The Iraq debacle: The discourse of denial wears thin
By
Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com
The
news surrounding Iraq is increasingly grim on every front.
In
Washington, the administration seems lost about what to do next. One
day President Bush talks as if he is ready to withdraw U.S. support
for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The next day the President
delivers a backhanded defense of Maliki and rails against
“politicians in Washington” who think they (and not the Iraqi
people) should decide who leads that country.
In
response, Al-Maliki bites the hand that feeds him (and the force that
keeps him alive) by saying that if the United States withdraws its
support, Iraq will find other friends. That means Iran. So it has
come to this: the Iraqi government, Washington’s creature, holds
out the specter of Iran in order to blackmail its master.
Outside
Bush’s inner circle, the camp of those who deny the hopeless nature
of the American adventure in Iraq is becoming like the last bunker in
a lost war. John Warner, the powerful and respected Republican
Senator from Virginia, is the latest defector. Last week Warner said
the United States should bring some of its troops home by Christmas,
a position that clashes with the administration’s vehement refusal
to set a deadline for withdrawal. Warner’s statement is a serious
political blow to the administration and puts Republicans that plan
to run for office next year as supporters of Bush’s Iraq policy in
a more precarious position than ever.
The
plight of the dwindling inhabitants of Bush’s bunker has been
aggravated by a new report from U.S. intelligence agencies that
paints a dark portrait of the Iraqi situation. “Iraqi political
leaders remain unable to govern effectively,” according to the
latest National Intelligence Estimate, a document that represents the
consensus view of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The NIE’s
conclusion should be obvious to anyone in touch with reality. A more
remarkable finding of the report is that the al-Maliki government
will become “more precarious” over the next six to twelve months.
Thus the prospect for the immediate future is that a government that
already cannot govern will further falter or disintegrate altogether.
The
plight of Iraqi civilians and American troops in Iraq is far more
serious than any political danger facing leaders in Washington or
Baghdad. Two weeks ago, suicide bombers targeted a small Iraqi
religious sect, killing more than five hundred in the deadliest
attack against civilians since the onset of the war. Last week, an
American helicopter crashed killing 14 U.S. troops. The number of
Americans killed in Iraq is likely to approach 4,000 by the end of
2007.
Increasingly
desperate to find a way to make his case for sticking it out, Bush
lately has been trying a different tack from his worn-out formula
that “if we leave Iraq they will follow us home.’’ The
President is now invoking the killing fields of Cambodia and the boat
people of Vietnam to make the case that a hasty U.S. withdrawal would
mean a humanitarian catastrophe or even genocide. Among other things,
the argument ignores the fact that American complicity in changing
Cambodia’s status from neutral to belligerent paved the way for the
Khmer genocide in Cambodia.
The
President is probably hoping that such arguments and Iraq
Commander General David Petreaus’s report
to Congress next month will buy him some time. But not much: there is
a consensus that, regardless of the politics, the United States will
have to end the surge during the first six months of next year
because there will not be enough troops to sustain it. Politically,
time is short as well. More Republican defections and demands for
ending the war can be expected as the 2008 election nears.
Bush
dragged his nation into a ruinous war. The issue over the coming
months will be whether he is in the process of grinding his own party
and the right-wing movement that he has embodied into dust as well.
