Hold Tight: Iraq's War Has Just Begun
By Steve Weissman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 09 April 2004
Forget the War on Terror. Forget the fine words about bringing democracy to the
Middle East. Forget, as well, whatever anger you might feel at the geniuses who
marched us into Iraq when they should have been bagging bin Laden and his
would-be martyrs from Mindanao to Madrid. Whatever lies our leaders told us, or
why they told them, our country is now fighting a new and different war in Iraq.
The game on the ground has changed, and those of us who opposed ever going in have to think hard
about how best to get out.
From Sunni mobs burning and mutilating American mercenaries, or "contractors," to black-clad
Mahdi militiamen supporting the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraqi insurgents have begun
what looks increasingly like a popular uprising. In place of dramatic, but limited terrorist attacks, the
new "Intifada" is bringing together Muslim religious fervor - both Shia and Sunni - with the historic zeal
of Arab nationalists to drive out foreign occupiers, whether Ottoman Turks, Imperial Brits, or
well-meaning Americans.
American officials repeatedly dismiss the insurgents as terrorists, outlaws, thugs, and assassins,
while liberal newspaper columnists tell us who are - and who are not - "the authentic expressions of
Iraqi nationalism."
Where have we heard that song before?
Those of us who lived through Vietnam had our fill of it. So did our French friends when their
government tried to put down Algeria's War for Independence. So did our British cousins, when Her
Majesty's Government lost a long string of colonial wars, most dramatically in Malaya, Kenya, and
Yemen.
But don't take the analogy too far. Iraq is not Vietnam or even Kenya. As yet, no Viet Cong or
Mau-Mau have established themselves as the widely accepted leaders of national resistance. Different
individuals and groups in Iraq are fighting that out now, and you can't tell the players without a very
complicated scorecard.
Will young al-Sadr replace the older, less militant Ayatollah Sistani, or will they end up playing good
cop, bad cop in the same anti-American movie?
Will Shiites and Sunnis work out their age-old differences and join in struggle, as some of them did
this past week? Or will they continue to cut each other's throats, as they did the week before?
Will competing Kurdish factions join in or work for their own national homeland, which could plunge
the whole region into chaos?
What role will Iraq's traditional, often corrupt tribal chiefs come to play?
And will U.S.-trained Iraqi police and soldiers fight the insurgents, run from them, or join them against
the Americans? As one militia leader told Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times, "We may work for
the government now. But if anything happens, we all work for Sadr."
No one, least of all the geniuses who drove us into this ditch, can possibly know. The Iraqis are
making their own history. They are making it in their own, often-chaotic way. And, they are making it in
a guerrilla war against Anglo-American soldiers, a declining number of showcase troops from smaller
allies, and a growing number of American-paid mercenaries. As usual, the foreign occupiers are the
unifying force.
At times, the foreigners will have their way, using their overwhelming firepower, Iraqi collaborators,
and paid informants to rule the day. But, if we can learn anything from centuries of anti-colonial wars,
the intruders will rarely rule the night. And, in a short time, they will leave Iraq to Iraqis of their own
choosing, however nice or nasty they turn out to be.
Two other outcomes seem likely.
First, the Iraqi exiles and figureheads whom the Americans anointed to the interim government will
almost certainly go down in Iraqi history as despised collaborators. They might - or might not - become
the nominal rulers with the expected handover of sovereignty on June 30, when they will begin reporting
to a new American Ambassador. But, within months rather than years, they stand a good chance of
ending up like Washington's other mercenaries, their burnt, mutilated bodies hanging from bridges and
telephone poles. As Defense Secretary Rumsfeld put it on Wednesday, "You're going to have good
days and bad days."
Second, the terrorists of al-Qaeda might not fare much better should the Shiite insurgents take
power. The reason is obvious. Just look at the shadowy figure of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the
Jordanian-born Palestinian who is widely suspecting of having masterminded last month's
terror-bombing of the 4 commuter trains in Madrid.
Just over a year ago, in a speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
introduced Zarqawi as the link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden. The link - like
Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out to be smoke and mirrors. Zarqawi and his Ansar
al-Islam had training camps in Iraq, all right, but in the Northern, Kurdish no-fly zone enforced by the
U.S. and U.K., where Saddam had no control.
In a scandal reported last month by MSNBC and still looking for traction, the Bush Administration
repeatedly turned down Pentagon plans to destroy Zarqawi's camps, which according to Powell were
producing Ricin for use in terrorist attacks, possibly in France, Britain, and Spain. Rushing to war
against Saddam, Team Bush had no time to fight the real terrorist threat.
This February, the Pentagon released a letter purportedly from al-Zarqawi to bin-Laden, asking for
help in staging terrorist attacks in post-Saddam Iraq. And just this week, an audiotape with a voice
identified as Zarqawi threatened to kill U.S. military commander John Abizaid and Chief Administrator
Paul Bremer. Zarqawi also took credit for a score of terrorist bombings in Iraq, including the one last
August that killed U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Washington seemed intent on using the letter and tape to make Iraq look like the frontline in its War
on Terror, and a reason for those who initially opposed the war to join forces there against the terrorist
threat. In fact, if the letter and tape are as real as Western intelligence says, they suggest that the
new Iraqi insurgents might do more to stop the terrorists than Washington ever will.
Both the letter and tape contain vitriolic attacks against the Shiites, who are now leading the Intifada.
Zarqawi, if that's who it is, calls them "idolaters," "traitors" and "enemies of Islam," as well as "the
most cowardly people God has created." They are, he says, a "perverse sect," who were more harmful
and dangerous to Iraq than were the Americans.
He also attacked the Kurds, who he charged had turned Northern Iraq into a "Trojan horse for
Israelis."
To show he meant what he said, Zarqawi claimed credit for bombing "coalition forces in Karbala,"
where - on Ashura, their holiest day - over a hundred Shiites lost their lives.
He is also thought responsible for bombings against Kurdish targets.
Given this bloody history, I would not bet on Zarqawi or al-Qaeda's chances should we decide now to
leave Iraq. We might lose an ill-chosen colonial war, but win the War on Terror, which is what we need
to fight.
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