Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING
EYE The fall guy in
Iraq By Pepe Escobar
directly linked to the plunder of
the Archeological Museum and the National Library
- which the US Marine Corps did not even make a
semblance of preventing - immediately after the
fall of Baghdad almost four years ago. No wonder
Iraqi artist Jabbar Mayhis enveloped his head in a
wooden box atop the devastated ceiling of the
Ibn'Arabi printing press on al-Mutanabbi and
solemnly declared the death of culture in Baghdad.
A coup in the making The real
surge in Iraq so far is by the different strands
of the Sunni
muqawama (resistance)
- which have exposed, if any extra proof was
needed, the impotence and irrelevancy of the Iraqi
state (from Day 1 reduced to ashes under
occupation logic).
The more Sunni Arab
guerrilla attacks on unprotected, civilian
Shi'ites, the more Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
sinks into impotence. The more heavily Sunni
neighborhoods in south Baghdad and around the Dora
area are under siege by the Pentagon's infernal
surge machine, the more Maliki is a lame duck.
Thanks to wily, Mao Zedong-inspired,
nimble muqawama tactics, the much-dreaded
Battle of Baghdad is not happening - at least not
yet. The muqawama has dissolved into the
general population. For the moment, Arab guile is
tactically defeating US firepower - as even
American generals admit.
General David
Petraeus, touted as the miracle worker who might
save the occupation from itself, had to admit on
the record that in fact the surge won't solve or
stabilize anything. To "stabilize" Baghdad to a
minimum, the US would have to deploy at least
120,000 combat troops.
But that's not the
point. The point is that this gory chronicle of a
failure foretold is inevitably slouching toward
the "secret" US Plan B - which is none other than
installing the new Saddam Hussein: in this case
the same old "Saddam without a mustache" (as he is
known in Baghdad) Iyad Allawi. Allawi's stellar
record - former car-bomber, Ba'ath thug, alleged
embezzler (in Yemen), Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) asset, corrupt interim prime minister and
"butcher of Fallujah" - could have been penned by
a Hollywood hack.
Maliki has been the fall
guy from the start. Unlike Libby in Washington, he
was not following Dick Cheney's command. He may
have even suggested the broad terms of the surge
to Bush. But the Bush administration had no
trouble trapping him in his own insecurities in
one more operetta starring loads of "collateral
damage".
In essence, Maliki and his
helpless, corrupt government - whose only role is
to enforce imperial US edicts in Iraq - will be
blamed by the Bush administration for failing to
help the Pentagon occupy and "pacify" the country
with minimum hassle. He doesn't even control the
Green Zone: the US does. Baghdad's neighborhoods
are controlled either by the muqawama or by
Shi'ite militias. The ministries of Defense and
Interior are infested with death squads. Basra is
being slowly ethnic-cleansed: Sunnis were 40% in
2003; now they are less than 14%.
The
Shi'ite south is basically controlled by the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq. In the Sunni belt, the Americans sort of
"control" the day, and the muqawama and
al-Qaeda in Iraq control the night and the
countryside.
Maliki will be the fall guy
and a new Washington/Green Zone-engineered
"coalition", led by perennial favorite Allawi,
will usurp his power in Parliament. This
coup-in-the-making has been rumored in Baghdad for
months. At least this is how the ideal Bush
administration scenario develops.
From a
Bush administration point of view Allawi's
legitimacy is a minor issue - as most Iraqi
members of Parliament would rather legislate by
remote control from London anyway. In real life
the masses, Sunni or Shi'ite, despise them and
totally ignore them. The really popular leaders in
Iraq are, religiously, Grand Ayatollah Sistani
and, politically, Muqtada al-Sadr - whose reach
also includes a great deal of moderate Sunnis.
Sadrism, apart from the excesses of a
minority, is in essence a nationalist liberation
movement. Thus, for axis-of-evil cheerleaders,
inevitably it is as dangerous as Hamas or
Hezbollah.
Maliki, the fall guy, is
already irrelevant. Any analysis of US imperial
designs since the CIA-engineered coup against
prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran more
than half a century ago reveals the same pattern.
If you want divide-and-rule and total domination,
who's your man? A clever, charismatic nationalist
or a ruthless CIA asset?
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