I just got back from hearing Juan Cole, of
Informed Comment fame, speak at an MLK day event at the University of Michigan. The title of his talk was "How Democratic is American Iraq?" During the 1 ½ hours he spoke, he commented on the "complete fantasy" of the Bush administration's justification for war, the Project for the New American Century, the ethics of Michael Crichton, the Iraqi elections ("a PR stunt"), and the "cult" of Lyndon LaRouche, among other things. I took pages of notes because I thought some of you might be interested. I probably know more than the average American about Iraq but, that ain't a heck of a lot so if you see errors, please let me know. I was writing as fast as I could but I may have missed something.
WMD
Professor Cole came out swinging when he opened his talk with a rundown of the Bush administration's initial justification for the war in Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD). According to Cole, the justification had the same level of reality of someone saying that they could fly to Mars in their pajamas and be back before the end of the day--in other words a "complete fantasy". He also debunked President Bush's claim that "everybody" thought that Saddam had WMD. He pointed out that the Office of Special Plans (OSP), and Douglas Feith specifically, were cherry-picking intelligence to support the case for invading Iraq. In fact, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence Research, French Intelligence and the UN inspectors all disagreed with the OSP assessment. Cole mentioned nasty rumors then began circulating about the private lives of the inspectors. He also mentioned that, as a closed society, very little was known about Iraq so the rest of the world's assessment of the country was based on the information coming from Washington. Bush is being "disingenuous" when he claims that before the war everybody else thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Democracy in the Middle East and Crichton's Ethics
The next justification given for the war, to encourage democracy in the Iraq, came from organizations like the Project for the New American Century and the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Cole's estimation for the chance of successful democratization in Iraq? "Low". He explained that a key theme in the Middle East is anti-imperialism. The region has a history of being invaded and/or ruled by foreigners (Bonaparte in Egypt; the British East India Co. in Bengal, describing that as being as if today Microsoft conquered Thailand; the French in Algeria; etc.). He compared how people in the region must feel to the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1982. Chin, a Chinese-American, was mistaken for Japanese and murdered by auto workers who were upset at the inroads Japan had made in the U.S automobile market. If they were mad enough to kill just because Japan was selling cars in the U.S., how must those in the Middle East feel? As a side note, he mentioned Michael Crichton's book, the Rising Sun, and then said that Crichton was a major novelist with the worst ethics. Back to the Middle East, Cole said that many in Iraq don't want American-style democracy if they have to give up their independence. He also said many of them don't believe they can have both a democracy and independence. The dictatorships in the region have been relatively stable and have protected the countries from foreign interference and they're not sure a democracy could do that.
Iraq under Jay Garner
Cole said that Jay Garner, who was originally in charge in Iraq immediately after the war, was not allowed to take the State Department staff who had been working for the previous two years on the Iraq Project. In fact, virtually nobody sent to Iraq from the US could speak Arabic; this in a country where very few people speak English. Soon after arriving, Garner brought various local leaders together to talk about the future of Iraq. After it was all over, someone on Garner's staff reported he said "I don't know why we went through this rigamarole--we're just going to give the whole damn (or possibly darn, I'm having trouble reading my notes) thing to Chalabi in 6 months anyway. " Cole, who called Chalabi a crook, conman and fraud, said when he heard what Garner had said he finally understood why Rumsfeld had been on the TV in the Spring of 2003 saying that we wanted "something like democracy in Iraq". Cole had wondered why he didn't just say that we wanted democracy in Iraq but now it was clear--we were just going to give Iraq to Chalabi.
Someone on Garner's staff contacted Colin Powell about the plan to give Iraq to Chalabi. Powell said he had no knowledge of such a plan and contacted Tony Blair, who also was unaware of it. Together, the two of them approached Bush and said it mustn't happen. As a result, Garner was yanked and Bremer was moved in to keep Chalabi out. Bremer came in with a 7-Point Plan for Iraq drawn directly from the post-WW II plan in Germany--so directly that one point in a document mistakenly refers to the German Reichmark rather than the Iraqi dinar.
Background on Pre-War Iraq and Grand Ayatollah Sistani
Cole explained that pre-war Iraq, like Apartheid South Africa, had been run by a minority government. Under Saddam, the country was run for the benefit of the Sunni, who make up only about 20% of the population, while the Shiites were persecuted. Religion was the one area that couldn't be infiltrated by the Baath party, a situation Cole mentioned was similar to that of black churches in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. Shiites are encouraged to follow an upright, learned religious leader and the Grand Ayatollah Sistani was the one chosen by most Shiites in Iraq. Sistani used that influence to convince Bremer to hold direct elections in Iraq. Bremer had proposed having elections in May 2004 based on caucuses. Cole points out there is no Arabic word for caucus and that the meaning in English isn't very clear. But, what Bremer was proposing was to hand-pick local leaders to choose people to serve in the Parliament and write the country's constitution. Sistani was opposed to this plan arguing that a legitimate government could only be derived from the will of the Iraqi people--a concept Cole suggested Sistani had learned from noted Islamic scholar, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Bremer ignored Sistani, who then called for peaceful demonstrations in the streets. 40,000 came out in Basra and 100,000 in Baghdad. Given such a vivid demonstration of Sistani's influence, Bremer began listening to him. Suddenly, just as Sistani had wanted, there was UN involvement in the election. Sistani did not, however, get the date for the election that he had wanted. He wanted May, which could have affected the U.S. election, so instead the date in January was chosen. Cole wondered what difference it would have made if the election had been held in May--the energy that would have been needed for that might have kept the insurgency from growing.
The Election
There will be 111 parties and coalitions on the ballot, representing about 7,000 candidates. The names of most candidates are unknown and will not be on the ballot. The Shiite have formed a coalition which is likely to dominate Parliament. The Sunnis have called for a boycott of the election so many won't vote. Since this Parliament will be responsible for writing Iraq's new constitution, it means the Sunni will be excluded from that process. Cole described the election as a "PR stunt". "How can you have a legitimate election if you don't know who is running?" Cole also says that the media have been "insufficiently feisty" on this issue.
Questions& Answers
Q. Involved with Lyndon LaRouche, what does Cole think of LaRouche's call for a new Treaty of Westphalia.
A. The original Treaty of Westphalia (1648) set up rules of international relations, specifically recognizing the sovereignty of states so that one country is not allowed to interfere in another country. This is not always a good thing, for example the situation in the Congo. You could argue that Saddam was committing genocide, in which case a country could go to the UN Security Council.
Q. Most nationalist insurgencies have a public face that can negotiate with the invading force, why doesn't Iraq.
A. The insurgency in Iraq is covert. About 80% of insurgents are Baathists, 15% radical Sunnis, and the remaining 5% are foreign fighters. American thinking seems to be that a guerilla insurgency can not succeed unless it is 40% of the population. Since the Sunni are only 20% of population, that's not enough to derail their plans. Doesn't factor in the possibility of getting 100% insurgents in Sunni areas.
Q. Salvadorization of Iraq?
A. Presumably would be made up of Shi'ite and Kurds to kill Sunni, mentioned the Negroponte connection (Ambassador to Honduras and now to Iraq). Focus of Bush administration is really North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Syria. They believed Iraq would be a cakewalk and they would then take care of unfinished business in the other 3.
Q. Chinese poised to take over world economy, was the war an attempt to stop that?
A. Can't control oil or the price. On Iraq's best day can get 2 ½ - 3 million barrels a day out of the ground, Saudis can get 12 million, if they want to. It's the Saudis who control the market, not Iraq. Control of Iraq would allow the US to build a base to try to take control Persian Gulf militarily. Or, it would allow US petroleum companies to explore and possibly discover new oil sources so that maybe in 30 years Iraq might produce as much as the Saudis. It's amazing how ignorant the people who planned this war are--not stupid, ignorant. Said he had heard Wolfowitz in interview before the war saying that Iraq would be better friends than the Saudis--Iraqis were mainly secular Sunnis and they don't have holy cities. Cole says that when he heard that he was reminded of Harrison Ford in Star Wars when they ended up in the trash compacter "I've got a bad feeling about this". The people who planned the war were poorly informed and not willing to be better informed. Sistani does not believe in theocracy like Iran. He follows the najaf tradition which seeks to separate clerics from day-to-day politics. It's similar to Ireland in the 1950's. Although the members of parliament were lay people if there were an issue, like divorce, brought up, the bishops would state the Church's official position on the issue and the members voted that way.
Q. Order 39 by Bremer
A. Allows some level of foreign ownership in Iraq, including state owned businesses. For Bush, democratization includes laissez faire capitalism. In reality, who wants to invest in Iraq?
Q. Communist Party in Iraq?
A. At one time the Communist Party in Iraq was very important, approximately 500,000 members in early 1960's. The military government which was in control at the time made an alliance with them. Some old CIA agents have gotten a conscience and say that in 1963, the Baath coup was supported by the US because they were thought to be less radical than the Communists. The US gave the names of some 800 covert communists who were arrested, tortured and killed by the Baathists. One of the torturers was Saddam Hussein. This was the beginning of the destruction of the party. There is a small group now, they are the only party doing active campaigning--holding rallies in halls and publicizing the names of candidates.
Q. Did neocons drive the Iraq War?
A. They were not the only factor. If you go to the PNAC website look at who signed the documents and compare who is in the administration. However, they weren't the only factor in the war. Realists like Cheney and Rumsfeld had reasons, although it's not clear what they are. American Christian right also a factor--they wanted to convert Iraqis to Christianity.
Q. What can we, in the US, do to protest?
A. What would we protest for? What do we want? If we just left, there would be a Baathist coup. They would kill those who had cooperated with the US. The Kerry idea of internationalization was good but what other country would be stupid enough to send their troops to fight there now? I have no policy suggestions to offer.
Q. With LaRouche, can we destroy Bush's mandate by pushing the Social Security fight
A. I want to speak to issues I know about. I don't know anything about it--I'm for it but I don't know enough. I do know that the LaRoucheies are a cult.
End of Q&A
The last comment engendered outraged protests from 2 LaRouche supporters in the audience but time was up so Juan bid us all farewell