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Iraq: 10 years on WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2013 17:48
K.COMMENT
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ADNAN KHAN
A decade ago in March 2003, 300,000 foreign troops, overwhelmingly from the US began the invasion of Iraq. A million deaths later and after bombing the nation back to the 'Stone Age' US policy makers continue to propagate mission accomplished. A dictator has been removed, democracy has been established and the Iraqi people have been liberated. Since the US began reducing its troops, political infighting and violence has afflicted every aspect of Iraqi life - this is the legacy the people of Iraq have inherited from the Americans. America's pre-text for invasion has now been proven to be a myriad of lies. The US continued to change the reasons for its invasion of Iraq, from the moral right to remove Saddam Hussein to Saddam's possession of WMD's to the fact that the Muslims of Iraq wanted to be liberated. The real reason the West and its allies went to war in 2003 is candidly described in a 2001 report on "energy security" - commissioned by then US vicepresident Dick Cheney, which warned that Iraq posed a risk to the security of global energy supplies. Noam Chomsky, considered the world's eminent intellectual encapsulated America's agenda: "Take the US invasion of Iraq, for example. To everyone except a dedicated ideologue, it was pretty ob vious that we invaded Iraq not b ecause of our love of democracy b ut b ecause it's mayb e the second- or third-largest source of oil in the world, and is right in the middle of the major energy-producing region. You're not supposed to say this. It's considered a conspiracy theory." Within a few months of the invasion, the US quickly became marred in an insurgency that today has greatly affected US prowess around the world. When the Baker-Hamilton report was released to congress in December 2006 the US was well and truly drowning in Iraq and comparisons were being made with Vietnam. It became clear to all that the US had massively underestimated the enemy and whilst it had rapidly removed Iraq's conventional forces the unconventional elements in Iraq had brought the US army to a stalemate. The BakerHamillton report concluded that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and "U.S. forces seem to b e caught in a mission that has no foreseeab le end." America dealt with this in three ways, it enlisted the help of regional surrogates, it divided the insurgency through playing on ethno-sectarian divisions and constructed a political process with the help of various opportunists, corrupt groups and individuals. When the Baker-Hamilton report was released it proposed engagement with Iran over Iraq in order to contain the insurgency. Iran initiated its proxy the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) a group created in Tehran with full backing in 1982. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim its supreme leader until his death in 2009, gathered the major Shi'ah factions to partake in Iraq's US constructed government, this left the US with an insurgency around Baghdad only to contend with. Turkey played a central role in ensuring the US constructed architecture came together. Turkey brought the different groups together in forming the governments in the elections that took place. As one analyst put it: "Turkey has long facilitated the political stab ility in Iraq and hereafter Ankara would play a more critical role in Iraq's political process b ecause Ankara's role in Iraqi politics b alances the impact of Iran on Iraq." The Bush administration planned from the outset to dominate Iraq by pursuing the de facto ethnic partition of the country into three autonomous, ethnically divided territories for Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ah respectively. This division is at the heart of the current violence and fracture that has gripped the country. The democratic parliament and legislative assembly the US set up in Iraq turned the nation into a factional state with an everlasting factional infighting becoming a permanent state of affairs. Iraq's first parliamentary elections in 2005 institutionalised sectarian and ethnic differences. Parliament was split between the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) led by the SCIRI and the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK). This precarious settlement between these two groups meant Sunni resistance was contained and the US argued the elections had credibility due to voter turnout. The US has replaced a brutal system in Iraq, which was headed by a dictator that the US for so long propped up, with a corrupt system that recognises the ethnic and sectarian breakdown of Iraq. This has kept Iraq divided forever and as the constant jockeying for political power has shown democracy has created fertile ground for polarised politics instead of dictatorial politics. Democracy rather than solve nationalism, tribalism or
www.khilafah.com/index.php/analysis/middle-east/15587-iraq-10-years-on
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