As he heads for the office these days, Nouri al-Maliki should
bid his family especially tender farewells. If the patterns of
U.S. foreign policy are any guide, the Iraqi prime minister is
a very poor insurance risk.
On Monday, Aug. 20, a leading Democratic senator, Carl Levin
of Michigan and chairman of the Armed Services Committee,
returned from a weekend outing to Iraq and declared publicly
that Iraq's parliament should remove al-Maliki from power.
"The Maliki government is nonfunctional," Levin declared, "and
cannot produce a political settlement because it is too
beholden to religious and sectarian leaders."
The next day, Hillary Rodham Clinton, front-runner of
Democrats seeking the nomination of their party for the
presidency, went before the annual convention of the Veterans
of Foreign Wars and reiterated her senate colleague's call.
She said that al-Maliki should be replaced by a "less divisive
and more unifying figure."
The final grim news for al-Maliki came on Wednesday when
President Bush affirmed confidence in the prime minister,
declaring him to be a fine fellow.
Levin, Clinton and Bush all simultaneously declared that they
believe the briefings of the United States military commanders
in Iraq. They exult that the "surge," advocated and presided
over by Gen. David Petraeus last winter, is now working.
Baghdad is more secure. Casualties are down. The sectarian
groupings in Iraq have been checked. Nation-building can
proceed.
None of these chirpy bulletins has anything to do with the
actual situation on the ground in Iraq, where the extremely
hot summer months have seen a regular annual drop in
activities by Iraq's resistance groups. Even so, car bombings
in Baghdad in July were 5 percent higher than before the
"surge" began, and there has been a corresponding rise in
civilian casualties from explosions. Meanwhile, there are
graphic reports of the extreme exhaustion of U.S. troops,
forced into multiple tours and extended time on active duty
because of the overall shortage in manpower and equipment.
Nor can any silver lining be detected in the larger political
military picture, in terms of erosion of the Shi'a majority
coalition, seriously reducing the power of Moqtada al-Sadr, or
denting the Sunni resistance.
But here on the home front, Levin, Clinton and other leading
Democrats are determined not to be wrong-footed by White House
attacks accusing them of stabbing America's fighting men and
women in the back by questioning the surge's supposed success.
On an hourly basis, the right-wing radio demagogues are
accusing them of just such treachery. Flag-wagging and
drum-thumping are traditional at Veterans of Foreign Wars'
conventions.
In a rhetorical counter-move, the Democrats emphasize the
failure of Bush's man, al-Maliki, to resolve Iraq's political
divisions at equal speed. Amid their rather hollow assertions
of confidence in al-Maliki, Bush and the Republicans recognize
that al-Maliki is expendable and can be forced out, just as
his predecessor was ditched.
Here's where al-Maliki should take a look at a dark episode in
Vietnam not long before President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated in November 1963. A few weeks earlier in that
same month, a coup, code-named Operation Bravo Two, pushed by
U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and the CIA, and executed by
South Vietnamese officers, led swiftly to the murder of South
Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem and Diem's brother.
Just as is happening today in Iraq the White House had
concluded that their chosen man Diem had become an
inconvenience to a political schedule that demanded
"progress," a feinted reduction in U.S. troops pending the
1964 campaign year. Hence the coup and consequent demise of
the bothersome Diem and his brother. Friendly witnesses claim
that the Kennedys were deeply shocked at news of the murders.
If so, it was akin to the shock of Henry II after the
assassination of Thomas Becket. The killing of Diem committed
the United States more deeply than ever to bloodstained years
of "nation-building."
In the end, the Americans withdrew because they were defeated
militarily and politically by the Vietnamese.
Such is the history al-Maliki can meditate each day. Better
not carpool with the guy.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the
muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. He is also co-author of
the new book "Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of
Two Evils," available through
www.counterpunch.com. To find
out more about Alexander Cockburn and read features by other
columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web
page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
