Al-Ghad

The execution of of Saddam, may have closed one chapter of Iraqi history, but it will certainly open another, of far different kind. This issue of “Al-Ghad”, went on line just as news of the eminent demise of the despot was announced. His execution was so sudden that it is too early to conclude the real background and the calculations behind it. However judging from the brief statement of the White House it appears to be the first shot of President Bush “new strategy” after the publication of Baker-Hamilton report.

He said: “Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror.” One can’t know what effect such a statement on the American public, but in Iraq it is like Mr Bush shooting his foot again. He alienated pro-Saddam groups even more without gaining any credit for it, and making it apparent how desperate he is, in Iraq and in the U. S.

In this first issue al Ghad tries to make some sense of the confused and confusing present situation, which appears hopeless and badly deteriorating.But below the rising smoke of burned cars and what appears to be sectarian killings, there are also signs of polarisation, with the majority people rallying for national unity and ending the occupation. But in the present chaos and well orchestrated “disinformation and death squads”, to quote Max Fuller, it is not easy to distinguish reality from appearances; death squads from “sectarian” killings; spectacular defeat from mission accomplished”.

Al Ghad tries to do alluding to the background of the invasion and course of events in Iraq since then. Of great importance is the new political development in the popular movement and its consequences affecting the destiny of the American Millennium dream, as seen from Iraq’s vantage. It was a dream of the “Greater Middle East Project” to achieved in a “cakewalk” visualised as serious program for action to be realised in weeks, lasting for a century, if not more. In the words of a well informed commentator:

“The neoconservative vision was always that Iraq would be made anew, shorn of the flaws and ailments of the Arab world. Before the invasion, senior policymakers speculated that Iraq’s postwar government would recognize Israel. “The road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad,” they were fond of saying. Immediately after the war, a senior international diplomat… was embarking on a trip to Iraq neighbours, and he asked Paul Bremer what message to deliver for them. The answer: none. The region was the problem, not the solution.” (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, Nov, 20, 2006).

The Original scheme had been conceived in even more extravagant terms. As if a “New American Century” was not enough, in July 2002, the Pentagon launched the most elaborate war games in its history in anticipation of the forthcoming real invasion. The war games, as reported by (LA Times, Dec, 14, 2006), were revealingly titled “Millennium Challenge, 02″. The extraordinary fact was not the lightening speed of the “cakewalk”, but the rapid collapsed of the whole Project by the headless resistance of a starved and disunited people.

The US invasion started confidently, the Iraqi people were subjected to a brutal shock and awe therapy by unrelenting bombardment. However when the dust settled after the initial attacks, it was the invading forces who were shocked and awed. The people of Iraq, resilient by nature, were also too hardened and acclimatised by continuos wars, to be deeply affected by Pentagon theatrics.

However the Iraqi public had, at first, no understanding of what the invader had in store for the country, and the continued and repeated destruction of value, especially symbols of the political, economic, and of cultural identity. The main exception was OIL and the oil installations. Museums , public libraries, archives, banks, hospitals were repeatedly looted and torched. There was a complete political vacuum. Baath’s forces and followers did not put up any resistance in Baghdad, they were stunned and demoralised. Most existing parties and prominent personalities were paying respect to the new masters of the country.

All this gave the false impression that things were not going badly confirming American illusions to a degree that President Bush heroic rushed to declare mission accomplished”, thereby insuring quick failure and strategic defeat.

Things started to change shortly afterward, and serious but spontaneous clashes took place first in Najaf, then Falluja, and later on there were signs of a rising resistance. In that political vacuum “al Ghad”, other publications, Iraqi patriotic groups from various parts of the country including Kurdistan, and the Iraqi Communist Party (Central Leadership), all came together to point out clearly the destructive nature of US imperial domination and the way forward. One aspect of al Ghad that had left some strong impression on its readers was its continuos reports of the wide international opposition to the neo-colonialist war against Iraq.

After presenting the background of the present political situation in Iraq, Al Ghad goes on to deal with the problems of what do now, in the wake of the publication of the report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), the subsequent report of the Intentional Crisis Group (ICG), and the unfolding political crisis in the U S, Britain, and the region.

Al Ghad points out that the crisis of the American occupation of Iraq has spilled over in the US itself and most, if not all other crisis in the region and the world have been linked together. “Iraq has became the world, and the world Iraq”, consequently what happens in one will directly affect the other, making the collapse, or dismemberment of Iraq as the US is planning , a prelude to wider sphere conflicts involving the region drawing in the whole world. Al Ghad concludes that the world faces now two options: “Either Iraq is intact and fully liberated, or the world would face international conflicts with unimaginable consequences”. It is ironic that Bush invaded Iraq convinced that “Success in Iraq will change the world”, unaware what failure entails. And it is failure is what driving him now either to world ruin, or his own disgrace.

However, it is this situation of ‘swim or sink together situation’ that has also a promise of salvation both of Iraq and of the world, but no doubt at the price of humiliation of Bush and his keen advisers, the neoconservatives.

Such resolution to the crisis is made more probable now. First, by the present realignment of the political forces inside Iraq which has definitely shifted in favour of the anti-occupation forces. There was polarisation on massive scale in the popular trends, with the Sadrist Current transformed from originally a fringe grouping into the main organised vehicle of the mass movement in the country. This movement, though not solid or tightly organised, is rather a loose federation of the disenfranchised attracting the poor, the deprived and mainly the younger and the unemployed sections, who constitutes 60-70% of the population. It has become a main political factor in the country when it joined the United Iraqi Alliance, with 30 Parliament members and 6 cabinet ministers. It won 131 the signatures of Parliament members (nearly half of the total) in support of declaring a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupation forces. This was apparent even before Saddam’s execution.

Second, is the law of unintended results, if there is such a thing. The execution of Saddam had such unintended results, one of which is deepening the gulf between the pro-Saddam forces and the US, making a wide anti-occupation alliance more probable, as had happened in the first Falluja uprising in 2003, and the Najaf revolt a year later. As the various political forces, and individuals, give up hope of US favours, they tend to join forces for securing their aims. So it seems Bush and his advisers unintentionally helped to dug their own, and Saddam’s graves.

Third, the Sadrist Current has objected to Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al Maliki, meeting with President Bush in Amman, Jordan. This friction in the United Iraqi Alliance led to a new orientation in Sadrist Current for a wider alliance of anti-occupations Iraqi forces. On Nov. 30, 2006 CNN reported, in its own vocabulary pigeon-holing Iraqi political groups:

“One day after suspending participation in Iraq’s government, the bloc loyal to anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced a possible new political alliance with Sunnis and Christians.
Calling the group a “national front,” the head of al-Sadr’s bloc in Parliament — Falah Hassan Shanshel — said the groups would target the U.N. Security Council’s decision to extend the mandate of the 160,000 multinational force in Iraq for another year.”

Such call came in response to attempts by the Bush administration to form an alliance among SCIRI and the pro-Saddam right wing parties, to isolate the Sadrist Current, and prepare the ground for a military action to liquidate it. This was, and is, the aim of Bush’s call for a surge in US forces in Iraq.

The latest political developments in Iraq in the wake of Saddam’s execution, and confused actions of the Bush administration could drive the anti-occupation political forces in Iraq to come together, if not forming a united national front encompassing a wide spectrum of patriotic forces to end the occupation and save the country.

Al Ghad called for a wider national front including the Iraqi Democratic Left, Sadrist Current and the national Kurdish movement in all its sections, which were alienated by the report of the Baker-Hamilton group which ignored American promises to respect the Kurdish people legitimate national rights. and now by denigrating the the far more serious crimes committed by Saddam against the Kurdish people in the Anfal massacres. The Execution of Saddam would hasten the alliance proposed by al Ghad.

Al Ghad supported the demand of the Sadrist Current to reject the U.N. Security Council’s decision to extend the mandate of the occupation force in Iraq for another year. Al Ghad called on the U.N. Security Council to terminate its mandate on June 15, 2007 when it comes for the obligatory revision by the Council at this date, and to make the Year 2007, the year of Iraq’ Liberation.

It can be seen now that the Iraqi people have traversed huge distances since the days of 2003, and the day of winning complete liberation is not far off. Still this would depend on people’s unity and determination, but they have glorious revolutionary heritage to rely on to blaze the unbeaten track ahead. Like the Latin American people who faced and facing similar US aggression, but had in the end turned their continent into a rising bastion of freedom and Revolution, the Iraqi people are on the same road to freedom and liberation.

For those who are mislaid by the skilled media, thinking Iraq is drowning in blood shed by its own people, one can only refer them to the well researched book of Max Fuller, on Iraq and the Salvador experience:

To penetrate the media smokescreen of spontaneous, uncontrollable violence and understand the role of intelligence operations in the creation of a beholden, occupied client state or series of statelets is fundamental to understanding the processes in Iraq today. It is also fundamental to recognising that the presence of Anglo-American forces in Iraq does not merely exacerbate the present violence; in Iraq we are the violence.

Max Fuller is the author of ‘For Iraq, the Salvador Option Become Reality’ published by the Centre for Research on Globalisation.

Al Ghad