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IRAQ: Transfer of Sovereignty Is Fiction, Occupation Remains Fact
Commentary - By M B Naqvi
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jun 29 (IPS) - After the U.S. government's early
handover of sovereignty to Iraq, the government that had been put together
by U.S. experts under the supervision of former U.S. administrator Paul
Bremer is supposed to be sovereign in Iraq. This strains credulity, however.
It is clear that the U.S. army, along with other forces allied with the
United States, will go on staying in Iraq even after Monday's transfer of
power. They will however be under the command of a U.S. general. No one can
foresee when the GIs will pack their bags and go home.
Far too many people around the globe suspect that the U.S. government
did not take the plunge into Iraq's troubled waters only to walk out after
meeting some popular resistance.
If the U.S. forces do keep their troops in Iraq indefinitely and do not
allow any Iraqi to mess around with them, there is an ab initio doubt about
the status of the interim or provisional government under Iraqi Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi.
What kind of sovereignty will it have if there are foreign armies in the
country and under foreign command - an arrangement it cannot change?
Moreover, Allawi has not only taken note of the upheaval being caused by
'some' foreign militants - linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda by
extension - and 'some' remnants of the old Baathist regime.
Nearly 100 Iraqis and a few U.S. nationals were killed on Jun. 24 alone
in five obviously coordinated attacks in five cities at virtually the same
time and of a similar nature. These 'some people' appear to be very
resourceful and bold. Most are ready to sacrifice their own lives.
Some 100 civilians are said to be killed every week in Iraq.
Allawi does not use the term 'resistance' for the violence that has been
happening in many cities of Iraq. Instead, they are suicide-prone
'militants' or remnants' of Saddam's Baath party.
But most people in what is the Third World, and many in Europe, now
freely acknowledge that a more or less spontaneous resistance comprising
all sorts - Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Islamic militants from nearby states,
Baathists and special interest groups - has taken shape.
The most remarkable development on the Iraqis' side has been the refusal
of Iraqis to behave the way the U.S. experts had expected or maybe even
banked on. Shiites and Sunnis have refused to come to blows. Indeed, there
is growing unity among them.
Even the Kurds could not be worked up against Arabs despite the use,
reportedly by the Israeli Mossad, of many tricks from the colonialists' book.
No western agency, not even Mossad or M16, has been able to penetrate
this new resistance. All the major powers' undercover agencies must be
striving hard to infiltrate it. None has succeeded in a year. That is
mighty strange for an Arab country.
The Iraqis, of varied persuasions, offer a sharp contrast to what the
United States, with its fabulous capabilities, are saying and doing.
What the United States says it is offering is sovereignty for the Iraqis
and it thus wants most Iraqis to come and help. But other than Paul
Bremer's chosen few, ordinary Iraqis have shown no interest in this U.S.
generosity.
Although suicide bombings have become a virtually daily ritual on
exposed targets like Iraqi police stations, and it is mostly Iraqis who die
in them in large numbers, no one has betrayed the masterminds and
organisational apparatus behind these. That shows the temper of both the
common Iraqis and of the resistance.
One reason why common Iraqis are left cold by the U.S. rhetoric is its
absurdity: Iraqis feel their intelligence is being insulted when told that
they have been given back their sovereignty -as if they are children being
given a lollipop.
What has happened in Iraq is the destruction of a whole state. That an
Iraqi state, with membership in the United Nations, exists is a legal
fiction. That the United States occupies the country is a fact.
A foreign army has set up committees, ministries and departments for its
convenient governance of occupied territories.
Just ask the question: Are the occupation armies of today under the
control, command and direction of the new 'sovereign'? Obviously not.
Indeed, no Iraqi shall have control over them. Some sovereignty, that!
U.S. officials have taken good care of how things will run after the
Jun. 28 handover. They have set up commissions virtually for each important
ministry or department. These comprise foreign consultants, mainly from the
United States.
They will be paid by the Iraqi Treasury, no doubt. But that treasury
itself will not be under Iraqi control, and will continue to be managed by
experts appointed by the United States.
In simpler words, Iraq will continue to be governed under U.S. tutelage
and dictation through various commissions and committees or other
arrangements already in place.
There is no chance of the new interim or provisional government being
able to make any decision against the 'advice' of the various
U.S.-appointed commissions, committees and consultants. So which
sovereignty is being transferred to whom?
Who has Iraqi sovereignty today? In terms of pre-18th century theory of
kings claiming sovereignty by divine right, it could be seized or taken if
there was another king or general who was militarily stronger.
In this case, effective power and authority over where the Iraqi state
used to prevail has been acquired by the victorious U.S. army. The latter,
while retaining the bulk of this power and authority, has chosen to invest
certain pliable Iraqi individuals with the illusion of authority, power and
sovereignty.
So long as the U.S. army stays in Iraq under the command and control of
U.S. president, the Allawi team will remain U.S creatures. There will be no
transfer of sovereignty.
What happened on Jun. 28 can be called a mere re-arrangement by the U.S.
government in Iraq. It is in Washington's hope that in the name of an
unreal transfer of sovereignty to its own nominees, the United States would
then, with a straight face, be able to deny moral and political
responsibility for what might then go on.
It would be a great public-relations sleight of hand if it were to
succeed. (END/2004)
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