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America's new
bogeyman
By Ehsan Ahrari
The Iraqi insurgency has emerged as the
new bogeyman for the American military in Iraq.
The dictionary meaning of "bogeyman" is: "A cruel
or frightening person or creature, existing or
imaginary, used to threaten or frighten children."
But bogeyman also exists in the imaginations of
adults. It includes all things or phenomena that
we don't understand, but that might be harmful or
deleterious to us.
Except in this case the
Iraqi insurgency is very real and it aims to kill
the American or Iraqi "collaborators". The death
of six American soldiers on August 10 brings the
total number US service members killed since the
war began to 1,841. Even America's best
intelligence estimates portray a picture of
uncertainty and confusion, while describing the
essence of that insurgency.
The insurgents
are killing American and Iraqi security forces.
They seem to be everywhere and are becoming
increasingly sophisticated in their murderous
tactics. Worst of all, the Iraqi insurgency has
created a constant pressure on America's top
decision-makers to declare a timetable for
withdrawal of American forces. While Iraq is
edging toward getting a new constitution, the
Iraqi insurgency is working very hard to force the
Bush administration to declare an "exit strategy".
Such a declaration is likely to plunge Iraq into
even greater turbulence than it is currently
experiencing.
No invading force wishes to
recognize the insurgency as such. It is frequently
described as being composed of "terrorists". Bush
officials initially described its members as
"deadenders". The implication is that the
insurgency comprises persons who are working
against the tide of time to bring back the failed
and the dead past, meaning the brutal rule of
Saddam Hussein. American officials almost always
make a point of stating that the Iraqi
"deadenders" and terrorists were only few hundred
to a few thousand. The numbers that were
officially bandied about at any given time were
about 500 to 5,000. Only rarely were we given a
larger number in official news conferences about
the Iraqi conflict.
The fact of the matter
is that no one really knew the real numbers. The
American intelligence description of the
insurgency was that it comprised some of the
former Iraqi military, members of the former
ruling Ba'ath Party, angry Iraqis, pan-Arabists
and pan-jihadists. That was a good estimate, since
it did not leave out any major Iraqi or foreign
element.
Why did the insurgency become
such a major force? A ready-made blame was placed
on the decision of the head of the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer, to
abolish the Iraqi army and Ba'ath Party. That was
also a partially correct explanation. What was
ignored was the fact that, in most episodes of
foreign occupation, insurgency emerges sooner
rather than later.
However, Iraq was a
special case, even as invasions go. It was seen in
the region as the first Muslim nation invaded by a
Christian country. Not too many people in the US
either appreciate or accept that explanation. But
that was how it was envisioned in the Middle East.
Yes, Iraq was the second country in the context of
the chronology of America's invasion in the
aftermath of the September 11 attacks; Afghanistan
was the first. However, Afghanistan brought that
invasion on itself by allowing al-Qaeda to operate
there. Iraq, on the other hand, was invaded, and
invaded under a false pretext.
The irony
involving America's invasion of Iraq is that there
was no moral force in the Arab or even the Muslim
world to stand up and loudly proclaim that it was
an immoral act. All Arab dictators were lying low.
No one on the side of the Arab governments was
willing to become voluble in criticizing the
then-impending invasion, for fear of creating an
impression that they were trying to save Saddam's
hide.
In the US, President George W Bush
and his neo-conservative allies were spinning all
sorts of scary tales of why it was so urgent to
invade Iraq. The American public, indeed the
international community, will never forget the
statement Bush's then-national security adviser,
Condoleezza Rice, made: "The problem here is that
there will always be some uncertainty about how
quickly [Saddam] can acquire nuclear weapons. But
we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom
cloud."
The international community and
some European allies became the foremost critics
of the US invasion of Iraq. Still, there was no
loud and clear moral outrage in the Middle East.
In the meantime, the Iraqi insurgency emerged as a
symbol of Arab and Muslim rage. The Arab dictators
were still befuddled, and they lost further
credibility in the eyes of their subjugated
masses.
But the US was looking for
approval, if not of its crude invasion of Iraq,
then of removing a brutal dictator. Bush never
understood why he did not receive that approval.
To him, Saddam's rule was so morally repulsive
that his remedy of "regime change" should have
been envisaged by the world as the right and
"moral" remedy.
It has to be one of those
historical developments that even befuddle
historians, but the US invasion of Iraq was
happening at a time when Bush and Osama bin Laden
were also waging war on each other. The global
"war on terrorism" (Bush's war) was also a global
war on the "chief infidel" (bin Laden's war). By
invading Iraq, Bush made a perfect argument for
bin Laden and his ilk that Islam was under attack,
not because a dictator was removed, but because
one more Muslim country was being occupied by the
forces of the "new crusaders".
So the
Ba'athists and the pan-Arabists in Iraq might have
been waging a war on the US because they lost
paychecks and pension funds, which, indeed, is the
making of economic catastrophe anywhere. However,
the rest of the Iraqi insurgency was waging a war
for Islam. That is the only explanation for the
intensity of the outrage that one regularly
witnesses in the brutal attacks on the American
forces and against those Iraqis whom the
insurgents depict as "collaborators".
For
the insurgents, even the very concept of an Iraq
that is created under American hegemony is an
offense against Islam. They point out the essence
of what the Americans are attempting to achieve by
indirectly crafting the new Iraqi constitution. In
that constitution, Islam is not likely to be the
main source of legislation, but only one source of
legislation They also deride the notion of
"popular sovereignty", which is apostasy to the
thinking of the Salafi branch of Islam. They are
angry at discussions of secularism that are
largely promoted through the alliance of the Iraqi
Kurds and the American Embassy in Iraq. To the
insurgents, the only solution to these "crimes
against God" is mayhem and destruction of everyone
and everything that is being created under the
rubric of the "new" Iraq. Once the Americans
leave, that will be the end of just one phase of
their battle. Then they will have to settle scores
with all the "collaborators", including the Kurds
and the Shi'ites. After that, the Iraqi populace
should rally around the notion of an Islamic
government, according to the pan-jihadis of Iraq.
America is increasingly finding itself in
a quandary in Iraq. It cannot leave any time soon.
Indeed, it should not leave any time soon. But
what is the alternative? If the emergence of Iraqi
security forces becomes one condition for its
withdrawal from Iraq, then the insurgents are
likely to be definite winners at least for the
foreseeable future. All they have to do is keep
killing any Iraqi conscript or a trained security
person who is found unprotected. Indeed, they are
doing just that. How long and how often will those
personnel keep taking safety measures? They will
have to lower their guard some time. And that will
be the moment the insurgents will attack them.
Here is another alternative. There is no
other way the US can get out of Iraq without
completely defeating the insurgency. And the more
severe measures that are taken to eradicate them,
the more there is the likelihood of it increasing
its strength. Furthermore, the bloodier the
campaign to eradicate the insurgency becomes in
Iraq, the higher the chances of more loss of young
American lives.
The question then is how much
more American soldier bloodshed will the US public
absorb before someone in their Congress or any
other prominent public official will publicly tell
Bush: "Let's declare victory and get out of Iraq"?
The echoes of the Vietnam imbroglio are always
lurking in the background.
Right now,
public support for America's continued presence in
Iraq is slipping. The only reason there has not
yet been any outcry of "out of Iraq" is because
the suicide attacks in London have shaken up the
American public about the possibility of similar
attacks in the US.
Then there is one more
reality that should be weighing on Bush's mind.
The bloodier America's presence becomes in Iraq,
the lower the possibility would be that Iraq would
emerge as a shining example of anything that
Washington has been hoping when it insisted on
introducing democracy in that country.
The
Iraqi insurgency remains a big potential spoiler
for Bush. Even sadder is the reality that it might
also become a spoiler regarding the emergence of
Iraq as a stable democracy. Poor Iraqis! They
thought that their lives would be better after
Saddam was gone from the political scene.
Ehsan Ahrari is an independent
strategic analyst based in Alexandria, VA, US. His
columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. He
is also a regular contributor to the Global Beat
Syndicate. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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