The Integration of Iraq into the New World Order through its Disintegration, Takis Fotopoulos, The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, vol. 2, no.4 (November 2006)

The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, vol. 2, no.4 (November 2006)

The Integration of Iraq into the New World Order through its Disintegration*

TAKIS FOTOPOULOS

The resounding defeat of the neo-conservative part of the US elite in the mid-term US elections and its implicit condemnation by the electorate for the catastrophic war in Iraq, were not, in fact, the causes of the forthcoming tactical change on the matter —a change which, as I will attempt to show, does not in the least affect the strategic aims of the transnational elite in general and the specific aims of the US elite in particular. In fact, there have been several signs lately that the deep crisis created by the invasion and brutal occupation of Iraq carried out by the US-UK part of the transnational elite is reaching its final phase. At the same time, the real aims of a war which has sent over 650,000 Iraqis to their deaths —apart from the destruction of the entire infrastructure, which has rendered the country incapable of covering even the basic needs of its people (from health, to electricity and water)— have now become obvious to almost everybody. No wonder that 1.6 million Iraqis have fled their country since the war[1].

The real aims of the war had nothing to do with the transnational elite’s myths about the weapons of mass destruction supposedly held by the Iraqi regime (which were never discovered!), nor the similar myths about the supposed links between the Baathist regime and Islamist ’terrorists’ (today denied even by the CIA!). Likewise, these aims had nothing to do with the propagated aim of creating a democratic regime, which would allow the Iraqis to rid themselves of the Baathist ‘tyranny’. In fact, as the Iraqis initially discovered when they experienced this «democracy» in action, all it meant was the systematic use of torture, arbitrary executions at the hands of the security forces (i.e. the invaders and their counterparts in the army and the police) and a clear implementation of the ‘law of the jungle’ —in other words, the law on which US democracy itself was built, according to which the strongest (militarily, economically or politically) survives. This gunboat ‘democracy’ imposed by the invaders is, in fact, a ‘tribal’ democracy, which could only secure representation proportional to the three main cultural ‘tribes’ that constitute the Iraqi population: Shias, Sunnis and Kurds.

The real aim of the transnational elite was, from the outset, as I have tried to show elsewhere,[2] the integration of Iraq into the New World Order, which — among other things — would allow the smooth flow of oil to the West. Dick Cheney was uncharacteristically frank when he declared in 1991: ‘We are there because the fact of the matter is that this part of the world controls the world supply of oil’.

The ‘solution’ that seems to have been chosen for Iraq by the leadership of the transnational elite, as for Yugoslavia in the last decade, is the only possible solution for the integration of the country into the New World Order: the dismembering of Iraq, i.e. its de-composition through ‘democratic’ procedures to be followed by its re-composition into three much more manageable (by the transnational elite), smaller state entities — in conflict with each other— within the framework of some sort of federation. This was the real aim of the “democratic” elections in 2005 which, given the Iraqi demography, were bound to reverse the political foundations of the country that had secured the domination of Sunni elites — set up by British colonialists after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The transnational elite was, therefore, well aware of the fact that, in its campaign to oust the Sunni Baathist regime, which was founded within an integrated secular state based on the principles of Arab socialism, it could safely count on the majority of the Iraqi population to be its ‘physical’ allies. This includes, namely, the religious Shias who constitute 60% of the population and have never liked their political marginalisation, and the autonomist Kurds who, in contrast to the Turkish Kurds of the PKK, did not have any qualms about functioning even as a protectorate of the transnational elite in order to secure their so-called “autonomy” — something for which they may have to pay a heavy price in the future, given the enmity that they have created between themselves and their neighbouring populations.

In fact, the occupation authorities took all the necessary steps before the elections to create the economic and political infrastructure needed to secure that the anticipated electoral outcome would lead to civil conflict. At the economic level, the ‘package’ of neoliberal globalisation policies that they imposed, which constitute the essence of the New World Order (privatisations, dismantling of the public sector etc.) made impossible — exactly as in Yugoslavia — any policies of redistributing income in favour of the poor South, where most Shias live. And yet, such policies were adopted by the Baathist regime in the 1970s and were instrumental in maintaining the cohesion of Iraq.[3] Also, at the political level, as Mark Lattimer points out, “one of the first acts of the coalition authorities was to create the Iraqi Governing Council, in which membership, and the power that went with it, was divided up on communal lines. Government ministries were similarly divided, and patronage soon ensured that they became dominated by officials from the minister's own sect or ethnic group”.[4] Under these circumstances, with unemployment raging at 70%, it was utterly predictable that Iraqis would pull together around their ‘tribes’.

What was really unpredictable, however, was the massive popular resistance faced by the occupying powers in which part of the Shia population has also been taking part. The continually spreading resistance has created huge problems not only for the occupying armies themselves, but even more serious ones for the political elites leading the transnational elite, as was shown by the results of the US mid-term elections and, earlier, by the UK local elections. On the basis of such considerations, it seems that the leadership of the transnational elite is determined to proceed to the dismembering of Iraq. However, such a ‘solution’ presupposes a formal or informal agreement with the Iranian regime on some sort of ‘joint administration’, which would rely not only on the control of the new Iraq by the transnational elite (through its military and economic power as well as through its Kurdish protectorate) but also on the control of at least a significant part of it by the Islamist regime of Iran (through its influence over the Iraqi Shias). Such an agreement would allow for the phased and orderly withdrawal of the occupying armies into huge super-bases in or around Iraq, so that they could monitor the integration of Iraq into the New World Order. But, such an agreement would inevitably involve a quid pro quo on behalf of the transnational elite, which will probably take the form of its commitment to non-aggression and non-interference in Iran’s nuclear program. Therefore, despite the fact that such a rapprochement between the US and Iranian (and possibly also the Syrian) elites is proposed even by important representatives of the US elite (the Baker Committee, Kissinger et. al), such a development will probably not be possible before the ousting of the Bush administration (which represents parts of the same elite who are opposed to such a rapprochement) in the next Presidential elections.

Needless to add that it is the dynamics of the Iraqi resistance that will play the decisive role in determining whether it will, eventually, be through the US and Iranian/Syrian elites’ re-approaching each other that a way out of the Iraqi crisis will be sought or, alternatively, whether the conflict will spread further and involve even a military blow against Iran by the transnational elite or more likely by its proxy, Zionist Israel.[5]

* The above text is an extended version of an article which was first published in the fortnightly column of Takis Fotopoulos in the mass circulation Athens daily Eleftherotypia on 11/11/2006

[1] Patrick Cockburn, “The Exodus”, The Independent (23/10/2006).
[2] See “Iraq: the new criminal 'war' of the transnational elite”, Democracy & Nature, Vol. 9, No. 2 (July 2003).
[3] Peter Harling and Hamid Yasin, Le Monde diplomatique (September 2006).
[4] Mark Lattimer, Our meddling is accelerating this descent into civil war, The Guardian (4/8/2006).
[5] See “Iran: The next target of the transnational elite” ID Newsletter #31 (3 May 2006).