Defeated in Iraq?

Look for it at the pawn shops, the homeless shelters, and the growing number
of empty sub-divisions

By Mike Whitney

30/07/08 "ICH" -- - The United States did not invade Iraq to "stop the
violence". That was never the goal. So, it's foolish to say that the surge
achieved its objective. It hasn't. Nor has the surge "created the space for
a political solution"; another meaningless slogan regurgitated endlessly by
the Bush troupe. The political agenda in Iraq has failed utterly. We know
that because the Shiite-led government has asked the US to leave "as soon as
possible" and for the Bush administration to set a "timetable for
withdrawal". Not a "time horizon" as the administration-spinmiesters like to
say; a Timetable, which means a fixed time when the United States must
leave. So, if the Iraqi government has asked the US to leave; where is the
"political solution" the surge was supposed to create? There isn't one. The
mission has failed; it's as plain as day. This is not an arguable point.

What the surge really proves is that ethnic cleansing works. Baghdad was a
city of roughly 65%% Sunnis. Now it is nearly 75%% Shiites. Most of the
million or so Iraqis who have been killed in the conflict, and most of the 4
million who are either internally displaced or have become refugees, are
probably Sunnis. This is an important point and one that Americans should
understand. The surge was created to disguise what was really taking place
on the ground; ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. No one disputes this.
The Sunnis have been effectively purged from the capital. That's not a
"political solution". It is a war crime.

More important, the United States military has helped the Shiites win their
war against the Sunnis. The Shiites control Baghdad now; the Sunnis will
never get it back. That is why they are moving on to the next phase of their
strategy, which is to demand that the foreign troops leave. So, at least in
one respect the surge has worked; it has helped the Shiites and their allies
in Tehran win the war. Bush has helped to strengthen Ahmadinejad. Was that
the objective?

The Shiites have no experience running the government. That's always been
the Sunnis role dating back hundreds of years. That does not mean they are
incapable of leadership, it simply means that the Bush administration
decided to break with traditional imperial policy to pursue their colonial
ambitions. Normally, imperial powers choose to remove just a few hundred of
the top political leaders and leave the existing system in place so the
society keeps functioning with as little disruption as possible.

Not Bush. Bush chose to raze the country to the ground; rip-apart the social
fabric, destroy the critical infrastructure, and spread chaos far and wide.
Now, as author Nir Rosen says, "Iraq no longer exists". By conceding control
of the government to the Shiites, Bush has not established democracy, but
anarchy and sectarian hatred. The idea of creating a "Shiite Crescent" in
the Middle East is part of a wacky theory cooked up in a Washington
think-tank. Imagine if the Russians invaded the United States and decided
that the quickest path to political stability was to wipe out the
government, disband the bureaucracy, and appoint inexperienced people from
the poorer sections of the inner-cities and barrios to run the country. This
is the level of stupidity in the Bush administration. The strategy has cost
the lives of over a million Iraqis. That's a high price for stupidity.

There was never the slightest chance that the US would succeed in
establishing strategic outposts in the heart of the Arab world. It was
doomed from the get-go. The Bush administration points to the temporary lull
in the violence as a sign of progress, but they are mistaken. They're using
the wrong yardstick. The Iraqi resistance has achieved what every guerrilla
army hopes to achieve; they have undermined their enemy's ability to wage
war. The US is facing growing resistance to its imperial policies around the
world, but it can't address those problems because its army is tied down in
Iraq. This is quickly becoming one of the main areas of disagreement in the
2008 political campaign. The world is drifting away from the United States
and it isn't coming back whether Obama or McCain are elected. The superpower
model of global government is on its way out.

The real way to measure success or failure in Iraq is to look at the US
fiscal budget which has suddenly skyrocketed to nearly $500 billion. This is
mainly due to the exorbitant costs of prosecuting an open-ended conflict in
the Middle East. The American consumer is not confused by the surge
rhetoric; he knows we are losing. He's not blind. He sees evidence of defeat
every time he pulls up to a gas-pump. Tell me: Is $4 dollar per gallon gas a
sign of victory or defeat? This isn't rocket science.

Once again, the individual battles and skirmishes in Iraq are meaningless;
what matters is that America's ability to wage war has been greatly
undermined. By the end of 2009, the troops will begin to withdraw or they
will be left to fight with sling-shots and bows-and-arrows. The housing
market is collapsing, the financial system is in meltdown phase, and the
country is facing the greatest funding crisis in its 230 year history. Don't
look for proof of America's defeat in Iraq. Look for it at home. Look for it
at the pawn shops, the homeless shelters, and the growing number of empty
sub-divisions which have turned into ghost towns. This is where one can see
the true costs of the war; a war that was lost before the first bomb was
dropped.