[NYTr] Fisk: The Iraqis Don't Deserve Us. So We Betray Them

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl

The Independent via Info Clearing House - Aug 23, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18247.htm

The Iraqis don't deserve us. So we betray them..

"we will never learn, it seems - the key to Iraq. The majority of the
people are Muslim Shias. The majority of their leaders, including the
"fiery" Muqtada al-Sadr were trained, nurtured, weaned, loved, taught
in Iran. And now, suddenly, we hate them. The Iraqis do not deserve us.
This is to be the grit on the sand that  will give our tanks traction
to leave Iraq. Bring on the clowns! Maybe they can help us too."

By Robert Fisk

Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The French
backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN victory forced
them to swallow their own French military medals before dispatching
them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the Americans demanded democracy
and, one by one - after praising the Vietnamese for voting under fire
in so many cities, towns and villages - they destroyed the elected
prime ministers because they were not abiding by American orders.

Now we are at work in Iraq. Those pesky Iraqis don't deserve our
sacrifice, it seems, because their elected leaders are not doing what
we want them to do.

Does that remind you of a Palestinian organisation called Hamas? First,
the Americans loved Ahmed Chalabi, the man who fabricated for Washington
the"'weapons of mass destruction" (with a hefty bank fraud charge on his
back). Then, they loved Ayad Allawi, a Vietnam-style spook who admitted
working for 26 intelligence organisations, including the CIA and MI6.
Then came Ibrahim al-Jaafari, symbol of electoral law, whom the
Americans loved, supported, loved again and destroyed. Couldn't get his
act together. It was up to the Iraqis, of course, but the Americans
wanted him out. And the seat of the Iraqi government - a never-never
land in the humidity of Baghdad's green zone - lay next to the largest
US embassy in the world. So goodbye, Ibrahim.

Then there was Nouri al-Maliki, a man with whom Bush could "do
business"; loved, supported and loved again until Carl Levin and the
rest of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee - and, be sure, George W
Bush - decided he couldn't fulfil America's wishes. He couldn't get the
army together, couldn't pull the police into shape, an odd demand when
US military forces were funding and arming some of the most brutal
Sunni militias in Baghdad, and was too close to Tehran.

There you have it. We overthrew Saddam's Sunni minority and the Iraqis
elected the Shias into power, and all those old Iranian acolytes who had
grown up under the Islamic Revolution in exile from the Iraq-Iran war -
Jaafari was a senior member of the Islamic Dawaa party which was
enthusiastically seizing Western hostages in Beirut in the 1980s and
trying to blow up our friend the Emir of Kuwait - were voted into
power. So blame the Iranians for their "interference" in Iraq when
Iran's own creatures had been voted into power.

And now, get rid of Maliki. Chap doesn't know how to unify his own
people, for God's sake. No interference, of course. It's up to the
Iraqis, or at least, it's up to the Iraqis who live under American
protection in the green zone. The word in the Middle East - where the
"plot" (al-moammarer) has the power of reality - is that Maliki's cosy
trips to Tehran and Damascus these past two weeks have been the final
straw for the fantasists in Washington. Because Iran and Syria are part
of the axis of evil or the cradle of evil or whatever nonsense Bush and
his cohorts and the Israelis dream up, take a look at the $30bn in arms
heading to Israel in the next decade in the cause of "peace".

Maliki's state visits to the crazed Ahmedinejad and the much more
serious Bashar al-Assad appear to be, in Henry VIII's words,
"treachery, treachery, treachery". But Maliki is showing loyalty to his
former Iranian masters and their Syrian Alawite allies (the Alawites
being an interesting satellite of the Shias).

These creatures - let us use the right word - belong to us and thus we
can step on them when we wish. We will not learn - we will never learn,
it seems - the key to Iraq. The majority of the people are Muslim
Shias. The majority of their leaders, including the "fiery" Muqtada
al-Sadr were trained, nurtured, weaned, loved, taught in Iran. And now,
suddenly, we hate them. The Iraqis do not deserve us. This is to be the
grit on the sand that will give our tanks traction to leave Iraq. Bring
on the clowns! Maybe they can help us too.

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited