[NYTr] Bush Under Fire - New Worker News

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New Worker News - Sep 7, 2007
http://www.newworker.org/newwork.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/New-Worker-News/message/872

BUSH UNDER FIRE

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

US PRESIDENT George W Bush and his  top aides flew into Iraq on Monday
for a  secret "war council" while an increasingly  sceptical US
Congress returns to consider  the "success", or lack of it, in quelling
the  anti-American uprising. 

General David Petraeus, the US commander  in Iraq, reports on the
"surge" offensive to  Congress next week and he will doubtless  claim
sufficient progress to promise some  token troop withdrawals to head
off the  growing demand for a complete pull-out.

But the "surge" has failed and so far, every  month of 2007 has seen
more US soldiers  killed in action than the same month in  2006.

Bush's stopover, en route to Australia for an  economic summit with
Asia-Pacific leaders,  was essentially a propaganda exercise. White
House spin merchants claim that Bush chose  to meet his generals and
his local Arab  lackeys at an American airbase in the al Anbar
province to show that such a meeting could  take place in the heart of
resistance controlled  territory. But though Bush's Air Force One,
escorted by US fighters, landed in broad daylight,  the airbase has a
16km perimeter guarded by  10,000 troops and even they couldn't stop
the partisans from opening fire on Bush's  transport.

Back in Baghdad the resistance  greeted Bush's arrival of with a mortar
attack  on the top-security US "Green Zone" - sending  plumes of smoke
over the compound where the  US and British embassies and the offices
of the  American-installed Iraqi puppet regime are  barricaded behind
heavy fortifications.

Dumping the Puppet?

The Americans are moving closer to dumping  puppet Iraqi "premier"
Nouri al Malaki, a  sectarian Shia leader whose close ties with Iran
could pose a problem if Bush decides to take  out Tehran's nuclear
installations later in the  year. But all they've got waiting in the
wings  is Iyyad Alawi, a Baathist turncoat who headed  the first puppet
regime under occupation.

Alawi broke with the Arab Socialist  Renaissance Party (Baath) in the
1970s and has  spent most of his time living in exile in Britain
where, it is widely believed, he was recruited as  an agent of British
intelligence. Though he is  also Shia the Americans think his business
contacts and the links he forged with elements  in the old Iraqi army
when he was running an  anti-Baathist movement abroad could help him
recruit a wider pool of quislings to serve  imperialism.

But claims that his return would be welcomed  by his old comrades have
been dismissed as  nonsense by the underground Baath.  The Baath  told
the resistance media that: "Our party rejects  the return of Iyyad
Alawi in any form because he  is a spy and a criminal who prepared the
occupation and the destruction of Iraq. The party  also underlines its
firm position calling for the  withdrawal of the occupation forces and
to  punish the collaborators who came with them,  first and foremost
Iyyad Alawi, for their crimes  against Iraq and its people."

Though the imperialist media is again full  of US-intelligence inspired
stories about  a massive US air-strike against Iran that  would destroy
the Islamic republic's  military capability "within three days" this
has, after-all, been part of a destabilisation  campaign that started
as soon as Iran began  developing its nuclear industry. The first
objective was to boost the chances of  pro-imperialist forces in the
Iranian elections  but that backfired. The second was to cow the
Ahmadinejad government into submission  and that has also failed.
Pentagon hawks still  dream of a cheap victory based on air power.
General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the senior  military advisor to the Supreme
Leader of  the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali  Khamenei,
thinks not. The United States has  deployed 200,000 vulnerable troops
in the  region and we have identified all their bases  very precisely,
the Iranian general said on  Tuesday.

"The United States is facing three problems  in invading Iran. Firstly,
it is not aware of the  volume and manner of Iran's response. The  US
cannot foresee the level of the vulnerability  of its 200,000 troops in
the region while we  have identified all the bases very precisely.
Secondly, it doesn't know what will happen to  Israel. And thirdly, the
United States cannot  predict what may happen to the flow of oil,"  he
added.

Whether even Bush would risk an attack, with  such an uncertain
outcome, in the run-up to the  2008 US presidential elections remains
to be  seen.


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