It is
increasingly difficult to make sense out of what is
going on in Iraq.
An
unending spate of kidnappings, the
like of which even Lebanon did not seen in its
worst days; 26 foreign hostages already beheaded or otherwise
killed and more than 20 still in captivity, one does
not know where and in whose custody; more suicide car
bombings per week than in the rest of the world put together
in a month or even a longer period; a seemingly inexhaustible
flow of volunteers for suicide missions, the
like of which no other country has seen since suicide
terrorism became the vogue 20 years ago; more acts
of terrorism and other armed attacks per day (87 according
to the latest count as against 60 in April last)
than in the rest of the world put together; more civilians
killed by the Americans, the terrorists and the
resistance fighters since May last year than by al-Qaeda
in the rest of the world since it carried out its
strikes with explosives outside the US embassies in Nairobi
and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998 - that is the
state of Iraq since the US-led coalition occupied the
country about 18 months ago.
Nearly 150,000
coalition troops spread out across the country, more
than the USSR had in Afghanistan at the height of its
occupation in the 1980s; more helicopter gunships, more
aircraft, more modern communication interception
equipment, more arms and ammunition of the most lethal
kind than ever used by the USSR in Afghanistan; more
officers of the US intelligence community swarming
across Iraq than the KGB ever deployed in Afghanistan;
more money at the disposal of the US intelligence
community than it ever had for use in its clandestine
war against the Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold
War, the US intelligence community, then consisting of
about 12 agencies, had a total budget of about US$10
billion per annum to contend with its communist
adversaries; today, with 15 agencies, it has $30 billion
plus, thanks to Osama bin Laden and the horde of jihadi
terrorists confronting the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and
the rest of the world. Despite all this, the US does not
have a clue as to who are its adversaries in Iraq.
Resistance
fighters? Terrorists? Domestic? Foreign?
Al-Qaeda? Pakistanis? Chechens? Arab volunteers from
other countries? Ex-Ba'athists? The sacked soldiers of
Saddam Hussein's army? Shi'ites? Sunnis? Plain criminals?
US intelligence does not seem to have the least
inkling of it. The more of the resistance and terrorists
the US kills, the more the number of Iraqis and
foreign Muslims take to arms against the US. The total
number of resistance fighters and terrorists,
domestic and foreign, operating in different parts of
the country is estimated to have increased fourfold
since the beginning of this year from about 5,000 to
about 20,000, despite the estimated death of nearly
5,000, if not more, at the hands of US troops.
Is there a common command and control of
this rainbow coalition of anti-US elements? If so, how
does it function? Where and in whose hands is it
located? Which are the organizations involved? Is there a
supreme leader? There are visible and invisible enemies.
Enemies like Muqtada al-Sadr, who are seen commanding and
fighting for the benefit of TV cameras, and enemies like
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who orchestrates terrorist
incidents unseen and unnoticed. Audible and inaudible
leaders. Leaders who brag and make claims. Others who
operate silently.
If all the
claims are to be believed, more terrorist
organizations are being spawned in Iraq every month than in the rest
of the world. Each with a bizarre name, the
origin and significance of which nobody understands. Why
did the group that kidnapped seven foreigners, including
three Indians, two months ago call itself the Holders of
the Black Banner? Why does the group that kidnapped a
Jordanian on Wednesday call itself the Lions of the Monotheism
Brigade?
One can understand
their anger against the Americans. One can even
understand their anger against the Indians, the Pakistanis
and the Nepalis, despite the fact that their
countries refrained from supporting the US occupation of Iraq.
They were working for Kuwaiti, Saudi and
other US-surrogate companies involved in keeping the US troops
supplied. But why target two French journalists, despite the
fact that France was in the forefront of the
international community's opposition to the US invasion
and occupation? And that, too, for a reason (in
retaliation for the ban on the use of headscarves by Muslim girls
in France's public schools) totally unconnected with
Iraq.
Are al-Zarqawi and Muqtada the source of
all the problems of the US? Will their elimination lead
to a withering away of Muqtada's Mehdi Army of Shi'ites
and Al-Zarqawi's Khalid Ibn al-Walid Brigade, the
military wing of his Tawhid Wa al-jihad (Unification and
Holy War)? Any fond hopes that they would are likely to
be belied.
After 18
months of occupation, the US continues to
grope in the dark. Its technical intelligence agencies
find themselves totally helpless in the
absence of the use of modern means of communications by
the terrorists and resistance fighters.
Its human intelligence (HUMINT) agencies
are as clueless as ever, despite their claimed capture
of dozens of alleged terrorists and resistance
fighters. Their interrogation, despite the
use of shocking techniques of mental and physical
torture, has hardly produced any worthwhile
intelligence. One does not need a mole in the US
intelligence to know this. Had there been any worthwhile
intelligence, one would have seen the results on the
ground.
The Americans did not understand the
Iraqi people before they invaded and occupied their
country, deceiving themselves into believing that the
Iraqis would come out and sing and dance in the streets
as the Parisians did when Paris was liberated from the
clutches of the Nazis. They do not understand the Iraqi
people even after 18 months of occupation. They are
unlikely to understand them even if the occupation
extends to eternity. The ability to understand others is
not part of the American psyche.
Political and military stooges midwived
by intelligence agencies have never been accepted
by a people. Remember what happened to the succession
of made-in-the-KGB and made-in-the-CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
stooges - the Shah of Iran, the stooges of South
Vietnam, Babrak Karmal and Najibullah in Afghanistan,
the KGB's stooges in Eastern Europe?
See what is happening to Hamid Karzai in Kabul - a
straw ruler who is the CIA-protected monarch of all that
he surveys, just a radius of a few hundred meters from
his palace windows. He has no control over what is
happening in the rest of the country. He does not even
seem to know what is happening in the rest of Kabul
outside his palace.
See what is
happening to President General Pervez Musharraf in
Pakistan. Living in a make-believe world of his own,
deceiving himself into believing that 96% of his people love him.
And yet he needs American security experts to protect
him - after the two failed attempts to kill him last
December. As he struts around the world stage as the United
States' mascot in the ummah, large parts of his
country are burning - Karachi, Balochistan and
Waziristan. South Waziristan is fast becoming Pakistan's
mini-Iraq. Every day, somebody killing somebody else.
Nobody knows who is killing whom, why and for what.
See what is happening to Iyad Allawi, the self-styled
interim prime minister of Iraq. He came to office
with the roar of a tiger warning the terrorists and
the resistance fighters that he would be their
nemesis. He seems destined to disappear like the tail of
a snake.
The recent escalation of terrorism and
other acts of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq is not
related only to the promised presidential elections in
Afghanistan in October and parliamentary elections in
Iraq in January - to make them impossible to hold with
any degree of credibility. It is equally related to the
presidential elections in the US in November.
President George W Bush is seeking re-election with
the claim that his anti-terrorism front is winning. The
terrorists and resistance fighters in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Pakistan's mini-Iraq are determined to show
that it is not so. It is, therefore, reasonable to
expect more and more acts of terrorism and violent
anti-US confrontations in Afghanistan, Pakistan's
mini-Iraq and Iraq as the US presidential elections
approach.
On October 7, 2001, Bush embarked on
what he thought would be his famous "war against
terrorism" under the code name "Operation Enduring
Freedom". The famous has turned embarrassingly infamous.
Instead of enduring freedom, he has an enduring
millstone around his neck, a millstone of his own
creation.
It is easier to describe the
grim situation facing the world today four years after
Bush launched his war than to prescribe a workable way out
of the tunnel in which the world finds itself trapped.
How one wishes one could suggest a workable and
acceptable (to the US) way out. There is only one possible
solution that keeps coming to mind: at the risk of being called
mad, let me suggest restoring Saddam to power and
quickly withdrawing from Iraq. It is unlikely to happen.
And so blood will continue to flow.
B
Raman is additional secretary (retired), Cabinet
Secretariat, government of India, New Delhi, and
currently director, Institute for Topical Studies,
Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer
Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. E-mail:corde@vsnl.com.
