Iraq - that didn't take long

[Binn Beal]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16256830

I think I said earlier that the Iraqi 'government' established by the US would last a week after the US withdrawal; I was wrong.

Arrest warrant for Iraq Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi
The arrest is based on confessions extracted from 'alleged terrorists' of links to the vice-president.

The upheaval comes the day after US troops withdrew from Iraq.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Roll-up, roll-up, get your fresh new warlords here .... dime a dozen, get 'em while they are hot...

[Baron von Biffo]

Quisling regimes don't enjoy longevity once their sponsor leaves.

[Holly]

What a sorry mess the Americans and English caused to Iraq.
We aint seen nothing yet.

[C. Flower]

I wish Iraq a slice of Arab spring and a new national secular government and new constitution for a New Year present.

Perhaps they might vote for some equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood, or Fianna Fail or whatever, but let them have their own choice, not based on a walled sectarian political system imposed on them from outside.

[Kev Bar]

Quisling regimes don't enjoy longevity once their sponsor leaves.

I don't think the quisling perspective is the pertinent one here.

Basically we have sectarian shapes being thrown in a power play of Neo Con/Israeli design.

The ambition was never to have a new secular Iraqi democracy with McDs, malls and a fondness of Israel.

The demobilisation and de-Baathification were not, as they been portrayed, acts of imperial hubris but of machiavellian recklessness.

The aim was to neutralise the threat to Israel and to the Neo Con West posed by a unified Iraq.

What they wanted as they outlined in position papers in the 90s was a dismembered Iraq - a state reduced to Sunni Shiite and Kurd entities wasting their energies on internecine strife.

Unleash chaos and watch a country devour itself.


So it is a case of Mission Accomplished.


However the construction of chaos is always a crude process.

And perhaps the inadvertent ceding of victory to Iran through the dominance of Iraqi Shiites was not foreseen.

But there again I would imagine it must have been taken into account.

Iran, however, could not be dealt with as long as it had the US army as a quasi hostage in Iraq.

The war had shown the vulnerability of the US when active insurgencies broke out on two fronts, when the Shiites also turned their hand at rebellion.

So the Israeli/Neo Con ambitions re Iran were thwarted by US presence in Iraq.

It is no coincidence that the bellicose moves against Iran came as the US pulled out of Iraq.

Put simply, Israel/Neo Con had successfully neutered one of the two main regional threats and we are now seeing the campaign to neutralise the second.

The situation is way more complex that the simple quisling narrative would imply.

[C. Flower]

I don't think the quisling perspective is the pertinent one here.

Basically we have sectarian shapes being thrown in a power play of Neo Con/Israeli design.

The ambition was never to have a new secular Iraqi democracy with McDs, malls and a fondness of Israel.

The demobilisation and de-Baathification were not, as they been portrayed, acts of imperial hubris but of machiavellian recklessness.

The aim was to neutralise the threat to Israel and to the Neo Con West posed by a unified Iraq.

What they wanted as they outlined in position papers in the 90s was a dismembered Iraq - a state reduced to Sunni Shiite and Kurd entities wasting their energies on internecine strife.

Unleash chaos and watch a country devour itself.


So it is a case of Mission Accomplished.


However the construction of chaos is always a crude process.

And perhaps the inadvertent ceding of victory to Iran through the dominance of Iraqi Shiites was not foreseen.

But there again I would imagine it must have been taken into account.

Iran, however, could not be dealt with as long as it had the US army as a quasi hostage in Iraq.

The war had shown the vulnerability of the US when active insurgencies broke out on two fronts, when the Shiites also turned their hand at rebellion.

So the Israeli/Neo Con ambitions re Iran were thwarted by US presence in Iraq.

It is no coincidence that the bellicose moves against Iran came as the US pulled out of Iraq.

Put simply, Israel/Neo Con had successfully neutered one of the two main regional threats and we are now seeing the campaign to neutralise the second.

The situation is way more complex that the simple quisling narrative would imply.

Very much as I'd see it. The oil is important, but not in the straightforward smash and grab way sometimes suggested - there is a broad plan to break up, balkanise and weaken larger states.

The strategy has been applied in Europe in the past and Africa is "coming shortly."

[Count Bobulescu]

Nouri al-Maliki and democracy probably shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/nuri-kamal-al-maliki-strong-man-20111013

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was once the great hope for democracy. Today, he looks more like Saddam-lite as the Iraqi government heads towards a dictatorship.
Yet politically, the arrow points sharply in the other direction. Government power—carefully distributed in the 2005 constitution—is consolidating in the hands of the prime minister. Maliki has refused to appoint either a permanent Defense minister or an Interior minister, keeping Iraq’s U.S.-trained armed forces and intelligence services under his sole control. He has also taken direct command of the ostensibly neutral 150,000 Iraqi troops stationed in Baghdad, using them to arrest rival politicians, human-rights activists, and journalists. More articles here.
http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/iraq-baghdad-war-united-states-military-nouri-maliki

[Kev Bar]

Very much as I'd see it. The oil is important, but not in the straightforward smash and grab way sometimes suggested - there is a broad plan to break up, balkanise and weaken larger states.

The strategy has been applied in Europe in the past and Africa is "coming shortly."

In their book, the Israel lobby, they put forward a good thesis that oil was very much the ugly sister in a narrow agenda, one that counter-productive to US geo political interests, that basically saw the security of Israel and a Judeo/Christian ideology as a paramount.
Although boogey men conforming to that the standard narrative structures - Dick Cheney is behind you - there also seems to be a core of trippers whose cogs do not seem to be oiled by filthy lucre.
And they are as dangerous, if not more so, than the villains we love to hate.

[Count Bobulescu]

Remember how long it took them to form a government after the Iraqi people first voted in 2005, 14 months. Then it took until November to form a government after the March 2010 elections. These two governments had to work with the US occupying force but could in no way be described as US client states as others have implied. They were voted in by the Iraqi people. When the opportunity to kick the US out came, they grabbed it enthusiastically, as is their right. In the 2005 election there were about 7,000 candidates for 250 seats in Parliament, now up to 300. So, there were 6,750 unhappy candidates, and 250 happy ones. That’s a tough row to hoe.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/maliki-tells-kurdistan-to-hand-over-iraqi-vp-hashimi/2011/12/21/gIQA5z4w8O_story.html?hpid=z2


Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded Wednesday that Kurdish officials hand over Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi to face criminal charges, and threatened to purge Iraq’s fragile coalition government of politicians who refuse to work with him.
He said that the county’s constitution gives him broad authority and latitude to run Iraq as he sees fit.
In a sign that Iraq’s political crisis (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-iraq-sense-of-relief-is-chilled-by-political-crisis/2011/12/18/gIQAJrl82O_story.html) is worsening, Maliki struck a defiant tone against political opponents who have boycotted parliament (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-iraq-sense-of-relief-is-chilled-by-political-crisis/2011/12/18/gIQAJrl82O_story.html) and are accusing him of rushing to consolidate power in the wake of U.S. troops leaving the country.

[TotalMayhem]

At least 63 people were killed and some 185 were wounded in a spate of bomb attacks across Iraqi capital Baghdad Thursday morning.

[C. Flower]

200 people were killed in bombings and shootings in Iraq in the last month, and the GFA-style sectarian Government is in crisis again.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/22-die-in-iraq-blasts-and-shootings-557155.html

[Binn Beal]

The solution in Iraq has been achieved - perpetual civil unrest, sectarian bombings and no possibility of a united government with the oil flowing through western companies.

Iran next.

[Kev Bar]

The solution in Iraq has been achieved - perpetual civil unrest, sectarian bombings and no possibility of a united government with the oil flowing through western companies.

Iran next.


It can however be a tricky business ensuring the conflict does not play havoc with the oil flow.

[C. Flower]

It can however be a tricky business ensuring the conflict does not play havoc with the oil flow.

Au contraire - it is this kind of low level conflict that provides ideal conditions for the flow of oil.

[Binn Beal]

With the success in Iraq and Libya and Yemen the oil importing countries must be salivating at the prospect of a good sectarian or tribal conflict in Iran.

It is interesting that the western democracies' least-favoured form of government is democracy. The feudal autocracies are all acceptable and supported with military and policing equipment, special forces and dirty wars.