The Imperialist Right Threatens Obama on Iraq

Robert Kaplan is a throw-back to the late nineteenth century imperialists who believed in the inherent right of the United States to dominate the lesser breeds and believed that the manly art of war is good for civilization. In Imperial Grunts he talked without a trace of irony about the glory of U.S. soldiers taking up "the white man's burden".

Kaplan formed a one-man cheering section in late 2002 for the Bush project to take over Iraq and use its military bases to dominate the rest of the region. He confidently assured his readers that setting up a new government would be no big problem once the United States military was in control of the country. "Our goal in Iraq," he wrote, "should be a transitional secular dictatorship that unites the merchant classes across sectarian lines and may in time, after the rebuilding of institutions and the economy, lead to a democratic alternative."

That political insight ranks alongside Paul Wolfowitz's belief that Iraqi Shiites wouldn't mind foreign troops occupying Najaf and Karbala, because he didn't think Iraq had any holy cities like Saudi Arabia.

Kaplan is also a political attack dog for the imperialist right on Iraq. In his latest column he admonishes Obama that must change his stance on troop withdrawal from Iraq or face serious political consequences this fall. He suggests that Obama will become Iran's candidate if he does not accept the Bush administration position that the United States must maintain a major military presence in Iraq for the indefinite future.

Here is the full text of Kaplan's rather heavy-handed warning to the Obama campaign:

"A precipitous withdrawal may be the last chance the Iranians will have to dominate Iraq to the degree that they had thought possible in 2006. If Obama heads into the fall campaign without visiting Iraq, without acknowledging progress there, and without altering his time-table for withdrawal, the Iranians may decide to help his electoral chances by initiating a new spate of bombings."

The real point of Kaplan's warning is not what the Iranians will do about Obama. It is what the imperialist right will do about him. They are quite desperate to implicate Obama in the coming debacle in Iraq. They would prefer to have him share the responsibility for the existing policy. If he refuses, however, they evidently feel the need to create a new narrative which says that Obama and the Democrats are enabling Iran to snatch victory from the jaws of the defeat.

Kaplan is clearly hinting that the imperial right, which now controls the White House but McCain's campaign as well, will tag Obama as Iran's candidate in the fall. The further implication of this threat, of course, is that he will also be blamed for having "lost" Iraq to Iran.

The idea of linking Obama's troop withdrawal plan to the Iranian position in Iraq makes no sense objectively, but it is the logical political response by those who led the United States into a disastrous war. By doing so, they would hope to divert public attention from the Bush administration's central problem -- the fact that its invasion of Iraq put Iranian surrogates into power in Baghdad by removing Iran's primary enemy, Saddam Hussein, thus clearing the way for a Shiite state.

Those U.S.-sponsored elections in 2005, which were so glorified by the Bush administration and the U.S. media, made the Iranian leaders salivate. They opened the door for the Shiite political parties and paramilitary groups created by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war to get state power. The Bush administration had no choice but to play ball with the pro-Iranian Shiites in 2004 and 2005, because it desperately needed the help of their paramilitary forces to help fight off the Sunni insurgents.

Ever since then, the Bush administration and its imperialist right-wing allies have had to deny the obvious reality that the Iraqi regime we were supposedly protecting from Iran was actually a joint U.S.-Iranian condominium.

Kaplan's scenario of Iranian-orchestrated bombings before the election is, of course, utter nonsense. Rather than trying to stoke a war between Shiites and the Americans, Iran has simply convinced its Iraqi Shiite friends, whom Iran trained and put in its payroll in the 1980s, to ensure that the Bush administration's proposal for long-term access to Iraqi military bases is rejected.

Dick Cheney lavished praise on Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the major pro-Iranian political party, for his cooperation when he went to Baghdad in March, but leading figures in that same party are now attacking the Bush administration's proposal for a U.S.-Iraq "framework agreement" as legitimizing U.S. occupation. So is Prime Minister al-Maliki's own Dawa party.

Now that the beneficiaries of the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddm are joining with Iran to reject the Bush administration's military demands, those who led this country into war must know that they stand to be blamed for having sacrificed all those American lives for the political benefit of Iran.

The political ploy of shifting blame for the failure of an imperial venture to the other party is an old story in American politics. Remember Henry Kissinger's masterful 1975 set-up of the stab in the back by the Democratic Congress, even as the old Saigon regime was already fleeing in panic? Kaplan is using the threat of yet another round of blame-shifting to blackmail Obama on Iraq.

This is only the first indication of just how ugly this campaign is likely to get on Iraq.

Comments

[LonesomeThunderbolt]

Obama needs to put a lot more focus on the economic impact of the Iraq war. How does $12 billion a month for the foreseeable future provide jobs, health care, education, environmental protection, etc. How does Iraq war spending impact oncoming financial pressures on Medicare and Social Security. What about $4-per-gallon gas. Iraqi oil revenues were supposed to pay for the war. Instead, American taxpayers are underwriting the collapse of Iraq's oil industry. Former Oklahoma Sen. and Obama supporter David Boren brought up a very salient point this week. Contributions from other countries reduced America's net cost for the (first) Persian Gulf war to no more than $10 billion. The current Iraq war is estimated to cost in the trillions. Obama needs to get up with Boren and get that comparison into the campaign debate immediately.

[harriscrl3]

The only way we are going to solve the Iraq problem is to pull the bandaid off the sore QUICKLY. Get out of Iraq as quickly and as safely as possible because if 6 months can turn to 6 years its not farfetced for it to turn to 16 then 60 then 100. You only have TWO options neither is a good they are both bad options you either get out or you stay in. I think Obama realizes this because he sees that getting out of iraq is not about surrendering its about the fact that you are VULNERABLE because you are spread too thin and when you have another war in Afghanistan not to mention other national security interest. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO GET OUT!!! Only a fool would stay in yes I know there will be refugee problems there will be genocide thats where you work with the UN and other countries. THe worse mistake is to keep saying Oh we cant leave because violence is high and then when violence is reduce Oh we can't leave because violence is low and if we leave it will increase again. THat is the recipe for disaster cause then there is no conditions under which you would ever leave.

Carol

[ofbbg]

After reading the comments, I'm honestly surprised that some of you aren't being asked tp play an important role as an adviser to B. Husseins' new regime. Just kidding! Most of these "insights" are replete with historical, political and cultural errors. Mostly, however, they remind me of the old axiom, "Opinions are like a**holes - everybody's got one"!

[UltraClassic]

Obama is absolutely hell bent on throwing away the progress in Iraq. It is uncanny.

[truthbrigade]

The US should not benefit ANYTHING from this illegal and immoral aggression.

[thinklib]

The people who benefited most from this 'illegal and immoral aggression' are the Iraqis themselves.

Long-term, the whole world benefits.

You are dangerously close-minded.

Think.

[XME]

But many of us see it as him being hell bent on trying to reverse our economy by stopping the bleeding that is this war which hasn't done ONE thing to help this country or its people. All it has done is give us ridiculous gas prices, 4000+ dead Americans, no money for our own economy, a national debt in the trillions, and soldiers coming home and comitting suicide. So, I'm not sure what progress you see, but it's been nothing but loss for OUR country.

[egal]

"Progress"?

Have you spoken to the real military heroes, the soldiers who are in Iraq and not the disconnected and muzzled leaders who are back in Washington spinning things because it's illegal for them to badmouth the president's actions and decisions?

The real heroes don't tell a story of progress, they tell one of small advances toward operational towns that were fine before be attacked but are far from it even after all this time to rebuild. Of desolation as they see bodies everywhere and read the reports of terorist cells where none existed even just four years ago.

Of subdued despair as they watch the people they honestly want to help struggle to survive or have to become refugees because of the lack of infrastructure, even food and water.

Of handing candy out to kids one day and cleaning up their unrecognizable remains the next without any reason given for the violence save to protest an incompetent government certain terrorists and the soldiers themselves all deem to be illegitimate, nonrepresentative, and untrustworthy.

Even if you don't care about the sodliers, mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted by fighting a war that they know hasn't made the Iraqis' lives better or more free, the people, organizations, government, and relations of Iraq have all suffered due to what they see as an American occupation--the same way most soldiers view their presence, as well, for the impossibiliy of bringing the country they helped destroy up to anything approaching operational, let alone "progress".

[hopeless277]

Who cares? Obama is a wimp of MAJOR proportions. At least on FISA he is.

[Tommygun264]

So how did all those brown people get on top of all our oil in the first place?

[ApolloSpeaks]

FINAL SOLUTION TO THE MULLAH PROBLEM

With Iran running out of oil-they were in the oil production business 20 years before the Saudis- for very good reasons it wants American troops out of Iraq and the region. The withdrawal of US forces from the region-Obama's brainless plan-is inseperably linked with Iran's imperial designs and need for resources. The way to solve the Iranian problem in Iraq-created by toppling Saddam and unsolved by the "surge"-is to pull our forces out of Iraq and redeploly them to Iran. War is the only solution. The mullahs must be next to fall.

OUT OF IRAQ AND INTO IRAN

To avoid a nuclear war in the region there is no better way.

[snesich]

Apollo---did anyone ever tell you that you're a serious nutcase?

[ApolloSpeaks]

Instead of calling me names why don't you do the civilized thing and offer me constructive criticism? I'm not perfect and could very well be wrong.

[wayoutleft]

the us army takes down iraq (iran's equivalent of canada to the us) and you're worried about iran's imperial designs? the us has 3% of the oil reserves and uses 25% of the oil and you're worried about iran- world's 3d largest producer- grabbing oil?
the "iranian problem" is that iran is an independent country that follows its own interests. that's your problem. and it will always be your problem until you nuke somebody. then the problem set will change. you just don't like people that are free from the dictates of israel and the united states. that's where to start discussing your comic book world-view- not with iran.

[outnow]

Apollo is really Mars.

[ApolloSpeaks]

wayoutleft writes:

"the "iranian problem" is that iran is an independent country that follows its own interests. "

You speak about Iran as if it were a status quo power with limited conventional aims, and not what it is in reality: a revolutionary Islamist state hell bent on filling the vacuum created by the fall of the Ottoman Turks and making Islam the supreme power on earth. This is the problem of Militant Islam, the problem of jihadism, a religion of war that loves, lives and dies by the sword and challenges the international order with the universal reign of Islamic Law. Iran is the most powerful jihadist state on earth, the central bank and powerhouse of international terrorism, 1000 times more lethal than al Qaida and close to getting the bomb: the ultimate weapon of terror and death for their arsenal of blood. This is the "Iranian problem" which is the general, implacable problem of Islamic extremism, hardly a "comic book view."

[MarkInEugene]

In any civil society, killing human beings is always a last resort! The intelligent solution is to once and for all stop the US government from pandering to Big Oil and their lobbyists. This cannot happen when the executive branch consists of former oil executives. I've been asking for our government to wean itself off this accursed fuel for 35 years. Because of insolent greed and power, oil has remained prominent in our American way of life. We now have the will and incentive to find alternative energy sources. If you really look deeply into what critics are saying about alternatives, you will inevitable discover greed, $$ and oil industry lobbyists are behind what they say. This is a tired old lie that has been perpetrated against all Americans for decades.

All we need is leader to come along and say¦

YES WE CAN! ¦AND WE WILL!

[ApolloSpeaks]

What do US policies have to do with Iran's ideological drive to restore Islam as a great world political and military power? What do our policies have to do with Iran running out of oil which accounts for 85% of their economy, and needing to replace it? Your post doesn't address a single one of the issues that I raised.

[devanate]

Or we could simply pull the rug out from under them by financing the Apollo Alliance and eliminating our need for oil in the first place. In which case, it would be nothing but a worthless black goo and their entire imetus to take over Iraq would be moot.

[obamanation31]

Let them have OIL!

[outnow]

With the SOFA and PSA its on to Iran. We have a political general who is willing to go for it. The excuse will be the special groups from Iran who are making Iraq less secure. The real reason will be oil and increased military spending. The Rubicon has been crossed and we are in the status of Empire. Overthrowing the legitimate government of Iran dates back to 1953. The Rubicon was crossed back then as Wall Street took over in the form of the Dulles Brothers. Ike Eisenhower began his warnings back then but it was already too late. Can Obama save us from our mind set that got us into war? Not if so many back McCain and the war machine. It has been over fifty years and we are still all about the oil. Regime change and counter-nationalization all deeply ingrained in our way of life. Self-determination fell along side the road.

[biwee]

Let us cut through the garbage. The Israel First Zionist NeoCons want the US in perpetual war in the MidEast. First Iraq, then Iran, then Syria, and on and on. Of course, only Americans will be dying....only Americans will be wounded......and only Americans will watch the debt and deficits SOAR!
Beware of McCain. Surge McBomb is surrounded by evil NeoCons, the same sort that brought us the disaster in Iraq.

[gladys46]

With an exception to what you say " ...The Israel First Zionist NeoCons ..." We too (the masses) here in america had free elections .... enters G.W.B$$$h, Inc. The jewish masses, the palestian masses just want peace & security for their futures too. Their so-called leaders sell fear and become elected in "free" elections! Israel got zionist, Palestine got Hamas ... we got Bu$$h, Inc.

This american election is a wake-up call to us all!!

[LiberalMathProfessor]

What was a crime to begin with--lying to get into the war for profit and the re-securing of the White House in the 2004 elections--and the outcomes of the crime should be stopped now. Crime in progress must be stopped. Stop a crime in progress. No more BS about how to get out. McGovern and Polk have told us how to get out, and I have actually been shocked that nobody in the government or general media has picked up on the simple solution. Read the article in Harper's Magazine, October 2006, "The way out of war: A blueprint for leaving Iraq now," By George S. McGovern and William Roe Polk.
And yes, crime trials for Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rice, Powell (yes, he knew what was happening and was an accomplice), Rumsfeld, and the neanderthal who runs Blackwater, at least.

[wayoutleft]

if israel decides iran has to be nuked; the united states will do it. it may do it under an obama administration. i introduce the possibility that the strike will be conducted without presidential authorization. chances of nuclear attack on iran? remote. chance of an unauthorized nuking of iran? also remote.
however, this is a-propos for at least these reasons: 1) although these possiblities are remote, they were absolutely unthinkable before this crowd of savages took over. though remote, their liklihood is much greater now. europe is letting iran know nothing could be done. europe does not believe russia would dare respond.
2) no real imperialist democrat wants anybody tried for anything because they want no such precedents if and when they do nuke iran.
3) all funding democrats are in violation of the nuremberg accords which justified capital punishment for nazi leaders. the offense is invasion and subjugation of another sovereign state. they are aware of this and will join ranks with the absolutely extreme right to see that us foreign policy is kept free of nuremberg restraints.
4) it is very likely that israel can launch nuclear warheads from beyond it's borders. it would be far more likely to launch from remote locations than from within israel. among all great powers, nuclear options exist independ of heads of state.

[wayoutleft]

it's over. we remain in military control of iraq in all political variations. all candidates and both parties , with one headache-inducing rationale or another, now acquiesce to permanent iraq occupation like it's a weather event or sunspots- totally beyond their control. baraipac? baraipac is pulling the con that it's the troops that matter. this plays well south of nowhere, but everybody else knows that it's the money that counts- not the troops. the united states working population is basically enslaved to iraq, but is so passive they think their decline is some kind of ineluctable cosmic event. and baraipac, like all imperialist democrats, simply can't wait to see how much money he can shovel into the middle east; and how gloriously he can shower the military with tax money and foreign credit. iraq is a cash cow across the board; baraipac has no intention of turning off the spigot. kissinger analogy apt: they spent a year arguing over the shape of the table in the paris negotiations with us troops dying in the field. so much for the troops. playing games with troop totals here and there and selling it as "withdrawl" is just so very democrat.

[chappelforpres]

Is it me, or do our spineless Democratic representatives and their enfeebled leadership in Congress actually want to confront Bush on a continued occupation? And please don't lecture me about numbers, the veto and Filibusters. Who needs the Imperial Right, when Pelosi and Reid give this sociopath all he requires to pursue his pointless agenda.

NY Times - June 19, 2008

"WASHINGTON " House leaders struck a bipartisan deal on Wednesday night on a major spending measure that would provide money for the war in Iraq through the end of the Bush administration, establish a significant new education benefit for veterans, and meet Democratic demands for added unemployment benefits."

What really irks me is, how many Democrats are using the war as a populist path to election, only to secretly support interests who favor "regime change, occupation and a geopolitical mandate" in Iraq.
Are tuition and unemployment benefits a fair exchange for the useless deaths and daily maiming of American troops?

I'm an Obama supporter, but without a doubt, this nation's neck deep in excrement right now.

[dwmulenex]

Step back real fast. Kaplan is engaging in Obama baiting, and the danger for the Democratic nominee is that he will enter into the topic of the day debate without having thought through a supportable position. We can't leave Iraq because Iran will rejoice (and take our oil, that we fought and died for and paid for in cold cash to the Saudis ten times over) has a kernel of truth. Especially if you begin your awareness timeline with February 2007, on "Surge Day", when David Petraeus--he is the rock on which we build our church of permanent occupation --took the oil rich rood to the outskirts of Baghdad. It won't be easy for Obama to set the Iraqi people free, and watch a partnership develop with Iran on entirely secular, and non sectarian grounds. Obama is stuck because everything the Buish flunkies are doing is driving the Iraqi government into a closer relationship with Khatami and the Clerics. If the Al Maliki government sits on Al Sadr hard enough, look for it to drag out the bilateral security talks with the U.S. until after the election, and then, if Obama wins, to seek a renewal of the U.N. mandate so that a new deal can be cut. Obama needs to lay low on Iraq/Iran right now, because he has no oar in the water to help steer the leaky and sinking S.S George W. Bush ship of state.

[Soothsayer08]

Good post. What this agains points out is that the "Imperialist Right" in their continued arrogance have no understanding of the Arab people. All Arab people whether Iraqi, Saudi, Syrian or Iranian are bound together by their blood and religion. We have enabled Iran and Iraq to form this alliance as you said by removing Saddam from power. Not to mention the elistment of terrorists, into and out of Iraq, which Saddam didn't tolerate. Of course the right will try to blame someone else for their continued failure in the Middle East. Let's just hope Obama isn't blackmailed into falling for this elaborate trick.

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

There will be as always many dark, secretive forces at work.

But at least being elected on the peoples' dime is a good indicator he intends to remain his own man.