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Title: Status of Forces Agreement Author: Noam Chomsky Date: August 9, 2008 Language: en Topics: kurdistan, Iraq, US foreign interventions Source: Retrieved on 19th February 2022 from https://chomsky.info/20080809/ Notes: Published in Kurdistani Nwe.
The roots of US interest in Iraq were explained lucidly a few weeks ago
by the editors of the Washington Post, the country’s premier political
daily. Iraq “lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and
contains some of the world’s largest oil reserves,” the editors
observed, admonishing Barack Obama for regarding Afghanistan as “the
central front” for the United States. “While the United States has an
interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban,” they
explained, “the country’s strategic importance pales beside that of
Iraq.”
Until recently such forthright honesty was regarded as improper. Like
most acts of aggression, the invasion of Iraq was routinely portrayed as
self-defense against an ominous and implacable foe and guided by noble
and selfless objectives. But as Iraqi resistance makes it more difficult
to install a dependable client regime, and concerns mount that the US
might have to allow Iraqis a degree of sovereignty and independence
beyond what was intended, the standard fairy tales are no longer
adequate to the task of mobilizing domestic opinion to tolerate policy
decisions. They are by no means abandoned, but increasingly they are
being put to the side in favor of a clearer exposition of why US power
centers must do whatever they can to control Iraq.
There is nothing new about the insights of the Post editors. Since World
War II the US government has recognized that the energy resources of the
Middle East are “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the
greatest material prizes in world history. In President Eisenhower’s
words, primarily for these reasons the Gulf region is the “most
strategically important area of the world.” US control is even more
important now than before with the prospects of oil becoming a
diminishing resource in a world economy that is heavily dependent on
fossil fuels for its functioning. Furthermore, the global system is less
subject to US domination than in the past so that competition for these
great material prizes is becoming more intense, and control of “some of
the world’s largest oil reserves…at the geopolitical center of the
Middle East” is of paramount importance for US power centers.
There should never have been any serious doubt that these were the basic
reasons for the US invasion of Iraq, and for its current intention to
maintain Iraq as a client state and base for US power in the region,
with privileged access to its resources for the Western (primarily US)
oil majors. These intentions were outlined with fair clarity in the
Declaration of Principles released by the White House in November 2007,
an agreement between Bush and the Maliki government.
The Declaration permits US forces to remain indefinitely to “deter
foreign aggression” and to provide “security.” The phrase “foreign
aggression” presumably refers to Iran, though the government
deliberations and pronouncements make it clear that Washington’s concern
is with Iranian influence, not the highly unlikely circumstance of
aggression – and of course the concept of US aggression does not exist.
As for security, it is understood on all sides that there can be no
thought of providing security for a government that would reject US
domination.
The Declaration also commits Iraq to facilitate and encourage “the flow
of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments,” an
oblique reference to privileged access to “some of the world’s largest
oil reserves.” This brazen expression of imperial will was underscored
when Bush quietly issued yet another of his hundreds of “signing
statements”; these are among the devices employed by the Bush
administration to concentrate historically unprecedented power in the
state executive. In this signing statement, Bush declared that he will
ignore congressional legislation that interferes with the establishment
of “any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for
the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq,” and
will also ignore any congressional legislation that impedes White House
actions “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of
Iraq.” The signing statement is an even more brazen expression of
imperial will than the Bush-Maliki Declaration, and yet another
expression of the utter contempt for democracy that has been a hallmark
of the administration, at home and abroad.
Shortly before, the New York Times had reported that Washington “insists
that the Baghdad government give the United States broad authority to
conduct combat operations,” a demand that “faces a potential buzz saw of
opposition from Iraq, with its…deep sensitivities about being seen as a
dependent state.” These “deep sensitivities” are regarded as a form of
third world irrationality and emotionalism, which have to be overcome by
a well-crafted combination of propaganda (called “public diplomacy”) and
coercion. In July 2008, the US Air Force released a detailed plan for
Iraq operations “for the foreseeable future,” the New York Times
reported, eliciting no notable comment.
Two years ago, John Pike, a leading specialist on military affairs,
wrote that the US will find “all kinds of reasons” for not leaving Iraq.
The core of a modern army is logistics, and as Pike observed, the US has
been maintaining control of logistics and advanced weaponry. The US is
training Iraqi combat units, but not support units. Under this
conception, Iraq may provide bodies for combat, like Indian sepoys and
Gurkhas under the British Raj, but Iraqi forces are to rely on supply
and direction by the US and basic decisions are to reside in US hands.
The Iraqi military had no combat planes and only a few tanks. Iraq is a
US “protectorate,” Pike wrote, without an independent military force.
Though much is shrouded in secrecy, that picture seems to remain
generally valid.
The Pentagon is continuing to build huge military bases around the
country, all funded by the Democrat-controlled Congress, which also
funds the construction of the enormous US “embassy” in Baghdad, a city
within a city that is quite unlike any authentic embassy in the world.
These massive constructions are not being built to be abandoned or
destroyed. Democrats have proposed withdrawal plans, but as General
Kevin Ryan concluded in a detailed examination, they might more
accurately be described as “re-missioning.” And though Washington is
surely aware of the overwhelming popular demand in Iraq for a firm
timetable for withdrawal of US forces – for a large majority, within a
year or less – the administration has been willing to commit itself only
to a meaningless “general time horizon,” glossing over questions of
scale and mission.
More specific are the plans to reconstitute something like the Iraq
Petroleum Company that was established under British rule to permit
Western Oil majors “to dine off Iraq’s wealth in a famously exploitative
deal,” as British journalist Seamus Milne observed, commenting on the
resurrection of the IPC. The companies that constituted the IPC are
being granted an inside track on development and control of Iraqi oil in
no-bid contracts. The pretext is that they had been providing “free
advice” – as had Russia’s Lukoil, the one major company not permitted to
join the reconstituted IPC consortium. The goal, surely, is to grant
Western oil majors the kind of control over this incomparable “material
prize” that they lost worldwide – in Iraq as well — during the
nationalizations of the 1970s. Meanwhile, with Washington’s support,
Texas-based Hunt oil has established itself in Kurdistan, and State
Department officials in Basra contacted Hunt executives to encourage
them to pursue yet “another opportunity,” an enormous port and natural
gas project in the south.
In brief, Washington’s intention, expressed by now with fair clarity, is
that Iraq should remain a client state, allowing permanent US military
installations (called “enduring,” to assuage Iraqi sensibilities). It is
to grant the US the right to conduct combat and air operations at will,
and to ensure Western (primarily US) investors priority in accessing its
huge oil resources. None of this should surprise observers who are not
blinded by doctrine.
Iraqis have never passively accepted domination by outside powers, and
Washington will face no easy task in imposing it today. Inadvertently,
the Bush administration has been strengthening Iran’s interests in Iraq,
supporting many of its closest allies in Iraq’s political and military
institutions while Iran also enhances commercial and cultural
interactions, supply of electricity, and other actions. Doubtless Iran
hopes that a friendly Shi’ite-controlled state will become firmly
established on its borders, possibly even with strengthened links to
neighboring areas of Saudi Arabia with a large Shi’ite population, where
most of Saudi oil is located. All of this would be a nightmare from
Washington’s perspective, even more so if the region moves towards
association with the China-based Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
which includes the Central Asian states and Russia, with India, Pakistan
and Iran having observer status (denied to the US).
For Iraqi Kurds, current circumstances offer new and challenging
opportunities, and also difficult choices. However such choices are
made, it should be done without illusions. For the rich and powerful,
illusions are not too dangerous, and history can be dismissed as
irrelevant nonsense in favor of self-serving doctrinal fantasies.
Victims do not have that luxury.
Kurds can hardly afford to overlook the grim history of betrayal at the
hands of the reigning superpower. The highlights are all too familiar.
In 1975, for cynical great power reasons, Washington handed Iraqi Kurds
to the tender mercies of Saddam Hussein. In the 1980s, the US-Saddam
alliance was so close that the Reagan administration barred even mild
protest over the al-Anfal massacres, while also seeking to blame the
Halabja gassing on Iran. George Bush I went so far as to invite Iraqi
nuclear engineers to the US in 1989 for advanced training in weapons
production; the Shah’s nuclear programs had had strong support from
Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others. So deep was Bush’s
admiration for Saddam that in April 1990, only a few months before
Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, Bush sent a high-level Senatorial
delegation to Iraq to convey his good wishes to his friend in Baghdad
and to assure him that he could disregard the occasional criticisms
voiced in the US media. The delegation was led by Senate majority leader
Bob Dole, Republican presidential candidate a few years later, and
included other prominent Senators. At the same time Bush overrode bans
in order to provide new loans to Saddam, with the “goal of increasing
U.S. exports and [to] put us in a better position to deal with Iraq
regarding its human rights record…,” the government announced without
shame, eliciting no commentary.
In the 1990s, it was the Kurdish population of Turkey that suffered the
most brutal repression. Tens of thousands were killed, thousands of
towns and villages were destroyed, millions driven from the lands and
homes, with hideous barbarity and torture. The Clinton administration
gave crucial support throughout, providing Turkey lavishly with means of
destruction. In the single year 1997, Clinton sent more arms to Turkey
than the US sent to this major ally during the entire Cold War period
combined up to the onset of the counterinsurgency operations. Turkey
became the leading recipient of US arms, apart from Israel-Egypt, a
separate category. Clinton provided 80% of Turkish arms, doing his
utmost to ensure that Turkish violence would succeed. Virtual media
silence made a significant contribution to these efforts.
Great power policies answer to the same institutional structures and
imperatives as before. There have been no miraculous moral conversions.
Kurds neglect the history of betrayal and violence at their peril. How
they should deal with today’s complex circumstances is not for outsiders
to say, but at the very least, they should proceed without illusions of
benign intent and dedication to noble goals. History makes a mockery of
such inevitable posturing on the part of governments, media, and the
educated classes rather generally. Particularly for those who are
vulnerable, clear-eyed skepticism and rational analysis should be high
priority.