The future of Iraq?

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Wednesday June 14, 2006 16:35

by Peter Magee

What happens after US troops pull out?

Before I begin I must say I hate Bush and I hate this whole nihilistic Iraq war.
The Americans, I think we can all agree are in a quagmire in Iraq.
The country is ravaged by daily car bombings which have killed thousands of innocent civilians since 2003 while Sunni, Shia and Kurdish areas are at each others throats. Every day dozens of tortured and mutilated bodies have arrived at Iraqi hospitals after being dumped in the streets.
The country is on the brink of all out tribal and sectarian civil war.

Although the US is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and the newly formed Iraqi army and police forces are not queasy when it comes to killing and torturing, it must be recognised that their superior firepower is the only force which is keeping Iraq from completely fragmenting and descending into complete chaos.

What if America decide that Iraq is another Vietnam and withdraw their forces in haste recreating in the Green Zone the same scenes on the rooftop of the US embassy in Hanoi in 1975?
What if America cuts funding for the Iraqi government, military and police?

In the space of a few months the Iraqi government would be replaced by military junta fighting for power. But there would be no return of a Saddam strongman.

At the moment infrastructure in Iraq is poor and law and order is arbitrary - these would be entirely nonexistent if full scale civil war broke out. Militia and insurgents have established and consolidated their power in the Kurdish, Sunni and Shia areas.

The result would be a three way civil war and wholesale ethnic cleansing. Hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of people - the vast majority of them innocent men women and children - would be slaughtered.
Millions of more le would flee and there would be an enormous humanitarian crisis - a potential famine in Iraq and gangs of human trafficers would take advantage of the survivors.

Shia Iran would seize its chance and invade Iraq and perhaps take over Kuwait too.
Saudi Arabia dominated by Sunni Wahhabists would fight to protect its borders.
Turkey would occupy the northern Kurdish area.

Iraq would become like Somalia - entirely ungovernable and controlled by Islamic gunmen bent on jihad and spreading holy war to throughout the world.

I wish Bush had not invaded Iraq, but the consequences of a US pullout right now endanger the entire world.

Blaming Bush is not going to chance that fact.