Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Actions have consequences

Professor Henri J. Barkey offers "Iraq's great divider: Prime Minister Maliki's actions may lead to the country's breakup, as the U.S. stands idly by" (Los Angeles Times) this morning:

 Iraq is on its way to dissolution, and the United States is doing nothing to stop it. And if you ask people in Iraq, it may even be abetting it.
With very few exceptions, an important event in Iraq went unnoticed in the U.S. media this month. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki sent a force that included helicopters to western Iraq to arrest Rafi Issawi, the former finance minister and a leading Sunni Arab opposition member. Issawi, who was protected by armed members of the Abu Risha clan, one of post-2003 Iraq's most powerful Sunni tribes, escaped capture.
This action came on the heels of Maliki's telephone conversation with Secretary of State John F. Kerry and took Washington by surprise. Had a confrontation ensued, the results would have been calamitous. It could even have provided the spark for the beginning of a civil war. Still, Maliki's actions represent another nail in the coffin for a unified Iraq. Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, had previously accused Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a leading Sunni political figure, of terrorism, forcing him to flee Iraq in 2011. Hashimi was subsequently tried in absentia and sentenced to death.



Thug Nouri was installed under Bully Boy Bush.  However, if he were Bush's puppet alone, he would have been gone under Barack Obama.  But that didn't happen.  In March 2010, Iraqis turned out at the polls and Nouri's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.  Per the Constitution, Allawi should have been named prime minister-designate in April 2010 and given 30 days to form a government.  But Nouri wouldn't give up the post of prime minister.  Refused to.  Refused to vacate for over eight months.  And he had the White House's backing.  Not only that Barack okayed the plan to go around the Iraqi Constitution, the US-brokered Erbil Agreement.  This is a contract that gave Nouri the second term the voters didn't choose for him to have.

If it were just about Bush, that wouldn't have happened.

The US government found a Little Saddam to build up for the next decade or so.  Then it will be back into Iraq with troops all over again, one more time taking out a despot the US helped keep in power.


Let's again quote from John Barry's "'The Engame' Is A Well Researched, Highly Critical Look at U.S. Policy in Iraq" (Daily Beast):

Washington has little political and no military influence over these developments [in Iraq]. As Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame, Obama's administration sacrificed political influence by failing in 2010 to insist that the results of Iraq’s first proper election be honored: "When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi's bloc, after it had won the most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government, it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government."

How different might things be in Iraq today if the 2010 election results had been honored?  Iraqis might feel like voting did matter, they might feel vested in a democratic process.  Instead, in 2010, they were informed that their votes didn't matter and that even their Constitution could be ignored if it went against the wishes of the US government.

By 2010, Nouri's penchant for totrute and secret prisons was already well known.  His witchhunt against Iraq's LGBT community was well known.

But this is who the White House backed.  Luiz Flavio Gomes (Pravda) sums up Iraq today, "After a decade, and more than a billion dollars spent, a new Iraq is far from built from the rubble today, ruled by a tendentiously dictatorial Prime Minister , that wants to perpetuate himself in power, with Parliament voting against it." Maybe Doug Bandow (Forbes) comes across a tiny bit more optimistic?  Excerpt:


 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is no Saddam Hussein, but he isn’t a Thomas Jefferson either.  His government has taken an authoritarian path, with the country’s Sunni vice president sentenced to death in absentia and currently in exile in Turkey.  Other leading Sunni politicians are living among fellow Sunnis for protection.
American forces witnessed evidence of Iraqi prison torture before withdrawing.  Amnesty International recently reported:  “Torture and other abuse of detainees has been one of the most persistent and widespread features of Iraq’s human rights landscape.”  Sunni protests are increasing and repression is likely to grow as sectarian violence again rises.  Indeed, Maliki reportedly plans to postpone local elections in the Sunni-majority provinces of Anbar and Ninevah.


The following community sites -- plus IVAW, Media Channel, Black Agenda Report, Susan's On the Edge, Antiwar.com, Jody Watley and NYT's At War blog -- updated last night and this morning:




The Official Jody Watley Website
Flipping The Script.
16 hours ago


Lastly, Cindy Sheehan's about to start her peace ride, the Toure de Peace:

In his inauguration speech, Barack Obama,
(the Drone Bomber) said: TIME TO ACT!

We wholeheartedly agree, but we believe that it is 

WAY PAST TIME TO ACT:
To End Wars
To End immunity for US War Crimes
To End Suppression of our Civil Rights
To End the use of Fossil Fuels
To End Persecution of Whistle blowers 
To End Partisan Apathy and Inaction
Please sign the Petition

Tour de Peace T-Shirt



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