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The future of Iraq and the US
occupation
Editor's
note The following is an excerpt from
a presentation by Noam Chomsky on January 26 at
a forum sponsored by the Lannan Foundation in
Santa Fe, New Mexico, to celebrate the 25th
anniversary of the International Relations Center.
Chomsky is a member of the IRC's board of
directors.
Let's just imagine what the
policies might be of an independent Iraq,
independent, sovereign Iraq, let's say more or
less democratic, what are the policies likely to
be?
Well, there's going to be a Shi'ite
majority, so they'll have some significant
influence over policy. The first thing they'll do
is reestablish relations with Iran. Now they don't
particularly like Iran, but they don't want to go
to war with them so they'll move toward what was
happening already even under Saddam [Hussein],
that is, restoring some sort of friendly relations
with Iran.
That's the last thing the
United States wants. It has worked very hard to
try to isolate Iran. The next thing that might
happen is that a Shi'ite-controlled, more or less
democratic Iraq might stir up feelings in the
Shi'ite areas of Saudi Arabia, which happen to be
right nearby and which happen to be where all the
oil is. So you might find what in Washington must
be the ultimate nightmare - a Shi'ite region which
controls most of the world's oil and is
independent. Furthermore, it is very likely that
an independent, sovereign Iraq would try to take
its natural place as a leading state in the Arab
world, maybe the leading state. And you know
that's something that goes back to biblical times.
What does that mean? Well it means
rearming, first of all. They have to confront the
regional enemy. Now the regional enemy,
overpowering enemy, is Israel. They're going to
have to rearm to confront Israel - which means
probably developing weapons of mass destruction,
just as a deterrent. So here's the picture of what
they must be dreaming about in Washington - and
probably 10 Downing street in London - that here
you might get a substantial Shi'ite majority
rearming, developing weapons of mass destruction,
to try to get rid of the US outposts that are
there to try to make sure that the US controls
most of the oil reserves of the world. Is
Washington going to sit there and allow that?
That's kind of next to inconceivable.
What
I've just read from the business press the last
couple of days probably reflects the thinking in
Washington and London: "Uh well, okay, we'll let
them have a government, but we're not going to pay
any attention to what they say." In fact, the
Pentagon announced at the same time two days ago:
we're keeping 120,000 troops there into at least
2007, even if they call for withdrawal tomorrow.
And the propaganda is very evident right
in these articles. You can even write the
commentary now: we just have to do it because we
have to accomplish our mission of bringing
democracy to Iraq. If they have an elected
government that doesn't understand that, well,
what can we do with these dumb Arabs, you know?
Actually that's very common because look, after
all, the US has overthrown democracy after
democracy, because the people don't understand.
They follow the wrong course. So therefore,
following the mission of establishing democracy,
we've got to overthrow their governments.
I think that [conscription] is going to be
a last resort. The reason is the Vietnam
experience. The Vietnam experience, I think, is
the first time in the history of European
imperialism that an imperial power tried to fight
a colonial war with a citizen's army. I mean the
British didn't do it, and the French had the
Foreign Legion ... In colonial wars, civilians are
just no good. [Colonial wars are] too brutal and
vicious and murderous. You just can't take kids
off the street and have them fight that kind of
war. You need trained killers, like the French
Foreign Legion.
In fact you could see it
happening in Vietnam. To its credit, the US Army
fell apart. It took too long, but finally the army
essentially fell apart. Soldiers were on drugs,
they were fragging officers, not following orders,
and so on and the top brass wanted them out. If
you look back at the military journals in the late
sixties, they were writing about how we gotta get
this army out of here or the army's going to
collapse - much like the head of the army reserves
said two or three days ago. He said this is
becoming a broken force.
(Copyright 2005
Interhemispheric Resource
Center.) |
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