Middle East

Iraq and the end of the American empire

 President George W. Bush said on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war that he had no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the "high cost in lives and treasure" and declared that the United States was on track for victory. Marking the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion with a touch of the arrogance he showed early in the war, Bush said in a speech at the Pentagon, "The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable."
With less than 11 months left in office and his approval ratings near the lows of his Presidency, Bush was trying to shore up support for the Iraq campaign, which has damaged U.S. credibility abroad and is sure to define his legacy.

Five years ago, the US and Britain stood on the brink of war. A war that made no sense apart from to the deluded imperialists within western governments. The connection that the Bush administration had tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida had always seemed contrived and artificial. The evidence for weapons of mass destruction, the key justification for the war, was flimsy at best.

The war was intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination. Among the architects of this would-be American Empire were a group of neocons who held key positions in the Bush administration at the time: They envisioned the creation and enforcement of what they called a worldwide "Pax Americana," or American peace.

In essence, the plan was for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. To make that plan a reality, it envisioned a stark expansion of its global military presence. And so it was on 16 March 2003, the moment the neocons around President George Bush had worked so long for was about to arrive, the United Nations weapons inspectors were advised to leave Iraq within 48 hours, and the "shock and awe" bombing campaign began on 20th March.

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk," Kenneth Adelman, a leading neocon, had said a few weeks before, and so it proved. Within barely a month, Saddam's bronze statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square was scrap metal. But every other prediction by the Bush administration's hawks proved wrong.

No weapons of mass destruction have ever been found. The Pentagon acknowledged a couple of weeks ago that a review of more than 600,000 captured Iraqi documents showed "no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network".

In 2008, there are still more American troops in Iraq than during the invasion, with no exit in sight. Recently American deaths had reached the 4000 mark. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has now lasted longer than the Second World War. For the US, daily military operations have already cost more than the 12 years in Vietnam did. At the onset of the Iraq war, former White House Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsey estimated the cost of the war would be about $50 billion. Today, it is apparent that Lindsey's prediction was wrong, to say the least. According to numbers released by the Associated Press, the war is currently costing the United States approximately $12 billion per month.

So, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, what are these undeniable successes that Bush boast's about? Certainly no Iraqi civilian would agree with his statement. "I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes — it is America." A New York Times reporter is quoting a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

At least 90,000 civilians have died violently since 2003, at the most conservative estimate. Other studies have multiplied that figure by five or six. Two million Iraqis have fled the country, and at least as many again are internally displaced.

As for post war reconstruction, the U.S. government paid crony companies billions of dollars for mythical reconstruction projects. An army of private security guards escort convoys protects infrastructure projects and ferries military equipment around Iraq. These have been followed by business consultants, building project planners and government advisers in the pursuit of a reconstructed Iraq while their companies earn billions.

An estimate last October put the number of private contractors working in Iraq at 160,000 from up to 300 separate companies. About 50,000 were private security guards from companies such as Blackwater – whose killing of 17 Iraqi civilians last September in a gun battle shone a spotlight on the US military's reliance on poorly controlled private armies.

In fact, many of Iraq's reconstruction projects today lie abandoned and incomplete. As a result, many Iraqis still exist without basics such as running water and electricity. A recent poll found that some 81 percent had suffered power cuts and 43 percent had experienced drinking water shortages. In the last month 28 percent had been short of food. These facts are testimony that life under occupation has gotten progressively worse.

Security for the Iraqi's is non-existent as the divide-and-rule strategy which has been employed by the US and its allies attempts to fashion a puppet regime, (which today is, arguably, the most corrupt in the Middle East) based on ethnic politics. It has created conditions rife for a savage sectarian war that has claimed untold victims and "ethnically cleansed" large sections of Baghdad and other areas where Shiah, Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis had previously lived side-by-side.

The very ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights that the US administration promotes have been violated by themselves. These have included the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, the Haditha killings of 24 civilians, the use of white phosphorous on the civilian population of Fallujah , the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the murder of her family in Mahmoudiya, and the bombing and shooting of civilians in Mukaradeeb.

The US then pretended to hand over sovereignty to that country while at the same time constructing permanent bases and the biggest Embassy in history resembling a small city. They said they had no interest in Iraq's oil, yet they are putting immense pressure on the Iraqi government to sign into law a bill that permits foreign oil companies to be locked into decades-long deals.

So in reality there are no "undeniable" successes, at least for the people of Iraq. They have witnessed their country being occupied by a country seeking to exploit its resources and fulfil its plan for a "Pax Americana". The Iraqi people have seen, their country looted, sectarianism exacerbated, entire towns flattened and untold numbers of innocents tortured by the occupiers.

In the five years since the invasion, we have not only seen the original lies of the US administration thoroughly exposed, but also a complete discrediting of western values and ideas in the eyes of the world's population. The legacy of Iraq will surely be noted by historians as a defining moment in the death knell of western imperialism and the inevitable rise of the Muslim world-the Khilafah- as a global superpower.