Iraq is Far From ‘Pacified’

by Gerry Foley / January 2009

The U.S. forces in Iraq continue to return portions of the country to formal Iraqi sovereignty. The start of the new year has opened with the handing over of the occupation fortress, the Green Zone in Baghdad, to the Iraqi security forces.

This process is portrayed as a pacification of Iraq. But it is clear that despite the reduction in the level of attacks on occupation and Iraqi security forces, the country is far from pacified.

Suicide bombings continue, although diminished in size and frequency, apparently because of the fading popularity of al-Qaeda that has come as an inevitable result of its brutality and lack of any credible political perspective.

But al-Qaeda did succeed in carrying out a deadly suicide attack on a meeting of local sheiks allied with the occupation on Jan. 2, killing at least 30.

At the same time, the U.S. does not have either the political authority or the material means to maintain military control of the country forever. Its objective was to create a stable neocolonial regime over which it would have a decisive influence. It has created a neocolonial regime. But it is far from certain that it is a stable one.

And in any case, it suffers from the fundamental contradiction of all the neocolonial regimes in the region. It faces a population that is violently hostile to its imperialist big brothers, and so it has to try to maneuver between the pressure of the masses and the imperialist powers.

The U.S. occupation has failed to transform Iraq into a "bastion of democracy"—that is, a state that could follow a pro-Western line. Two recent events have pointed up the political failure of U.S. imperialism.

One was the shoe-throwing incident at a news conference organized by the Iraqi government for George Bush. The journalist who insulted the U.S. president instantly became not only a hero in Iraq but in the entire Arab and Muslim world. He is so popular that he has become a real hot potato for the government that continues to imprison him.

The second event is the universal condemnation of the Israeli assault on Gaza. The New York Times Baghdad bureau tried to give a sampling of Iraqi opinion in a feature in the Dec. 29 issue of the paper. The opinions expressed by ordinary Iraqis were violently anti-imperialist and contemptuous of the Arab governments including their own:

"Raad Hamid, a 41-year-old day laborer, said: 'What is happening in Gaza is happening in Iraq. Both countries are occupied from the same occupier because Israel is America and vice versa. There is not any word for peace in the dictionary of Israel and America because both of them are intending to keep the military tensions in the region to serve the imperialist agenda.'"

In Falluja, a city destroyed in the U.S. occupation's most ambitious campaign against the Iraqi insurgency, Haji Talib Mohammed, a 52-year-old shopkeeper, said: "It is shame to Arab leaders, especially the Egyptian president, because the Israeli minister of state threatened and menaced Palestinian people a few days ago from inside Egyptian lands.

“I pray to God to bless the martyrs. We in Iraq have forgotten our tragedy and keep thinking about our brothers in Palestine. We the people of Falluja have suffered like Palestinians so we know exactly their feelings and suffering."

In Mozul, a 34-year-old teacher said: "The silence of the Arab countries is shameful. Now they are planning to hold a summit. Then they will release a statement denouncing the Israeli attacks. A statement is useless where the Palestinians people are bleeding without medicine and food. We have not seen any Arabian ruler charge Israel with its crime … because they are frightened of America and Israel."

Even the U.S.-client Iraqi parliament condemned the Israeli assault on Gaza: "Brutal violations are increasing the Palestinian people's suffering. Bleeding them and destroying their infrastructure. It is a dangerous precedent by Zionist occupation in dealing with the Palestinian issue and a negative indicator of the peaceful way in Middle East."

Even the most important U.S. ally in Iraq, the conservative ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, condemned the Gaza massacre. His office issued a statement saying: "The Palestinian people in Gaza have been exposed to a savage Israeli attack. Continuous aggressions lead to hundred of victims either martyr or wounded. This savage assault came after a siege against those oppressed people which lasted for months. It has created a difficult humanitarian situation due to lack of food, medicine, fuel and everyday needs. Condemning what happened to our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and expressing solidarity with them in words is nothing compared to their tragedy."

The anger in Iraq focused on the slaughter in Gaza is a barometer of the anti-imperialist rage of the great majority of Iraqis, a feeling shared by the Arab people in general. It is an indication of the underlying reality of the hatred of the overwhelming majority of the people of the region of the Western imperialists and their Zionist ally.

This anger is so widespread and so deep that it must inevitably lead to concrete actions that threaten the U.S. and any forces in the region that try to collaborate with them. This is the index of the political failure of the U.S. adventure in Iraq, for which the price has been high and will only increase.