Fine study of a doomed war
Will Podmore, A reviewer, 04/24/2008

Jonathan Steele, the Guardian’s Senior Foreign Correspondent, has written an outstanding account of the war on Iraq. He argues that from the start the occupiers were bound to lose and that they have in fact already lost. As the Iraq Study Group said in December 2006, “The situation is deteriorating … The ability of the United States to shape outcome is diminishing.” Why? Because nobody wants foreign troops in their country. As Steele writes, “Most occupations fail. In the Middle East, they fail absolutely.” People there have a deep sense of national dignity, honour and sovereignty. Opposing Saddam Hussein did not mean supporting the occupation, as Blair and Bush thought, in a mirror-image of their slander that opponents of the war were supporters of Saddam. After the invasion, some Iraqis thought ‘thank you and goodbye’, but most thought just ‘goodbye’. The majority have consistently wanted foreign troops out immediately and approve of attacks on them. 92% of the unfortunate US troops in Iraq also want to leave within a year. The occupiers have not achieved the politicians’ claimed goals of democracy and a pro-Western regime, nor will they. More people have been killed in the occupation’s five years than in Hussein’s 32 years. Mass detention of innocent civilians in a brutal counter-insurgency war breeds resistance not support. In 2004, the USA estimated there were 5,000 insurgents, in 2005, 16,000, in 2006, 20,000 and in 2007, 70,000. 2007 was the deadliest year yet for the USA. In a poll last December, 85% of the people of Basra thought that the British occupation had a negative effect just 2% thought it positive. The British forces are serving a political, not a military, purpose. They are Downing Street’s hostages. Blair blames the continuing violence in Iraq on ‘blowback from global terrorism’, as if it was a natural but unfortunate effect of his good war. But the war is a defensive war against foreign invasion not a clash of ideologies or of civilisations. To the US and British ruling classes, victory is the only exit strategy, but their ‘victory first’ means exit never. Staying is a trap, not a strategy. Exit is the only good option and the sooner the better.

Also recommended: The three trillion dollar war, by Joseph Stiglitz. Iraq: the logic of withdrawal, by Anthony Arnove. Losing Iraq: inside the postwar reconstruction fiasco, by David Phillips. The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, by Derek Gregory.