| Posted by Ramzy Baroud
The majority of American voters
made their voices heard loud and clear
in November when they voted out Bush's
archaic thinking, a mixture of old
imperialist ideas, bent on territorial
accumulation and strategic
positioning, notwithstanding misguided
religious beliefs.
According to the latest public
opinion polls, nearly three out of
four U.S. respondents now say they
disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq,
while confidence in his overall
leadership has fallen to record lows.
Bush is yet to learn, however, that
the United States is not Rome, and
strengths and weakness are no longer
measured alone by a nation's number of
combatants. The past three and a half
years of utter failure in Iraq should
have been the sign any rational leader
would need to change course; but few
ever argued that the president is an
icon of leadership or even-headedness;
thus the "new" Iraq
strategy.
Just one day after the leadership
of the U.S. Congress was handed over
to the victorious Democrats, after
many years of absence, Bush began to
reshuffle his war generals in a way
that is consistent with neither the
wishes of the American people nor the
majority of Congress.
Though the Iraq strategy was
scheduled to be laid out officially on
Wednesday, early signs show that the
president intends to beef up his war
efforts and perhaps prepare for a new
showdown, this time with Iran.
An early ominous sign came when
Bush signaled his intentions for a
troop surge in Iraq, with an
additional 20,000-40,000 soldiers to
bolster the 140,000 already on the
ground. Bush insists that such a
dramatic increase is temporary and
will only come about when he receives
guarantees from the current Iraqi
government - a puppet government by
any standards - that it is willing to
take charge and play its part.
Expectedly, many Democratic members
of Congress, and even some members of
Bush's own Republican Party, are
opposed to such a move. That rejection
was articulated in an open letter
released on Friday, written by the new
leaders of Congress, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid. "Adding more
combat troops will only endanger more
Americans and stretch our military to
the breaking point for no strategic
gain. And it would undermine our
efforts to get the Iraqis to take
responsibility for their own
future," Pelosi and Reid wrote.
Bush is also expected to request
US$100 billion in addition to the $75
billion already approved by last
year's Republican-led Congress, to
fund U.S. military operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan in fiscal 2007.
Disgruntled Democrats are not alone
in objecting to Bush's imprudent
proposal; the military leadership also
finds it reckless and futile.
Therefore, top army brass Generals
George Casey and John Abizaid, who are
deeply skeptical regarding increasing
troop numbers in Iraq, are on their
way to be replaced by war supporters.
General David Petraeus, a war
supporter who participated in the
March 2003 invasion of Iraq, is set to
take over from Casey as the top ground
commander.
Moreover, the president reportedly
intends to endorse William Fallon to
head U.S. Central Command. The choice
of Fallon, according to Tim Reid, The
Times of London's reporter in
Washington, as the top military
commander in the Middle East - to
replace Abizaid - came as a big
surprise to the Pentagon, for the
former is a naval officer with little
experience in that region.
But things will fall neatly in
place when one considers that Bush's
choice has more to do with Iran than
repairing the damage done in Iraq:
"Any mission against Tehran would
rely heavily on carrier-based aircraft
and missiles from the Persian
Gulf," according to The Times,
and the expertise of Fallon is most
needed in that type of military
scenario.
But boosting the number of U.S.
troops at a time when the U.S. Army
seems to be stretched to its maximum
is not an easy job, even for the
can-do president. Military analysts
suggest that Bush can only
successfully make up his force surge
by extending tours and resorting to
the reserve. Both moves will likely
increase the number of U.S. casualties
at a higher rate than the present -
keeping in mind that to date more than
3,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed
in the war - and will make the war
bill a whole lot more expensive -
about $350 billion has been spent
without even an emblematic
constructive outcome.
Most of the new troops will be
positioned in Sunni areas in Baghdad
and al-Anbar province, seen as the
heart of the resistance. Only a naive
person would argue that such a
stratagem would lead to anything other
than greater bloodshed and further
enlivening and validating the
so-called insurgents.
Although the "Sunni
insurgency" remains the prime
target of the US military in Iraq,
there is a growing realization among
U.S. officials and war generals that
the unruly Shia militias and their
death squads are a greater cause of
instability and violence.
Ironically, the rise of the Shia
militias was an early U.S. strategy
that put the many Shia factions on a
crash course with the Sunni
resistance: thus dividing and
weakening the Iraqis and lowering the
risk of American casualties.
Now that the Iraqi army and police
are composed mostly from those same
militant thugs, many Iraqis find
themselves victimized by their
supposed national army and police
force. Those who are expecting Iraqis
to "take responsibility for their
future" seem oblivious to the
fact that the future of Iraq is most
bleak under the current U.S.-devised
sectarianism where Sunnis are murdered
with impunity and Shias are blown up
in their markets.
The humiliating execution of former
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein at the
hands of masked Shia guards purporting
to be an executive arm of a legitimate
government was indeed the last
attestation that will forever
categorize the ongoing strife in Iraq
as one between Shias and Sunnis, the
former allied to invading foreigners
and the latter fighting for mere
survival.
The fact that the inner Iraqi
strife is now categorically defined
according to sectarian lines, Bush
must realize that the situation in
Iraq has reached a point of
unprecedented sensitivity, and his
macho politics and infamous
stubbornness can lead only to further
disasters. His actions this week and
expected moves to follow will lead to
a situation that neither his party nor
the Democrats with their blurred
policy outlook can repair.
Bush must immediately provide a
roadmap for withdrawal from Iraq to be
carried out in stages to allow for
synchronized, constructive regional
and international roles that will
engage the United Nations, the Arab
League and, most important, all Iraqi
social groups; otherwise, a divided
Iraq with all the ills and regional
mayhem it will bring about will remain
an inescapable last option.
* Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian
American author and editor of
PalestineChronicle.com; his latest
book is The Second Palestinian
Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s
Struggle (Pluto Press, London)
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