Welcome to Cheneyworld
Instead of the triumphant Middle Eastern Israel-loving free market democracy dreamed of by the neocons — or the emerging power acknowledging Shi’ite aspirations and Iranian regional pre-eminence that Chalabi was scheming to create…
…Iraq looks to become an embittered, divided country split along ethnic, religious, and class lines, overrun by militias and warlords, presided over by an unpopular, oppressive, and undemocratic regime — and fatally dependent on the United States.
Call it Rape of a Nation.
Dick Cheney’s brutal realist faction probably calls it “Mission Accomplished”.
With the neocons discredited, the bar for achievement in Iraq just got lower — way lower.
The new model for Iraq is not postwar Germany or Japan; not even the Philippines.
It’s our banana republic clients down Monroe-Doctrine way.
We can now adjust our standards to that of the mediocre brand of clumsy, proxy imperialism we have practiced on expendable people and disposable regimes for the last 100 years.
For inspiration, we can look to the horrific counterinsurgency and pacification campaigns we presided over in Central and South America a.k.a. if you have to rape and torture, please be sure nobody gets it on tape…and nobody walks away.
Think about that as Big Media loudly proclaims the recovery of its self respect and investigatory zeal as it eagerly snuffles after the trail of leaks dribbled out oh so clearly and enticingly by the government toward the “Iran intel scandal”…
…and the blogosphere re-enacts the role of the triumphantly vengeful mob torching the neo-con Frankenstein in its tower.
While we’re slapping ourselves on the back for nailing Chalabi and the neocons, the US government and the IGC jobbed the Iraqis out of democracy and a legitimate government.
Instead of a transitional administration establishing the foundation for a strong nation eager to control its oil revenues and assert its independence, Iraqis get the hollow regime of Prime Minister, CIA/MI6 asset, and IGC hack Allawi.
Blessed with a $3 billion dowry from Cheney to reconstitute the Mukhabarat, but too marginal a figure to rule without the backup of our 100,000+ troops, Allawi is ready to play the tedious old role of client on our behalf.
Call him Saddam Lite — without the independence, impudence, megalomania, or iron-fisted control.
Inside Iraq, the neocon dream of neutralizing the militias we hadn’t been able to co-opt on behalf of soon to be self-sufficient Iraqi government died with the U.S. withdrawals from Fallujah and Najaf.
And the democratic political forces that the fall of Saddam awakened — and were expected to shape a new Iraqi society — have been overmatched by the old despotic calculus of money, muscle, and division.
The UN played no meaningful role in the frantic farce that culminated with the IGC appointing itself as the popular and effective regime that would replace — the despised and illegitimate IGC.
The big loser — aside from Chalabi, or course — is Sistani and the nascent nationalistic Shi’ite political movement he represented.
A few months ago it looked like Sistani had complete mastery of the political situation. He short-circuited Bremer’s plans for elections “whenever” and got the UN called in to play the role of political broker for the transition.
At that time I would have thought the best exit strategy for America would have been to hand the palace keys to Sistani and head for the helicopters.
Maybe Chalabi thought so too, and he tried to establish his rule on the tripod of U.S. blood and iron, Sistani-endorsed Shi’ite support, and Iranian friendship.
But Chalabi tilted too far and too fast toward Iran. When the US pulled the plug on him, it looks like Sistani’s channel to the Americans and the transition process turned into a tube to oblivion.
I wonder if Sistani was caught just as wrong-footed as the neocons by Chalabi’s fall.
The most important collateral damage of Ahmed’s disgrace and the subsequent US-orchestrated IGC “coup from within” may be the decreased relevance and effectiveness of Sistani, and all political movements inside Iraq.
Instead of pushing the moderate Shi’ite agenda and supporting Brahimi’s plan for supplanting the IGC with a caretaker government of neutral technocrats, Sistani got sidetracked in the US campaign against Muqtada al-Sadr.
Sistani couldn’t bring himself either to embrace or destroy al-Sadr. As a result, instead of presiding over a united and vibrant Shi ite movement, he’s competing for the attention and loyalty of a people divided between himself, al Sadr, and Allawi.
If and when Allawi decides either to postpone or manipulate the elections, Sistani’s will simply be one, diminished voice among many.
The US will face the awkward fact that, according to international law, occupiers cannot simply unilaterally bestow sovereignty on some hapless, illegitimate group of locals and escape responsibility for supplying security in the country whose social and political systems they have shattered.
But I suppose with the help of the UN, this too can be finessed, and we will be able to enter what I called Bush’s nirvana in Iraq — opportunity without responsibility.
Condileezza Rice, our AWOL donna of the Iraq Stabilization Group, whose job is to enable and obey instead of taking responsibility, unwittingly hit the nail on the head when she declared of the new gang:
“They are not American puppets.”
Indeed not. Puppets require continual, positive, and effective control — skills that simply aren’t in the tool kit of this administration.
The new government in Iraq is run by our stooges.
Stooges are there to be bossed around, bullied, ignored, misled, repudiated, assassinated, and exiled when it suits the fitful attention and short term interests of their neglectful absentee masters.
Our troops will withdraw to their bases and emerge only when it suits them — and if Allawi shows himself worthy of American force being exerted on his behalf.
If our client gets carried away with economic or political nationalism, well, with 14 permanent bases inside Iraq, the Noriega treatment is just a phone call away.
We’ll get a degraded satrapy, propped up with 130,000 troops, led by opportunists who prefer the well-compensated disgrace of serving a despoiling power to the dangers of national independence.
A place where democracy is disdained and state violence is abhorred only if it is uncertainly and incompetently applied.
A country where there is power and wealth worth killing for…
…but nothing worth dying for.
Just like Dick Cheney’s America.
Welcome to Cheneyworld.
Copyright 2004 Peter Lee
Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.
