A "Victory" for Iraq, a Defeat for the US

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10/07/2009 By Yusuf Fernandez
July 10-07

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On June 30, Iraqis held numerous parties to celebrate the long-waited withdrawal of US troops from their cities, towns and villages. Although this first pullout does not mean that US troops will leave the country -which should take place at the end of 2011-, it is hopefully the first step in a long road to put an end to the hated US occupation. According to the Washington Post, the American army has shut down 150 bases and outposts since January 1. From now on, American troops being locked down in bases will avoid nonessential outings in order to reduce risks.

This joyous sentiment is unanimous in Iraq. The Iraqi government has created a new holiday to mark the end of the US occupation of the country´s urban areas. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the departure of American troops a “major victory” for Iraq.
Government television quoted the prime minister as describing the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), signed last year, as a framework for the pullout of US forces and the regulation of “their activities within the rest of the time they are here.” Maliki negotiated hard with Washington to include a firm deadline for a withdrawal of the 150,000 US troops in Iraq, something that the former administration of George W. Bush has previously rejected.

Under the pressure of the Iraqi Parliament, the Iraqi government managed to eliminate a clause in the SOFA which explicitly allowed the US to continue its presence in the country beyond the deadline of December 31, 2011 in order to “train” Iraqi forces. Another important addition to the agreement was a clause which says “Iraqi land, sea and air shall not be used as a launching or transit point for attacks against other countries.” This was seen as particularly important in order to reassure Iran and Syria that Iraq would not become a launch pad to launch an aggression against them. Iraq has already stated that it would fight militarily any Israeli attempt to violate its air space in order to attack Iran.

These achievements have permitted Maliki to burnish his Iraqi patriotic credentials in the months before the next year´s parliamentary elections. But his public distancing himself from the United States shows that he thinks that the opposition to the US presence has a strong appeal to a large majority of Iraqis.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, a large and influential Sunni group, and the Sadrist Movement have also welcomed the US withdrawal as a victory of the resistance. Many Iraqis have compared the US pullout with the rebellion against British occupation forces in 1920. For their part, the insurgent groups have promised to continue fighting against US forces until they completely leave Iraq.

Some Iraqis are, however, more skeptical. They point out that the 130,000 US troops are now headquartered in some heavily fortified bases near the Iraqi cities. Moreover, not all the US troops have left the cities. Some of them will remain in them as advisers or trainers. Moqtada al Sadr´s Movement has also stated that a military withdrawal is not sufficient and underlined the continued presence of US intelligence agencies and mercenaries (called “security contractors”) in particular. “We want a withdrawal, and not interference, on all fronts - political, social, economic, judicial, and ministerial. Not only the military front.”

However, Maliki has rejected these claims and has recalled that, according to the SOFA, the last remaining US forces will pull out of Iraq in 2011 and nothing will change that. Some Iraq analysts argue that the withdrawal of the American troops will decisively weaken US influence in Iraq. In this sense, there is no doubt that the US pullout from cities in June has the distinct taste of a end game.

Above all, the withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi cities without achieving any of the goals announced before the invasion means that the United States has failed militarily and politically in Iraq. There is no more clear evidence of this failure than the above mentioned images of thousands of happy Iraqis singing and dancing in the streets to welcome the US pullout.

These images mean a definitive blow to the neocon scheme to destroy and submit the Middle Eastern countries that were seen as hostile to the Zionist entity. US neocons -which are fundamentally Israeli agents working to promote Israel´s interests in the United States- wanted to use US military power to strike at Muslim countries beyond Israeli limited military reach. The real goal of US invasion was to destroy a large Arab country that was seen as an obstacle to Zionist plans for hegemony in the region. Other considerations, such as the Iraqi oil -which is often mentioned as the real reason for the invasion-, were actually completely secondary.

Neocons wanted to transform Iraq into an ally of the Zionist entity and a base for attacking or seeking a regime change in other Muslim states holding an independent and anti-Zionist policy, such as Syria and Iran. Finally, Israel could consolidate its hegemony in the Middle East and force its Arab adversaries to accept its dictated terms for a “peace” in the region. The destruction of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon was also a part of this scheme. Israel tried to achieve this latter goal in Lebanon in the war of July 2006 but it was defeated by Hezbollah´s fighters who humiliated the Israeli army.

At the beginning of 2004, the Iraqi insurgency had started to increase their activities and the number of casualties of the foreign occupation forces fast increased. Currently, more than 4,300 US troops have died in Iraq and more than 30,000 soldiers are wounded or maimed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have also lost their lives.

The US invasion plunged the Arab country into chaos and destroyed its infrastructure. So-called “rebuilding projects” have been a complete failure. The scandal of Abu Ghraib and widespread torture in Iraq have tainted the image of the United States in the world. These factors have also fuelled popular support for the insurgency.

The Sadrist movement launched two main rebellions against US troops in April and August 2004. Moreover, Sunni guerrillas were also fighting US foces in several provinces of the country. Therefore, the Bush administration had to forget its plans to invade other Muslim countries in order to hold its positions in Iraq. In spite of its surge, the US was unable to defeat the insurgency and it will never do so. As the Washington Post reported on June 30, “there is little talk among US commanders and diplomats of engineering a victory in the 2½ years they expect to remain here.” In this sense, the Iraqi invasion and occupation has served to probe the limits of US military power.

The war has exhausted the American economy. US war spending could overcome one trillion dollars. In this sense, the Iraq war is one of the main factors that have fuelled the current recession and increased US public deficits. Many US citizens are now paying with their money and jobs US submission to Zionist plans in the Middle East.

Some in the American Right might blame on President Barack Obama for the defeat of US Army in Iraq. However, it was the Bush Administration who signed the agreement which set the timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from the cities and villages and the total pullout of the country in 2011. Bush wanted an agreement that would have allowed an open-ended US occupation.

However, the Maliki government imposed its demands in order to force the US government to accept a complete US pullout, something that had been rejected by Bush for a long time. In Iraq, as it happened in Vietnam in the 1970s, the US had little choice but to leave.

A referendum on the security agreement is expected to be held this year or at the beginning of the next one. The agreement is likely to lose if the referendum takes place given the widespread popular rejection to this document in Iraq. Although the agreement set a timetable for the end of the American occupation in 2011, many Iraqis believe that it legitimates the US occupation until that date.

According to the latest polls, published in the Brookings Institution, 73% of Iraqis oppose the presence of US forces. If the referendum takes place, US troops may be forced out of the Arab country immediately as they would automatically lose their legal cover. The Obama Administration is doing its best to try to persuade the Iraqi government not to hold this referendum for fear of the consequences.

All this means that the Iraqi government and political parties have resisted US attempts to set up a puppet government in the country. The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance is made up by Shiite political parties with strong links with Iran. Maliki, leader of the Dawa Party, and Abdul Aziz al Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, were in exile in Iran during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s and they have also followed the thought of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini.

Iran, and not Israel, is the new friend of Iraq. The relations between the two countries have enormously developed in recent years and a large number of Iranians visit the two religious Shiite holy places of Najaf and Kerbala every year. Significantly, when the US government has often accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, Iraqi officials have denied these American claims. For instance, on June 30, the Iraqi Government Spokesman Ali Dabbaq denounced claims by the US military commanders about Iran´s interference in Iraq and underlined that there is no evidence to substantiate such interference. In this way, the far-reaching result of the Iraq war will be the expansion of Iranian influence in the region and particularly in Iraq. The Shiite majority in Iraq is expected to continue strengthening the country´s relations with its powerful neighbour.