�It may be your interest to be our masters, but how can
it be ours to be your slaves? -- Thucydides (ancient Greek
historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War between
Sparta and Athens) reporting on the famous (and a must read) Melian Debate between Athenians
and Melians.
In terms of preparation, the ongoing attempted conquest of
Iraq is the most methodical operation in history. Once Iraq invaded Kuwait, the
U.S. moved to conquer it in stages with the complicity of France, Britain,
Russia, china, and aid by all Arab states without exception. In the 13 years
that followed the Gulf War Slaughter, keeping Iraq tightly under the sanction
regime and ceaseless war of attrition were the two most evident signs that the
United States would move on Iraq eventually.
When the Zionist Bill Clinton signed The Iraq Liberation
Act, followed by unleashing his violence against Iraq with
�Operation Desert Fox,� it became certain that it was a matter of time before
the United States would make that move. The plan to conquer Iraq is, therefore,
American and not Democrat or Republican, but with Zionists in both parties
controlling every detail and every decision to attack or invade at some point.
For the record, two neocon imperialists sponsored the act that passed in the
Senate with none opposing, the born-again-Christian Trent Lott, and the Jewish
Zionist Joseph Lieberman, while another Zionist (since the time of his
association with Martin Perez) Al Gore was the motor of persuasion.
To be sure, conquering Iraq would require not a regime
change as postulated in the act but invasion. Regardless, conquest is not
possible without an effective physical control over the entire invaded
territory and the enactment of a precautionary system against all
potential sources of anti-occupation resistance. One such measure is a
consistent, generalized sectarian war among the Iraqi Arabs with the obvious
assumption that while such a war would consume both warring parties, it would
leave the occupation regime unscathed.
As explained, the U.S. would need two interconnected ruses
to partition Iraq. First ruse: because Iraq was �artificial at creation,� its
communities reflect that artificiality as well. Second ruse: this artificiality
is the cause of �sectarian war,� and not the U.S. invasion and destruction of
the pre-existent power structures. As a result, the U.S. insinuates, there
could be but one solution: territorial rearrangement of Iraqi regions,
including ethnic cleansing against the Arabs, Turkomans, and Assyrians inside
the three predominantly Kurdish provinces, and confessional cleansing in the
rest of Iraq�s 15 provinces. Of course, these were not only ruses, but also, an
invitation to violence since no such plan could proceed without mass killing
and destruction of the remaining social structures of the Iraqi society.
Nevertheless, if the U.S. bases its rationale to partition
occupied Iraq on the theory of �artificial creation,� then we are dealing with
a new paradigm: all countries that are a product of �artificial creation�
should undergo partition, too. Cogently, therefore, I am advancing the
following limited sampling of counter-arguments as a response to Condoleezza
Rice�s theory of �creative chaos� and Beeman�s theory of Iraq�s artificiality
and national incompatibility:
- Britain
created 13 British colonies on the occupied soil of the indigenous people.
Afterwards, these colonies became the United States. Let us then dismantle
the United States because Britain artificially and colonialistically
created those colonies and ratified their independence without consulting
with the Original Peoples.
- The
United States severed Panama form Columbia. Let us then give back Panama
to Columbia.
- Britain
partitioned India into Muslim and Hindu states. Let us unify India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and a part of Afghanistan.
- Britain
designed the boundaries of Afghanistan. Let us redesign these borders
since now Britain, the U.S., and NATO occupy Afghanistan, and since the
Afghani societies are made of diverse ethnic groups. (The US would not
partition Afghanistan: 1) this would endanger the installation of the
planned oil pipeline between the Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean, and 2)
Afghanistan is not Arab and has no quarrel with Israel.)
- Britain
gave the Arab Syrian provinces of Intakia and Iskenderun to Turkey to cut
a deal ending WWI. Let us then give them back to Syria.
- Britain
severed Kuwait from Iraq and Hong Kong from China. And so on . . .
- Britain,
France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, and Belgium partitioned all of
Africa into �artificial states.� Let us redeign Africa . . .
To conclude, can any one logically or factually dispute that
the history and ideology of colonialism today are not but the replica of the
same as yesterday? If Beeman suggests that past colonialism made a mistake by
�cobbling� modern Iraq together, then why does not he propose to reverse Israel
and turn it back to the day before Balfour donated it to the Zionist Movement?
However, is the idea that Iraq is an �artificial� country
new? Who decried his artificiality, and why? Since the idea of Iraq�s
�artificiality� began to surface in the mid 1970s, what were the motives that
made the forces of imperialism inject steam in the issue of Iraq�s modern
origin? How did Beeman treat the issue?
Surprisingly, the idea of Iraq�s reconquest based on its
assumed �artificiality� is old, and has been revolving for some time along the
imperialist concept that Iraq was a British creation; therefore, its
dissolution should be an option. Of course, Iraq does not stand alone in the
focus of U.S. imperialism; other countries in Arab and Muslim Asia are inside
that focus too. [Please read Blood Borders: How
a better Middle East would look, which Ralph Peters published on
no other location than that of the official website of the U.S. Armed Forces.]
In 1980, as a precursor for the resurgence of western
crusading colonialism, a British professor, J. B. Kelly [1] spearheaded
American and Israeli efforts to destabilize Iraq by proposing that Iraq is an
artificial state. Keep in mind that in 1980 Iraq was still a stable country
despite its war with Iran -- sponsored by the U.S., Britain, Jordan, Kuwait,
and Saudi Arabia.
Kelly: �Iraq is an artificial state, with no sense of
historical continuity between its previous existence and as three distinct
vilayets of the Ottoman Empire, and its modern metamorphosis as a unified
nation-state.� After that, myriad of American and Zionist parrots repeated that
formula.
It is not clear how the �genius� of Kelly managed to reach
such a conclusion, especially knowing that Iraq existed since time immemorial
with that name, regardless of its political structures or its multiple
territorial identities depending on eras and conquerors? How is it possible
that Iraq, as per Kelly�s suggestion, does not have a sense of its historical
continuity if even phonetics proves otherwise? The Sumerians called it Uruk
(from the city of Uruk); the Israelites (not to be confused with the modern
Jewish peoples) called it Erech; the Greeks called it Orcho� (and later Mesopotamia); pre-Islamic Arabs called it Warka, early
Arab Muslims called it Iraq, and it has ever since kept that name.
No. Kelly did not suffer a momentary mental lapsus about
Iraq�s history, but he was shrewdly moving according to a plan. It is not
coincidental that despite his countless historical fallacies and chauvinist
ideological positions toward the Arabs, Kelly found useful Zionist allies and
adulators. Commentary Magazine called his book, �A magisterial study. . . . a
major intellectual event,� and the neocon Edward Luttwak commented, �With
this one book J.B. Kelly gives us a proper modern history of the peoples and
rulers of the Arabs' half of the Persian Gulf . . ."
From Kelly to Beeman, the story about Iraq�s origins has not
changed a bit but instead acquired additional dynamics since it became the
modus operandi to conquer Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Beeman (as you will
read shortly) however, appears to offer a peculiar vision as why the origins of
Iraq were �mechanical� (by gluing together) rather than natural.
In the end, �mechanical creation� as pinned on Iraq, would
serve only one purpose: to stir confessional violence but only among the Iraqi
Arabs by means of American terrorism in all forms: political, propaganda,
�Zarqawi,� death squads, U.S. military violence, targeted killings, etc.
Just a few days after the United States invaded Iraq, the
rationale for the invasion disappeared and a set of new ones mushroomed in the
American media and corridors of power. In sequential terms, if the initial
rationale formed step one in the conquest of Iraq, the new ones formed step
two. In this step, the neocon regime mobilized an army of theoreticians to
prove that 1) Iraq is a British creation, hence, it is artificial, and 2)
Britain sewed this artificial creation by joining different groups and regions.
After the occupation and the start of the Iraqi Resistance,
the same theoreticians returned to the charge, but this time with an added
theme: the partition of Iraq based on its assumed artificial origins and the
structural incompatibility of its people.
Did they say incompatibility? It was predictable from the
beginning that the United States would aim at provoking incompatibility and
violence to rein in the expected rejection of the occupation. With slogans such
as, �Sunni rule,� �Sunni triangle,� �Shiite majority,� �Shiites persecuted
under Saddam,� �Sunni insurgents,� etc., U.S. planners had only one thing in
mind: provoke an Iraqi-Iraqi war. If war were to erupt (and it erupted) among
the Iraqis, then incompatibility is a proven fact, hence, partition is a
functional necessity for the Iraqis.
The invention of �Zarqawi� and �Qaedaist terrorism� in Iraq
makes part of the American crusade to 1) invent the myth of incompatibility,
and 2) conquer Iraq despite the failure of the occupation, as the two resulting
entities: Kurdish and Shiite would be under US tutelage. (The Sunni canton
would be very weak since the United States, its Shiite and Kurdish stooges are
now exterminating the Arab Sunni Muslims, while, at the same time, the same
U.S. and its Kurdish stooges are exterminating the Shiite stooges as well, to
1) defang any possible anti-occupation uprising, and 2) to keep up the Shiite
reprisals against the Sunnis.)
But who is killing the Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, and
other minorities inside the 15 provinces that are not Kurdish? Answer: the
United States through 1) its continuous bombardment of Iraqi cities and
neighborhoods, and 2) through its death squads, but always attributed to
�Islamist terrorists,� �gunmen,� �assassins,� etc. In fact, after the U.S.
claimed it killed �Zarqawi,� mass murders in Iraq increased astronomically but
without the name of �Zarqawi� or his �successor� ever being mentioned.
Well, if Zarqawi had an organization of terrorists in Iraq,
and since the U.S. killed the head, where is the body (organization)? Did it
disappear overnight?
Answer: there was no organization, and the purpose behind
the creation of Zarqawi gave its fruit since now the Iraqi Arab Muslims are
either slaughtering each or someone else is slaughtering them. I subscribe to
the latter hypothesis (someone else is slaughtering them) because, whether
Sunnis or Shiites are the victims of the ongoing violence, the method of
killing is identical with the hands of the victim tied behind the back and the
head drilled or penetrated by a bullet from the summit. These are executions,
mafia style, made by paid professional killers; and as such, they cannot but
have indirect affiliation with foreign and Iraqi death squads connected to and paid for by the
American Occupation Regime.
Did Beeman see all what he predicted happen, because of his
acute analysis? No. That was not prediction. That was the plan. He was only a
voice among many voices of neocon theoreticians of imperialism.
Beeman, as you read in the previous parts, shelved the
assassination of Baqir al-Hakim, and launched into a widely orchestrated
campaign to dismantle Iraq as a country by creating the condition for a
confessional war between the Iraqis. After he advanced the theory that Iraq is
an artificial entity, he set out to dismantle its people since, according to him,
they lack the �mechanical cohesion� as a nation, as in his use of the phrase
�glued together.�
Beeman: The British installed a king, the Saudi Arabian son
of the chief religious official of Mecca (Faisal, of Lawrence of Arabia Fame)
and glued the whole mess together with the resident British Army.
�Cobbled together� and �glued with resident army,� said
Beeman of Iraq�s formation, as if land and people were irregular pieces of
something scattered on a large board that Britain collected, cobbled together,
and then glued . . . Voila! Iraq is made! Reading the mind of Beeman is not the
difficult. He avoided the use of the word bonding because it conveys the
meaning of durability and amalgamation, but used �gluing� which, of course, can
be reversed.
Curiously, how did Beeman improvise the British army as
glue? If the British army was the glue that held the �cobbled provinces�
together, then this presupposes that once the British army leaves, the glued
regions should fall apart. That, however, never happened mainly because Iraq as
a historical product was cohesive from its origin. As for the quest of the
Kurds for separation, that project is international in nature; and Britain, the
U.S., Israel, and Iran under the Shah were behind it, since after the installation
of the settler state of Israel in 1948, to destabilize Iraq and the Arab states
as a whole.
What historical evidence did Beeman supply to support his
views on Iraq�s history or the region? Where is the history of Iraq in the past
3,000 years? Answer: none; but Beeman�s brazen falsification of history, as you
will read next, will reach the apogee when he begins philosophizing on Iraqi
national incompatibility. With that, we will begin sensing Zarqawi presence
everywhere . . .
Next: part 17 of 23
B. J. Sabri is an Iraq-American antiwar activist. Email: bjsabri@yahoo.com
Note
[1] J. B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf, & The West,
Basic Books, 1980, p. 285-6
B. J. Sabri is an Iraq-American antiwar activist. Email:
bjsabri@yahoo.com
Previously published
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15