The Phony American Drawdown in Iraq

Finally the fog has cleared, and the white thread can be distinguished from the black one when it comes to the American policy in Iraq. The U.S. is not supporting Allawi against Maliki. The U.S. has no compulsion about the Iraqi government being a protégé of Iran. Such is the way the U.S. has left those who had relied upon it bewildered and at a loss as to how to proceed. The U.S. had expended immense efforts to coerce the Arabs for the sake of antagonizing Iran, but now the U.S. would not mind coming to an understanding with Iran — an unpublished “gentleman’s agreement.” Allawi now knows that there is no way for him to take the position of prime minister in the next Iraqi government. He does not have the requisite degree of political power to enable him to stand against the machinations of [extremist] Iraqi Shiites and the Iranian government. As the U.S. umbrella no longer covers Allawi, the door has been left open for him to realize that he will no longer have U.S. support in his conflict with Maliki.

Iran has high cards indeed to play against the American administration, and it is possible for Iran to play them even more effectively in the wake of the recently announced American drawdown. This is the case both in regard to Iraq and to the nuclear issue. Iran can resort to igniting fires under the feet of the American forces that remain in Iraq if it so desires, if its interests demand such and if the Americans prove inflexible [regarding Iran’s nuclear program]. [Despite the recent drawdown] it has become clear that American forces will remain in Iraq forever, according to the American blueprint discussed below. Iran deems this expression of the U.S. pledge to Iraqi security as an opportunity, as it gives Iran the ability to target American troops should a wider war break out. Iran also retains the ability to seriously threaten Israel’s security by way of Hezbollah.

The U.S. believed that the time was appropriate [for the drawdown in Iraq], having bribed Israel to refrain from picking a fight with Iran or continuing to beat the drums of war against it. While they have had to moderate their tone on Iran, the Israelis have had this made up to them politically in the context of their conflict with the Arabs. The wider Arab world has left the Palestinians exposed and coerced into unconditional direct negotiations with Israel that will produce nothing. Indeed, it is Netanyahu who is making conditions. A recent announcement of a “gentleman’s agreement” said that he would not negotiate unless the Palestinians recognized the Jewish identity of the Israeli state.

And so the price for Israeli acquiescence on Iran is paid from the pocket of the Arabs on the Palestinian question, from which account nothing now remains. But questions may remain as to the nature of the U.S. withdrawal. …

The American withdrawal is no more than an affirmation of the status quo in Iraq, the very situation that has remained throughout the period of Maliki’s rule. It does not concern the U.S. that Maliki’s government is subordinate to Iran, as long as the Iraqi government approves of the presence of American forces in Iraq. The U.S. wants Iraq to be a semi-occupied country with American bases established in perpetuity, the way that they were established in Germany and Japan in the wake of their defeat in World War II. The U.S. has undertaken a partial withdrawal from Iraq because it can maintain Iraq as a venue for undeclared sectarian warfare and the continuing presence of rejectionist sects and religious groups. The status quo in Iraq for years now, and for the foreseeable future, is a continuing chain of explosions and murder, [a requisite amount of instability that] provides a clear and present need for some American forces to remain in Iraq. The continuation of a state of perpetual warfare is considered by the U.S. to be one of its strategies in the Islamic world — the U.S. content to watch the Islamic community clip its own wings. Promoting Muslim weakness and division is more important for the U.S. than expending effort to help Allawi come to power; hence, their withdrawal is a sham [because it is not a sign that stability has come to Iraq, but rather that instability will return]. Such an approach will be responsible for provocation between and among sects as they strike one another through operations attributed to one or another sectarian group. This is all that can come from such a deceptively ill-intentioned arrangement. This week, unprecedented political losses have been recorded against the Arabs, losses that far exceed anything that they have suffered over the past 10 years or more.