Wednesday, October 12, 2005

One Sunni Party Cooperation Does Not Guarantee Peace In Iraq

It has been announced that one Sunni political party will cooperate with the Shiite and Kurdish elements that are in the driver seat with the design of the Iraqi constitution. Yet this does not necessarily hold promise that the Sunni led insurgency will cease. The support of a single conservative Sunni party to lay down it's deep-set and long running ethnic conflict with the Shiites and Kurds, who are urging their members to vote for the constitution, will hardly quell the most radical elements who are the face of the Iraqi insurgency.

The roots of the conflict in Iraq began shortly after WWI. During WWI, Turkey aligned with other ethnic Arab areas in the MidEast and formed the old Muslim Ottoman Empire which had long sought to impose the Muslim faith throughout Europe in the long running conflict between the Muslim and the Christian world in Europe. Past conflicts left pockets of Muslims in states like Bosnia setting up the ethnic conflict that followed after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

During WWI, Turkey was an ally of Germany, and this set up a conflict where Turkish control of southern Europe would likely mean that Southern European states such as Spain, Italy and other states would likely have the Muslim faith imposed on them if Turkey and Germany should win the war. A combined military of British, Irish, French and Australian soldiers faced a terrible military defeat at the horriby failed invasion of Galliopi in an attempt to battle with Turkey. After the eventual defeat of both Turkey and Germany, the victorious British sought to impose control over parts of the old Ottoman Empire in the MidEast, partially due to the discovery of oil in the region now known as Iraq. In a post WWI hotel room, Winston Churchill drew up a map of Iraq that combined three ethnic groups with nothing in common, and called this artificial state of British occupation "Iraq".

Britain soon found that it was forced to take the Sunni side in the ethnic dispute between the Shiite and Kurdish ethnic groups. Despite this, Britain faced more than 40 years of terrible insurgent fighting and used mustard gas attacks on entire villages by aircraft, armored vehicle attacks, and other mechanized warfare tactics to suppress the growing insurgency in Iraq. However by the 1950's the rise of the Arab socialist movement in Eygpt with the successful coup by Gamel Nasser helped to inspire the Baath Socialist movement in Iraq and the successful 1958 rebellion that forced the British withdrawal from Iraq.

Despite this history, neoconservatives representing themselves as the Project For The New American Century, an organization that was defense contractor funded, and founded by Weekly Standard Editor, William Kristol, advocated a new war against Iraq to wrest power from Saddam Hussein and to put Iraqi opposition forces into power. The PNAC actually served two political factional goals, those who were either affilated with military contractor interests liked the financial windfall aspects of a renewed war with Iraq. This included some like Donald Rumseld, Halliburton's Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Jeb Bush and others. Another faction was a wing of Jewish community conservatives such as William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and Morton Krondrake promotting the notion of a renewed war with Iraq under the guise of fears of WMDs as a form of proxy effort to make the tiny state of Israel more secure from any future threat from Saddam Hussein. Yet due to 12 years of U.N. sanctions and past weapons inspections by UNSCOM, Saddam Hussein was hardly the military threat or WMD threat to Israel that the American Jewish conservatives had feared. He had been reduced to an impotent role in MidEast politics. But others in the oil community as well as some concerned with U.S. national security goals, liked the notion that if Iraq could be brought under a new government, then U.S. efforts to have a closer control of the Strait Of Hormuz, which is under Iranian control, and hence the world's oil supply would be greatly enhanced.

The 1990-91 Gulf War was poorly concluded where the unconditional surrender of Saddam Hussein was not made a primary condition of the ceasefire by the first President Bush. This forced 12 years of cruel U.N. sanctions makng food and medicine supplies tight, while Saddam Hussein's family were able to skim enough funds to build palace after palace, while most Iraqis suffered from a shortage of daily vital provisions and goods.

The current American war, just like the British one in Iraq , has been very bloody. The Pentagon for example has publicly denied the use of Mark 77, a modern form of napalm incediary fuel gel bomb that weighs in at 750 lbs. , in Iraq. However, American pilots have publicly claimed that they dropped such bombs in Iraq. Despite official claims of the Pentagon, 500 of these bombs were droppedby the U.S. during the first Gulf War, and at least 30 more in the 2003 war in Iraq. The U.N. Convention on some conventional weapons outlaws the use of these modern napalm weapons, however the U.S. has failed to sign this treaty. Both the U.S. and Russia continue to defy the world community by their continued military inventory of fuel gel type bombs. And the U.S. made heavy use of depleted uranium bombs as well.

And the despite massive military efforts in the Western sector of Iraq near the Syrian border, the U.S. has failed to stop but small handfuls of foreign insurgent fighters who pour into Iraq from foreign states. There has been civilian deaths, or "colateral damage" as the Pentagon terms it, of civilians whose homes were bombed to rout out a handful of insurgent fighters here or there, leaving many women or children maimed or dead. And electricity, food, water and medicine supplies in Iraq are now at even worse levels than during the 12 terrible years of harsh U.N. sanctions.

And the current government of Iraq, instead of creating a document for the future of Iraq, essentially used the constitution to construct a document dividing the oil assets of Iraq among the more powerful coalition of Shiite and Kurdish ethnic groups, leaving the Sunni minority little more than the sand of Iraq. The current constitution is little more than a dissolution document for Iraq, more similar to divorce papers, and highly unlikely to secure Iraq as a single state for the future of a united Iraq. And Turkey has fears that the Kurds in the North will press for a modern state of Kurdistan, while ethnic tensions with Kurds in Turkey continue to rise.

The worst of the British conflict in Iraq lasted from 1920 to 1958. In all this time, Britain could not impose control over Iraq. Equally the U.S. will likely find itself embroiled for many years in Iraq. It is highly likely that America's sons, and their grandsons, will find themselves in Iraq for quite some time. 40 years of mustard gas attacks and armored warfare against entire Iraqi villages could not bring Iraq under British control. Equally the napalm attacks of Mark 77 bombs, and the bombing of homes in villages in Iraq to fight first the military of Iraq, then the insurgents, has failed to secure the peace as of yet in Iraq. And the most radical Sunni elements will continue to ignore and oppose the Iraqi constitution, and will not likely lay down arms in the near future.

America's ticket out of Iraq, is the elusive peace and stability. But more likely than not, America's sons and their grandsons will be bogged down in this qaugmire for a good many years. Currently only one Iraqi military battlion of 700 men is able to fight on it's own without American military support, down from three battlions of about 2,000 men a few months ago. America has recently quietly increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by 14,000 to 152,000 in the last few days. Iraq has proven itself so far unable to effectively unable to govern itself, police itself, provide military for itself, enough food, clean water, electricity or medicine for itself. This leaves America clearly stuck in the Iraq quagmire with little hope of an early exit in the near future by any honest, realistic or objective opinion.

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