Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Empty Illusion of Sovereignty

Thanks George, Now Get Lost

Iraq is George Bush's legacy. It's the hottest topic in US politics. Every pol has an opinion on what to do but in word and deed Washington continuously lets the cat out of the bag - Iraqi sovereignty is a myth.

Both Republicans and Democrats eagerly gush about how the one good thing of the Iraq war was the emergence of a sovereign, democratic state. Yet no one seems willing to accept that sovereignty is, at its core, genuine self-determination free of foreign interference. A sovereign state, democratic or totalitarian or anything in between, calls its own shots. More often than not it is Washington calling the shots in Iraq.

The race is on for the presidential nominations for both parties in 2008 and there are already plenty of potential candidates emerging. Each, naturally, has his own opinion on what Iraq should be and no one seems remotely hesitant to weigh in on this topic. Wait a moment, didn't America go through a grandiose exercise of "transferring" sovereignty to the elected government of Iraq? Even that was myth. An occupying power doesn't acquire sovereignty over the occupied nation and, hence, is incapable of transferring what it doesn't hold.

One Democrat advocates "soft partition" of Iraq into Shia Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish states. There have even been whispers of a coup to replace Maliki with someone more suitable to Washington. Others talk about imposing some sort of national reconciliation that compels the majority Shia to make concessions to the minority Sunni. In fact, that's just what George Bush has dictated Maliki must do now.

Maliki openly rejected the Bush surge when it was first proposed. In fact he called for a withdrawal of US and coaltion forces by the end of the year. His supposedly sovereign government's wishes have been brushed aside by the White House as though they were irrelevant.

Condi Rice reinforced the obvious when she admitted that her president authorized US forces in Iraq to raid Iranian diplomatic missions and take Iranian diplomats into American custody. That is a breathtaking repudiation of Iraqi sovereignty. It even has Kurdish legislators furious at Washington's arrogance.

Iraq remains hostage to the US in the context of Washington's 'cold war' against Iran. It must be tightly controlled because giving it the freedom of genuine sovereignty would be highly risky to America's posture toward Iran. That, as much as anything, is why the White House has so arrogantly flown straight in the face of Congress, the American people, international law, the world community and every study group and think tank that has proferred an opinion - except for the neo-cons.

Any nation that is occupied by another country's armed forces against its express will and is held hostage to the occupying state's foreign policy toward yet against another nation is anything but sovereign. Maliki knows this, every legislator in Baghdad knows this as does every player in the Middle East.

Watch to see if Maliki, sensing Bush's vulnerability at home, tries to throw off the shackles of the American occupation by failing to fulfil the "benchmarks" unilaterally imposed on him by Washington. There are already signs that Maliki may be making his move.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Maliki has overridden the objections of US and Iraqi military commanders to appoint a virtual unknown, Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar, to be Iraq's top general in Baghdad.

"The appointment is highly significant because it is Maliki's first public move after President Bush's announcement that he was sending more troops to Iraq. The prime mission of those troops is to reduce violence in Baghdad, much of which is blamed on sectarian fighters.

"As the Iraqi commander for the capital, Qanbar would play a central role in that campaign, and any ties he might have to sectarian groups could undermine the new U.S. effort."

Maliki has made it plain he's opposed to any American action against Shiite militias. Qanbar may be his way of seeing that doesn't happen. To Maliki, the best bet to achieving genuine sovereignty may be to let the American people see that Iraq has no interest in the Bush benchmarks, forcing Bush to withdraw his forces.

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