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Analysis Last Updated: Jan 4th, 2007 - 01:08:31


The Zarqawi affair, part 16 of 23
By B. J. Sabri
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Nov 21, 2006, 00:21

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�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

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