Iraq: A New Stage

Today, June 30, 2009, marks the departure of the invading American forces from Iraqi cities in accordance with the Iraqi-American Security Agreement, or Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Today the Iraqis stand at the threshold of a new stage, not just in their history, but in the history of the whole Middle East region.

They will honor it as a day of “great victory,” not smaller in significance, according to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, than the 1920 Revolution in the face of the British invasion of Iraq. And there is a kinship bond between the two invaders in that, by establishing a new national regime, the invaders were the decision-makers.

This 30-article agreement, which went into effect at the beginning of 2009, stipulated that the American forces leave Mesopotamia – unfortunately – at the end of 2011, when they will leave behind them a poor, broken country. It had been rich in intellectual activity, but 30 years of wars and (to add insult to injury) economic sanctions and occupation exhausted it, socially and economically. This has sown the seeds of sectarian and ideological strife in Mesopotamia.

The withdrawal from Iraq will not be easier than its invasion, and vice versa, the invasion of Iraq was not easier than the withdrawal from it will be. That is, the Iraqi resistance that Vietnam-ized the war on Iraq will be avenged for the pains its people suffered. Indeed, conciliation processes are already occurring, with the release of a number of leaders who had been detained for more than two years. And thus what will happen in Iraq will not be a complete withdrawal, though the Americans will close more than 150 bases and sites in the country, 85 percent of which are command sites, with the remaining centers being transportation stations near the most active areas. It is Afghanistan, the country described as the rooftop of the world and holder of the keys to Central Asia, which is the chess board in this world.

While 35,000 American soldiers were killed and injured during the American invasion of Iraq (which was accomplished under the words the “New Middle East” and other justifications that the investigations happening now in Britain attest are lies), they did a service for the Zionist enterprise in the area— the centrifugal force displacing around 5 million Iraqis dispersed in various parts of the world after Iraq became, in accordance with the proceedings of the London Conference in December 2002, a federal state.

Legal constitutional literature in the world indicates that Iraq’s central power will not return to its stronghold until after civil war, hoping that the Iraqis can overcome this ordeal hiding behind the oil of Kirkuk and that Iraq— which sits on a third of the world’s oil reserves, estimated at 115 billion barrels (and up to 50 billion more) — will return to being a single unified master of itself and its wealth which seems to have flowed to global oil companies.

This will not hold back the desires, seen popping up here and there, of the national spirit imbued with allegiance to the foreigners who have fostered it out of necessity, given that they will remain in charge of national affairs for a decade or two. During this time between 35,000 and 50,000 American soldiers will remain as trainers or experts, according to the New York Times on June 26. In a report to the research services in Congress, these troops will establish forward operating bases in the western Iraqi desert (the Anbar province) to be used if the regime in Iraq is exposed to danger, in addition to the necessary protective forces for these bases, which reaches 20 percent of the size of these forces.