IRAQ: METHOD IN THE MADNESS

By - - and Jorge Dezcallar Reprint | | Print |

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ROME, Sep 1 2004 (IPS) - The synchronised attacks in Iraq on Christian churches of various denominations was not a chance event but the fruit of a carefully orchestrated plan, writes Jorge Dezcallar, Spanish ambassador to the Holy See and ex-director of the National Centre of Intelligence (CNI). For the Iraqi resistance groups and the constellation of Islamic radicals that back them, the objective of jihad (holy war) is crystal clear: to force the Americans and their allies out of Iraq, in a humiliating withdrawal if possible. It is an attempt to turn Iraq into Washington\’s new Vietnam, whatever it takes. The Iraqi resistance knows that it cannot directly combat the Americans, who, it also knows, are not going to withdraw of their own will in the short term. Therefore the Iraqis are obliged to use indirect forms of confrontation. The most obvious way of making life difficult for the US is attacking oil installations in Iraq. Another approach is to drive out of Iraq everything that seems multilateral, especially the UN, for the simple reason that their mere presence gives some legitimacy to the occupation. Thus the bombings of UN targets and threats against its member countries.

The synchronised attacks in Iraq on Christian churches of various denominations was not a chance event but the fruit of a carefully orchestrated plan. For the Iraqi resistance groups and the constellation of Islamic radicals that back them, the objective of jihad (holy war) is crystal clear: to force the Americans and their allies out of Iraq, in a humiliating withdrawal if possible. It is an attempt to turn Iraq into Washington’s new Vietnam, whatever it takes.

This is not an easily fulfilled goal. The Americans are powerful and though for a while their thinking has not been particularly clear, they now recognise — including Kerry– that they cannot pull out and leave the Iraqis in the mess that they, of course, got them into.

The Iraqi resistance is aware that it cannot combat the Americans directly and also knows that in the short term the Americans are not going to withdraw of their own will. Therefore the Iraqis are obliged to use indirect forms of confrontation. The most obvious way of making life difficult for the US is attacking oil installations in Iraq, which achieves two objectives: first, it makes the occupation more costly, depriving Iraq of its only source of income and shifting the costs onto the allies. Second, because a lack of oil means a lack of electricity and in turn a lack of operating factories, unemployment will rise and with it the discontent of the people, already exacerbated by the lack of air conditioning.

Another approach is to drive out of Iraq everything that appears multilateral, especially the United Nations, for the simple reason that its mere presence gives some legitimacy to the occupation. Thus the bombings of UN targets and threats against its member countries.

The third approach has to do with the allies. If the resistance can’t succeed against the strongest of the coalition, why not aim at the weakest? The priority of the jihadis today is to drive out of Iraqi territory those who in one way or another are assisting the US in the occupation and to make it clear to them what they are exposing themselves to. This was the reasoning behind the killing of the Nepalese cooks and truck drivers.

This also explains the attacks on journalists in Iraq who, at great danger to themselves, are telling the world the truth about what is going on there. Killing or kidnapping journalists has two advantages: it guarantees a wide exposure of the terrorists’ cause and increases the horror and recoil of a West that is defending the freedom of expression as one of its fundamental values.

The fifth way of creating problems for the US is to block the political normalisation of Iraq. This was the logic behind the assassination attempts against members of the new Iraqi government, commissioners, recruitment centres, foreign collaborators, firms doing business with the new government, as well as Christian Iraqis. In the case of the latter, there is a double payoff: on the one hand, there is the solidarity among Christians worldwide generated by the enormous international publicity about the insecurity of Iraq, which discourages those who might consider helping in the country. On the other hand, there is the resulting pressure on the Christian minority to emigrate, a sort of ethic cleansing that reinforces the Islamic component of the country and obscures the fact that Christians have lived in Iraq far longer than Muslims.

The sixth, though in a way least important, approach is the creation of a climate of fear, distrust, and above all civil unrest among the Muslim Iraqis themselves, whether Sunni or Shia. This is what the Koran condemns as ”fitna” or disorder, and is the thinking behind assassination attempts like that against Ayatollah Majid al-Khoei, just after returning from exile in London, or Ayatollah Sayed al-Hakim, a shiite political leader of great intellectual prestige, which stirred up the shiite majority of the country, though it is likely the perpetrators were shiite as well.

This also explains why Muqtada al-Sadr focused his resistance in the holy city of Najaf, site of the tomb of Ali, founder of Shiism, and one of the holiest sites in Islam after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. All of the massive fire-power of the US proved impotent before the risk of damaging or profaning the sanctuary, which would have alienated the majority of Iraqis. In the end it took the intervention of another ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani, to control the situation, making clear who is really in charge in the shiite world. What resulted was a false resolution –the rebel militia was not disarmed– but one which had the virtue of showing Iraqis the limits of the power of the US and the new government in Baghdad.

In short, in the seemingly chaotic tumult of events in Iraq, nothing is accidental; everything that happens does so in keeping with a well-conceived strategy. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)