Lifting seven veils of the Iraqi illusion

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH24Ak03.html


With a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon holding, the ever-hotter war in Iraq is once again creeping back on to newspaper front pages and toward the top of the evening news.

Before being fully immersed in daily reports of bomb blasts, sectarian violence and casualties, however, it might be worth considering some of the just-under-the-radar realities of the situation in that country. Here, then, is a little guide to understanding what is likely to be a flood of new Iraqi developments - a few enduring, but seldom commented on - patterns central to the dynamics of the Iraq war, as well as to the fate of the US occupation and Iraqi society.

1: The Iraqi government - a group of 'talking heads'

A minimally viable central government is built on at least three foundations: the coercive capacity to maintain order, an administrative apparatus that can deliver government services and directives to society, and the resources to manage these functions.

The Iraqi government has none of these attributes - and no prospect of developing them. It has no coercive capacity. The national army we hear so much about is actually trained and commanded by the Americans, while the police forces are largely controlled by local governments and have few, if any, viable links to the central government in Baghdad.

Only the Special Forces, whose death-squad activities in the capital have lately been in the news, have any formal relationship with the elected government; and they have more enduring ties to the US military that created them and the Shi'ite militias who staffed them.

Administratively, the Iraqi government has no existence outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone - and little presence within it. Whatever local apparatus exists elsewhere in the country is run by local leaders, usually with little or no loyalty to the central government and not dependent on it for resources it doesn't, in any case, possess.

[whistle]

1. I have copied and emailed this article and link to my contacts list

...and recommended the post. The BuchCo/neocon/republican lies and propaganda spin needs to be exposed out into the sunlight where it can be bleached into extinction. Thanks NNN0LHI