WSWS: US plans for a new Iraqi regime in disarray

[On the Road]

The reality is that events in Iraq are rapidly lurching out of control for the Bush administration and its discredited Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). The past several days have seen a deepening of the insurgent attacks on US troops and Iraqi collaborators, accompanied by renewed calls by rival Shiite mullahs for the rejection of the US plan to instal an unelected government on July 1.

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For several pressing reasons, the White House has decided that it cannot afford to wait beyond July 1 to instal a government with a fig leaf of legitimacy. In order to secure Bush’s reelection, it must concoct a timely political “success story” in Iraq.

At the same time, under the cynical guise of permitting the Iraqi people to determine “their own future,” it needs a so-called sovereign regime that can lawfully invite the US military to remain in Iraq for an indefinite period. And under international law, only a nominally independent government can privatise Iraq’s state-run industries and hand US companies long-term contracts for the control of the country’s oil.

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As he did in his State of the Union speech, Bush and his administration, supported by the mass media, invariably refer to the insurgents as “terrorists” who are seeking to prevent “freedom” in Iraq. It is evident, however, the attacks—in all likelihood organised by a diversity of groups—reflect far broader hostility and anger among Iraqis who oppose the US occupation of the country, its contempt for basic democratic rights and its failure to solve even the elementary social needs of the majority of the population

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/iraq-j26.shtml