Indecent Interval

If they force us to examine the assumptions behind them.

That’s why calling the conflict in Iraq a civil war — as the White House still stubbornly refuses to — is important.

Iraq was America’s war.

Until now.

By emerging pundit consensus, NBC network fiat, and Colin Powell’s stamp of approval, the conflict is now a civil war.

Not US vs. Sunni insurgents and US vs. Shi’ite militias.

It’s Sunni vs. Shi’ite with the US occupying an uncomfortable and untenable place, sometimes on the sidelines, sometimes in the middle, but without control of events or influence over the underlying dynamic of the conflict.

In fact, instead of acting as the controlling force, we look more like an aggravating factor, with the unpopularity and brutality of the occupation justifying a lowered threshold of violence that Iraqis might otherwise be loathe to cross.

In occupations, benevolent or otherwise, the occupying power has the military and political clout to suppress an insurrection and impose its priorities on the occupied country.

This has always been the preferred posture of our Decider-in-Chief and the Pentagon. Even after we milked the sovereignty transfer for all the political benefits it could deliver, the Iraqi armed forces still remained under coalition control, giving Iraq the unique and dubious privilege of occupying itself.

No wonder Maliki is agitating for control over his own forces, at least. He probably also wishes that he had some command and control over US ground forces, let alone the titanic air power resources we hurl against Iraq every day.

Because in a civil war, the guy who happens to occupy the capital doesn’t have national legitimacy. He doesn’t need Uncle Sam patting him on the back, making him look like a puppet instead of a leader. He needs guns, bombs, and the freedom to use them when and where they’ll do him the most good.

In a civil war, an alien garrison, regardless of size, is simply a plaything of greater, more destructive, and elemental forces. Like the twin struggles for power and survival of entire peoples.

In a civil war, we choose sides, take a secondary role and hope our side wins. And if our side wins, we hope it will be sufficiently grateful and beholden to us to respect and advance our interests.

President Bush still refuses to consider the civil war scenario, because he can’t accept a situation in which America’s stated objectives for the Middle East of democratization, transformation, and American hegemony, the lives and money expended on these objectives and, perhaps to him most importantly, his pretensions to leadership and importance evaporate in a sordid, brutal, and unambiguously internal affair: civil war between Shi’a and Sunni.

George W. Bush isn’t going to receive the history’s thanks for turning the world upside down for four years to achieve nothing more than a bloody cockfight between two desperate and reprehensible factions.

What makes President Bush’s scuttling around the world so desperate and contemptible is the perception that it is nothing more than an eleventh-hour attempt to salve his ego and find a way — any way — to avoid the humiliation of returning to Washington and accepting a disengagement plan based on acceptance of the fact that any American gains in Iraq are so transitory and fragile that they are not worth trying to preserve.

So the desperate flailing continues, primarily for an Iraqi savior who will restore a veneer of national unity to the government and somehow force the narrative away from civil war into “central government vs. insurgents”, “freedom vs. extremism”, “America vs. Islamofascism”, and of course “Bush vs. terrorism”.

There’s talk of pushing aside Maliki in favor of a SCIRI-backed PM, presumably with the muscle to control the Shi’a militias. There’s even talk, God help us, of putting Baath retread Sunni generals in charge of a “government of national salvation”. Other than covering Baghdad with gasoline and throwing a match on it, I can’t think of a worse idea.

It looks like civil war is pretty much in the cards for Iraq, no matter what new and improved strongman we put into power.

And that makes George W. Bush’s self-centered push for victory — even if it only lasts until the new Congress is installed, the hearings and subpoenas start to fly, and the curtain is run down on the most ignominious presidency of the last century (yes, Harding, you’re off the hook!) - so indecent.

Every day that delays the withdrawal of American troops and every unnecessary death is another black mark against Bush.

I suspect that the armed forces see the forthcoming train wreck and have completely lost interest in Boy Leader’s efforts to salvage a defendable legacy from the Iraq debacle When the army leaks a report that we’ve lost the whole of Anbar province and it’s time to pull back to defend the capital, it looks like the distinctions between “redeployment”, “retreat”, “withdrawal”, and “pellmell flight to the exits” have lost their meaning for our generals:

A recent assessment by the top Marine intelligence officer in Anbar concluded that without a massive increase in U.S. forces, the insurgency in Anbar could not be defeated militarily, a bleak assessment shared by top military commanders.

Under the plan now being considered by Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace, U.S. forces would turn Anbar province over to Iraqi forces.

A senior military official told ABC News, "If we are are not going to do a better job doing what we are doing out there, what's the point of having them out there?"

The U.S. general in charge of the region, John Abizaid, told Congress: "Al-Anbar province is critical, but, more critical than al-Anbar province is Baghdad. Baghdad's the main military effort."

Events in Iraq might develop so quickly that they put paid to the efforts of that loathsome opportunist John McCain and his unctuous sidekick Joe Lieberman to profit politically from the situation.

It looked like McCain wanted to stake his 2008 presidential campaign on the position that he wanted to send more troops to save Iraq but those pathetic peacenik Democrats wouldn’t let him.

But if the civil war narrative takes hold firmly enough, McCain’s stratagem will be revealed as empty braggadocio and a wretched ploy to seek political advantage not only by prolonging the conflict but also putting even more American lives at risk.

Then pundits can expatiate on the futility of trying to secure geopolitical gains in the middle of civil strife and, more importantly, debate the diplomatic and military steps needed to attain the only important, achievable goal for America today — the swift and successful extraction of our forces from Iraq.

Once that is accomplished, America will have the luxury of sifting truth from lies, assigning blame and punishment where it is deserved — and discovering how long the indecent interval really was between White House awareness of failure and its belated acknowledgement..

copyright 2006 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.