Occupation has been the issue all along....

Posted by John Sigler on April 08, 2003 at 15:29:38:

In Reply to: War and Occupation: The Future of the World? posted by Truthseeker on April 07, 2003 at 12:24:58:

I believe that the issue of the occupation has been the chief reason for the global opposition to Bush's war in Iraq, at least among governments. If the issue were simply ousting Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a popular government that has been waiting in the wings, I believe most of the governments of the world would have hopped on board and supported Bush. But this isn't the case.

There is no popular government waiting in the wings. The southern Shia, the northern Kurds and the central Sunni are all divided into a myriad of competing camps. The Shia are divided between pro- and anti- Iranian factions as well as a myriad of smaller Islamic fundamentalist groups as well as secular formations. The northern Kurds are divided into pro- and anti- United States factions, about four major parties, and a large number of smaller groups ranging from radical right-wing Islamic fundamentalists (the only Iraqi group whatsoever to be conclusively linked to al Qaeda was a Kurdish group) to the exact opposite - outright Marxist-Leninist Communists and everything in between. and worse off of all are the central Sunni who are divided into literally hundreds of diverse camps representing every conceivable political perspective and this does not even include the 100+ various Sunni dominated political factions outside of Iraq. Although I have not seen any reports of the southern Shia fighting one another, both the central Sunni (in Iraq and among the emigres) and the Kurdish groups have been engaged in active fighting against one another.

Essentially, the only thing holding Iraq together is Saddam Hussein and his "security" forces. So, after Hussein's removal one is left with the question of what is to replacce him? The United States seems to have accepted the notion that the Hussein will have to be replaced by another dictator, hence the dropping of support for the Iraqi National Congress and the increase in support for the Iraqi National Accord - a group of military officers, intelligence agents, and other "security" forces that defected from Hussein favoring a different dictator. Of course even they don't agree on who this new dictator should be, they just agree that they want to maintain a police state structure in Iraq.

Regardless, whatever puppet regime the United States installs in Baghdad [a "democratic" one (appointed from among the emigre groups), a new dictatoship (Iraqi National Accord), a king (re the Israeli idea of installing a Jordanian Hashemite in exchange for ethnically cleansing most West Bank Palestinians into Jordan - Netanyahu's suggestion] this puppet regime will require a massive Anglo-American occupation to maintain itself as none of the possible solutions has major popular support.

Contrary to Ron Jacob's article, I believe there have been plenty of indicators as to how our occupation of Iraq will go. January saw the very first Kurdish suicide bombing (against fellow Kurds of a rival faction). Since the start of the war at least seven American soldiers have been killed in suicide bombings (four the first time, three the second - the second one carried out by an Iraqi woman). After the US began shifting its support to the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress issued a statement wherein most of the factions included made it clear that if the US military stayed in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, most of its constituent groups would take up arms against the US. All but one of the major Kurdish factions completely reject the United States because of US support for Turkey's demand that there never be an independent Kurdistan. Among the southern Shia, the strongest resistance movement has decades of experience in hiding from and attacking Ba'athist security forces, so should have no problem hiding from and attacking non-Arabic speaking Americans throughout the south.

In other words, while Iraq never stood any chance of defending itself using conventional military tactics (though they are putting up more of a fight than anyone expected), the subsequent occupation is an entirely different story - with the resistance being based on unconventional resistance (suicide bombings, booby traps, car bombings, sniper attacks, &c). In this respect, the United States is hopping into a completely unwinable situation. Even the one realistic hope for an Israeli victory in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - "transfer", systematic Naziesque ethnic cleansing - isn't a realistic possiblity against 25,000,000 Iraqis.

I believe that recognition of what this occupation would mean is a big reason why so many of the world's governments rejected Bush's war on Iraq. In general, the United States prefers to simply blow everything up and then turns the cleanup and rebuilding over to someone else (Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, &c.). In this particular instance however, whoever gets stuck with the cleanup is going to have a very bloody time of it and it is for this reason that I believe so much of the world has refused to hop on board - because if they do, the US will try to push the cleanup off on them.

Further, the American public has also become accustomed to brief little "CNN Wars" - brief little wars that take a couple months and generally have no effect on the vast majority of Americans. It would seem that much of the US public appears to think this will be the case in Iraq as well, and the White House has been very careful not to correct this false impression. Nevertheless, the US Army Central Command has said that realistically speaking a successful occupation will require some 200,000 American troops for a period of three to ten years. With bombings and other unconventional attacks on American forces happening the whole time. The American public has no stomach for prologed wars with real casualties - it took two battles for most Americans to turn against US intervention in Somalia, it took two major car bombings for the American public to turn against US intervention in Lebanon in the 1980's. How long will it take for the American public to turn against the occupation of Iraq?

1. American

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