As The New York Times diplomatically put it, "Although Dr. Allawi's government will have "full sovereignty," according to a United Nations Security Council resolution earlier this month, there will be limits."
The reporter only mentioned a few of these limits. Here's a more complete list:
- The government was appointed by the United States, real power given to those willing to do US bidding.
- The US military will remain, continuing as the most powerful force in the country while establishing a permanent foothold in the country.
- The Iraqi budget will be provided almost completely by the Americans, giving Iraqis almost no leverage over funding decisions.
- All American soldiers, mercenaries, and contractors will have complete immunity from Iraqi law, in a decision unilaterally imposed by the Americans — so that the puppet government wouldn't have to be embarassed by granting immunity itself.
- The government will have no power to change any of the laws imposed by the occupation.
It has nothing to do with liberation or democracy.
1 comment:
Things in Iraq are too messed up for any sort of "solution". It's been obvious from the beginning that once Hussein was gone there were only two possible outcomes: a repressive ethnicity-based state or civil war.
It was always naive to think that democracy was possible in a country with tremendous oil wealth and three large, cohesive ethnic groups. The political history of Iraq is nothing but the struggle for control of the state and the ownership that gives you over the sources of power in the country, oil and the military. The only way to fix this would be to socialize the oil (distribute the wealth equally to every individual) and abolish the military.
There's a slight chance Iraqis could have someday accomplished this; there was never any chance the Americans could. They at first tried to uproot the Sunni ruling class and dismantle the military, presumably hoping to substitute themselves as overlords. But they soon found that these steps were incompatible with their most important goals: control of the oil, permanent military installations, and control of the economy by American corporations. Re-Baathification is already well underway, and the "sovereign" puppet government will resurrect the military. We're well on the way to civil war, pitting the numerically superior Shia against the entrenched Sunni of the bureaucracy and military.
What could the Americans do if they cared more about the welfare of Iraqis than oil, bases, and corporations? They could support strict safeguards for the Kurds and other minorities, they could impose a socialized oil system, set up a system of American reparations to Iraq (covering both the 1991 and 2003 wars and the sanctions decade), and most important LEAVE. A determined UN might be able to step in and keep the peace long enough for the ethnic groups to accept the new arrangements. Maybe. But the basic American goals means this will never be a possibility.
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