During the past five years in Iraq (2003-2008), the U.S. has unwittingly created the ideal conditions for a Perfect Storm. The sectarian segregation, the military training and distribution of military equipment to both the Shiite and the Sunni Muslim militias has created a nation that is ready to explode. The Iraqi civil war is not over, as some idealistic Neocons proclaim, it hasn´t even begun.
The Shiites and Sunnis (and the northern Kurds) are now isolated within their separated fortified zones. They are rigorously training, regrouping and making plans for the next strategic step in the struggle to control the fractured nation, which each group is determined to do.
Only the northern Kurds want to completely withdraw from Iraq and form an independent nation, Kurdistan. They should be allowed to do this, since they were forced by the Allied occupation after the first World War, to become part of Iraq. Most of the present national boundaries around Iraq were arbitrarily created by the Allies without any consideration or understanding of the ethnic, tribal, religious or sectarian groups. In 1923, Turkey was recognized as an independent nation according to the Treaty of Lausanne. This treaty divided the Kurdish region among Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The Kurds have consistently sought independence. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. encouraged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein and establish independence. However when the Kurds did start a rebellion, the U.S. and U.N. did nothing to assist them, as they had promised. This resulted in the Iraqi Army killing thousands of Kurds. The U.S. then blamed Hussein for the killings, even though the U.S. was primarily responsible for instigating the uprising. The U.S. abandoned the Kurds in their struggle for independence and then blamed Hussein for crushing the insurgency. The U.S. also condemned Hussein for using poison gas against the Kurds during the rebellion. The U.S. failed to note that it was the U.S. and U.K. that had given Hussein the poison gas during the Iraq-Iran war. Apparently the U.S. approved of Hussein using the poison gas against the Iranians but disapproved of him using it against the Kurds. What´s the difference? (The U.S. still has huge stockpiles of poison gas and lethal chemicals that have not yet been destroyed. The U.S. has more WMD than any nation on Earth.)
The present Iraqi conflict will continue to be primarily between the two largest groups, the Shiite and the Sunni Muslims. These two segregated sects are now patiently waiting for the U.S. to withdraw from their occupied country. The U.S. strategy has always been short term, with the U.S. president wanting to achieve results within the administration´s four or eight year term. The U.S. wants overnight change and has little patience. The Iraqi people, in contrast have great patience and can wait decades.
There is a new Desert Storm coming that will have all of the fury of a natural disaster and it can´t be stopped.
The Iraq war is a war that can´t be won. It is a war that should never have been started in the first place. The U.S. has consistently approached the problems in the Middle East with a simple minded mentality that has nothing to do with the very complex religious, tribal, ethnic, political and traditional conditions that actually exist. The U.S. seems to understand nothing at all about the cultures of these nations. (There is an old military adage "know your enemy" which the U.S. government seems to consistently ignore.)
The U.S. action in Iraq has set in motion ancient forces and deep animosities that are a thousand years old. They are as old as the schism that created the different Islamic sects. It is probably the youthfulness of our own nation that allowed our inexperienced leaders to make such naďve and foolish judgments that led up to the disastrous 2003 Iraqi invasion. Before the U.S. invasion, the U.S. President didn´t even know the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims (advisors had to set him down and explain this to him). After five years of callous occupation, very few people in the U.S. administration or military have the slightest understanding of either the Islamic religion or Islamic politics. Extremely few in the U.S. administration speak any Middle Eastern languages. Almost no U.S. soldiers speak Iraqi (Arabic dialect of Iraq). There are almost no Muslims in the U.S. administration for advice and perspectives regarding Muslim traditions, culture and beliefs, and most important of all, Islamic politics. In 2003, a large percent of Americans could not even find Iraq or Iran on a world map. This unnecessary war has been a misconceived blunder from the very beginning. The U.S. boldly and arrogantly stampeded into an ancient civilization and culture that they could not even begin to understand (and very few wanted to). The U.S. administration continuously and erroneously assumes that everyone in the world wants the same materialistic things that Americans want. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many nations have very different moral and cultural values than the U.S. has and most societies want to keep them.
Every transitory and shallow excuse that the administration gave for the Iraqi invasion was quickly disproved. Every time one excuse failed, the administration quickly invented another one. One of the primary excuses was U.S. national self defense and yet Hussein´s army turned out to be so weak militarily that they couldn´t even defend the city of Baghdad. The U.S. military literally walked into the city with little resistance while Hussein ran away and literally crawled into a hole in the ground to hide. Iraq was never even remotely a threat to either the U.S. or anyone else. Hussein was a paper tiger with a boastful mouth and nothing else. This whole unnecessary military adventure has been a tragic waste of American lives (4000) and treasure (one trillion taxpayer´s dollars) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Not to mention the world wide animosity that this fiasco has created with our former allies. This war has outraged good people and inflamed emotions throughout the world. There is nothing that could possibly have damaged the international interests of the U.S. more than starting a war with a Muslim nation. Never before has the U.S. government received such bad advice and made such tragic decisions.
So what was the urgent vital interest that the U.S. really had to protect in Iraq? It was simply the same vital interest that the U.S. has had in all Middle Eastern countries for the past 50 years. "OIL". The real reason that the U.S. administration was so angry with Hussein was that he had no intention of giving any oil contract to the U.S. oil companies. This was the same reason that the U.S. (CIA) ousted Mohammed Mossadegh from Iran in 1953. Mossadegh was going to nationalize Iran´s oil and exclude the U.S. from oil contracts. Just prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Hussein was preparing to grant about 60 oil contracts to other nations. This exclusion made Bush and Cheney vehemently and aggressively angry. From the first day of the Bush administration, long before 9/11, they began making war plans against Iraq. 9/11 gave them the excuse they were waiting for. Between 9/11/01 and the invasion in 2003, the administration´s daily misleading propaganda deceived the American people into believing that Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, was directly or indirectly responsible for 9/11, had ties to al-Qaeda, supported terrorism and Osama bin Laden. As we now know, none of these were true. There were no terrorists, Taliban or al-Qaeda in Iraq and Osama bin Laden considered Hussein his enemy.
After all of the administration´s false excuses for the invasion became clear, they finally settled on the lame excuse that they were bringing (western) democracy to Iraq. This was also just another false unrealistic excuse. The invasion of Iraq never had anything to do with (western) democracy. Democracy can never be imposed on any nation by an occupying military force, especially if it opposes the existing ethnic values, traditions and religious sentiments of the people. Democracy develops within a nation how and when the indigenous people want it. The western style democratic system that the U.S has attempted to forcefully impose on Iraq is almost impossible to achieve. This is simply explained by understanding the importance of Islam to the Iraqi people and most of the other Middle Eastern nations. The people of any deeply religious Islamic nation will not accept a national secular constitution that is superior to Islamic law or the Koran. The U.S. administration has never been able to understand this simple historical fact. Within the U.S., our evolving system (for 200 years) of capitalistic democracy has to some degree, a separation of religion and state. This separation varies from administration to administration often depending on the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. has tried to impose instantaneously this same separation of religion and state on the people of Iraq. In any nation that is over 90% Muslim, this is impossible. The Iraqi people can never allow a secular government and secular laws to be above the laws of Islam. An Islamic nation cannot separate their religion from their government because their religion is their government. In an Islamic nation, the laws of Allah (God) must remain superior to any laws created by secular government. In such a circumstance, the primary national government must first of all be an Islamic theocracy, and only secondary a democracy. An Islamic democracy simply means that the majority group or sect controls the Islamic government. In Iraq and Iran this majority sect is the Shiites (although worldwide, the Sunnis are the majority). This is the only type of national or regional government that an Islamic nation can accept. This is why the U.S. has totally failed to create either a secular or a coalition government in Iraq. The U.S. can continue (as Senator John McCain has proposed) to attempt to achieve this (American) goal for the next 100 years, but the results will still be the same. Fundamentalist Islamic sects don´t compromise, not now, and not a hundred years from now. In an Islamic nation, religion will always control the government. The government will never control religion, except in a military dictatorship.
Hussein prevented a civil war in Iraq by imposing a military dictatorship on the whole nation. This is the only way that the U.S. can prevent an Iraqi civil war now or in the future. The present U.S. occupying army is doing the same thing that Hussein´s army did. It is preventing a religious civil war. There is no way out of this tragic predicament that the U.S. has foolishly created.
The U.S. is responsible for creating the 2005 Iraqi democratic elections that put the Shiites in control of the government, the army and the police. In both Iraq and Iran, the Shiites are the majority group and definitely have a legal right to control the government. The Iraqi elections were fair and democratic and represent the will of the majority of the Iraqi people. Now that the Iraqi people have a democratically elected government, the U.S. no longer has any legal authority to make any decisions about what this legal government does, what kind of constitution they create or what they do with their own oil resources. (Actually the U.S. never had any such legal authority. The Geneva Convention has always prohibited almost everything that the U.S. has done in Iraq.) The U.S. has continually attempted to force a secular constitution on the Iraqi people. However the Iraqi´s have continually insisted on adopting a constitution that recognizes that Islamic law is the supreme law of the land and not the secular constitution. The U.S. has no legal right to tell the Iraqi government that they can´t have an Islamic theocracy or that they can´t nationalize their own oil. Actually, it is the Shiites who want an Islamic democracy the most because they know that as the majority group they can win every election and control the government and the military (and the oil). The Sunni´s generally oppose any type of democracy because they are a minority group and cannot win any election. Because of this, the Sunni´s must resort to the use of force (insurgency) in any attempt to control or overthrow the Shiite government. These are problems that the Iraqi´s must solve by themselves.
Since the 2005 democratic Iraqi elections, the U.S. no longer has any legal right to continue occupying the Iraqi nation. (The occupation was always illegal.) The majority of Iraqi citizens have already expressed the opinion that they want the U.S. to leave. As the Shiite´s gain more and more control over the government and the military, they will become more and more insistent that the U.S. leave their sovereign nation.
The U.S. has continued to refuse to either leave Iraq or begin reducing the number of American troops. As the Bush administration has consistently done for the past five years, they continue to create excuses to do whatever they want to do. The real reason the U.S. continues the occupation is the same reason that they invaded in the first place. "OIL". The U.S. doesn´t want to leave until they establish a pro-American government that will grant the American oil companies the majority of oil contracts. The present Iraqi government has continued to refuse to do this and the U.S. continues to refuse to leave. (This is the oil benchmark that the U.S. is demanding that the Iraqi government agree to. This oil benchmark essentially privatizes the oil industry. This would allow American companies to own as much as 80% of the Iraqi oil.) The present Iraqi government is legitimately trying to protect it´s own oil resources from any foreign control. Iraqi´s oil belongs to the Iraqi people, not to foreign oil companies. This is exactly what Mossadegh did in Iran when he nationalized their oil. If the Malaki government continues to resist U.S. pressure, he will probably be replaced as Mossadegh was. The U.S. will probably use corruption as an excuse to replace him with someone who is more cooperative. (When the U.S. ousted Mossadegh, they accused him of being a Communist because he wanted to nationalize the oil resources. This was a false accusation, but it succeeded in overthrowing his government.) Corruption is rampant in the present Iraqi government (When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before U.S. Congress, she said that the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars that are missing in Iraq is just the result of bookkeeping anomalies). Millions of U.S. dollars are disappearing daily in the Iraqi government with very little recordkeeping or accountability and the Bush administration continually blocks any attempt by Congress to investigate corruption or mismanagement. Millions of dollars of this missing money is most likely being used to support the insurgency since the majority of Iraqi´s want the U.S. occupation to end.
The convenient present excuse for the U.S. remaining in Iraq is to prevent a civil war. This is probably true but there is nothing that the U.S. can do about it, except to continue the occupation forever. Anyway it is the U.S. that has created this potential civil war by segregating and arming both Shiites and Sunnis. This appears to have been done deliberately by the U.S. as an excuse to continue the occupation and control the oil. Why else would the U.S. continue to provide military arms and equipment to the Sunni militia whose only stated goal is to overthrow the Shiite government? This is the military strategy of ´divide and conquer´. The U.S. continues to place the financial well being of American oil companies above the physical well being of the Iraqi people.
This volatile situation will not have a good ending for anyone except maybe Iran and al-Qaeda. Both of which have benefited enormously from the overthrow of Hussein. Both were recognized enemies of Hussein. The U.S. preoccupation with Iraq has also benefited the Taliban. During the last five years, the Taliban has regained control of Afghanistan. The drug lords in Afghanistan have also benefited from the Iraq war. The Afghanistan opium production has increased exponentially.
For the past five years, since the U.S. invasion removed all of the Iraqi nation´s law and order institutions (the government, the legislature, the judiciary, the civil servants, the army and police), the fundamentalist sects have been using this opportunity to segregate the neighborhoods and cities and establish their own tribal control (local warlords). Why would the U.S. dissolve both the Iraqi army and Iraqi police and allow them to take their guns home with them? This insane act instantly created a million unemployed armed angry insurgents and roving death squads. The current sectarian segregation has been successfully achieved by murder, intimidation and kidnapping by both Sunni militias and Shiite militias. About 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes and many are homeless refugees in the neighboring countries of Syria and Jordan. However now most of the adjacent countries have closed their borders and no longer allow any Iraqi refugees to enter. Many of the Sunnis have been largely concentrated in the al-Anbar province west of Baghdad. The U.S. has been providing military arms to these Sunni militias, while simultaneously providing military arms to the Shiites in the Iraqi national army and Iraqi police. By arming and training both of these antagonistic sects, the U.S. has deliberately created the potential for a more violent future civil war. With the recent (2008) drop in violence (even though it is still very high - hundreds of Iraqi civilian deaths per month) some of the refugees who had left the country or hostile areas are now returning (partially because the borders are now closed). However they cannot return to their former homes because most of these areas have been segregated into sectarians zones. The Sunni´s that are returning must relocate in current Sunni zones and the returning Shiites must relocate in the current Shiite zones. The misleading U.S. media´s reporting of calm Iraqi neighborhoods is only within each segregated area. The Sunni´s cannot go into the Shiite zones and vice versa. (The American news media has failed the American people for the past five years by allowing the Bush administration to censor all news coverage relating to the war. This has been the death of the free press in the U.S.)
THE CALM BEFORE THE PERFECT STORM
The recent (2008) drop in violence nationwide in Iraq has several causes:
1. After years of sectarian neighborhood ethnic cleansing, the religious groups are now largely separated into specifically Shiite and Sunni zones. These areas are surrounded by armed militias, fences and controlled by local warlords and the "Awakening Groups". This has resulted in less contact and less violent confrontation between the two major sects. The U.S. surge provided more American soldiers to patrol the areas that separate the sectarian zones. These U.S. soldiers are easy targets for snipers, bombers and militias from both sides of the street. The present fragile calm is only within the segregated zones. Violence and car bombings still continue in the mixed areas. Violence has also been reduced simply because so many families are simply afraid to leave their homes.
2. Muqtada al Sadr, a powerful Shiite cleric, who lives in the holy city of Al-Najaf, has ordered his Mahdi army to temporarily stop fighting and regroup and wait to see if the U.S. begins withdrawing from Iraq. This may depend on who the next U.S. president is. Al-Sadr knows that the majority of Americans (70%) now want to end the war. It is the al-Sadr cease fire that is the primary reason for the recent drop in violence and not the U.S. surge, as Bush claims. After the U.S. leaves, which may not be for decades, the civil war will continue against the Sunnis. This cease fire is only temporary. The Shiite-Sunni conflict has been ongoing for a thousand years and will continue regardless of any foreign occupation (such as the Russian occupation of Iran, which was also a disaster. The U.S. should have learned a lesson from the Russian failure, but unfortunately they didn´t and repeated the same mistakes.)
3. The Sunnis who have now been segregated into specific zones are also temporarily reducing their fighting and are regrouping to plan future strategy for defeating the Shiites and regaining control of the Iraqi government. The newly armed and organized Sunni militia has also reduced violence against their own neighborhoods. The so called "Awakening Groups´ or Sahwa who now total nearly 80,000 are being paid by U.S. taxpayer´s about $300 a month to not attack U.S. forces. Many of these Sahwa are actually insurgents and many Iraqi´s believe they are also al-Qaeda members who are using the money to buy weapons that will eventually be used to drive out the occupation forces. It´s ironic that U.S. soldiers are fighting al-Qaeda forces while U.S. taxpayer´s money is actually funding al-Qaeda. How insane is that? Regardless of whether or not this Iraqi accusation is true, the question remains: What are the well-armed Sahwa going to do when the U.S. decides that they are no longer needed and stops paying them $300 per month? They will most likely rejoin the insurgency and the violence will escalate. Is the U.S. going to continue paying them $300 per month for 100 years? (John McCain´s plan.)
This brings up an interesting semantics point. Who are the insurgents and who are the patriots? The U.S. labels all opposition resistance ´insurgents´. The U.S. doesn´t label anyone ´Iraqi patriot´. An insurgent is one who is fighting against their own government, such as any Kurds or Sunnis who rebel against the democratically elected Shiite government. Whereas any Iraqi of any religious sect who is fighting against an occupying army (the U.S.) is not an insurgent, but an ´Iraqi patriot´, because they are fighting for their own country against a foreign occupier. Any fighters who are fighting against the U.S. cannot be called insurgents, because the U.S. is not the legal government of Iraq. Anyone fighting against the U.S. soldiers (occupiers) should be called an ´Iraqi patriot´.
4. The U.S. may have also contributed to reducing the present violence to a small extent by increasing the number of troops in Iraq (the 2007 surge) even though the violence may have decreased primarily due to other factors. Actually, the surge was quite small compared to the size of the country and probably had very little effect. However the purpose of the surge was to reduce the violence so that the Shiites and Sunnis could develop a coalition government. The surge probably has helped to reduce the violence to some small degree, but the primary purpose of creating a coalition government has completely failed and will continue to do so. The U.S. continuously fails to understand Iraqi politics. These two Islamic sects can never form a coalition government because they are not political parties, they are religious parties and religious parties can not compromise. Attempting to force a reconciliation or coalition government between the Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq presents the same complex difficulties as trying to force a reconciliation between different tribal, religious, sectarian, cultural or ethnic groups in so many other current world conflicts. These groups all have ancient differences which can´t be resolved easily by outside foreign intervention.
There are several possible outcomes to the Iraqi situation and they are all ominous for the Middle East and worrisome for the United States:
1. If the U.S. leaves Iraq, a civil war will probably begin immediately between the Shiites and Sunnis. (If this happens, the U.S. would probably re-invade the country.) The U.S. has foolishly armed both groups including the Sahwas (when the U.S. should have been disarming them, or at least disarming the Sunni militias. The Shiite national army and police have a legitimate right to control the nation). It is in the interest of the Shiite dominated Iran that Iraq also be controlled by Shiites, so Iran will probably join the conflict either overtly or covertly. Together, the Iraqi and Iranian Shiites will probably defeat the minority Sunnis. In this potential outcome, Iraq and Iran will become Shiite allies. In both countries their Shiite religious affiliation is more important than their national affiliation. This partnership will unite the Shiites and may result in future conflicts with their Sunni neighbors.
2. The best outcome for the U.S. and probably the one that most U.S. leaders hope for would be an outcome similar to what happen in Iran when the U.S. (CIA) ousted Mossadegh (who was democratically elected) and helped the Shaw Reza Pahlazi assume power. The Shaw ruled Iran as an absolute monarch for 25 years with U.S. assistance and he quickly removed all previous Iranian democratic reforms. The Shaw oppressed the Iranian people and kept billions from the oil revenues for himself, but the U.S. continued to support him because he gave oil contracts to the U.S. (This continued until the Shiite clerics overthrew him in 1979 and established a Shiite Islamic theocracy). The establishment of such a pro-American puppet government in Iraq would make the U.S. government happy. The ongoing U.S. strategy is to get an Iraqi warlord or strongman (like the Shaw) firmly in control of the country and also give Iraqi oil contracts to the U.S. A strong Iraqi Shiite leader would probably oppress the minority Sunnis and Kurds, but the U.S. would overlook this behavior as long as the American oil contracts continued. This is the same shameful policy the U.S. had with the Shaw of Iran. This kind of selfish foreign policy only serves the interests (mostly business) of the U.S. government at the tragic expense of the people of these nations.
3. The U.S. originally hoped for a Shiite-Sunni coalition government in Iraq. But this outcome will never happen. Many people, who understood Islamic politics, knew that this idea was ridiculous, before the war was even started. Religious fundamentalists don´t compromise, ever.
4. The last alternative outcome is for the U.S. to do what Senator John McCain has suggested and continue to occupy Iraq for the next 100 years. This would be simply a permanent U.S. military dictatorship in which the Iraqi government and army was controlled by the occupation forces. However this could not be accomplished with the present number of U.S. troops (160,000). A much larger number would be required (+320,000). This would mean enacting a military draft to supply the needed soldiers. In addition, the U.S. taxpayers could not afford the 300+ billion dollars per year that such a permanent occupation would require. However in this possible situation, the two Islamic sects would probably get tired of waiting for the U.S. to leave and go ahead and start the civil war in spite of the U.S. presence. In this case, the war would have immense repercussions. 320,000 American soldiers would be caught in the middle of an all-out national religious civil war in which all of the groups would be killing each other. The Shiites against the Sunnis and both groups against the Americans. Not only would thousands of Iraqis be killed, but thousands of Americans would be killed. These Americans would die in vain because it is really of little importance to the U.S. who controls Iraq (Shiites or Sunnis) as long as the U.S. gets their oil. The Sunnis and Shiites both want an Islamic theocratic government. A war of this magnitude in an area that is so important to the rest of the world because of it´s oil resources would probably result in many other nations becoming involved to protect their individual (economic) interests. This could be the beginning of a World War. This war would be a "Clash of Civilizations" that the religious fundamentalist (on both sides) want. Both sides of religious fundamentalists believe that Allah or God is with them and that they will eventually win such a war (with divine assistance).
The Perfect Storm is on the horizon for Iraq.
The Perfect Storm is also on the horizon for the U.S. (economically).
All of the necessary elements have been building up in our own country. This potential storm is being fed daily by the great financial drain that the continuing war is costing the American taxpayers and the federal and state budgets ($341.4 million a day - over $504 billion total so far). The final Iraqi-Afghanistan war costs are estimated to be in the trillions, including long term medical care for wounded veterans. (And this doesn´t even include the approximately 336,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. that are now being ignored and forgotten.)
The falling U.S. dollar, the rising price of oil ($105 per barrel), the rising price of gasoline ($4 per gallon), the collapse of the financial institution of Bear-Sterns which threatens the collapse of other financial institutions in the mortgage and banking system, the collapse of the U.S. housing market, the escalating number of home foreclosures and family evictions, the cancellation or under funding of necessary social programs and education programs, the financial deficit in almost every state, the financial crisis in the education system, rising unemployment, laying off of teachers, government employees, hospital employees, closing of hospitals and health clinics, the deteriorating U.S. infrastructure (Los Angeles has the worst city streets in the U.S.), collapsing bridges and levees, the still existing damage in New Orleans caused by hurricane Katrina, unemployment, crime and homelessness in New Orleans and nationwide, the expected rise in inflation due to the rising price of oil, the health care crisis: the millions who have no health insurance, the tragedy of homeless U.S. veterans, the tens of thousands of disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan…
The list of serious problems facing the U.S. is staggering and yet our irresponsible government continues to increase military spending and cut taxes for rich people and corporations. (The present U.S. military spending is SIX times that of China or Russia.) No matter how large the U.S. national debt becomes every year, the Bush administration still wants more tax cuts. This is total mismanagement at the highest levels of our government.
The U.S. had a Perfect Storm once before. It was called the GREAT DEPRESSION (the 1930´s). This nationwide collapse took decades of sacrifice by the American people to reestablish social and economic stability.
The solution to this growing crisis is not difficult to find. The U.S. cannot continue to spend $341.4 million a day on a war that provides absolutely no benefits to the American people. (It´s a total fallacy, as some believe, that this war is making our nation safer. It´s doing exactly the opposite.) To reverse course, this money must begin to be spent on our own stalled economy instead of being wasted in the Iraqi quagmire.
The Bush administration has spent a trillion taxpayers dollars and 4000 American soldier´s lives in the proclaimed mission of removing a little dictator from Iraq. Hussein is dead and buried. He wasn´t a threat to anyone when he was alive, and he is certainly not a threat to anyone now.
Iraq is now ruled, not by a free democracy (as the U.S. proclaims) but by an occupying military army. The U.S. military controls everything that the present Iraqi government does. The U.S. is dictating to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people what type of government that they should have and what type of constitution they should have. Iraq still has a dictatorship. It is the dictatorship of the U.S. occupation forces.
The occupying U.S. army, the segregation of the Islamic sects (Shiite, Sunni & Kurd) and the temporary cease fire ordered by Muqtada al Sadr, has resulted in a temporary calm. But the coming growing storm is inevitable. Nothing has been settled, it has only been put on hold.
The U.S. cannot continue occupying Iraq forever, even if they wanted to. The U.S. will soon go bankrupt. Throughout history, many wars have been lost for this very reason, and the Iraqi war is the most expensive war in the history of the world ($341.4 MILLION PER DAY). The Shiites and Sunnis have great patience, they aren´t going anywhere. They only have to wait until the U.S. public gets tired of the death, destruction, loss of American lives and the exorbitant daily costs of the war. Sooner or later the U.S. occupation of Iraq will end. It may be four years, eight years, twelve years or decades. Sooner or later the American people will have a rational U.S. president who will say: "Enough is enough. Bring our soldiers home."
By that future time the Iraqi government will probably have trained and equipped a powerful Shiite national army. Because the Iraqi nation, just like Iran, is predominantly Shiite, the only type of government possible is a Shiite Islamic theocracy. A western style democracy was never possible. Only a naďve U.S. president who had zero understanding of Iraqi-Islamic politics could ever have had such an unrealistic fantasy.
When the U.S. finally leaves Iraq, it will still have a dictatorship. The U.S. meddling in Iraq has replaced the secular dictatorship of Hussein with the religious dictatorship of a Shiite Islamic theocracy. Iraq and Iran will soon have identical compatible Shiite governments. They will unite in an Islamic Brotherhood. Iraq and Iran will both have democratically elected presidents, but the real power will reside with the Islamic clerics. The Sunnis and Kurds will have little hope of participation in the national government. However these are issues and problems for the people of Iraq and Iran to solve. These issues cannot be resolved by U.S. intervention. They cannot be resolved by bureaucrats in Washington DC who have no understanding whatsoever of the Islamic people or their culture.
The Iraqi people would be better off today if George W. Bush had never set foot in their nation. At least half a million Iraqis would still be alive,
and four million Iraqis would not be homeless refugees.
and the mothers and fathers of 4000 U.S. soldiers would still have their sons and daughters safe at home with them.
and 30,000 U.S. soldiers would not be disabled American Veterans learning how to use their prosthetic limbs.
and the U.S. would have a national budget surplus instead of being trillions of dollars in debt.
and the other nations of the world would still have respect for the United States of America.
Hopefully, in the future, our government will chose a foreign policy based on diplomacy instead of aggressive war. We the people…hope.
The Shiites and Sunnis (and the northern Kurds) are now isolated within their separated fortified zones. They are rigorously training, regrouping and making plans for the next strategic step in the struggle to control the fractured nation, which each group is determined to do.
Only the northern Kurds want to completely withdraw from Iraq and form an independent nation, Kurdistan. They should be allowed to do this, since they were forced by the Allied occupation after the first World War, to become part of Iraq. Most of the present national boundaries around Iraq were arbitrarily created by the Allies without any consideration or understanding of the ethnic, tribal, religious or sectarian groups. In 1923, Turkey was recognized as an independent nation according to the Treaty of Lausanne. This treaty divided the Kurdish region among Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The Kurds have consistently sought independence. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. encouraged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein and establish independence. However when the Kurds did start a rebellion, the U.S. and U.N. did nothing to assist them, as they had promised. This resulted in the Iraqi Army killing thousands of Kurds. The U.S. then blamed Hussein for the killings, even though the U.S. was primarily responsible for instigating the uprising. The U.S. abandoned the Kurds in their struggle for independence and then blamed Hussein for crushing the insurgency. The U.S. also condemned Hussein for using poison gas against the Kurds during the rebellion. The U.S. failed to note that it was the U.S. and U.K. that had given Hussein the poison gas during the Iraq-Iran war. Apparently the U.S. approved of Hussein using the poison gas against the Iranians but disapproved of him using it against the Kurds. What´s the difference? (The U.S. still has huge stockpiles of poison gas and lethal chemicals that have not yet been destroyed. The U.S. has more WMD than any nation on Earth.)
The present Iraqi conflict will continue to be primarily between the two largest groups, the Shiite and the Sunni Muslims. These two segregated sects are now patiently waiting for the U.S. to withdraw from their occupied country. The U.S. strategy has always been short term, with the U.S. president wanting to achieve results within the administration´s four or eight year term. The U.S. wants overnight change and has little patience. The Iraqi people, in contrast have great patience and can wait decades.
There is a new Desert Storm coming that will have all of the fury of a natural disaster and it can´t be stopped.
The Iraq war is a war that can´t be won. It is a war that should never have been started in the first place. The U.S. has consistently approached the problems in the Middle East with a simple minded mentality that has nothing to do with the very complex religious, tribal, ethnic, political and traditional conditions that actually exist. The U.S. seems to understand nothing at all about the cultures of these nations. (There is an old military adage "know your enemy" which the U.S. government seems to consistently ignore.)
The U.S. action in Iraq has set in motion ancient forces and deep animosities that are a thousand years old. They are as old as the schism that created the different Islamic sects. It is probably the youthfulness of our own nation that allowed our inexperienced leaders to make such naďve and foolish judgments that led up to the disastrous 2003 Iraqi invasion. Before the U.S. invasion, the U.S. President didn´t even know the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims (advisors had to set him down and explain this to him). After five years of callous occupation, very few people in the U.S. administration or military have the slightest understanding of either the Islamic religion or Islamic politics. Extremely few in the U.S. administration speak any Middle Eastern languages. Almost no U.S. soldiers speak Iraqi (Arabic dialect of Iraq). There are almost no Muslims in the U.S. administration for advice and perspectives regarding Muslim traditions, culture and beliefs, and most important of all, Islamic politics. In 2003, a large percent of Americans could not even find Iraq or Iran on a world map. This unnecessary war has been a misconceived blunder from the very beginning. The U.S. boldly and arrogantly stampeded into an ancient civilization and culture that they could not even begin to understand (and very few wanted to). The U.S. administration continuously and erroneously assumes that everyone in the world wants the same materialistic things that Americans want. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many nations have very different moral and cultural values than the U.S. has and most societies want to keep them.
Every transitory and shallow excuse that the administration gave for the Iraqi invasion was quickly disproved. Every time one excuse failed, the administration quickly invented another one. One of the primary excuses was U.S. national self defense and yet Hussein´s army turned out to be so weak militarily that they couldn´t even defend the city of Baghdad. The U.S. military literally walked into the city with little resistance while Hussein ran away and literally crawled into a hole in the ground to hide. Iraq was never even remotely a threat to either the U.S. or anyone else. Hussein was a paper tiger with a boastful mouth and nothing else. This whole unnecessary military adventure has been a tragic waste of American lives (4000) and treasure (one trillion taxpayer´s dollars) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Not to mention the world wide animosity that this fiasco has created with our former allies. This war has outraged good people and inflamed emotions throughout the world. There is nothing that could possibly have damaged the international interests of the U.S. more than starting a war with a Muslim nation. Never before has the U.S. government received such bad advice and made such tragic decisions.
So what was the urgent vital interest that the U.S. really had to protect in Iraq? It was simply the same vital interest that the U.S. has had in all Middle Eastern countries for the past 50 years. "OIL". The real reason that the U.S. administration was so angry with Hussein was that he had no intention of giving any oil contract to the U.S. oil companies. This was the same reason that the U.S. (CIA) ousted Mohammed Mossadegh from Iran in 1953. Mossadegh was going to nationalize Iran´s oil and exclude the U.S. from oil contracts. Just prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Hussein was preparing to grant about 60 oil contracts to other nations. This exclusion made Bush and Cheney vehemently and aggressively angry. From the first day of the Bush administration, long before 9/11, they began making war plans against Iraq. 9/11 gave them the excuse they were waiting for. Between 9/11/01 and the invasion in 2003, the administration´s daily misleading propaganda deceived the American people into believing that Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, was directly or indirectly responsible for 9/11, had ties to al-Qaeda, supported terrorism and Osama bin Laden. As we now know, none of these were true. There were no terrorists, Taliban or al-Qaeda in Iraq and Osama bin Laden considered Hussein his enemy.
After all of the administration´s false excuses for the invasion became clear, they finally settled on the lame excuse that they were bringing (western) democracy to Iraq. This was also just another false unrealistic excuse. The invasion of Iraq never had anything to do with (western) democracy. Democracy can never be imposed on any nation by an occupying military force, especially if it opposes the existing ethnic values, traditions and religious sentiments of the people. Democracy develops within a nation how and when the indigenous people want it. The western style democratic system that the U.S has attempted to forcefully impose on Iraq is almost impossible to achieve. This is simply explained by understanding the importance of Islam to the Iraqi people and most of the other Middle Eastern nations. The people of any deeply religious Islamic nation will not accept a national secular constitution that is superior to Islamic law or the Koran. The U.S. administration has never been able to understand this simple historical fact. Within the U.S., our evolving system (for 200 years) of capitalistic democracy has to some degree, a separation of religion and state. This separation varies from administration to administration often depending on the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. has tried to impose instantaneously this same separation of religion and state on the people of Iraq. In any nation that is over 90% Muslim, this is impossible. The Iraqi people can never allow a secular government and secular laws to be above the laws of Islam. An Islamic nation cannot separate their religion from their government because their religion is their government. In an Islamic nation, the laws of Allah (God) must remain superior to any laws created by secular government. In such a circumstance, the primary national government must first of all be an Islamic theocracy, and only secondary a democracy. An Islamic democracy simply means that the majority group or sect controls the Islamic government. In Iraq and Iran this majority sect is the Shiites (although worldwide, the Sunnis are the majority). This is the only type of national or regional government that an Islamic nation can accept. This is why the U.S. has totally failed to create either a secular or a coalition government in Iraq. The U.S. can continue (as Senator John McCain has proposed) to attempt to achieve this (American) goal for the next 100 years, but the results will still be the same. Fundamentalist Islamic sects don´t compromise, not now, and not a hundred years from now. In an Islamic nation, religion will always control the government. The government will never control religion, except in a military dictatorship.
Hussein prevented a civil war in Iraq by imposing a military dictatorship on the whole nation. This is the only way that the U.S. can prevent an Iraqi civil war now or in the future. The present U.S. occupying army is doing the same thing that Hussein´s army did. It is preventing a religious civil war. There is no way out of this tragic predicament that the U.S. has foolishly created.
The U.S. is responsible for creating the 2005 Iraqi democratic elections that put the Shiites in control of the government, the army and the police. In both Iraq and Iran, the Shiites are the majority group and definitely have a legal right to control the government. The Iraqi elections were fair and democratic and represent the will of the majority of the Iraqi people. Now that the Iraqi people have a democratically elected government, the U.S. no longer has any legal authority to make any decisions about what this legal government does, what kind of constitution they create or what they do with their own oil resources. (Actually the U.S. never had any such legal authority. The Geneva Convention has always prohibited almost everything that the U.S. has done in Iraq.) The U.S. has continually attempted to force a secular constitution on the Iraqi people. However the Iraqi´s have continually insisted on adopting a constitution that recognizes that Islamic law is the supreme law of the land and not the secular constitution. The U.S. has no legal right to tell the Iraqi government that they can´t have an Islamic theocracy or that they can´t nationalize their own oil. Actually, it is the Shiites who want an Islamic democracy the most because they know that as the majority group they can win every election and control the government and the military (and the oil). The Sunni´s generally oppose any type of democracy because they are a minority group and cannot win any election. Because of this, the Sunni´s must resort to the use of force (insurgency) in any attempt to control or overthrow the Shiite government. These are problems that the Iraqi´s must solve by themselves.
Since the 2005 democratic Iraqi elections, the U.S. no longer has any legal right to continue occupying the Iraqi nation. (The occupation was always illegal.) The majority of Iraqi citizens have already expressed the opinion that they want the U.S. to leave. As the Shiite´s gain more and more control over the government and the military, they will become more and more insistent that the U.S. leave their sovereign nation.
The U.S. has continued to refuse to either leave Iraq or begin reducing the number of American troops. As the Bush administration has consistently done for the past five years, they continue to create excuses to do whatever they want to do. The real reason the U.S. continues the occupation is the same reason that they invaded in the first place. "OIL". The U.S. doesn´t want to leave until they establish a pro-American government that will grant the American oil companies the majority of oil contracts. The present Iraqi government has continued to refuse to do this and the U.S. continues to refuse to leave. (This is the oil benchmark that the U.S. is demanding that the Iraqi government agree to. This oil benchmark essentially privatizes the oil industry. This would allow American companies to own as much as 80% of the Iraqi oil.) The present Iraqi government is legitimately trying to protect it´s own oil resources from any foreign control. Iraqi´s oil belongs to the Iraqi people, not to foreign oil companies. This is exactly what Mossadegh did in Iran when he nationalized their oil. If the Malaki government continues to resist U.S. pressure, he will probably be replaced as Mossadegh was. The U.S. will probably use corruption as an excuse to replace him with someone who is more cooperative. (When the U.S. ousted Mossadegh, they accused him of being a Communist because he wanted to nationalize the oil resources. This was a false accusation, but it succeeded in overthrowing his government.) Corruption is rampant in the present Iraqi government (When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before U.S. Congress, she said that the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars that are missing in Iraq is just the result of bookkeeping anomalies). Millions of U.S. dollars are disappearing daily in the Iraqi government with very little recordkeeping or accountability and the Bush administration continually blocks any attempt by Congress to investigate corruption or mismanagement. Millions of dollars of this missing money is most likely being used to support the insurgency since the majority of Iraqi´s want the U.S. occupation to end.
The convenient present excuse for the U.S. remaining in Iraq is to prevent a civil war. This is probably true but there is nothing that the U.S. can do about it, except to continue the occupation forever. Anyway it is the U.S. that has created this potential civil war by segregating and arming both Shiites and Sunnis. This appears to have been done deliberately by the U.S. as an excuse to continue the occupation and control the oil. Why else would the U.S. continue to provide military arms and equipment to the Sunni militia whose only stated goal is to overthrow the Shiite government? This is the military strategy of ´divide and conquer´. The U.S. continues to place the financial well being of American oil companies above the physical well being of the Iraqi people.
This volatile situation will not have a good ending for anyone except maybe Iran and al-Qaeda. Both of which have benefited enormously from the overthrow of Hussein. Both were recognized enemies of Hussein. The U.S. preoccupation with Iraq has also benefited the Taliban. During the last five years, the Taliban has regained control of Afghanistan. The drug lords in Afghanistan have also benefited from the Iraq war. The Afghanistan opium production has increased exponentially.
For the past five years, since the U.S. invasion removed all of the Iraqi nation´s law and order institutions (the government, the legislature, the judiciary, the civil servants, the army and police), the fundamentalist sects have been using this opportunity to segregate the neighborhoods and cities and establish their own tribal control (local warlords). Why would the U.S. dissolve both the Iraqi army and Iraqi police and allow them to take their guns home with them? This insane act instantly created a million unemployed armed angry insurgents and roving death squads. The current sectarian segregation has been successfully achieved by murder, intimidation and kidnapping by both Sunni militias and Shiite militias. About 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes and many are homeless refugees in the neighboring countries of Syria and Jordan. However now most of the adjacent countries have closed their borders and no longer allow any Iraqi refugees to enter. Many of the Sunnis have been largely concentrated in the al-Anbar province west of Baghdad. The U.S. has been providing military arms to these Sunni militias, while simultaneously providing military arms to the Shiites in the Iraqi national army and Iraqi police. By arming and training both of these antagonistic sects, the U.S. has deliberately created the potential for a more violent future civil war. With the recent (2008) drop in violence (even though it is still very high - hundreds of Iraqi civilian deaths per month) some of the refugees who had left the country or hostile areas are now returning (partially because the borders are now closed). However they cannot return to their former homes because most of these areas have been segregated into sectarians zones. The Sunni´s that are returning must relocate in current Sunni zones and the returning Shiites must relocate in the current Shiite zones. The misleading U.S. media´s reporting of calm Iraqi neighborhoods is only within each segregated area. The Sunni´s cannot go into the Shiite zones and vice versa. (The American news media has failed the American people for the past five years by allowing the Bush administration to censor all news coverage relating to the war. This has been the death of the free press in the U.S.)
THE CALM BEFORE THE PERFECT STORM
The recent (2008) drop in violence nationwide in Iraq has several causes:
1. After years of sectarian neighborhood ethnic cleansing, the religious groups are now largely separated into specifically Shiite and Sunni zones. These areas are surrounded by armed militias, fences and controlled by local warlords and the "Awakening Groups". This has resulted in less contact and less violent confrontation between the two major sects. The U.S. surge provided more American soldiers to patrol the areas that separate the sectarian zones. These U.S. soldiers are easy targets for snipers, bombers and militias from both sides of the street. The present fragile calm is only within the segregated zones. Violence and car bombings still continue in the mixed areas. Violence has also been reduced simply because so many families are simply afraid to leave their homes.
2. Muqtada al Sadr, a powerful Shiite cleric, who lives in the holy city of Al-Najaf, has ordered his Mahdi army to temporarily stop fighting and regroup and wait to see if the U.S. begins withdrawing from Iraq. This may depend on who the next U.S. president is. Al-Sadr knows that the majority of Americans (70%) now want to end the war. It is the al-Sadr cease fire that is the primary reason for the recent drop in violence and not the U.S. surge, as Bush claims. After the U.S. leaves, which may not be for decades, the civil war will continue against the Sunnis. This cease fire is only temporary. The Shiite-Sunni conflict has been ongoing for a thousand years and will continue regardless of any foreign occupation (such as the Russian occupation of Iran, which was also a disaster. The U.S. should have learned a lesson from the Russian failure, but unfortunately they didn´t and repeated the same mistakes.)
3. The Sunnis who have now been segregated into specific zones are also temporarily reducing their fighting and are regrouping to plan future strategy for defeating the Shiites and regaining control of the Iraqi government. The newly armed and organized Sunni militia has also reduced violence against their own neighborhoods. The so called "Awakening Groups´ or Sahwa who now total nearly 80,000 are being paid by U.S. taxpayer´s about $300 a month to not attack U.S. forces. Many of these Sahwa are actually insurgents and many Iraqi´s believe they are also al-Qaeda members who are using the money to buy weapons that will eventually be used to drive out the occupation forces. It´s ironic that U.S. soldiers are fighting al-Qaeda forces while U.S. taxpayer´s money is actually funding al-Qaeda. How insane is that? Regardless of whether or not this Iraqi accusation is true, the question remains: What are the well-armed Sahwa going to do when the U.S. decides that they are no longer needed and stops paying them $300 per month? They will most likely rejoin the insurgency and the violence will escalate. Is the U.S. going to continue paying them $300 per month for 100 years? (John McCain´s plan.)
This brings up an interesting semantics point. Who are the insurgents and who are the patriots? The U.S. labels all opposition resistance ´insurgents´. The U.S. doesn´t label anyone ´Iraqi patriot´. An insurgent is one who is fighting against their own government, such as any Kurds or Sunnis who rebel against the democratically elected Shiite government. Whereas any Iraqi of any religious sect who is fighting against an occupying army (the U.S.) is not an insurgent, but an ´Iraqi patriot´, because they are fighting for their own country against a foreign occupier. Any fighters who are fighting against the U.S. cannot be called insurgents, because the U.S. is not the legal government of Iraq. Anyone fighting against the U.S. soldiers (occupiers) should be called an ´Iraqi patriot´.
4. The U.S. may have also contributed to reducing the present violence to a small extent by increasing the number of troops in Iraq (the 2007 surge) even though the violence may have decreased primarily due to other factors. Actually, the surge was quite small compared to the size of the country and probably had very little effect. However the purpose of the surge was to reduce the violence so that the Shiites and Sunnis could develop a coalition government. The surge probably has helped to reduce the violence to some small degree, but the primary purpose of creating a coalition government has completely failed and will continue to do so. The U.S. continuously fails to understand Iraqi politics. These two Islamic sects can never form a coalition government because they are not political parties, they are religious parties and religious parties can not compromise. Attempting to force a reconciliation or coalition government between the Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq presents the same complex difficulties as trying to force a reconciliation between different tribal, religious, sectarian, cultural or ethnic groups in so many other current world conflicts. These groups all have ancient differences which can´t be resolved easily by outside foreign intervention.
There are several possible outcomes to the Iraqi situation and they are all ominous for the Middle East and worrisome for the United States:
1. If the U.S. leaves Iraq, a civil war will probably begin immediately between the Shiites and Sunnis. (If this happens, the U.S. would probably re-invade the country.) The U.S. has foolishly armed both groups including the Sahwas (when the U.S. should have been disarming them, or at least disarming the Sunni militias. The Shiite national army and police have a legitimate right to control the nation). It is in the interest of the Shiite dominated Iran that Iraq also be controlled by Shiites, so Iran will probably join the conflict either overtly or covertly. Together, the Iraqi and Iranian Shiites will probably defeat the minority Sunnis. In this potential outcome, Iraq and Iran will become Shiite allies. In both countries their Shiite religious affiliation is more important than their national affiliation. This partnership will unite the Shiites and may result in future conflicts with their Sunni neighbors.
2. The best outcome for the U.S. and probably the one that most U.S. leaders hope for would be an outcome similar to what happen in Iran when the U.S. (CIA) ousted Mossadegh (who was democratically elected) and helped the Shaw Reza Pahlazi assume power. The Shaw ruled Iran as an absolute monarch for 25 years with U.S. assistance and he quickly removed all previous Iranian democratic reforms. The Shaw oppressed the Iranian people and kept billions from the oil revenues for himself, but the U.S. continued to support him because he gave oil contracts to the U.S. (This continued until the Shiite clerics overthrew him in 1979 and established a Shiite Islamic theocracy). The establishment of such a pro-American puppet government in Iraq would make the U.S. government happy. The ongoing U.S. strategy is to get an Iraqi warlord or strongman (like the Shaw) firmly in control of the country and also give Iraqi oil contracts to the U.S. A strong Iraqi Shiite leader would probably oppress the minority Sunnis and Kurds, but the U.S. would overlook this behavior as long as the American oil contracts continued. This is the same shameful policy the U.S. had with the Shaw of Iran. This kind of selfish foreign policy only serves the interests (mostly business) of the U.S. government at the tragic expense of the people of these nations.
3. The U.S. originally hoped for a Shiite-Sunni coalition government in Iraq. But this outcome will never happen. Many people, who understood Islamic politics, knew that this idea was ridiculous, before the war was even started. Religious fundamentalists don´t compromise, ever.
4. The last alternative outcome is for the U.S. to do what Senator John McCain has suggested and continue to occupy Iraq for the next 100 years. This would be simply a permanent U.S. military dictatorship in which the Iraqi government and army was controlled by the occupation forces. However this could not be accomplished with the present number of U.S. troops (160,000). A much larger number would be required (+320,000). This would mean enacting a military draft to supply the needed soldiers. In addition, the U.S. taxpayers could not afford the 300+ billion dollars per year that such a permanent occupation would require. However in this possible situation, the two Islamic sects would probably get tired of waiting for the U.S. to leave and go ahead and start the civil war in spite of the U.S. presence. In this case, the war would have immense repercussions. 320,000 American soldiers would be caught in the middle of an all-out national religious civil war in which all of the groups would be killing each other. The Shiites against the Sunnis and both groups against the Americans. Not only would thousands of Iraqis be killed, but thousands of Americans would be killed. These Americans would die in vain because it is really of little importance to the U.S. who controls Iraq (Shiites or Sunnis) as long as the U.S. gets their oil. The Sunnis and Shiites both want an Islamic theocratic government. A war of this magnitude in an area that is so important to the rest of the world because of it´s oil resources would probably result in many other nations becoming involved to protect their individual (economic) interests. This could be the beginning of a World War. This war would be a "Clash of Civilizations" that the religious fundamentalist (on both sides) want. Both sides of religious fundamentalists believe that Allah or God is with them and that they will eventually win such a war (with divine assistance).
The Perfect Storm is on the horizon for Iraq.
The Perfect Storm is also on the horizon for the U.S. (economically).
All of the necessary elements have been building up in our own country. This potential storm is being fed daily by the great financial drain that the continuing war is costing the American taxpayers and the federal and state budgets ($341.4 million a day - over $504 billion total so far). The final Iraqi-Afghanistan war costs are estimated to be in the trillions, including long term medical care for wounded veterans. (And this doesn´t even include the approximately 336,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. that are now being ignored and forgotten.)
The falling U.S. dollar, the rising price of oil ($105 per barrel), the rising price of gasoline ($4 per gallon), the collapse of the financial institution of Bear-Sterns which threatens the collapse of other financial institutions in the mortgage and banking system, the collapse of the U.S. housing market, the escalating number of home foreclosures and family evictions, the cancellation or under funding of necessary social programs and education programs, the financial deficit in almost every state, the financial crisis in the education system, rising unemployment, laying off of teachers, government employees, hospital employees, closing of hospitals and health clinics, the deteriorating U.S. infrastructure (Los Angeles has the worst city streets in the U.S.), collapsing bridges and levees, the still existing damage in New Orleans caused by hurricane Katrina, unemployment, crime and homelessness in New Orleans and nationwide, the expected rise in inflation due to the rising price of oil, the health care crisis: the millions who have no health insurance, the tragedy of homeless U.S. veterans, the tens of thousands of disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan…
The list of serious problems facing the U.S. is staggering and yet our irresponsible government continues to increase military spending and cut taxes for rich people and corporations. (The present U.S. military spending is SIX times that of China or Russia.) No matter how large the U.S. national debt becomes every year, the Bush administration still wants more tax cuts. This is total mismanagement at the highest levels of our government.
The U.S. had a Perfect Storm once before. It was called the GREAT DEPRESSION (the 1930´s). This nationwide collapse took decades of sacrifice by the American people to reestablish social and economic stability.
The solution to this growing crisis is not difficult to find. The U.S. cannot continue to spend $341.4 million a day on a war that provides absolutely no benefits to the American people. (It´s a total fallacy, as some believe, that this war is making our nation safer. It´s doing exactly the opposite.) To reverse course, this money must begin to be spent on our own stalled economy instead of being wasted in the Iraqi quagmire.
The Bush administration has spent a trillion taxpayers dollars and 4000 American soldier´s lives in the proclaimed mission of removing a little dictator from Iraq. Hussein is dead and buried. He wasn´t a threat to anyone when he was alive, and he is certainly not a threat to anyone now.
Iraq is now ruled, not by a free democracy (as the U.S. proclaims) but by an occupying military army. The U.S. military controls everything that the present Iraqi government does. The U.S. is dictating to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people what type of government that they should have and what type of constitution they should have. Iraq still has a dictatorship. It is the dictatorship of the U.S. occupation forces.
The occupying U.S. army, the segregation of the Islamic sects (Shiite, Sunni & Kurd) and the temporary cease fire ordered by Muqtada al Sadr, has resulted in a temporary calm. But the coming growing storm is inevitable. Nothing has been settled, it has only been put on hold.
The U.S. cannot continue occupying Iraq forever, even if they wanted to. The U.S. will soon go bankrupt. Throughout history, many wars have been lost for this very reason, and the Iraqi war is the most expensive war in the history of the world ($341.4 MILLION PER DAY). The Shiites and Sunnis have great patience, they aren´t going anywhere. They only have to wait until the U.S. public gets tired of the death, destruction, loss of American lives and the exorbitant daily costs of the war. Sooner or later the U.S. occupation of Iraq will end. It may be four years, eight years, twelve years or decades. Sooner or later the American people will have a rational U.S. president who will say: "Enough is enough. Bring our soldiers home."
By that future time the Iraqi government will probably have trained and equipped a powerful Shiite national army. Because the Iraqi nation, just like Iran, is predominantly Shiite, the only type of government possible is a Shiite Islamic theocracy. A western style democracy was never possible. Only a naďve U.S. president who had zero understanding of Iraqi-Islamic politics could ever have had such an unrealistic fantasy.
When the U.S. finally leaves Iraq, it will still have a dictatorship. The U.S. meddling in Iraq has replaced the secular dictatorship of Hussein with the religious dictatorship of a Shiite Islamic theocracy. Iraq and Iran will soon have identical compatible Shiite governments. They will unite in an Islamic Brotherhood. Iraq and Iran will both have democratically elected presidents, but the real power will reside with the Islamic clerics. The Sunnis and Kurds will have little hope of participation in the national government. However these are issues and problems for the people of Iraq and Iran to solve. These issues cannot be resolved by U.S. intervention. They cannot be resolved by bureaucrats in Washington DC who have no understanding whatsoever of the Islamic people or their culture.
The Iraqi people would be better off today if George W. Bush had never set foot in their nation. At least half a million Iraqis would still be alive,
and four million Iraqis would not be homeless refugees.
and the mothers and fathers of 4000 U.S. soldiers would still have their sons and daughters safe at home with them.
and 30,000 U.S. soldiers would not be disabled American Veterans learning how to use their prosthetic limbs.
and the U.S. would have a national budget surplus instead of being trillions of dollars in debt.
and the other nations of the world would still have respect for the United States of America.
Hopefully, in the future, our government will chose a foreign policy based on diplomacy instead of aggressive war. We the people…hope.
