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| | USA Helpless in Iraq |
| | 24 Jan 2007 |
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 Bush's "new strategy": What's behind it?
President Bush has spelled out his "new strategy" toward Iraq. Prior to that, it had been widely advertised, and people had been eager to see it implemented. However, the only new element in the strategy is a declaration that the United States will dispatch an additional 22,000 troops to war-torn Iraq.
The rest of the "new strategy" is essentially an intention to tighten control over Baghdad and over those of the country's districts that have become a bastion of resistance to the occupation forces. The strategy also mentions the need to secure greater support for these forces from the Iraqi government, and to get Turkey and some Arab countries to back the Iraqi government.
The vast majority of observers and political pundits in the United States and Western Europe hastened to christen the "new strategy" as a helpless move that will fail to reverse the situation in Iraq. I fully share this view: Augmenting the strength of the occupation forces by one-sixth cannot possibly be a panacea for the severe problems created in Iraq by the U.S. intervention: Chaos, a civil war with thousands of casualties, and the threat of a territorial partitioning of the country. Moreover, the country has already become the main base of the al-Qaeda international terrorist organization.
From President Bush's speeches, one can tell that he is well informed about all that.
Yet he has totally ignored the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, which considers it necessary to immediately announce deadlines for reducing and withdrawing American troops, as well as to initiate U.S. talks with Iran and Syria.
The said commission's recommendations have the support of many politicians and experts. It is strange that the American president has ignored their recommendations. Baker, who was one of the most dynamic U.S. state secretaries, had been a right-hand man to the father of the present president. The bond between Baker and Hamilton symbolized a two-party Republican-Democratic approach.
Before his election for a second presidential term, Bush Jr. had frequently said that he would rely on a partisan approach. Finally, it seems that in preparing those recommendations, the foremost U.S. expert on Middle East affairs, Ambassador Edward Djerejian, who heads the Middle East division of the Baker Institute, was summoned.
The Bush administration not only ignored the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, but stood up against them. The announcement to send additional U.S. troops to Iraq was accompanied by State Secretary Condoleezza Rice's declaration on the possibility of using American military might against Iran and Syria. Incidentally, it was precisely when Bush announced his "new strategy" that American planes, once again by-passing the U.N. Security Council, inflicted a series of strikes on Somalia. The United States alleged that it had obtained information that on the territory that had come under air strikes with many casualties, there were several gunmen suspected of having participated in triggering off the 1998 explosions at the American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
It seems to me that Bush's "new strategy" is not confined to Iraq and requires a broader interpretation. Suffice it to recall that the impasse in which American policy finds itself in Iraq testifies to the collapse of the doctrine cherished by the neoconservative section of the U.S. administration. It is a doctrine of unilateralism, whereby U.S. forces unilaterally choose targets and unilaterally decide to strike them. That collapse caused the Republican Party to lose control over both houses of Congress and turned public opinion against Bush, as shown by opinion polls. Another consequence is the forced resignation of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and of two other co-authors of the doctrine of unilateralism - Wolfovitz and Perle. The collapse also induced Bush to ask the United Nations to help the U.S. in its Iraq mission. After such a fatal blow to the doctrine of unilateralism, one would expect it to die quietly.
However, it is now clear that some members of the U.S. administration who have grouped themselves around Bush have decided not to be in a hurry to abandon the unilateral use of force. These men do not include many top executives of the War Department and the intelligence services. This is testified by, among other things, statements made by the Pentagon after Rice's bellicose utterances; she said there were no plans of an armed attack against Iran and Syria. I do not rule out, though, that this refutation was addressed mainly to the seriously alarmed European allies of the United States.
It seems that Bush's "new strategy" should be looked at in the context of his confrontation with Congress. The present U.S. administration is out to hamper, if not prevent, the advent to power of a candidate from the Democratic Party in the up-coming presidential elections.
The Constitution does not allow the Democrat-controlled Congress to prevent Bush, president and commander-in-chief, to send more troops to Iraq. However, Congress can block any augmentation of military spending in connection with a replenishment of the occupation forces. This being the case, will Bush take a step that would put Congress in a dilemma - either repeatedly make loud speeches as doves while actually agreeing to a fresh buildup of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, or slash funding of the Iraq war, which could be interpreted by Bush as an anti-patriotic action. One can almost hear him crying: "Our poor boys are fighting out there without the necessary funding."
Indications are that Bush has begun to confront Congress. Meanwhile a civil war is raging on in Iraq, and new hot spots could arise in the Middle East...
By Yevgeny Primakov, expert on Middle East affairs
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov
- Born: 29-Oct-1929
- Birthplace: Kiev, Ukraine
- Gender: Male
- Race or Ethnicity: White
- Sexual orientation: Straight
- Occupation: Head of State
- Nationality: Russia
- Executive summary: Prime Minister of Russia, 1998-99
- Wife: (married, one daughter)
- University: Moscow State Institute of Oriental Studies (1953)
- University: Moscow State University (postgraduate)
- Prime Minister of Russia 1998–99
- Russian Minister Foreign (1996–98)
- KGB Agent First Deputy Chairman (1991)
- Pravda Middle Eastern correspondent
- USSR Academy of Sciences Director, Institute of Oriental Studies (1977-85)
- USSR Academy of Sciences Deputy Director of World Economy (1970-77) |
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USA Helpless in Iraq
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