Bush visits Iraq already ravaged by war

Maswood Alam Khan

We newspaper readers and TV viewers are extremely bushed witnessing the same car bombs on the same streets, same deaths in the same hospitals and hearing the same monotones of the same warmongers and same protests from the same youths in Iraq. We are tired of even browsing the headlines on Iraq war as we know what could be the contents as we don't feel like keeping tabs of casualties in the war. Horrible scenes of atrocities in Iraq war don't stir our minds anymore as much as it used to. Human feelings of pain get dulled when pains are overwhelming in volumes.
   The news of President Bush's sneaky journey to Iraq last Monday, his third trip to Iraq since the war began in 2003, seems to have relieved the tedium a little bit. His surprise visit to Iraq was so shrouded in secrecy that even the reporters who were suddenly summoned to board 'Air Force One' had to wait inside the plane with the window shades down till the President was aboard and they were told of their precise destination only after the plate took off. The reporters were also instructed to turn off their wireless function to prevent the signals from allowing the President's plane to be tracked.
   In an isolated airbase in Anbar province in Iraq, President Bush, in his gesture justifying his 'surge theorem' to deploy more than 160,000 troops, boasted about continued gains in security in Iraq and gave an inkle on allowing a reduction in US troops urging the Iraqi government to begin fending for themselves with gradual reduction of foreign troops. During his eight hour sojourn on the Iraqi ground he also met Iraqi political leaders and Sunni tribal figures who of late have allied themselves with the US forces.
   Has the security in Iraq gained? Yes, in a few areas and no, in many areas. Although Bush touted substantial political and security achievements in different areas including Anbar, he did not leave the safety of the base in Anbar on Monday to see for himself those changes firsthand.
   Everybody wants withdrawal of foreign troops from the soil of Iraq and full resumption of Iraqi government and their army to be manned by Iraqi civilians and soldiers. Many countries have been withdrawing their troops from Iraq. The British people are happy that their government is also removing British troops out of harm's way and thanked their Prime Minister. Though the new British Prime Minister Mr. Brown always voiced his support for Britain's role in Iraq he is not as militaristic as Tony Blair, who was Bush's closest friend and the staunchest foreign ally in Iraq war.
   Whatever success one can witness in Iraq has been possible during the last four months which was not possible during the last four years, thanks to thousands of local Sunni recruits into the Iraqi security forces who underwent their month-long training course to become policemen. These Sunnis, most of whom as insurgents also used to battle the Americans, have somehow been made to realize that the occupation was coming from Iran through Shiite community, not from the USA and decided to negotiate with a strong force like America. Violent attacks in areas, where these new Sunni policemen were deployed since November last, have dropped by two-thirds, claims American soldiers.
   Every American President wants to leave some marks in history which he as a retiree may boast upon and the future progenies as students of history may quote as hallmarks of a statesman. In his last term Bush cannot afford to leave his office with footprints of a wrongdoer. Bush would leave no stone unturned to prove that he was the saviour of America by adopting an offensive defence strategy that annihilated Saddam and his regime in Iraq and broke the chain of commands of the terrorists the world over. Had he not acted decisively as he did, he would write in his memoir, the world would have witnessed more 9/11s in many developed countries in North America and Europe. Stability now in Iraq, already bushed by the burden of war, is Bush's goal. Now he would look forward for a graceful exit from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure. He will try his best to prove the Washington politicians wrong in their bleak predictions and prophecies.
   Bush administration's repeated trials to connect Iraq with Sept. 11 have influenced a large number of Americans to incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein himself engineered to bombard the World Trade Centre and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqis. Similarly, many in the Muslim world still believe that Sept. 11 attack was the result of a conspiracy hatched by Israel with a view to tarnishing the image of Islam; that the World Trade Centre was not the work of any Muslim, but a remote controlled demolition by agents of Israel because 4000 Jews working in the Trade Centre had been warned to stay home that day.
   The world is eagerly looking at what Bush would be planning to write in the first or the last chapter of his autobiography on the waning phase of his presidency aided by Condoleezza Rice, his Secretary of State, Robert M. Gates, his Secretary of Defense and Steven J. Hadley, his National Security Adviser, among others.
   Bush and Rice were so intertwined during Rice's years in the White House, a relationship people who worked for Rice described as the "Rice-Bush black box", that it was not always clear who spoke for whom. The only person President Bush during his presidency treated as his both a confidante and a sister is Condoleezza Rice who, while struggling to guide US foreign policy in a time of upheavals, was directly involved in the invasion of Iraq. Her influence was paramount in entangling US with Iraq war and now she must loosen the Gordian knot in Iraq she helped tie.
   The last chapter of Bush's autobiography may glimmer with some shiny linings if his team can formulate and enforce sharing of oil revenues among different ethnic groups under the present Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki or someone else. Success also depends on how Sunni leaders accept the reality that 'a return to Sunni rule' is no more possible and that their Sunni followers would rather be rewarded by jobs and other economic benefits if they join hands in a unified Iraq with shares of oil revenues, their due.
   Iraqi Shiite leaders are also puzzled at the new shenanigans of US troops with thousands of Sunni volunteers, many of whom were former insurgents, who are gradually being incorporated into the regular police force and the army. It may be a display of wisdom on the part of the Sunni leaders, their community being the minority in Iraqi population, to persuade their followers to tone down their war rhetoric a bit with a view to fostering fraternity with their Shiite brothers and sisters. A long-lasting political marriage between Shiite and Sunni communities in Iraq, if possible ultimately, may be the last buoy that can salvage the last sliver of image Bush lost in his misadventure in Iraq.
   According to a draft report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) some modest security improvements have been ostensive in some parts of Iraq like Anbar and Baghdad, alright; but violence has increased inversely elsewhere with a zero-sum result. The draft states that while there have been fewer attacks against US troops the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged and the capability of Iraqi security forces have not improved. The draft report concludes, "Key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend US$ 10 billion in reconstruction funds.'
   Progress in reducing violence must concomitantly solidify political reconciliation between feuding parties of Iraq; otherwise, blasting sounds of car bombs, wailings of the grieved and protesting chants of the youths in Iraq will continue wafting out in the TV news all over the world.
   According to Pentagon and 2006 survey by Iraqi physicians and overseen by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, 736,258 people died and 180,425 were wounded in Iraq since US-led invasion in the spring of 2003; of whom 3,735 American soldiers and 726,017 Iraqi civilians died.
   We don't know how much more blood of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians would be needed to stop the war as we don't know exactly why humans are so hungry to wage wars? John Bowlby, a psychologist, argued that human beings are inherently violent. While this violence is repressed in normal society, it needs the occasional outlets that are provided by wars. Some also raise the question why there are sometimes long periods of peace and other eras of unending war. Militarists, such as Franz Alexander, opine: "Peace does not really exist. Periods that are seen as peaceful are actually periods of preparations for a later war." If Franz is right, are all these wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India after World War II mere mock tests in preparation of a grand war?

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Containing Russia: back to the future?-III

Sergey V. Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister

Cooperation without trust?
   The path to trust lies through candid dialogue and reasoned debate, as well as interaction implying joint analysis of threats. It is precisely the latter that Russia is denied without any reasonable grounds. In fact, Russia is urged to profess blind faith in the analytical abilities and good intentions of its partners. But when it comes to national security concerns, this approach does not look serious to say the least.
   We will respond adequately to safeguard our national security, and in doing so we will be motivated by the principle of reasonable sufficiency. We will always keep the door open for positive joint action to safeguard our common interests on the basis of equality.
   In his Munich speech President Vladimir Putin invited all our partners to a serious and substantive discussion of the current status of international affairs, which is far from satisfactory. We are convinced that a dual, i.e. partner/adversary, attitude toward Russia ought to be a thing of the past. This is not the way of dealing with the problem of trust and, hence, cooperation. If someone intends to "counter Russia's negative behavior", how could one possibly expect our cooperation in the areas of interest to our partners? One has to choose between containment and cooperation, including in such issues as Russia's accession to the WTO and the Asian Development Bank, or the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which has outlived its original grounds in the late 1980s.
   Regretfully, many of our Western partners tend to treat even such a crystal-clear issue as the necessity to stop re-emerging neo-Nazi trends and the desecration of the memorials to those who defeated fascism, under the influence of the same desire to "contain" Russia.
   In the era of globalisation of security challenges and threats, there exists a big difference between the presence of cooperation and the lack of it, between collective action and the necessity for each state or group of states to stand on its own and rely upon somebody else's wisdom unappeasably presented as the only possible recipe for dealing with world problems. We bear our responsibility for world affairs, and nobody will do it for us. We do not have the exceptionable complex, nor do we have reasons to consider our analysis or our ideas inferior to those of others. Interaction with Russia is only possible on the basis of full equality, respect for each other's security interests and mutual benefit.
   
   US-Russia: equal relationship
   US-Russia ties still benefit from the stabilising effect of close and honest working relations between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, which was again vividly demonstrated by the recent Walker's Point summit. Our peoples continue to share the memory of their joint victory over fascism. The common experience of the Cold War and joint exit from it unites us in its own right.
   I am convinced that should equal partnership prevail in US-Russia relations, then very little will be impossible for both our nations. What we shouldn't allow to happen is making US-Russia relations a hostage to electoral cycles in both countries or, even worse, letting somebody else do it. This would mean "washing hands off" vital interests of our peoples and the interests of global stability.
   Struggle against international terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking, search for realistic ways of climate protection and nuclear energy development while strengthening the non-proliferation regime, global energy security, exploration of outer space and many other things - is it worth to sacrifice all these areas of evolving practical cooperation at the altar of the containment policy?
   It would be regrettable if the inertia of bloc-based attitudes, all the more so if they become conceptually codified by the return to the containment policy, and unnecessary haste in dealing with issues that can wait, provoked alienation between the USA and Russia. That would narrow the space for our interaction. This "chagrin" effect can set its own dynamic in the relations, particularly if grass-root Americans are persuaded that Russia is to blame for nearly all the troubles of their country.
   Anti-American feelings are not so widespread in Russia as elsewhere. If we refer to George Kennan, it would be opportune not only to quote the "Long Telegram", but also to take his advice as to how the outside world should have behaved - not didactically and without imposing its will - in the post-Soviet period of Russia's history. In this regard, the creation of a Working Group "Russia-US: Glimpse into the Future" co-chaired by H. Kissinger and E. Primakov could not be more timely. Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush actively supported this initiative, as well as establishing Jessica Mathews-Vladimir Lukin group to discuss impartially the issues concerning development of democracy and ensuring the human rights and freedoms.
   Both sides should display a broad-minded and unbiased vision. Such an approach could be represented by the perception of Russia and the US as two branches of the European civilization, each contributing its own share of value added. We could meet at the "common table" on the basis of the European view of the world. Tripartite interaction between the US, Russia and the European Union in international affairs could become a practical formula of preserving the integrity of the Euro-Atlantic space in global politics. I can't but agree with Jacques Delors who believes that "future development should lead to reaching a comprehensive agreement" within this "troika". The ex-European Commission President is quite right in saying that "America, Russia and the European Union are the three political forces that are used to debating with each other" and that "every time discords separate them and every party plays its own game, the risk of global instability increases significantly".
   Georgy Adamovich, a prominent literary figure of Russian emigration, once noted that pessimism is generated by dealing with people in respect of whom there remain no illusions. I am convinced that neither the US nor Russia falls within that category.
   I believe that we are still capable of amazing the world. Both Washington and Moscow manage it separately. Why wouldn't we try to do it together? The more so that all of us are to live in more cramped quarters of global economy and politics. So why don't we stand together and act in the spirit of cooperation and sound and fair competition on the basis of common standards and respect for international law? We have nothing to divide between us, but share together with other partners responsibility for the future of the world. In doing so we would be up to the great future foretold for our two nations by A. de Tocqueville and at the same time we could "contain" those who are attempting to deprive contemporary world of the benefits brought about by US-Russia as well as Euro-Atlantic partnership.
   The July meeting of the US and Russian Presidents involving George Bush Sr. demonstrated the results which can be achieved by "teamwork". Both leaders agreed to look for common approaches to the anti-missile defense and the reduction of strategic weapons and launched a new joint initiative in the field of nuclear energy and non-proliferation. It is symbolic that they went fishing together, but they did not "fish in troubled waters". (Concluded)

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