Peace in our time? Maybe Not.
If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there. The privatization law, written by American oil company consultants hired by the Bush administration, would leave control with the Iraq National Oil Company for only 17 of the 80 known oil fields. The remainder (two-thirds) of known oil fields, and all yet undiscovered ones, would be up for grabs by the private oil companies of the world...
The [Iraqi] parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.
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Without the cover of the U.N. mandate, the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq would become, in law as in fact, an armed occupation...
Normally a nation voting for an end to outside assistance would be a
good thing. But in this case the 'helpers' have a vested interest in 'helping', and may not react well to being thanked and shown the door.
The U.S. invested a lot of money in taking Iraq, and will have very few options open to it if Iraq tells them to leave.
- They could simply leave. While the this is the morally correct option, the U.S. invested billions of dollars in the operation and is unlikely to accept no ROI.
- They could start killing off Parliamentarians. This is achievable given the unique status of law and order in Iraq, but is more likely to sway pro-American politicains to push for withdrawl than frighten anti-American ones to quieting down.
- They could kill all the Parliamentarians, install a new Saddam and abandon the 'democracy' pretense.
- They could simply ignore the Iraqi government and continue as they are. The Iraqi armed forces are no match for the U.S. and would not be stupid enough to fight back, but could simply let the Iraqi resistance do it for them. Without Iraqi help in identifying it's enemies, the MNF-I could be seriousy bloodied.
* I assume that the '17' number in the first article is a typo for '27', else a person can reach colonel in the U.S. armed forces without being able to do basic math.
Comments
Don't underestimate the power of fear. I think it's a possibility. They just need to organize a few assasinations, blame them on some terrorists, but allow enough of the truth to be known for the people to get the message.
In order to abandon "democracy" pretense they neither need to kill anybody, nor do they need to install an official "military dictator". They can have a "presidential republic" with carefully selected president and advisory (e.g. powerless) parlament. It's not that far off what we got there now - just a few minor changes to complete the picture. They can for example portray the parlament as inefficient in say "fighting Al-Qaeda" or "reaching sectarian compromise" and push for some changes in constitution that would tip the balance in their favor.
Possible, but there will always be some level of pretense that we are doing it for Iraqi people, democracy, freedom, bluh-bluh-bluh. They might think like Ann Coulter, but they will never speak out like she does.