life will be at risk". George W. Bush (Nov. 2005)

The US will be in Iraq for as long as the Dems in Congress keep funding the Occupation. I am guessing that around 60K troops will be pulled out before the '06 Elections, 100K will stay on the outskirts of the Sunni Triangle and the US Air Force will kill many non-combatents. There will never be a full withdrawl of US Forces from Iraq.

Bush Regime Iraq Successes (Pase 1)

1. Saddam will no longer sell Iraqi oil via the Euro.

2, A military foothold in the ME. Other than Saudi Arabia.

3, No countries will be able to buy Iraqi oil that the U.S. disapproves of.

4. The Multi-Intl. Oil Corps are reaping great profits.

5. The Military Industrial Complex is a booming Industry.