Why Bush is Not Withdrawing Troops From Iraq

The recent declarations about the success of the surge from both Bush Administration officials and from the media has stirred many comments about the latest (apparent) paradox of the imperial venture in Iraq: why, with violence declining (at least in Baghdad and Anbar) and the military continuing to disintegrate from exhaustion and over-deployment, the Bush Administration cannot bring itself to remove more than a token number of the troops.

In my latest Tom Dispatch commentary, I try to unravel this paradox. The short explanation is this: The only thing the reduction in violence does for U.S. policy goals in Iraq and the Middle East is to give the Bush Administration (and the Democratic "opposition") a glimpse of the possibility that they could actually pacify the country and implement the grand plan that animated the invasion in the first place.

That grand plan, in case anyone has not read my recent article on the Oily Origins of the War, has several components, all connected to the necessity (first enunciated in 1979 by pre-Habitat for Humanity Jimmy Carter) that the U.S. must maintain unfettered access to sufficient amounts of Middle Eastern oil ("by any means necessary, including military force") to supply the world's (constantly increasing) needs for petroleum products. In order to guarantee this, the Cheney Energy Task Force decided that the following were required:

* Overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime

* Establishing a new regime in Iraq, friendly to the U.S., that would act as the hub for U.S. pre-eminence in the Middle East, and a strong ally in America's drive to frustrate Iran's growing influence in the region and within OPEC.

* Revolutionizing oil production in Iraq (and the country's entire economy) by bringing in multinational oil companies, permitting them to take control of production, encouraging them to use vast amounts of investment capital to activate undeveloped reserves, mandating them to dramatically increase production, and allowing them to fully repatriate their profits.

* Maintaining a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq to guarantee that these reforms would not be challenged and to create pressure on all other Middle Eastern producers to replicate the changes initiated in Iraq (through regime change in Iran and less drastic changes in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf oil states).

Only the overthrow of Saddam has occurred thus far. Everything else has been frustrated by the insurgency and by the resistance found at all levels of Iraqi society, including even Premier Maliki, America's staunchest ally. Since the Bush Administration has not abandoned this agenda, the decline in violence represents only a starting point for its ambitious goals. Moreover, the Democratic Party leadership has embraced all these goals, and therefore will offer no resistance to the continued campaign to implement them.

So, it is not surprising that there is a (unannounced but not actually secret) "five year plan" for keeping American troops in the various neighborhoods of Baghdad, while trying to impose this ambitious transformation of Iraqi life. Unless the Iraqi resistance (with some help from the American people) makes this effort untenable, the brutality and carnage will continue (perhaps at a decreased, but still catastrophic level) as Bush and his presidential successor (either Democrat or Republican) pursue their imperial goals.

Comments

[Advocate123]

Name one democrat, other than kucinich, who will remove troops from Iraq.

Name one.

[jhNY]

It is my guess that, should any politician running for higher office decide to make the issue of controlling access and production of petroleum throughout the world a foundation of his campaign, he would get a majority of American voters to support him. But why take the chance? By calling an occupation a war, by calling looting of Iraqi natural resources development, by calling nationalist patriots terrorists, we can have it all without troubling the conscience, that vestigial organ of the soul which is nowadays as useful as an appendix in the body politic.

As a nation, we have been willingly misinformed throughout our history about the source of supply and labor conditions pertaining to the manufacture of many consumer goods. A century and a half ago, cotton was produced by happy banjo-playing slaves, at least in the popular imagination. Now, cotton tee shirts cost a buck a piece at a discount chain, and nobody thinks too hard at the checkout counter about the Southeast Asian girl who sews them. We eat farm produce picked by illegal immigrants for less than legal wage, but nobody's driving the family car out to the fields to pay the difference. Cheap access to what we want trumps ethics every time.

My wife's sister loved animals and hot dogs as a child, and was so upset when she learned that hot dogs were made from cows or pigs, that after a few teary hours, Mama felt obliged to inform her that, after all, hot dogs grew on a hot dog tree, and thereby peace was restored in the household.

We have been eating the fruits of the hot dog tree for the entire history of the republic. Few of our citizens, especially lately, have bothered themselves to see past the comforting fables of our largesse and moral superiority and exceptionalism. In the case of petroleum,however, I believe the nation could stare its attempt to secure control of supply and production squarely, and applaud. After all, no raghead should get to tell an American how to drive his car. That would be immoral.

[LeftRight]

The problem exists however, that the "surge" is working. Against all odds, it is working. However, at this point in time, the US military is stretched so very, very thin that next year (around March) the surge will have to end. The US Army, and Marine Corps are breaking. We can almost sustain the pre-surge levels for a couple of years, but add in the surge, and there is nothing left...

That's why Bush came out after Petraeus and said that he would begin bringing troops home, even though the timing and numbers that he said were exactly consistent with the surge...

[ahornick]

And that's why corporate strategies should not be used in lieu of national strategies.

Corporate strategies look down the road for financial return and this Five Year Strategy provides a financial return to the Cheney Energy Task Force members only. While the participant companies will spout advertisements about sustainability, they really mean sustaining their income streams. And even then, it is shortsighted for them. In the end, its implementation is bad for the world's economy, the world's environment and the world's moral, ethical and political stability.

It makes you question what kind of minds run our corporations. Because for less money (direct and indirect), less injury and death, less chaos, they could have come up with national and international programs to minimize the need for oil and therefore continued violence in the Middle East and damage to the planet. And with a little more time they could still get rich, just in new and other ways.

And the descendants of the task force will suffer in ways only guessed at so far.