Exit Under Construction

…If you stand up and say your policy is to bring about a withdrawal of all combat units by March 2008, that is noted by terrorist leaders. It is a source of encouragement and comfort,…

PM John Howard
Hansard
12th February 2007

What a classic, the COW will stay till the insurgency disappears, just like when one pushes a red hot iron in ones eyeball long enough the pain will go away.

The so popular coalition troops have to watch every step they make outside their fortresses, fear almost every person they meet on the streets. The hearts and minds who haven’t been won or arrested yet (lets say the insurgents and their supporters within the Iraqi population) are numbering in the millions.

The enemies of our troops have lived in that country/trench for generations and will do so for generations to come. US forces come for 6 monthly stints, with their wives and children back home in the U Safe America. They operate on a complete different time scale than the Iraqi population. For the COW soldiers to “wait out” the insurgency would mean they’d have to move there, probably forever.

Military counter-insurgency measures against an enemy who actually lives in the warzone is like punching your fist into a bucket of water, the moment you pull it out its back to how it was. I guess that is what the huge permanent bases are for, to leave the fist in the bucket (if permanent military bases in Iraq are such a good idea, maybe Australia should build one too), although I suppose they are seen by many Iraqis as ulcers with all the ugly consequences this will entail.

Despite the good intentions the troops have, their daily efforts to rebuild the country and finding the alleged bad guys, I am afraid to say, if anything, the US presence fuels the enemy’s recruitment drive. Been fighting the "enemy" now for 4 years in Iraq, but they don't seem to get less.

To stay the course as suggested by John Howard, to stick with the US till "the Iraqi people can look after their own security" or along those wishy washy lines, underlines the lack of strategies to deal with the current scenario.

Cheney, Howard and their ideological associates, who want to keep combat troops in Iraq till the day when US soldiers on leisure time can peacefully sit in a suburban café in Baghdad and mingle with the locals, till the day when the last "terrorist", militia man and insurgent has been captured or killed by Iraqi troops, envision a day that is as likely to arrive in Iraq as the Titanic in NY. No waiting will change this. Too many mistakes have been made by the captain and the guys on the lookout.

And still, in John Howard's support it is argued that the whole issue of deadlines for withdrawals is meant to make us feel better, the US and Australian electorate, rather than the Iraqi people themselves.

According to their way of thinking it is Senator Obama and Kevin Rudd and other friends of this withdrawal idea who should examine their motivations a bit more carefully.

However, many polls and surveys show that a lot of Iraqis want the US troops to leave, and I can almost guarantee that’s not because they want to make us feel better. More likely it’s because in a lot of areas living conditions have gotten progressively worse since the invasion, and that not just in terms of security.

If one actually examines the reasons for why the US troops are in Iraq, one might want to consider this:

…Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas -- reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to…

Kenneth T. Derr
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Chevron Corporation
Speech To the Commonwealth Club of California
San Francisco, California
November 5, 1998

And, voila, 9 years later they have, more access than most other countries would give private corporations. Comments by analysts to the newly approved Iraqi National Oil laws:

…Iraq will not be capable of controlling the levels -- the limits of production, which means that Iraq cannot be a part of OPEC anymore. And Iraq will have this very complicated institution called the Federal Oil and Gas Council, that will have representatives from the foreign oil companies on the board of it, so representatives from, let’s say, ExxonMobil and Shell and British Petroleum will be on the federal board of Iraq approving their own contracts.

…the law certainly opens the door to US oil companies and the Bush administration winning a very large piece of their objective of going to war in Iraq, at least winning it on paper. The law does almost word for word what was laid out in the Baker-Hamilton recommendation, which I discussed previously on your show, which is, at the very basic level, to turn Iraq's nationalized oil system, the model that 90% of the world’s oil is governed by, take its nationalized oil system and turn it into a commercial system fully open to foreign corporate investment on terms as of yet to be decided...

IMHO, the motivations for the invasion are the determining factor for the time of withdrawal. The exit strategy for Iraq hinges on the original objectives being achieved. From the initial US support of Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran, to the harsh sanctions against Iraq after the Kuwait invasion, to Operation Shock and Awe, to Fallujah, to Abu Ghraib, I get the impression that the well being of the common Iraqi was never really the main concern of the West's engagement in that country. The primary objective appears to be more of economic and geo-strategic nature, oust Saddam Hussein and secure Iraq's oil supply for western oil cos, and whilst there establish some bases near Iran, Russia and Israel.

Saddam is dead, the oil laws are almost passed and the bases are as good as finished. And so, should the surge fail, which it is bound to do, the US military is according to Sec Def Gates planning to pull out some of its contingent fairly soon. Well, better see what Cheney and Howard have to say about that.