Yalman Haceroglu writes: Post-occupation Iraq between George Bush and the second chance
The occupation of Iraq was not a sudden or arbitrary war waged by the American right that was in power at the time. Rather, it was the result of dangerous alliances, understandings, and agreements—some overt and some secret—between major powers on the one hand, and regional states and some Iraqi opposition factions on the other hand .
On February 2, 2003, US Vice President Dick Cheney visited five Arab and other foreign capitals, forty-five days before the occupation. Cheney explained to these capitals Washington and London’s insistence on overthrowing the central government in Baghdad—these capitals were Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Cairo, Doha, and the foreign capital, Ankara.
Qatar made eager befforts to persuade Saddam Hussein to back down power with his two sons, but Saddam’s megalomania obstructed these efforts.
All of these countries expressed their full readiness to cooperate with Washington, with the exception of Ankara, which refused for strategic, political, and moral reasons. History has proven the validity of the Turkish position.
The United States did not have any strategic leadership plans in place for post-occupation Iraq. This is what CIA Director George Tenet argued in his memoirs, “In the Eye of the Storm.” Tenet harshly criticized the Bush administration’s poor performance and its role in preparing the international climate for the invasion of Iraq. This led to the complete failure of the American project in Iraq and the region, which provided a full opportunity for regional countries to overtly interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs.
No George Tenet resigned from his position as CIA Director in 2004.
One of the dangerous fact that accompanied the American occupation of Iraq, which was considered one of the dark pages in Iraqi political history and which was sparked by this occupation, was the opening of the door to bloody internal conflicts at the time, which the Iraqi people were far removed from it
Five types of Iraqi conflicts appeared on the horizon, in terms of their general form and apparent formula:
- A historical-civilizational conflict
- A religious-religious conflict
- A religious-civilizational conflict
- A national-nationalist conflict
- A religious-secular conflict
These five conflicts took on various characteristics and names. Sometimes they appeared as resistance, sometimes as terrorism, sometimes as militias, and sometimes as “religious mythology.”
In reality, the vast majority of the Iraqi people were not prepared to receive American democracy or the “constructive chaos” heralded by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at that time on September 16, 2005, during the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Iraqi people were socially, economically, and psychologically exhausted by the previous 35-year dictatorial era, in addition to 13 years of brutal and unjust economic sanctions. This forced the people, with most of their groups, sects, components, and classes, to seek salvation. US President George W. Bush also lacked a solution or way out of the Iraqi situation, which was intertwined with multiple trends.
He relied on the unknown, the passage of time, and a group of advisors who subsequently resigned from their positions due to their disastrous failure in Iraq. These included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, George Tenet, Bradley Blackman, Jeffrey White, Colin Powell, William Broome, and others from the military, security, and diplomatic establishment. In his 2007 book, “Second Chance,” Zingio Brzezinski (1928–2017), a strategic thinker and US National Security Advisor to US President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981, harshly criticized US President George W. Bush for invading Iraq with a hollow and futile strategy. He described his leadership as disastrous, citing real facts that undermined the credibility of US global leadership. Brzezinski described the US invasion of Iraq as an American adventure.
The most severe, vehement, and extremely important criticism of the Middle East that Brzezinski directed at former US President Bush for invading Iraq under what he described as flimsy pretexts is that the war on Iraq paved the way for transforming Iraq into a safe haven for terrorist groups, which escalated their military operations to an unprecedented degree. Brzezinski described the losses as heavy and painful.
Brzezinski explained that US policy toward the Middle East had become strategically self-destructive. The occupation of Iraq led to the rise of Iran as an influential power.
Berzezinski emphasized that the Bush Jr. administration’s adventure in occupying Iraq and the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, had elevated Iran as an influential power in Iraq and the Gulf. He noted that the Iraqi arena had become a graveyard for neoconservatives, as we previously mentioned, with more than fifty military, security, and diplomatic figures resigning from their positions due to their failure to occupy Iraq.
Berzezinski described President Bush Jr. as a vigilante, noting that American headlines during the Bush era were frightening. This is striking in an analysis of President Bush’s political personality.
Berzezinski identified the negative consequences of the war waged by Bush Jr. in Iraq:
- The massive destruction of America’s credibility globally, when Bush declared, “We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
- The inhumane practices at Abu Ghraib prison.
- The American war in Iraq was a geopolitical disaster, as Iraq became a safe haven for terrorist groups.
4- Destroying Iraq’s power as a regional power and as the only Arab country capable of confronting Iran.
As for Jay Garner, Paul Bremer, and Megan O’Sullivan, these three men harmed Iraq more than they helped due to their political, intelligence, and cognitive ignorance of the true situation in Iraq and the true archaeological nature of the Iraqi people.
