No sooner had I posted the material about South African apatheid mercenaries in Iraq than I came across this excellent analysis by Ehsan Ahrari, published in Asia times. Ahrari provides background for understanding yesterday's heinous bombings. He argues that what the insurgents really want is to make it impossible for the U.S. to maintain military bases in Iraq (one of the primary motives behind the war), thus turning Iraq into little more than a U.S. colony. The bases would establish a platform for more "regime change" wars, and for U.S. geopolitical domination in the region and beyond.
Entangling the American Gulliver
By Ehsan Ahrari
Asia Times
March 4, 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FC04Ak04.html
There is an ongoing race between the United States resolve to bring about transition of sovereignty to Iraqis by June 30, and the determination of the insurgent forces in Iraq to shatter the willingness and capabilities of indigenous security persons. Tuesday's attacks in Karbala and Baghdad that resulted in more than 140 deaths and 400 injuries of Shi'ites is very much part of that campaign. Its purpose: entangling the American Gulliver in Iraq.
That is one reason - indeed, the main reason - why insurgents are so intent on blowing up Iraqi security personnel, and even killing civilians, knowing full well that if they thus shatter the morale of Iraqi forces, then the Coalition Provisional Authority will have no other option but to use American forces to maintain order. That is what the insurgents really want. They know that a sure way of bringing about American departure from Iraq is to create consistently high American casualty figures, whereas killing Iraqi security forces, even in large numbers, would only prolong the American stay in Iraq. ...
A sticky point before the transfer of power is what is called "the status of forces agreement". In the case of Iraq, it will govern the future role of the US military. To underscore how potentially explosive that issue could be, no one in the current Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) wishes to conduct negotiations governing it. The IGC wants the transitional government to conclude that agreement. A spokesman of chief administrator L Paul Bremer stated: "Whether they [the IGC] want to negotiate the status of US forces here now or later, there is a pretty strong consensus that they want US forces here going forward." Notwithstanding that alleged consensus, the future role of US forces in Iraq will not only remain a major source of controversy, but it will also determine how the succeeding government will be perceived by other major competing forces in Iraq.
The Bush administration made no secret of the fact that it wishes Iraq to remain a state allied with the US. For Iraqi nationalists, that is merely an euphemism for keeping their country a permanent American colony. Thus, even if the US succeeds in gaining an upper hand over the Iraqi insurgents and transfers power smoothly now, violent clashes in the country are likely to occur for a long time. Iraq is much too important an Arab state to become an American ally (colony). As the Iraqi insurgents see it, they will have plenty of opportunities to tackle the American Gulliver, even if they do not succeed between now and June 30.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based