The least credible human in America is a president or a general guaranteeing imminent victory, plus withdrawal of troops from the quagmire of the day. The rhetorical embroidery decorating this pledge changes little from decade to decade. In 1970, President Richard Nixon declared that the Vietnam War was proceeding so auspiciously that he was planning to pull out 150,000 American troops. The South Vietnamese forces, he asserted, were now of sufficient military competence to carry the brunt of the fighting. The truth was that the South Vietnamese forces were ill-trained, averse to battle and led by corrupt officers booking their flights to America. The war was lost, but it dragged on for another five years. In Iraq in 2007, General Petraeus famously announced his "surge" strategy and confided to visiting journalists that the strategy was working well, with "astonishing signs of normalcy" in Baghdad. Monica Crowley of Fox News nominated Petraeus for the "most honest person of the year". The truth was that in substantive terms, for reasons entirely unrelated to the fictive "surge", the Sunni had given up fighting the Americans. Baghdad was in ruins, the war, in terms of the objectives declared in 2003, was a disaster. In 2008 Obama campaigned on pledges of withdrawal from Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. Addressing cadets at West Point military academy on August 2, 2010, he said that the war in Iraq had been won: "This is what success looks like." Departing US troops will leave behind a "democratic" and "sovereign" Iraq, one that is now "no haven" for "the kind of violent extremists who attacked America on 9/11." It's a bizarre definition of success. The Shia-dominated government of Iraq is backed by America's demon of the hour, Iran. If this really was a "war for oil," it scarcely went well for the United States. Run your eye down the list of contracts the Iraqi government awarded in June and December 2009. Prominent is Russia's Lukoil, which, in partnership with Norway's Statoil, won the rights to West Qurna Phase Two, a 12.9 billion–barrel super-giant oilfield. Other successful bidders for fixed-term contracts included Russia's Gazprom and Malaysia's Petronas. Only two US-based oil companies came away with contracts: ExxonMobil partnered with Royal Dutch Shell on a contract for West Qurna Phase One (8.7 billion barrels in reserves); and Occidental shares a contract in the Zubair field (4 billion barrels), in company with Italy's ENI and South Korea's Kogas. The huge Rumaila field (17 billion barrels) yielded a contract for BP and the China National Petroleum Company, and Royal Dutch Shell split the 12.6 billion–barrel Majnoon field with Petronas, 60-40. So either the all-powerful US government was unable to fix the auctions to its liking, or the all-powerful US-based oil companies mostly decided the profit margins weren't sufficiently tempting. Either way, "the war for oil" doesn't look in very good shape. Meanwhile, the US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, emphasised earlier this month that at least 50,000 US troops will be in Iraq for the near term. Odierno said the United States will keep a "significant civilian presence" as well as the troops to "ensure that this government can be formed by the Iraqis, and that all the other nations respect their sovereignty as they go about forming their government". The left in the US is furious, lashing out at Obama and the Pentagon for stretching the withdrawal deadline indefinitely, determined to control Iraq for the foreseeable future. This is manifest nonsense. The State Department and the Pentagon's commanders who dominate Obama don't want to see US influence in Iraq go wholly to zilch as troops withdraw. They therefore have to assert that their power in Iraq is only a little affected by reduction of troop numbers from 150,000 to less than a third of that number. Iraq is in ruins – always the default consequence of American imperial endeavours. The left should report this, but also hammer home the message that in terms of its proclaimed objectives the US onslaught on Iraq was a strategic and military disaster. That's the lesson to bring home. But what about Obama's pledge, when he was selling his Afghan surge last year, that withdrawal there would begin in 2011? Here's where serious domestic politics – always the driver of foreign policy – takes over. The Democrats feel they cannot go into any election in either 2010 or 2012 and be accused of "losing" in Afghanistan. This, unlike Iraq, is Obama's war. The Obama administration has said the US would begin to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in July 2011. Last Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Petraeus, now in command of US and coalition troops in Afghanistan, said the withdrawal date was "conditions-based" and that it was possible it could be pushed back further. "Conditions-based", cynically but accurately defined, means what Obama can tout as "mission accomplished". That's a tough sell for the foreseeable future, since there's zero evidence that the US-led coalition is achieving anything that can be sold as "success" in Afghanistan. But the Pentagon is trying to push "success" nonetheless. In an interview last week, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said "everybody - all of our partner nations and I think everybody in this government - would agree that two things are central to success. One is building up the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), which is going pretty well, and governance, which is going, but not as well. It's still moving in the right direction, but a lot slower than we would like." No credible reporter would endorse Gates's opinion on the zeal and efficiency of the ANSF and every credible reporter notes the utter corruption of "governance" in Afghanistan. In terms of domestic politics here in the Homeland, the US cannot quit – and will not do so by 2012 because there is zero evidence for any substantive achievement. Unlike Iraq, a victorious "surge" is not a saleable proposition as Petraeus acknowledges. The Afghan war, launched covertly three decades ago, will be with us for at least two more years, and maybe four.Operation Iraqi Freedom is completed. Really?
Alexander Cockburn: Is the US really quitting Iraq? Will it
The last American combat brigade in Iraq has left the country, so the Pentagon is announcing. The 40,000 personnel from 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division began crossing into Kuwait this very morning, August 19,. The US combat mission in Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom - is scheduled to end on August 31. But the State Department feels it necessary to emphasise that US involvement in Iraq is far from over.
Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/67414,news-comment,news-politics,operation-iraqi-freedom-is-completed-really-alexander-cockburn,2#ixzz0x37jKcyC
Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/67414,news-comment,news-politics,operation-iraqi-freedom-is-completed-really-alexander-cockburn?DCMP=NLC-daily#ixzz0x37Uz5sk
Thursday, 19 August 2010
LAST UPDATED 7:57 AM, AUGUST 19, 2010
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