American Maneuvers To Remain in Iraq

At a time of continuing quarrels between Washington and Baghdad over the issue of American forces remaining in Iraq beyond their decreed departure at the end of this calendar year, a rising number of voices within the U.S. are demanding a total and complete withdrawal from the Land of the Two Rivers, especially as the evil empire suffers from a monetary crisis caused in part by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the global expansion of the American military.

Under the title “Leave Iraq to the Iraqis,” the prominent American scholar Doug Bandow wrote about these demands for withdrawal in The National Interest: “… Washington policymakers do insist on maintaining a military presence wherever and whenever possible, irrespective of America’s defense needs … The Obama administration’s attempt to pressure the Iraqi government into ‘inviting’ the U.S. to remain is almost comical. Rather than requiring Baghdad to demonstrate why a continuing American presence is necessary, U.S. officials have been begging to stay.”

Robert Gates, the previous U.S. secretary of defense, hoped the Iraqis would find a reason to ask the American forces to stay. Now his successor, Leon Panetta, reiterating the Obama administration’s willingness to modify its timetable for withdrawal, has come imploring the Iraqi government, saying: “… Damn it, make a decision!” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if the Iraqi government were to ask her country to stay, the spirit of responsibility would require her to pay attention.

According to an agreement arrived upon in 2008 through negotiations between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, the withdrawal of all American soldiers — a total numbering 48,000 — is mandated by the end of this year.

Regardless of the Iraqi government’s consent that American troops delay their departure, Washington continues to work toward guaranteeing itself any available sort of ongoing military role in Mesopotamia. To this end, the U.S. has attempted to limit the powers of the Iraqi military, leaving them without naval and air forces, unable to protect their own borders, and thus ensuring Washington’s control over Iraqi airspace.

Beyond that, the American administration still seeks to associate security with the lengthening of their occupation. Whenever they are able to prove that Iraq is unstable, they are able to justify remaining in the country for a longer time. Hence the American occupiers were careful to keep the Iraqi security forces weak — poorly trained and poorly armed — to the point where the Iraqi government was forced to present a formal request to maintain a troop presence beyond the agreed-upon schedule for their withdrawal at the end of this year.

The U.S. presence in Iraq is not part of the solution but part of the problem, and it is untrue that the goal of the occupation is to protect the Iraqis — the Americans have no such intention. They should understand that their armed presence elicits nothing but scorn. After eight years of occupation and 13 years of near-daily attacks — as well as economic sanctions, murder, starvation, destroyed infrastructure and the theft of their country’s riches — the Iraqi people are unable to regard the Americans as their rescuers. The full evacuation of American forces is a matter of overarching importance, a necessary initial step to setting the country on the right path toward redevelopment and toward reconciliation among its sons.

The political and military establishment in Washington is not so enthusiastic about giving up on Iraq. As Medea Benjamin, writing for OpEdNews, points out, an American withdrawal is bad for those who manufacture bombs. The longer the occupation lasts, the more weapons the Iraqi government will buy from American companies. If we add to this the fact that Iraq is a next-door neighbor to oil-rich and anti-American Iran, then we arrive at a recipe for unending occupation.

Nobody trusts American promises; the evidence for this is extensive. Despite the pledges of former American President Bill Clinton, U.S. troops stayed much longer than one year in the Balkans, a region with only limited security interests to the U.S. Now, again, the ultra-hawks in Washington are discussing the possibility of maintaining a permanent military presence in Afghanistan, a country that is, according to Bandow, very far removed from the traditional defense interests of the U.S.

From its beginning to its imminent ending, the Iraqi operation has been utterly and tragically a failure.

The U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretense of getting their hands upon the country’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. After the nonexistence of these weapons became obvious, they turned the country into a bloody graveyard, killing hundreds of thousands under the pretense of spreading democracy, while forcing millions more to flee.

The American occupation exported democracy to Iraq, but Iraq lacks the necessary culture of liberalism to allow democracy to prosper. The occupation also made Iran more powerful, while simultaneously hindering Iraq’s ability to assert control over its borders. And yet President Obama holds fast to his country’s presence in Iraq, its ongoing interference with Iraqi domestic affairs and its assumed responsibility of defending Iraq in its foreign disputes.

American democracy was exported to Iraq aboard fighter planes and bomb launchers, wreaking indiscriminate havoc, killing women and children and elders and young men, demolishing factories, ruining farms and destroying the elemental components of state institutions. The occupation did not even draw distinctions between one faction and another; all received the same treatment, and all continue to enjoy the same fate. This is the essence of American democracy.

The war criminal George Bush Jr. admitted he was mistaken to authorize the invasion and occupation of Iraq by his armed forces of democracy — ordering them to fire his weapons to mow down hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and assassinate ulama here, there and anywhere.

The democratic mission of the American occupying forces in Iraq was doubtlessly clear, explicit and concrete. Now it is incumbent upon them to withdraw from the Land of the Two Rivers, as this mission — their felonious war — has reached its conclusion in failure.