Iraq: wrong choices that have spawned US debacle let them Iran! Sarah Parker Media Workers Against the War hosted a media briefing by Iranian feminist Elaheh Rostam-Povey on March 5 at the NUJ headquarters.
In answer to the question "Will the US attack Iran?" she said she was not sure, but that she thought the crucial thing was that the anti-war movement organised to make sure the US cannot politically afford to attack Iran.
She emphasised that changes in Iran need to be brought about by the Iranians themselves. Women, students and trade unionists have been struggling for changes and have been winning some victories.
Bombing the country is not the way to bring about the changes that many people inside and outside Iran would like to see.
She reminded the audience that the US has never forgotten their defeat when 60,000 advisers had to leave the country after the overthrow of the Shah.
She outlined some future activities planned by Stop the War and Campaign Iran, but also said she felt that the question of how Iranian policy and Iranians are dealt with by the media is a crucial issue, and urged anyone who can write about Iran to do so, helping to inform the public here and internationally, and to debunk some of the myths and lies that are being peddled.
MWAW agreed to build up a database of media contacts on Iran, so if you know people who should be on the list, or if you wish to be given contacts, please get in touch with MWAW. Interview with Gilbert Achcar Q. The U.S. occupation of Iraq has obviously been a disaster, even from the point of view of U.S. elite interests. There is a lot of second-guessing going on now trying to explain how this catastrophe came about. Was it wrong to disband the army and order de-Baathification? GA. Was it wrong? It depends for whom! From the point of view of U.S. imperial interests, from the point of view of U.S. control over Iraq, the Bush administration made only the wrong choices all along, ever since it decided to invade the country.
One could argue, from that angle, that the decision to invade the country by itself was a major mistake.
However, one could still say that there could have been efficient ways for U.S. imperial control to be imposed over Iraq through military intervention, ways that involve a serious attempt at cutting a deal with major segments of the Iraqi Baathist state apparatus.
That was possible, it was envisaged and even prepared, but discarded briefly before the invasion.
There was indeed a possibility from the viewpoint of U.S. imperial interests at least to try to run Iraq through major chunks of the Baathist apparatus, but without Saddam Hussein, and to get in this way what they are most interested in - that is, major influence over the country, control over its oil production and exports.
Therefore, from that angle, yes, disbanding the army and de-Baathification was deadly mistake. But, was it morally wrong? De-Baathification except for its excesses - was certainly not morally wrong, because the Baath was such a terribly murderous dictatorship.
And from the angle of Arab Shiites' interests, thoroughly dismantling the Baathist state apparatus was definitely an indispensable condition for achieving real majority rule in Iraq. Q. Do you think that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will lead to the victory of either Baathists or Islamic fundamentalists? GA. Victory of Islamic fundamentalists is something you can already take for granted. The Baathists no longer have enough clout for them to be able to achieve control of the situation again - probably not even in the Arab Sunni areas alone.
From what one can gather from Iraqi sources, it does not seem like there is any longer any major control exerted by It is definitely in Tehran's interest that U.S. troops remain stuck in a quagmire in Iraq at a time when the U.S. administration is trying to put Iran in a corner,
the Baathist apparatus, in a centralized or organized way. Remnants of the Baathist apparatus, for the most part, have split into various groups that do not claim any allegiance to Baathism. Actually to a certain extent, it seems that al-Qaeda has achieved more weight in Iraq than whatever remains of the loyalist apparatus of the "Saddamist" Baath. So what you would get would be the de-facto split of the country into different areas based, on the one hand, on sectarian or ethnic differences, and on the other hand, probably, on different political forces.
That is, you will not have a homogenous Arab Sunni area, but various Sunni forces controlling segments of the area and clashing among themselves, with a similar pattern on the Shiite side. The two major Kurdish forces clashed violently some years ago, and could very likely clash again. This is the most likely outcome of an all-out war.
It would resemble the kind of situation that prevailed in my own country, Lebanon, after 1975, when the country was not only split into two broad camps, but fell under the control of various warlords and sub-entities inside each pattern repeated later in Afghanistan. Q. The U.S. has seized and detained Iranians in Iraq and has been accusing Iran of meddling in the country. What do you think Iran is up to? Are Iran-backed Shite groups engaged in military encounters with U.S. forces? GA. Yes, definitely. Iraqi Shiite forces are waging a resistance fight against the coalition troops. If you visit the websites dedicated to the Mahdi Army or the Sadrists, you will find a long list of military operations against occupation troops as well as complaints about media blackout.
They complain that the media only report actions taking place in Sunni areas, but there is definitely a resistance struggle in the Shiite areas too, mainly through improvised explosive devices and the like, more than through direct frontal attacks against occupation troops.
Now, to believe that Iran is helping this in some ways makes sense - it is not absurd at all. One would very much understand why Iran would have some interest in backing this, provided its backing does not appear too openly,
So Iran is very likely resorting to what in the United States is called "covert action," a kind of action of which the U.S. is very much a specialist.
It is definitely in Tehran's interest that U.S. troops remain stuck in a quagmire in Iraq at a time when the U.S. administration is trying to put Iran in a corner, exert strong pressure on it, threaten it with military action, and so on.
And Iran is engaged in a regional struggle with Washington. This is partly defensive - since it is Washington that is on the offensive, targeting Iran, speaking of regime change and all the rest - and partly an attempt to extend Iran's own influence in the area to form a kind of buffer zone, or a protective area of friendly states.
There is finally the ideological factor that should not be belittled, with an appeal to all brands of Islamic fundamentalism, whether Shiite or Sunni - and a sectarian dimension.
This centres on Shiite sectarian solidarity, which extends beyond Iraq and Lebanon to the oppressed Shiites populating the oil producing areas of the Saudi Kingdom, as well as to those who constitute the oppressed majority in Bahrain, and many other Shite minorities in the broader Middle East.
If you put all these factors together, you get an idea of the set of incentives and motivations that stand behind Iranian actions in the area. Gilbert Achcar was interviewed by Stephen R. Shalom and Chris Spannos for ZNet on January 18, 2007.
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This Resolution on the Middle East was adopted by the International Committee of the Fourth International on February 28 2007
Afghanistan, it is today the Taliban who are on the offensive: a considerable part of the country is once again under their control, and the presence of US and allied troops has become the main cause of the new expansion of this absence of reliable partners for real scenario of "Iraqisation" of the conflict, to play on the religious and ethnic divisions in order to maintain its hegemony. This practice ended up by encouraging a dynamic of religion-