Exit Strategy: Civil War--Asia Times (great article!)

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jun 10, 2005

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF10Ak03.html



EXIT STRATEGY: CIVIL WAR

By Pepe Escobar

"In reality, the electoral process was designed to legitimize the occupation, rather than ridding the country of the occupation ... Anyone who sees himself capable of bringing about political reform should go ahead and try, but my belief is that the occupiers won't allow him."
- Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr

As Shi'ites and Kurds fought for three months to come up with an Iraqi cabinet, it is emerging from Baghdad that soon a broad front will emerge on the political scene composed of politicians, religious leaders, clan and tribal sheikhs - basically Sunni but with Shi'ite participation - with a single-minded agenda: the end of the US-led occupation.

This front will include, among others, what we have termed the Sinn Fein component of the resistance, the powerful Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) and the Sadrists. It will refuse any kind of dialogue with new Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and his government unless there's a definite timetable for the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces. Even the top Marine in Iraq, Major General Stephen Johnson, has admitted, "There will be no progress as long as the insurgents are not implicated in a political process."

But the proliferation of what many moderate Sunnis and Shi'ites suspect as being Pentagon-organized black ops is putting the emergence of this front in jeopardy. This is obvious when we see Harith al-Dhari - the AMS leader - blaming the Badr Brigades (the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution - SCIRI - in Iraq, a major partner in the government) for the killing of Sunni Arab clerics.

Breaking up Iraq


Several Iranian websites have widely reported a plan to break up Iraq into three Shi'ite southern mini-states, two Kurdish mini-states and one Sunni mini-state - with Baghdad as the seat of a federal government. Each mini-state would be in charge of law and order and the economy within its own borders, with Baghdad in charge of foreign policy and military coordination. The plan was allegedly conceived by David Philip, a former White House adviser working for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). The AFPC is financed by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has also funded both the ultra-hawkish Project for a New American Century and American Enterprise Institute.

MORE

[ckramer]

1. Iraq is the most exciting place in first half of 21 century given that

there were no more wars brought forth by boooooooooooooo in the middle east.

This is gonna be recorded in the history.

[Supersedeas]

12. count on the Heritage Foundation to have a different version

the Monkey's Library will have Golden Moment's in Iraq nostalgia too

[Old and In the Way]

2. "Pentagon-organized black ops"

Why does this remind me of South America, 1980's?

[acmavm]

3. Eye opening article but a tad to informative for administration supporters

in this country. They wouldn't be able to wrap their little pea brains around the logic of why this attempt to 'liberate the Iraqi people' will never go the way the neocons hope it will.

[slay]

4. Is he talking about the US or Iraq?

"In reality, the electoral process was designed to legitimize the occupation, rather than ridding the country of the occupation ... Anyone who sees himself capable of bringing about political reform should go ahead and try, but my belief is that the occupiers won't allow him."
- Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr


Lets see.. does a fringe group run the government here? Check. Have they stolen the last 3 elections? Check. Do they keep us fighting each other over "God" while they screw us at every turn? Check. Does Howard Dean have the backing of the Democrats as he seeks political reform? Hmm.. Ut-oh.

[Gloria]

5. Slay, I've heard Iraq referred to as the 51st state, so I think

al-Sadr could be talking about here, too!! LOL

[slay]

7. You know there is a problem when

statements about an occupied, war-torn Iraq could just as easily be applied here in the US. How long does our media intend on backing this criminal? The emperor wears no clothes I tell ya! :P

[stillcool]

6. i love how that guy writes....

"One wonders whether Pentagon black ops are also part of these "forces of evil". In October 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld invented a secret army - one of his pet projects. According to the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, the goal of Rumsfeld's army - the 100-member, US$100 million-a-year Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG) - would carry out secret operations designed to "stimulate reactions" among "terrorist groups", thus exposing them to "counter-attack" by the P2OG. The stock in trade of Rumsfeld's army is assassinations, sabotage, deception, the whole arsenal of black ops. Iraq is the perfect lab for it. "Iraqification" means in fact "Salvadorization". No wonder old faces are back in the game. James Steele, leader of a Special Forces team in El Salvador in the early 1980s, is in Iraq. Steve Casteel, a former top official involved in the "drug wars" in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, is also in Iraq. He is a senior adviser in - where else - the Interior Ministry, to which friendly militias are subordinated."

[bpilgrim]

8. Against all odds

"Against all odds, a national liberation front is emerging in Iraq. Washington hawks may see it coming, but they certainly don't want it. Many groups in this front have already met in Algiers. The front is opposed to the American occupation and permanent Pentagon military bases; opposed to the privatization and corporate looting of the Iraqi economy; and opposed to the federation of Iraq, ie balkanization. Members of the front clearly see through the plan of fueling sectarianism to provoke an atmosphere of civil war, thus legitimizing the American presence. The George W Bush administration's obsession in selling the notion that Iraqis - or "anti-Iraqi forces", or "foreign militants" - are trying to start a civil war in the eastern flank of the Arab nation is as ludicrous as the myth it sells of the resistance as just a lunatic bunch of former Ba'athists and Wahhabis."

the longer we stay the more we ensure our total failure.

peace

[burrowowl]

9. Kick

and go to Gloria's site. She is doing a teriffic job Las Cruces!

:kick:

[Gloria]

10. Hey, thanks!!! Fellow New Mexican!

eom

[Supersedeas]

11. and Major Corporate US media outlets are all over this...no...odd?