and they sent them to the war to be slain (pt 2)
As it stands now, a possible Kerry Administration differs with the current Bush Administration on the role of the international community as a catalyst for jump-starting the country's broken economy and to do away with the image of an occupying American force.
Both candidates call for more American troops, the inclusion of NATO troops, "Iraqization" of security forces, and U.N. supervision of elections.
"If you want to parse it finely enough, there are some differences" between the pair's positions, says Rahul Mahajan, author of the books Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond and The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism and blogger of Empire Notes.
"In a sense, I don't think there are any solid proposals" for an American withdrawal, Mahajan says. "The whole transfer of sovereignty was a sham...At this point, talk about the U.N. is a red herring."
"At this point,” says Toufe, “its not like any other country's going to volunteer.”
Toufe says U.S. efforts, like the appointment of former CIA and MI-6 asset Ilyad Allawi to the position of interim prime minister by the carefully vetted Iraqi governing council simply add more to the U.S. military's burden.
"He has no history of being a popular leader in Iraq," says Toufe. "He was hand-picked by Paul Bremer, in a closed situation. [The interim government's] force is going to depend on us."
"I don't see anything good for the country in the short or medium term," says Mahajan. "Everyday [the U.S. is there] is making it harder."
"The fact that neither of the candidates are willing to make clear there will be military bases there [in the long term] is cause for great concern," says Erik Gustafson, Gulf War vet and executive director of Education for Peace in Iraq Center. The six-year-old human-rights group advocates for changing U.S. policy in Iraq, and is funded by donations and grants from "mostly progressive foundations" says Gustafson, like the Ending War Foundation, Colomb Fund, and Peace Development Fund.
Neither candidate has considered the full impact of invasion and occupation, says Zeynep Toufe, and the best thing for the U.S. to do would be to leave.
"The stakes are different," she says. "We can just pull out. We can just pull out and be gone. We as a people can change the choices on the table. They have to accept what's on the table. They don't have a choice.
"We can get out, pay reparations, and apologize to the rest of the world," Toufe says. According to the polls she's seen, "They are not asking us to stay. They want us out. We owe it to them, we don't own it," she says, referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell's "you break it, you own it" pre-invasion thesis. “If I come into your house and break your TV, that doesn’t mean I own it now.”
Kelly says that many of the country's problems stem directly from the shattered economy, which is not being helped, again, by "Year Zero" neocon economic theories. "Maybe five, ten years down the line, there might be that chance Iraqis could get a stake in the economy."
Until then, she says, many of the children who grew up during the onerous sanctions regimine of the 1990s are now coming of age, and see the invasion in stark terms, thus fueling the insurgency.
"I would never encourage anyone to pick up a gun," Kelly says. "But I understand it...They don't want to see the transfer of the wealth of their country to another country that is already extremely wealthy."
A poll of 1,093 Iraqis taken this summer by the Coalition Provisional Authority showed 92% of respondents considered the U.S. an occupying force, and that 67% felt the Iraqi army and police force could maintain security by themselves.
It may not be so simple, however. Erik Gustafson says the circumstances following the invasion have led to a situation that is profoundly complicated, and may not be remedied with an immediate withdrawal. He says there has been a new wave of kidnapings - many of Iraqi children - that have been pulled off just for ransoming the hostage, without any political intent. "There's even speculation that the [former necon favorite and one-time prime minister candidate Ahmed] Chalabi gang might be involved in that," he says.
"There also is a battle over what the political landscape will be" Gustafson says. "I don't see this as simple thing, as just the U.S. against Iraqis."
For example, Gustafson says, "The [political and social] tradition in cosmopolitan cities like Baghdad is not fundamentalist." Many Iraqis, Gustafson says, feel that "if a weak leader is installed, 'that's it'," and the country may go the way of Islamic fundamentalism.
Thus, political unrest and violence since the invasion, he says, has moved Iraqi popular opinion to the right. "There's been polling that says Iraqis want a strongman to return to power," Gustafson says.
"A lot of folks want a simple answer," he says. However, he says that "anyone that thinks that its as simple as the U.S. withdrawing [unilaterally], that's the same kind of simple message as Bush saying he would invade and transform the region into a democracy," Gustafson says.
Management of the occupation was recently handed off - again - to the State Department, he says, which is better suited to answering the kinds of political questions that have been popping up since the so-called transfer of soverignty.
Ultimately, Gustafson suggests a more nuanced U.S. approach and bringing in international help is key to overcoming Iraq's post-invasion woes. Which candidate will expedite that is another thing.
"When Bush is talking about NATO, and the U.N. being more involved, he just can't be believed," Gustafson says. Bush's recent address to the U.N. General Assembly is case in point, he says. An opportunity for the President to "demonstrate some contrition," Gustafson says, was choked off by the need for election-year politicking.
There is some consensus among policy wonks, Gustafson says, that with a Kerry Administration, "there's going to be better relationships with the U.N."
"Some of the points you'll hear Bush make about the violence in Iraq are half-truths," Gustafson says. "Whenever you have a transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, it's never pretty."
"I've got no fantasies about this," he says. "Even with a Kerry Administration, it's going to be exceedingly hard to induce the international community" to help, he says.
"The bottom line," he says, "which candidate is more likely to create the conditions that can lead to a withdrawal? That's the golden question. Especially for progressives."
Closer to home, Rahul Mahajan says Americans may pay a steep price for the hawkishness the 2004 Democratic ticket flaunted.
"The way you campaign becomes a part of you as a political entity," Mahajan says. "With the militarism the Democrats offer as an antidote to the - frankly, a kind of neo-fascism being pushed by the Republicans - what's being played is a very dangerous game."
If Kerry wins, Mahajan suggests that "all the Democratic bigwigs will draw the lesson that never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, could a candidate oppose American imperialism."
Still, Mahajan says the future warrants some cause for optimism. While "some of the turns the Iraqi resistance is taking is unhopeful...The resistance will continue to grow," he says.
"The U.S. has shackled itself to success in Iraq. There's a sense of globalized resistance to American imperialism," he says. The left-leaning, populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's recent electoral success, in spite of behind-the-scenes American meddling and open condemnation, is one instance. "The one big" component that's missing, Mahajan says, is a truly viable U.S. anti-war movement.
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