Best Article on Iraq in a Long, LONG Time

[Mike Ellis]

Courtesy of American Conservative magazine.

Highly recommended reading.

Freedomland

Freedomland

Petraeus and Crocker pretend Iraq is a state. Everyone goes along.
by William S. Lind

In the second week in April, the world’s most elaborate kabuki theater, Washington, offered a stunning performance. America’s two consuls for Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan C. Crocker, gave Congress and the world their appreciation of the situation in that unhappy country. Senators and congressmen listened with rapt attention. The three presidential candidates, aka the three blind mice, postured and preened in the great men’s presence. The press hung on every word. Analysts and columnists parsed their meaning.

As with theater, none of it was real.

Both Crocker and Petraeus spoke of Iraq as if it were a state. Crocker referred to “The passage of the 2008 [Iraqi] budget, with record amounts for capital expenditures, [which] ensures that the federal and provincial governments will have the resources for public spending.” He spoke of “the development of Iraq’s Council of Representatives as a national institution.” He cautioned that “there is still very much to be done to bring full government control to the streets of Basra.” In a similar vein, General Petraeus repeatedly referred to Iraqi Security Forces, noting, “An increasingly robust Iraqi-run training base enabled the Iraqi Security Forces to grow by over 3,000 soldiers and police over the past 16 months.” He assured Congress, “Iraq’s security ministries are steadily improving their ability to execute their budgets.”

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The defining reality in Iraq is that there is no state. Because there is no state in Iraq, there is also no government. Orders issued in Baghdad have no impact because there are no state institutions to carry them out. Government institutions such as parliament and positions such as cabinet minister have no substance. Power comes from having a relationship with a militia, not a government office. The “Iraqi Security Forces” are groups of Shi’ite militias, which exist to fight other militias. They take orders from militia leaders, not the government. Government revenues are slush funds for militia leaders to pay their militiamen. The whole edifice Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus described exists only as a figment of the Bush administration’s imagination.

Those who have ears, let them hear. If the main reason for the problems in Iraq is Iran, what does the United States need to do? The lead editorial in the Washington Post on the Sunday following the consuls’ testimony answered the question: “It nevertheless is inevitable that Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon will have to be countered in part by military force…”

And so the illusion of a state in Iraq will have to be buttressed with another war to excise the devil that stands between America and “victory.” The price of war with Iran could well include the army we now have in Iraq.

What should we do? First, we must understand what “winning” in Iraq means. It does not mean that Iraq becomes an American satellite. That remains the goal of the Bush administration and the neocons, but it is not and never was attainable.

Winning in Iraq simply means that a state re-emerges there. The rise of a new state in Iraq means defeat for al-Qaeda and other non-state entities, who are our real enemies. States don’t like competition, and real states do not permit non-state entities to exist on their territory (unless they are actually proxies the state plans to use against other states).

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