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Checkmate in iraq?

Zafar Sobhan
GAME over. It is becoming increasingly apparent that not just is the US losing the war in Iraq, but that it has become embroiled in a conflict that it cannot win.
The most recent bad news for President Bush was the death of fourteen marines on August 3 when their troop carrier was blown up by a huge roadside bomb in the western town of Haditha, in one of the deadliest single attacks on US troops since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
This latest set-back comes hard on the heels of the ambush of six marines on August 1, and brings the number of marines killed in Haditha to twenty in three days, and the total US death toll in Iraq to fifty in the past two weeks.
Even more worrisome for the US forces is the report in Thursday's New York Times that, far from being in their "last throes," as Dick Cheney confidently boasted not long ago, the insurgents appear to be gaining in sophistication and strength, and that their ability to build bigger and deadlier bombs and improvised explosive devices that can better penetrate armoured vehicles has increased dramatically in recent months.
It is not just the US forces who have been on the defensive lately. The insurgents' ability to target Iraqi security forces and those who they believe to be collaborating with the occupation forces also shows no evidence of diminishing, with the suicide bomb killing of fifty-two Iraq army recruits in a town close to the Syrian border on July 29 only the latest in a long line of such deadly attacks.
Things have not improved much on the ground for the average Iraqi either. Not only do they have to
contend with the instability and fear generated by the occupation and insurgency, but the economy continues to struggle, and basic services such as electricity and water remain in short supply. The latest blow is that last week the provisional government announced that Iraqis, who despite sitting atop the world's second largest oil reserves have to wait in line to purchase fuel, will now face rationing of both kerosene and cooking oil as well.
The news on the home front isn't great either for the architect of the
Iraq war. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll conducted this week contains some eye-opening new information as to how the American public now view the situation in Iraq.
The poll shows that a majority of Americans no longer believe that the US will win the war in Iraq or will be successful in establishing a stable democracy there.
Fully 58 percent of those polled opined that the US would be unable to constitute a stable democratic government in Iraq (as opposed to 37 percent who believe that it can).
The number of those saying that the US cannot win the war in Iraq has risen to 32 percent. Taken together with the 21 percent who say that the US could win, but don't think it will, this means that a solid majority of 53 percent believe that the US either cannot or will not win the war (as opposed to 43 percent who predict a victory).
Even more troubling for Bush is that for the first time a majority of Americans accept that the Bush administration deliberately misled the public as to whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the principal reason put
forth to justify the invasion in the first place.
There is still some difference of opinion both in the US and elsewhere around the world as to what extent the recent terrorist attacks in London and Sharm el Sheikh can be attributed to the war in Iraq, but no one suggests any more that the occupation of Iraq has in any way advanced the war against terrorism. That much, I think we can all agree on.
Regardless of whether the occupation of Iraq has resulted in the greater radicalisation of extremists
around the world, what is incontrovertible is that Iraq today is now what Afghanistan and Lebanon used to be -- a training ground and centre of operations for terror. The breakdown in law and order and current civil war is exactly the kind of environment in which terrorist organisations can set up shop and thrive.
It is ironic that prior to the invasion, Iraq was the one country in the Middle East that did not have significant ties to international terrorism, but that today it is ground zero for terror, courtesy of President Bush.
Once again showing that they are on top of things, last week the Bush administration rolled out its latest plan. Springing into action to counter the mounting death toll in Iraq, the spate of terrorist bombings around the world, and plummeting poll numbers, the administration announced that it had decided to change the name of its counterterrorist campaign from "the global war on terrorism" to "the global struggle against violent extremism." I'm not making this up.
The New York Times reports: "The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al
Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday."
This is mind-boggling on a number of levels. The first is the administration's apparent belief that the appropriate response to its recent setbacks is to come up with a new and catchier slogan. The second is the admission that it is only recently that the administration has figured out that the war on terror is as much
political and ideological as it is military.
The notion that changing the name of the campaign will achieve anything other than reduce the Bush administration to a laughing stock shows clearly how clueless the administration is.
The principal reason that the US cannot win in Iraq is that the administration has a fundamental misconception as to what would constitute victory, even after having downgraded the definition of victory to setting up a stable and functioning democracy in Iraq.
A constitution is being readied for August 15, followed by elections by the end of the year, and the fond hope of the Bush administration is that if the elections are successful that their work in Iraq will be done.
The Bush administration's point of view was neatly summarised by the outgoing US Ambassador to Bangladesh when I interviewed him before he left. "What we need to do for US credibility is to make Iraq work. This is what will change perceptions," he told me, echoing the conventional wisdom in Washington.
But there is a serious flaw in this formulation.
Success for the US in Iraq, even in terms of the down-graded definition of success that administration officials are now peddling, would not lead to a democratic Iraq that would benefit US strategic interests in the region. In fact, quite the opposite.
The only hope for the US in Iraq is to set up a stable democracy, and the only stable democracy that can emerge is one dominated by the Shiite majority parties with close ties to Iran.
The current prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, has extremely
close ties to Tehran, having lived there in exile for ten years. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), founded by exiles in Iraq, is currently in control of seven of Iraq's nine southern provinces as well as Baghdad, and there is every reason to believe that Sciri and the other Shiite parties would emerge from a general election in a dominant position.
The US is stuck in a Catch-22 situation. The instability in Iraq is steadily draining its resources and credibility, but the only possible solution to the problem is electoral victory for the pro-Iranian elements within the country.
Jaafari and eight cabinet ministers recently met with high-level Iranian officials in Tehran. The talks were a resounding success for both Iraq and Iran, but can hardly have been of much comfort to the Bush administration.
Middle East expert Juan Cole reported last week in Salon magazine that Iran has offered to set up three pipelines that would ship 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Iraq to be refined and shipped back. In addition, Iran promised to sell electricity and grain as well as
supply transshipment facilities and a billion dollars in aid. Perhaps more importantly, the Iranians are offering credible help where the Americans have failed, to defeat the insurgency and establish security.
This remains a long shot. The most likely scenario is still that the insurgency will continue to burn indefinitely and that the invasion of Iraq will have accomplished little more than to create a permanent battle-ground in the heart of the Middle East.
But if security and stability ever come to Iraq, it will only be through the good offices of Iran, and any democratically elected government in Baghdad will be closely allied to and dependent on Tehran. As Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times on August 1, "[Bush] has, indeed, transformed the balance of power in the Middle East -- in favour of Iran."
It is quite the irony that the ascendance to power of Sciri, a political grouping conceived of by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, and that retains close ties with Tehran today, is now being touted as the best case scenario for the US in Iraq.
Failure in Iraq means the continuation of the insurgency and civil war which will continue to diminish America's credibility and serve as a breeding ground and training ground for terror.
Success means Iraq becoming a satellite state of Iran, and the establishment of a more or less unbroken arc of political Shiism from Iran to Lebanon, that will ultimately emerge as a bigger threat to US interests than Saddam ever could have been.
Either way, the US has been caught in a trap of its own making from which it cannot escape.
Shah Mat, President Bush. Something tells me that you're not much of a chess player, but you might be interested to know that the word "checkmate" derives from Farsi.
Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.