United for Peace and Justice Talking Points, The Vulnerabilities of the Bush Iraq Policies

by Phyllis Bennis Institute for Policy Studies

[TO: Member Groups of United for Peace and Justice
FROM: Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, UFPJ

Below are talking points on the present crisis in Iraq,
prepared by Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy
Studies. Please share these with the members of your
group or other people who might be interested. Thanks.]

***************

Almost one year from President Bush’s announcement of
the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq, the U.S.
drive towards empire faces new and serious challenges.
One year to the day since U.S. military forces pulled
down the statue of Saddam Hussein, the front page of
the Washington Post features a photograph of another
U.S. soldier pulling down a poster of Shia’a cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr from a pillar in the same Baghdad
square. Certainly the most important challenge is seen
in the widening military confrontation now facing U.S.
troops in cities across Iraq. But there is a further
challenge internationally. The "second super-power" is
on the rise, and it now has broadened to include not
only social movements and global civil society protests
but as well a new assortment of governments prepared to
defy U.S. pressures, inter-governmental organizations
and groups (some of them newly formed, such as the
G-21). And new developments may point to a potential to
reclaim the United Nations itself as part of the global
resistance to U.S. war.

The bottom line is that it has become impossible for
the Bush administration to claim that their policies
are good for Iraqis or good for Americans. The key
weaknesses facing the administration’s policies start
with exposes - from lies regarding weapons of mass
destruction to the failure of an Iraq-obsessed White
House to take real terrorist threats seriously. The
specific vulnerabilities reflect the specific false
claims the administration has been using (some of them
now being discarded) to actually brag about the
"success" of their strategy.

"We have liberated Iraq from tyranny." What Iraqis see
outside their doors are foreign soldiers occupying
their country. Violence is escalating on a scale
unprecedented inside Iraq since the Iran-Iraq War and
the Anfal campaign of the 1980s. Many Iraqis,
particularly many women, are afraid to leave their
homes becomes of the surging violence.

"We are bringing democracy to Iraq." The so-called
"transfer of power" scheduled (though perhaps soon to
be delayed) for June 30th will not transfer power to
Iraq. The U.S. military occupation, of 110,000 + troops
will remain occupying the country under U.S., not
Iraqi, command and control. The nominal turning over of
civil authority to Iraqis will have little
significance, since there is no legitimate Iraqi
government to take charge. Authority, what U.S.
officials will falsely call "sovereignty," will likely
be passed to the current members or perhaps a slightly
enlarged version of the Iraqi Governing Council, the
U.S.-backed group of U.S.-chosen, largely exile-based,
Iraqi officials. The interim constitution that will be
the basis for that group to "rule" has no legitimacy,
having been crafted by U.S.-selected Iraqis and subject
to U.S. veto of any section unacceptable to the U.S.
pro-consul in Baghdad, J. Paul Bremer.

"Iraqis view us as liberators and support our troops
being in their country." It is becoming clear that a
wide percentage of the Iraqi population wants the U.S.
occupation to end. The apparent breadth of popular
support for the Iraqi military attack on the U.S.
occupation is undermining Bush administration claims
that only left-over Baathists, disgruntled Sunnis and
foreign terrorists are responsible for the violent
challenge to the U.S. The militia of the fiery young
Shia’a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr first initiated the
current escalation of military resistance (responding
to the provocative U.S. decisions to shut down his
newspaper). But the rapid expansion of the resistance
to include Sunni strongholds and statements of at least
tacit support from the mainstream Shia’a hierarchy
indicate a far wider level of public anger at the
occupation and at least openness to a military
resistance campaign.

"We have enough troops in Iraq and our lean-and-mean
military is capable of whatever needs to be done." In
fact the military is seriously stretched. The
announcement that 25,000 troops expecting an imminent
return home would instead be re-deployed for as much as
another year in Iraq, was met with widespread anger
among military families and active-duty personnel.
Continuing the "stop-leave" law that prohibits people
from leaving the military even when their contract is
up is likely to create new anger in the ranks and the
potential for a significant GI resistance movement.
There are reports that the highest ranks of military
staff are furious with the civilian leadership of the
Pentagon, setting the stage for serious undermining of
military capacity. The expansion of Military Families
Speak Out and other military family networks, as well
as the increasing visibility of opposition among
active-duty and reserve troops, indicates an important
new strengthening of the anti-war movement.

"We are in Iraq leading a broad international coalition
– dozens of countries are participating in the
Coalition with us." In fact, U.S. "allies" other than
Britain have never provided anything but symbolic
numbers of troops, and even that minimal level of
participation is quickly dissipating. Allies are
dropping like flies. Following the Spanish primer
minister-elect’s announced commitment to withdraw
troops, Norway and Khazakhstan announced they will pull
out as well. Bulgaria demanded military protection for
their troops, while South Korea, Bulgaria and Poland
suspended all military operations by their contingents
and pulled back to their bases. Japan announced it
would not send any additional troops. The defeat of
Jose Maria Aznar in the Spanish elections just days
after the horrific terror attack on the Madrid subways,
has provided a new model for countries around the world
whose governments backed Bush’s war against massive
public opposition. In Italy, Australia, perhaps even
the UK itself, Bush’s allies are finding their approval
ratings dropping precipitously as they struggle to
justify their unpopular - and now sometimes
deadly—decisions to deploy troops.

"The United Nations will support our transfer of power,
and UN endorsement of the new interim Iraqi government
after June 30th will pave the way for the UN to return
to Iraq." In fact, the UN so far remains reticent to
return to Iraq at all while the U.S. occupation
continues. Even if UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and
his team are able to find some way of selecting an
interim government for the U.S. to "transfer power" to,
and find Iraqi agreement on an election strategy for
that "government," it is far from clear that there will
be enough security for a significant UN team to work in
Iraq. There is certainly a danger that U.S. pressure in
the Security Council could result in a new resolution
endorsing the June 30th "transition," embracing the
U.S. occupation force as a UN-legitimized
multi-national coalition, and calling for the UN to
send in election or other staff while the U.S.
occupation remains in place. But it is more likely now,
especially in the context of the new upsurge in
violence, that the UN Secretary General will refuse to
send his people back to pay the price for scaffolding
the U.S. occupation. And more significantly, there is a
great likelihood that the Council itself will refuse
U.S. demands to endorse Washington’s war, and instead
will, as it did from September 2002 until May 2003,
place the UN on the side of the global opposition to
war. It could even make clear its intention to refuse
to go back to Iraq until the U.S. has ended its
occupation and withdrawn its forces. Such a move would
significantly strengthen international support for the
United Nations. Such a scenario may be particularly
likely given the lessons of the 2002-2003 Security
Council defiance. Despite major U.S. threats against
Chile, Mexico, Cameroon, Guinea and the others, the
"Uncommitted Six" who said ’no’ to U.S. demands to
endorse the war largely got away without punishment.
The lesson was taken up soon after in Cancun, when the
largest countries of the global South, including South
Africa, India, Brazil, Argentina and more, created the
Group of 21 to successfully challenge U.S. and European
efforts to expand the power of the World Trade
Organization.

"Our liberation of Iraq is only the first step in a
broad campaign to bring democracy to the Middle East."
Instead, the Middle East region is enraged at the
destruction brought to Iraq. Israel’s occupation of
Palestine has taken a newly brutal turn with the
assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, and the adoption
of Israeli-style tactics by U.S. troops has brought the
U.S.-Israeli links back to center stage. Television
footage from Fallujah and Ramadi looks
indistinguishable, except in degree, from similar tape
from Rafah and Jenin. The planned April 14 visit of
Ariel Sharon to the White House is likely to result in
a U.S. agreement (some of which will not be made
public) that Israel’s pull-out from Gaza will be
answered with a U.S. guarantee of Israel’s refusal to
withdraw to the 1967 borders, its annexation of major
Israeli settlement blocs inside Palestine, and its
rejection of the right of return. Governments
throughout the region, most of them long-time clients
of sequential U.S. administrations, are scrambling to
find some distance between them and their Washington
patrons to at least tamp down popular anger. The Bush
administration’s "Greater Middle East Initiative,"
ostensibly aimed at encouraging reform in the Arab
world, is in shambles. It is expected to be launched at
the G-8 Summit in Georgia in early June, but Arab
governments are already rejecting it as meddling in
internal Arab affairs while ignoring the Israeli
occupation of Palestine and its destabilizing effect on
the region.

"The overthrow of Saddam Hussein makes America and the
whole world safer." In fact, U.S. government
authorities themselves have made clear that the danger
of terrorist attacks has never been greater since
September 11, 2001. Iraq under U.S. occupation has
apparently become what Iraq never was before: a focal
point of international terrorist organizations.
Internationally, citizens of countries whose
governments are supporting Washington’s war are at
greater risk. And the constant repetition of the claim
that the U.S. itself is the best, the oldest, the
biggest...democracy leads to a global view that
Americans, unlike people in many other parts of the
world, actually have the capacity to change their
government’s policies if they don’t like them. If they
don’t change those policies, the logic goes, it must be
because the American people agree with those policies.
And that belief puts Americans at much greater risk as
well.

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