It’s Over

He has decided to abandon the collapsing edifice of the CPA before it buries him.

No doubt he is already imagining the day when he can shed those clumping black army boots and walk out his door without worrying about getting blown to pieces.

Apparently some people in Washington feel the same way。

The recent Newsweek article Pencil It In (Michael Hirsh, Newsweek on-line edition, 2/14/04) is a textbook example of the spoon-fed “insider”story, replete with juicy quotes from unnamed “senior administration sources” pushing a particular agenda.

It repeatedly invokes straw man Jerry Bremer as the poster boy for a cut and run strategy that some important people clearly believe is now ready for prime time:

Ah, I get it: our credibility is soooooooooo important.

Translation: as Lou Costello used to say, “Get me outta heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!”

The authenticity and authorship of the alleged “Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi” memo detailing al Qaeda strategy for Iraq may be open to question, as is the issue of whether Osama bin Laden actually reads 17 page stemwinders from hyperventilating jihadists instead of Field and Stream during his weekly dialysis session.

But there is no question that the fortuitous capture of the CD, and its extensive airing in the western media at this suspiciously timely juncture, is a major element in promoting the agenda of a U.S. faction seeking immediate disengagement from Iraq.

As reported in Newsweek, Bremer has accepted the conclusion of the mysterious memo that the insurgency will falter (current evidence notwithstanding) once it is deprived of American soldiers to blow up:

It also looks like George Jr.’s public insistence on the “unalterable” June 30 transition has had the presumably unintended effect of rendering the CPA obsolete and irrelevant in the minds of the Iraqis and the IGC.

Any effort to prolong CPA rule beyond the June 30 date would simply make it the focus of increased Iraqi resentment and derision.

And Jerry Bremer is clearly unwilling to make the effort.

Instead, the article describes the heroic labors of our man in Baghdad to Astroturf the issue by “organizing town hall meetings and caucuses to create a groundswell of Iraqi support for transferring sovereignty”. (Hirsh ibid)

Bremer is not alone in his desire to cut and run from Iraq.

In the words of a Bush official of the “we’re outta here” camp: “The Bremer-Brahimi-Sistani axis will beat the day…We ain’t changing the date.” (Hirsh, ibid)

Wait a minute.

Who believes that inside the Beltway this fearsome trio — a floundering administrator, a UN weenie, and a turban-wearing septuagenarian cloistered in Najaf — is going to bring Dick Cheney, the neocons, and Condi Rice to their knees?

The Bremer-led “axis of exit” carries as much weight in Bush’s Washington as the Dixie Chicks.

I can think of only one guy with the arrogance, power, ruthless indifference, and incentive to orchestrate a stampede out of Iraq — and announce it in the press as a fait accompli.

And that’s Jerry Bremer‘s boss, Donald Rumsfeld.

Dumpin’ Donny smells an opportunity in Iraq.

The CPA is not the only lame duck around.

The other is Colin Powell.

What better way to wring the last ounce of value out of Colin before he retires than by dumping the Iraq turd in his lap just as he tries to escape to private life with his dignity if not his credibility intact?

Especially since Powell would otherwise escape punishment for tarnishing the neocon’s military triumph with his disastrous attempt to apply an old-fashioned sheen of evidence, legality, and multi-lateral consensus to Rumsfeld’s defiantly unilateral war of choice.

This reported exchange must have put a chill in Powell’s heart:

In case Rumsfeld needs reminding who works for him (in the unlikely event he was not just sadistically and pointedly yanking Colin Powell‘s chain), Condi Rice clarified the matter and shrugged off her responsibility for Iraq when she unenthusiastically donned the hat of “coordinator” for Iraq policy in October:

Iraq sovereignty must be pushed into the corrupt, inept, and overmatched hands of the IGC on June 30, give or take a few days, no matter what.

And into the hands of Ayatollah Sistani, who precipitated the whole crisis by insisting on direct elections — and putting tens of thousands of supporters into the streets in Baghdad and Basra to back him up.

Now that the United States’ cut and run strategy has borne fruit, Sistani and the U.N. have a free hand to decide how to run the direct elections that will confirm Sh’ia dominance, and stampede the IGC in that direction.

IGC opportunists, led by Ahmed Chalabi, have already signaled their support for Sistani — and their hope for continued employment after June 30.

The only question that remains is how much mischief will the Pentagon continue to wreak through its proxies after the US civil administration in Iraq evaporates.

The Pentagon covets access to four bases in Iraq: Baghdad International Airport, H-1 in western Iraq, Tallil near An Nasriyah in the south, and Bashur in the Kurdish north. (Shanker and Schmitt With Iraqi Bases, A Strategic Shift International Herald Tribune, April 21, 2003)

If all goes according to plan, American troops will hunker down in their bases as “invited guests” of the new regime while the Iraq security forces, Sunni insurrectionists, visiting jihadists, and the US-financed death squads that Dick Cheney has apparently decided to throw into the mix have at it.

But events in Iraq have a way of not going to plan.

The Shi’ite majority, smarting from decades of oppression and humiliation, is unlikely to bend its knee to the US military after it achieves political power, as it has been forced to in the past to the Sunni elites or the IGC junta.

A surge of nationalism could overwhelm the pro-US forces and risk the formal, legal repudiation of the US military presence, if not the destruction of the lapdog IGC even in its supersized, newly improved and legitimate! reincarnation.

This situation makes US enthusiasm for true disengagement from Iraqi politics highly suspect.

Does the United States want to see a proud, united Iraqi people redeem itself and reclaim its future by standing up to the current gang of political hacks with a call for national self-determination free of foreign troops and influence?

Or will the Pentagon decide that a well-financed campaign of subversion, polarization, and possibly promotion of political violence through the interim government are needed to strangle Iraqi democracy in its cradle?

Sadly, this is probably the best that the Pentagon is hoping for.

I’m afraid we won’t have the patience, foresight, or real (as opposed to pretended) sympathy for the Iraqi people and their future to allow true democracy in Iraq.

Donald Rumsfeld can cut his losses in Iraq and hope that a new Bush administration, another manufactured crisis, and the short memory of the American people give him a new license to rampage through the Middle East in a year or two.

Until then, for the sake of our military posture in the Middle East, why not keep the Iraq pot boiling a few months longer

The U.S. may openly threaten the partition of Iraq by stating it will take its military business to the hospitable Kurdish north unless Iraq acquiesces to the U.S. military presence.

The fragile, emerging national consensus may be undermined by U.S. open indifference or veiled hostility and dissolve into civil war.

A new strong man may arise out of the violence to perpetuate and exacerbate the divisions inside Iraq and ensure that Iraqi unity does not threaten America’s right and ability to use Iraq as the base for its military pre-eminence in the Gulf.

Perhaps Iraq is fated for another U.S.-supported dictator who will tell the Iraqis they will have to swallow their desire for self-determination, honor, and dignity one more time as a great power and a violent clique use their nation as a means to a greater end.

America‘s adventure as Iraq’s occupier is over. But for Iraqis, it looks like another chapter in their decades’ long history of suffering is now beginning.