Americans negotiate with Iran over Iraq’s fate. Iran needs influence on the Shiite Iraq – whether by supporting guerrillas or political process, is irrelevant. Iranian and American tactical vision for Iraq coincides: a relatively peaceful state governed by majority. For America, that means democracy; for Iraq – Shia dominance. Iran traditionally supports Kurdish separatists in Iraq and the Iranian-influenced Shia rule is unlikely to oppress Kurds. Iraqi Sunni minority is of no concern to America and Iran, and only of nominal concern for Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Satisfying Western oil corporations, Kurds will continue controlling much of Iraqi oil production if Iraq falls into Iranian sphere of influence.
US invasion of Iraq will appear to serve Iranian interests: Americans crushed anti-Iranian Saddam and delivered Iraq into Iran’s hands. Propaganda will blur that public relations disaster. Americans swallowed both the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation, and will similarly swallow ignominious withdrawal.
US Republicans insist on staying in Iraq largely to retain chance on wining the next elections. Withdrawal amid incomplete security in Iraq would be trumpeted as political failure. Military-industrial complex supports the occupation of Iraq as ad hoc replacement of the Cold War arms market. Corruption is another reason: billions of dollars in contractors’ profits pay for lobbying. Corruption is rampant in Pentagon – and not only with regards to Iraq. Pentagon approves commercial sales to Iran because of the sanctions, and Pentagon’s bureaucrats route all orders through friendly contractors. When independent supplier wins a tender, Pentagon forces it to cooperate with preferred contractors under the threat of blocking the deal. In several cases, Pentagon interdicted legal shipments to Iran by uncooperative suppliers.
The Shiite empire’s extension need not frighten Israel. Though Shiites are doctrinally more militant and centralized than Sunnis, Iranians are more civilized and intellectually advanced than Arabs. In the long term, Israel will have fewer problems with Iran than with Egypt. Fed up with ayatollahs, Iranians are quickly secularizing while Egypt is taken by the wave of religious fundamentalism. Unlike Egyptians, Iranians are friendly to Jews: the only large and content Jewish community in the Muslim world lives in Iran. The Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah sets no goal to destroying Israel, and Hamas only nominally adheres to such goal. Shiite empire will engage Arabs in arms race, bankrupting them, and will set Arab crosshairs on Tehran rather than Tel Aviv. Wahhabites and other Sunni radicals will fight Shiites rather than Jews; fighting fellow sectarians is simpler than Israelis and sectarians often hate each other stronger than they hate external enemies.
Bombings will not cease in Iraq if America and Iran settle the matter. It would take any Iraqi government years to re-create Saddam’s combination of pervasive turncoats and widespread brutality. America accepted former Nazis and even SS (e.g., Schleyer) members as top German post-war bureaucrats for the sake of efficiency, but purged Iraqi bureaucracy of much more benign Baathists. Iraqi government will prefer occasional bombings to losing American support and subsidies over publicized crackdowns on civilian supporters of guerrillas. Iraqi establishment welcomes a tolerable level of suicide bombings as a means to persuade America for more funds and weapons.
Contrary to Bush’s assertions, democracy cannot function under fire. Ancient Rome appointed dictators during national emergencies, and the police state of Israel is a democracy only in name. Market bombings disrupt Iraqi economy, as do the occasional kidnappings. Tired of insecurity, Iraqi population will vote another Saddam into the office. History knows of a way of countering guerrilla war without massive harm to population: paramilitary death squads. The underlying notion is countering a micro-threat on micro-level without judicial review. Like Israel financed South Lebanon Army to act against the PLO (and should finance against Hezbollah), Iraq can encourage paramilitary organizations not directly traceable to the government to eradicate insurgents. Lacking safe heavens and strong backing, guerrillas will eventually cease, though initially they will try increasing the scale of attacks to grab the headlines; larger truck bombings conform to such trend.
Iraq’s security problems are solvable – not immediately, but by attrition of guerrillas over years. Presence of the US troops in Iraq compounds the problem rather than solves it. Many insurgents glad to fight the Americans won’t care fighting Iraqis; destabilizing the US-imposed order in Iraq is vastly more glorious than inconspicuous insurgency against yet another corrupt Muslim regime behind the headlines. Iran/ Syria and Saudi Arabia politically cannot quit supporting guerrillas while the US troops occupy Iraq. They might not quit even if the US withdraws.
American withdrawal from Iraq won’t repair the country, but the US occupation makes the things worse.
In the current environment of raging media and self-serving political debate, evacuation increasingly looks like an honorable option in Iraq. American soldiers die and kill for nothing, senselessly. Only such wars are worse fighting where the nations are prepared to gather resolve and disregard body count of their soldiers and enemy civilians. Starting a war in Iraq, non-essential for American people, predetermined the fall of Baghdad to pro-Iranian insurgency. If things turn out good, the ordeal would be more orderly than in Saigon.
