For all you “Lefties For War” who still believe with shampoo-like enthusiasm that “it’s worth it” here’s a sobering statistic from an ABC News poll (BBC News 24, Monday 19 March): “51 percent” of Iraqis believe it is “‘acceptable’ to attack U.S. and coalition forces”. Moreover, “94% of Sunni [Arab] Muslims” voiced this opinion. Given that almost every Kurd is against attacking “U.S. and coalition forces”, this translates to a majority of Shiite Muslims also believing that it is “‘acceptable’ to attack U.S. and coalition forces”.
Is this news? Not really. Anyone who has followed the occupation will know that most Arab Iraqis support attacks on “U.S. and coalition forces”. Most Arab Iraqis see their sectarian militias as protectors and the “U.S. and coalition forces” as oppressors, with Baghdadis referring to the Americans as Mongols. That this is all down to Al Qaeda and Baathist “fascists” is a soothing myth. But the Pro-War Left are not known for their "power of facing unpleasant facts", as Orwell said of himself.
On the same day, the Guardian reported Kadhim al-Jubouri (the man made famous by his attempt to smash down a statue of Saddam in Firdous Square) as saying: “I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.” Now, this really is something coming from a man who was tortured by Saddam’s goons. I also remember Mr al-Jabouri being interviewed not long after the statue was brought down. If memory serves, he said: “Do you think the Americans crossed an ocean to save us? Do you think they will leave? They will never leave.”
10 comments:
Anyone who wants to read the actual full results of the poll can go here (pdf file). It's a good idea to link to full poll results, with metholodoly if possible, rather than relying on news reports.
Some results from there that go against the doom and gloom scenario being pushed:
Despite a majority supporting attacks on US forces (which is old news, and down on the 60% who supported such attacks, as reported by this poll from last September (pdf file)), only 35% of Iraqis think US forces should leave now (BBC etc poll page 16).
38% think that US forces should leave when security is restored, 14% they should leave when the Iraqi Government is stronger, and 11% think they should stay until the Iraqi security forces should operate independently. (All p 16)
A plurality (43%) of those polled think that democracy is the best form of government for Iraq now (p13), a majority (53%) think it will be the best system for Iraq in 5 years (p14), and 53% also think that Iraq WILL be a democracy in 5 years' time (p14).
A massive majority of 88% oppose attacks on Iraqi Government forces (p17). This, combined with the fact that 53% of those polled name security issues as the biggest problem facing Iraq (p4), indicate that attacks by fascists and rejectionists on Iraqi Government forces is the primary issue facing Iraq today. Reconstruction issues are also very important.
Anyone who supports the Iraqi people in their struggle to establish democracy and defeat the fascists should be asking how to defeat the fascist resistance, instead of helping it by undermining the war against it and pushing defeatist, pro-realpolitik propaganda.
If, after the fascists are defeated, fine, you want to go after Bush, fine, but don't forget that the realpolilitikers like Secretary Gates - not the neocons - are the ones whose policy was to prop up Sadaam and dictators like him for 60 years. If you reject the way that Bush chose to overthrow Sadaam, you should at least start to come up with your own ideas about how to get rid of dictators.
Oh, and I reject the Zionism of the Drink Soaked Trots and Harry's Place, too, so don't bother going off on that one.
Thanks for linking to the original poll David, that was very helpful.
I agree that the situation is complex, and personally I have always rejected some of the simplistic views of some of the anti-war movement, as indeed has Toff I believe.
However, the commentary you give to the results of the poll doesn’t quite fit the facts.
For example, you are right that on page 16 the number of Iraqis calling for the immediate withdrawal of US/UK forces is 38%, but that is a steep rise from only 26% in 2005, and the increase of those wanting them to stay until security is improved is entirely understandable as lack of security is the single greatest concern of Iraqis.
The question here is whether or not the US occupation forces have the ability – or indeed desire – to deliver on that. And where your commentary particularly fails is in interpreting the concern about security as: “attacks by fascists and rejectionists on Iraqi Government forces is the primary issue facing Iraq today. Reconstruction issues are also very important.”
I know Iraqis here, who regularly speak to their families back in Iraq, and alongside information from other sources, it seems the concern is not attack on “Iraqi government forces”, but issues of kidnapping, random violence, sectarian bombings: all of which the occupation forces are powerless to prevent – as we see with the Brits basically staying in their barracks in the south and allowing shia militias to police, or government forces infiltrated by the shia militias.
In the Baghdad area, the US forces are playing off the sectarian forces against one another. Therefore many, many Iraqis believe that US withdrawal is a precondition for halting the escalation of sectarian violence.
Another area where I think your argument is wrong is you (sharing the same view incidentally as the more simplistic anti-war people) seem to identify the current Iraqi government, and its military forces as having the same aims and interests and the Americans. This is not that case, and the current government have their own agenda and are manoeuvring to increase the shia influence in any eventual settlement. Incidentally I personally don’t hold at all with the idea that it is a Quisling government, it was after all elected with a very high participation, and has on that basis has more legitimacy that any other government in the Arab world! I think the Iraqi CP have been correct to both support the resistance and also participate in the structures of government.
You are right that reconstruction issues are very important, and the utter impotence of the occupation forces to deliver reconstruction is often compared very unfavourable with the reconstruction that the Ba’athists managed in just 3 or 4 months after 1991.
Both the collapse of law and order,, and the failure of reconstruction can be laid at the incompetence of the early parts of the US occupation, for example abolishing the Iraqi army, and dispersing thousands of civil servants during the failed policy of de-ba’athication.
With regard to how dictators should be overthrown, I would refer you to Patrick Cockburn’s brilliant book about Saddam, written before the current war. He describes how after the 1991 war there was a popular uprising that swept the Ba’athists from power in most provinces, but the uprising was defeated after US forces not only refused to hand over abandoned Iraqi army weapons to the insurgents in the South, but the US air Force even gave air cover to Iraqi Republican guards in defeating the insurgency. In a dark irony the weapons were then handed by the Americans to their Islamist allies in Afghanistan.
I would also remind you that invading a country to achieve regime change is regarded as a war of aggression and is illegal under international law.
All I all I still think that immediate withdrawal is the best option
Thanks for your reply, AN. I'll go point by point.
For example, you are right that on page 16 the number of Iraqis calling for the immediate withdrawal of US/UK forces is 38%, but that is a steep rise from only 26% in 2005, and the increase of those wanting them to stay until security is improved is entirely understandable as lack of security is the single greatest concern of Iraqis.
The question here is whether or not the US occupation forces have the ability – or indeed desire – to deliver on that. And where your commentary particularly fails is in interpreting the concern about security as: “attacks by fascists and rejectionists on Iraqi Government forces is the primary issue facing Iraq today. Reconstruction issues are also very important.”
I know Iraqis here, who regularly speak to their families back in Iraq, and alongside information from other sources, it seems the concern is not attack on “Iraqi government forces”, but issues of kidnapping, random violence, sectarian bombings: all of which the occupation forces are powerless to prevent – as we see with the Brits basically staying in their barracks in the south and allowing shia militias to police, or government forces infiltrated by the shia militias.
Very true. The issue of sectarian violence is indeed broader than attacks on Government forces. It appears that the most recent poll did not ask people their opinions of attacks on Iraqi civilians, but in the September poll I linked to above, those attacks were rejected by 100% of those polled (p 16).
The issue of sectarian violence will have to be solved.
In the Baghdad area, the US forces are playing off the sectarian forces against one another. Therefore many, many Iraqis believe that US withdrawal is a precondition for halting the escalation of sectarian violence.
Another area where I think your argument is wrong is you (sharing the same view incidentally as the more simplistic anti-war people) seem to identify the current Iraqi government, and its military forces as having the same aims and interests and the Americans. This is not that case, and the current government have their own agenda and are manoeuvring to increase the shia influence in any eventual settlement.
I certainly don't believe that the Iraqi government has the same agenda as the USA, and I will have to be careful to not give that impression. It's not surprising, or bad in itself that a Shia-dominated government in a country that has suffered Sunni oppression for centuries would be "manoeuvering to increase Shia influence". What does matter is if that Government is willing to a) come to some sort of settlement with those Sunnis who are ready to stop supporting rejectionists and b) crush the Shia death-squads etc.
I hope and believe they will, but only time will tell. Some sort of deal with ex-Baathists who are not in the worst ranks of criminals will clearly have to be part of point a).
Incidentally I personally don’t hold at all with the idea that it is a Quisling government, it was after all elected with a very high participation, and has on that basis has more legitimacy that any other government in the Arab world! I think the Iraqi CP have been correct to both support the resistance and also participate in the structures of government.
I think the ICP should have participated in the Government wholeheartedly and not supported the resistance at all. The Sunni rejectionists and jihadists are the primary enemy, and should be isolated and destroyed. The ICP should be a part of doing that. When that happens, and a Shia-Sunni deal is done, the elected Government will be in a position to tell the US to leave. If the US refuses, then attacks on them will be legitimate - and you'd see a damn sight more than 3000 dead soldiers in 4 years!
You are right that reconstruction issues are very important, and the utter impotence of the occupation forces to deliver reconstruction is often compared very unfavourable with the reconstruction that the Ba’athists managed in just 3 or 4 months after 1991.
Agreed. An army that is planning to overthrow a regime should be travelling with hundreds of thousands generators and water purifiers (for a start) in its baggage train.
Both the collapse of law and order,, and the failure of reconstruction can be laid at the incompetence of the early parts of the US occupation, for example abolishing the Iraqi army, and dispersing thousands of civil servants during the failed policy of de-ba’athication.
Debateable. People are suspicious enough of the US now. What would opinions have been if the USA had found a friendly Baathist to take over? I think things would be far worse than they are now. Sacking the army and the government may have had some bad effects, but it sent a powerful message to Iraq, the region and the world that the Sunni dictatorship had been smashed at its base. The only other possibility was the broadly representative government that we see today.
With regard to how dictators should be overthrown, I would refer you to Patrick Cockburn’s brilliant book about Saddam, written before the current war. He describes how after the 1991 war there was a popular uprising that swept the Ba’athists from power in most provinces, but the uprising was defeated after US forces not only refused to hand over abandoned Iraqi army weapons to the insurgents in the South, but the US air Force even gave air cover to Iraqi Republican guards in defeating the insurgency. In a dark irony the weapons were then handed by the Americans to their Islamist allies in Afghanistan.
Well this is one of the only times I've seen someone arguing against US-led regime change who recognises that heavy weapons are needed to defeat the armed forces of a modern state. The uprising you describe was betrayed by the very right-wingers who think Bush's regime change policy is madness.
Whatever our disagreements on the current situation in Iraq, I'm sure we can agree that the betrayers of the 1992 uprising should be tried as criminals.
I would also remind you that invading a country to achieve regime change is regarded as a war of aggression and is illegal under international law.
Socialist revolution is also illegal, as was the uprising in 1992 against Sadaam's lawful (but evil) tyrrany. The question of regime change needs to be debated on its merits, not in terms of the legality invented by, and for the benefit of, the ruling class. From what you say about the 1992 uprising, you are not against armed uprising against dictators in itself?
All I all I still think that immediate withdrawal is the best option.
Still can't agree. As soon as the elected Iraqi Government feels that it is in a position to tell the US to leave, they will do so. If they really thought they could do without the US, they would tell them to leave now, and they must be considered the best judges of the situation. As I said earlier, if that Government does tell the USA to leave, the USA will have to, or face a real people's war, which would kill 3000 soliders a month, not in 4 years.
I think the best thing that Western leftists can do is to support the Iraqi Government in its war against people who are enemies of freedom, which will create the conditions for the US to be told to leave.
Thanks for your unusually moderate reply. Foul abuse from leftists is the common reply to my point of view.
well I think abuse should be reserved for people who really deserve it, and even then is rarely the best thing!
there clearly is an argument that can be made in good faith that withdrawing the US army now would make the situation worse.
There is alao an argument that can be made in good faith that saddam was so bad and the prospects of him being reoved by the Iraqis so remote, that he needed to be overthrown from outside.
I don't actually agree with either of those positions though.
I think the main area of disagreement we have with regard to the present situation is I don't accept the definition that everyone fighting the Americans is a fascist or a Jihadist. I think many of them are simply attacks by patriotic Iraqis who want to get rid of foreign troops.
With regard to the issue of responsibility for getting rid of saddam (or the taliban) - this had to lie with the Iraqi (Afghan) people, and in so far as there was outside encouragment of that process I think that should have been empowerment, and encouraging human rights improvements by linking with aid and trade (as for example the EU has acheived to a certins degree with Turkey) .
The trouble with the sanctions on Iraq was that they actually reinforced the authority and control by the ba'athists - because they quite efficiently administered rationaing, and alos impoverished and disempowered sources of internal resistance to Ba'athism.
I think the issue of international law is not for the convenince of ruling classes, but a political constraint imposed upn them by popular opposition to war.
I think the main area of disagreement we have with regard to the present situation is I don't accept the definition that everyone fighting the Americans is a fascist or a Jihadist. I think many of them are simply attacks by patriotic Iraqis who want to get rid of foreign troops.
I've been rather strident, and should now be more precise.
This is not only correct, it is in fact the key issue in the low grade armed struggle/civil war in Iraq today.
It's possible that there are indeed Iraqis who have attacked US forces for patriotic, not fascist reasons.
There are also many both Sunni and Shia who have formed armed squads who murder "each other's" people, but who have not done so in support of bin Laden, Wahabism or as puppets of the Iranian Government.
The Government will need to split up the people who have up to now been violent. Deals will have to be done, guns of both Shia extremists and newly-defeated Sunnis will have to be laid down, group by group, deal by deal.
If the jihadis and genuine rejectionists - the ones who will keep on bombing, no matter what - become isolated from other groups who make peace, they can be defeated. Among that relative calm, the Americans can be told to leave.
With regard to the issue of responsibility for getting rid of saddam (or the taliban) - this had to lie with the Iraqi (Afghan) people, and in so far as there was outside encouragment of that process I think that should have been empowerment, and encouraging human rights improvements by linking with aid and trade (as for example the EU has acheived to a certins degree with Turkey).
You don't sound like you wanted the USA to "link aid with trade" when you say:
"the [1992] uprising was defeated after US forces not only refused to hand over abandoned Iraqi army weapons to the insurgents in the South, but the US air Force even gave air cover to Iraqi Republican guards in defeating the insurgency."
You sound like you think the USA should have handed the abandoned weapons over to the insurgents. If you do, I agree completely.
There is a legitmate argument that no real consent to inflict war upon Iraq was sought by the USA. I think this lies at the heart of much honest opposition to the Iraq war.
But I think that if that argument was accepted, then the only way one could have really empowered Iraqi opponents of Sadaam would be: give them weapons. Give them tanks, give them artillery, give them loads and loads of jeeps and lorries, give them air support. Insurgencies can get hold of bombs, small arms, small mortars and shoulder-launched weapons, but never had the heavy weaponry to take on even the chastened Sadaam of early 1992.
Since you're proposing a structure for international law that does not serve the ruling class, what are your thoughts on what sort of direct military assistance is legal to people living under dictators?
The trouble with the sanctions on Iraq was that they actually reinforced the authority and control by the ba'athists - because they quite efficiently administered rationaing, and alos impoverished and disempowered sources of internal resistance to Ba'athism.
Agreed. I think left wingers should have a policy of demolishing dictatorships, not strengthening them.
When the structure of "sovereignty" is invoked to, in itself, say that someone like Sadaam should not be toppled, then it has ceased to serve any legitimate restraint that the working class might want to impose on war, I think.
That is not to say that an invasion by the USA would have been the only way to overthrow Sadaam, but that question of the heavy weapons needed to stand up against Sadaam's state keeps cropping up. How should left-wingers deal with that question?
Yes - this is a useful dialogue.
I agree when you say: "The Government will need to split up the people who have up to now been violent. Deals will have to be done, guns of both Shia extremists and newly-defeated Sunnis will have to be laid down, group by group, deal by deal."
Moving into the post-conflict stage will require deals, and also i think those deals will need the involvement of Syria, Iran and Turkey, and one of my reasons for beleiving that ealry US withdrawl would be better is becasue they seem to be a block on such a process, rather than helping it along, vetoing involvement from iran and Syria for example. I also think they are stoking the sectarian conflict, for example currently clearing out Sunni areas in Baghdad, and moving shia in.
With reagrd to the 1991 war, I opposed the US colaition, but in the pst war aftermath the best outcom would have been for the US to permit the insurgency to win.
I am not sure it is necessary for there to be outside mikitary aid to overthrow dictators (except perhaps in extremis like a Ruanda genocide), after all the Shah of iran had a very highly developed repressive security police and army, and he was overthrown.
Similarly the Portugese fascist regime was overthrown in 1974.
The trouble with these outside interventions is that they get mixed up with the imperial interests of ther powers using the muscle.
Sorry, must go to bed and early to work (in Australia) so reply will be 24hrs or so.
Yesterday the Iraqi government said that wanted to open discussions and come to a deal with all insurgents except Al Qaeda. This is a rational move, and one that it has probably wanted to make for a long time but been stopped by the U.S.
There is only one thing that can be done with Al Qaeda - and that's wipe it out. No negotiations, no back channel chit-chats, no deals, just outright destruction. That does not mean a purely military effort, although that might be needed as part of a truly international effort. After all, it is said, that there is no more than a few thousand Al Qaeda "soldiers" (and let's please accept that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc are not the same thing as Al Qaeda). The thing that Al Qaeda fears most is democracy. With the U.S. absolutely committed to propping up the pro-U.S. Arab dictatorships, the U.S. is Al Qaeda's most important ally, as we can see with terrorist experts saying the Al Qaeda contagion is spreading, not least with Iraq now becoming a jihadi factory (making Afghanistan look like a tea party).
So the Iraqi government is itself accepting that the insurgency is not made up of fascists and theocratic nihilists. Yet the shrill cry from the pro-war "Left" goes on that the violence is all the work of Al Qaeda and Baathist "fascists". Nice to see "Dave J" accepting this; so many do not. For the record, the violence is multilayered: a true resistance against the occupation, Sunni-Shia civil war, the militias carving up Baghdad, Sunnis fighting the Wahhabis and Salafists, the Wahhabis and Salafists slaughtering Shia, the U.S. crushing any town which shows any sign of resistance, etc. The whole thing is an extraordinary mess. and the longer the occupation goes on, the worse the whole sorry business will become.
And for those who still cling to the neocon vision. Well, the truth leaked out last night on Newsnight. Arch neocon John Bolton admitted that he himself lied when he prattled on about bringing democracy to Iraq. He was uninterested in such a thing and he only repeated it because it was the party line. I'll add that it was like WMD just a line and not to be taken seriously.
I would add that the polls are skewed because about 15-20% of the population are Kurds and, in general, they're probably content.
The Arab province of Iraq are therefore really what need to be exclusively polled. And then the picture would be even worse.
Having said all this, the Kurdish region is said to be unstable too. After all, it was not so long ago that there was a civil war in Iraqi Kurdisatan. On top of that, the Kurds will probably react violently when the U.S. double-crosses them (again) - as it will certainly do. The poor bastards are probably going to get screwed again.
david
Are you permanentlly in oZ, or just working there tempoararily?
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