Decyphering While Iraq’s Foreign Minister was preparing to visit Moscow, Jalal al-Mashta, adviser to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, agreed to give an interview to the Russian press Ria Novosti. This was the time to start seducing Moscow. Al-Mashta said that his country has a wide profit margin, good autonomy and is not dependant on the U.S. He also said that Iraq was in the process of stabilization and Russia would have a lot to profit economically from working with Iraq.
This alleged independence or autonomy of Iraq has been knocked down by Palestinian analyst Hamden Hamden in Alquds al-Arabi. Hamden rebelled against the colonial propaganda according to which, Iraq – an occupied territory whose constitution was dictated by the occupying powers – can move forward to independence. On the other hand, he said that the statements about Iraq’s fragmentation constitute only another Coalition’s maneuver to stay there. Today, the Coalition tries to impose a puppet regime and the only way to oppose this is rejecting any text coming from an agency controlled by the occupation forces.
In an interview to Le Monde, Baghdad Shiite Imam Sheik Jawad Al-Khalessi shared this point of view and called to boycott the elections. Occupants are now doing everything within their reach to keep their presence in Iraq on a long term basis and this includes the country’s division in three parts. The occupants’ best weapon is Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, whose name, according to the interviewee, has been used after his death for the coalition’s purpose of stirring up tensions among communities and hindering any rapprochement between Shiites and the resistance. These statements are close to some information we had already revealed in our columns regarding the Coalition’s involvement in attacking Iraqi civilians. Actually, it is not the Shiite clergyman’s speech that is amazing but the fact that from now on Le Monde, though somewhat shyly, has echoed them.
The French elite reference daily, as well as the rest of the western leading press, has refused to consider any involvement of the so-called democratic western governments in terrorist actions. Despite several historical precedents supporting this hypothesis and a lot other inconsistencies in the official reports about the attacks in Iraq, this possibility has always been rejected on principle by both the United States and Europe. However, there is a theory developing in the western public opinion about a link between the attacks and the western governments. So, Le Monde felt pressed to make room, though a little one, to express this conservative drifting opinion. The image of the coalition occupying Iraq continues to deteriorate in the world, the U.S. and the U.K. included. Last Saturday’s demonstrations both in London and Washington gathered several dozens of thousands of people (at least 100 thousand in Washington and somewhere between 40 and 100 thousand in London according to some agencies).
Just before London’s demonstrations, the image of British soldiers wrapped up in flames in Basra appeared on the British press front pages, which was a new blow for the occupants’ propaganda. Prior to demonstrations, “Stop the War Coalition” leader Tariq Ali denounced Tony Blair’s policy in Iraq and in the United Kingdom. Like Hamdem and al-Khalessi, he said that Iraq’s division is not the natural consequence of Saddam Hussein’s fall, but it is a war goal of the Coalition. Tarik Ali noted that dividing a country is usual tactics during any colonization process and the Iraqi constitution aims at it. Currently, the Labour government is waging a war against the British public opinion depriving it of freedom in the name of a “war against terrorism”.
British Liberal Democratic Party Vice-President Menzies Campbell also condemned Tony Blair’s policy in The Independent. Campbell showed himself less virulent than Tariq Ali and did not question much the postulates of the occupation’s rhetoric. Nevertheless, he demanded the retreat of British troops from Iraq. He thinks that the Labour Government’s action uselessly jeopardizes the British soldiers and is targeted on causing Iraq to divide. Hence, he called on London to rebuild the Iraqi public services, to organize a democratic transition and to retreat from the country as soon as possible. In the U.S., some political elite groups are also concerned about the evolution of the situation in Iraq. Democrat Senator Joseph R. Biden, who voted for the war, and who was thought of as a possible member of the second Bush administration, criticized in the Washington Post the tactics adopted by the White House. Biden updated the proposals set forth by democrat candidate John Kerry during the presidential elections: Iraqization and internationalization of the occupation to rid the U.S. of any major responsibility. The democrat senator thinks that in order to Iraqizice Iraq, a united Iraq is necessary. However, the proposed constitution favours division. Therefore, Campbell asked to stop the project and rewrite the text. He also asked the states, which had first opposed the conflict to join the reconstruction.
This is not an isolated point of view in the U.S. today and causes the neo-conservative media to become angry. As an analyst belonging to this movement, Washington Post editorialist Robert Kagan gets upset to hear any condemnations of the war in Iraq coming from the political sphere and reminds the democrats that they also supported and were involved in the mass destruction weapons story. In short, Kagan reminds his partners that they also participated in the crime.
This is a lesson that we cannot forget.