Iraq: Who still believes in rebuilding?

Multi-millionaire George Soros agreed to an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard and expressed his views about the global situation. He stated that the Bush administration is the incarnation of a restricted group that took the power within the Republican Party before taking control of the country. Today, it conquers the different mechanisms of power to ensure its control. However, the author considers that the mistakes made condemn this group within a limited period of time. Yet, the sincerity of this analysis could be questioned when Soros described Paul Wolfowitz as an intellectual who would have understood the mistakes made by the Bush administration, and now absolves himself doing a good job at the World Bank. Actually, Paul Wolfowitz has not changed the ideology but the work, focusing now on a sort of imperialism appreciated by George Soros: a financial, diplomatic and peaceful imperialism. It is not the U.S. administration what the millionaire condemns, but its most coarse methods, which he calls counterproductive. On the other hand, the groups linked to the speculator have been greatly involved in the colored revolutions together with the institutions dependent on the White House. Therefore, he considers that the Democrats will return to power and would be able to change the course of the American policy, but he feels that profound changes in this regard would take place.

The international institutions are not going well. Attacked by the U.S. Congress, the UN is trying to preserve the aid from the U.S. which it depends upon. Attacked by the media campaigns and in view of the risk of the financial survival of his organization, Kofi Annan has considerably amended his speech about Iraq. The time when he presented the war of Iraq, honestly, as illegal, seems today pretty far. Just before the opening of the Brussels Conference on Iraq, hosted by the United States and the European Union, he expressed his satisfaction for the UN assistance to rebuild Iraq in an editorial published by the Washington Post, Figaro, Korea Herald and Gulf News. He did not hesitate in presenting the Iraqi resistance very similar to that of the Pentagon. However, he corrects these words by calling for the national reconciliation.
At the same time, the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hoshyar Zebari, urged in Le Monde the participants’ generosity in the Brussels Conference, although it was not a donors conference. Through empty arguments, he pretends that the situation in his country is improving, but still there is a gigantic task to be undertaken, undermining all possible assistance to Iraq. The conference is over and only led to statements of intent without any commitment, apart from the recognition of the status quo. Disappointed, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, called in the Times of London for a “Marshall Plan” for his country. Since the former Foreign Minister praised the merits of the actions of his government, he feels that nothing else could be done without more means. In his opinion, Iraq has the same strategic importance for the West as Germany in 1945. Therefore, an analog reversal has to be made. However, who still believes that the forces that collaborated with the Coalition have to recover and stabilize the country? In any case, not the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Serguei Lavrov, who also expressed in Trud, his satisfaction, very diplomatically, about the organization of the Brussels Conference, although maintaining the Russian traditional position: the war was illegal and rebuilding will not be undertaken without the involvement of the Iraqis in the process. If they are not all called to participate in the rebuilding, it can not be started effectively, but for rebuilding, it would be necessary that the Iraqi resources can contribute to it without being plundered. The president of the Russian company Energoimport, Vladimir Semago, who worked for seven years in Iraq, expressed his points of view about the economic situation of the country in Strana.ru, where he stated that the prevailing corrupted system under Saddam Hussein’s government has not changed and quite often the same people are in charge of the economy in Iraq. They have simply handed over the country to the United States. For the author, it is difficult to work in Iraq, but not impossible. However, the true business could only take place after the war and he suspects that by then, the Russian investments will be taken up by others.
For the journalist and former advisor to Bill Clinton, Sydney Blumenthal, the United States believes no longer in the propaganda of the Bush administration in terms of the improvement of the situation in Iraq and stated that only 39% of the population still supports this war. Today, the speeches about a next victory in Iraq are pathetic and meaningless like in Viet Nam with Lyndon Johnson. Although Blumenthal considers that it is counterproductive, the propaganda continues.
The neoconservative editorialist Max Boot says that the Iraqi insurrection lacks of unity, popular support, territorial base and legitimacy, so it will be defeated. In Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor, he called therefore the American media to insist more on the weakness of the resistance rather than on its victories. It is an adaptation of the classic speech of the U.S. right wing during the war in Viet Nam: the American troops militarily gained grounds but the popular support decreased due to a distorted reading of the developments by the media. Therefore, it is convenient to correct the shot.
In an interview to the Die Welt, the orientalist Bernard Lewis also think that the situation in Iraq is improving for the United States since the elections took place and is happy that the Muslim parties failed to obtain an absolute majority. He views as future model for Iraq the Turkish one before AKP arrived or Tunisia, that is, regimes submitted a great deal to the United States. Regarding other issues like Israel and Turkey, he is still obsessed: to show that Islam is a globalizing system, dangerous and hostile whose expansion is convenient to block.