�Everyone in town is talking �surge� now,� a Pentagon
adviser explained to NPR listeners the other day, and you could almost feel the
country buckle up its mind for another bloody disaster ahead. One big �final�
push to defeat the popular resistance of the Iraqi people. Just to see if we
can do it, before we leave. It probably won�t work, but it�s worth a try.�
For an alternative to this patent nonsense, we are told to
look to the deliberations of the Iraq Study Group, which only offer proof that
the US has no intention of either leaving Iraq or letting Iraqi oil slip out of
its grasp. In addition to an indefinite military presence, the ISG recommends a
number of specific steps to tighten controls over Iraqi petroleum and economic
policy in favor of corporate oil. It�s simply an elite debate about how best to
achieve the common objective, which has nothing to do with the expressed goal
of the American people, i.e. to get the hell out of there.
Yet, once the inter-generational/bi-partisan drama of the
ISG moment was past and the �intensive� White House policy review was complete,
just about any �solution� could be blown down the throat of an
election-satisfied public, at least for awhile. Provided, that is, the
Democratic Party didn�t spoil the scene by speaking any awkward truths, which
it hasn�t since it won the elections.
The weather in Iraq is cool now, and we can �accelerate�
20,000 partially trained recruits into on-the-job training under fire, while we
�extend� the agony of 20,000 more soldiers who have earned their trip home.
It�s the perfect time for �surge.� Naturally, the Democrats installed �surge�
proponents in the congressional leadership, ensuring that no one could be
blamed later for the likely failure of this �face-saving� operation.
This is not the first time the US has adopted a policy of
failure in Iraq. The Salvador Option, reported out of the Pentagon two years
ago, involves much more than a network of paramilitary death squads attacking
the popular insurgency. It is also a known recipe for extremely bloody civil
war, as demonstrated in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras, to
name a few.
When the Salvador Option is invoked, it is an admission that
the �battle for hearts and minds� is lost. Once it is triggered, the victim
nation will be subjected to an indefinite reign of terror until it �comes to
its senses� and accepts �international standards.�
Bishops may be assassinated while saying Mass. Nuns may be
raped, tortured, murdered, and mutilated. Native Indians may be murdered by the
tens of thousands. Anything goes. Meanwhile, the diplomatic, economic, and
intelligence meddling will continue unabated, and the American public will eat
a parade of stories about new �peace plans� and �early exit� strategies. That
is the history of the Salvador Option.
It is a policy of winning while losing. It is reminiscent in
a general way of Nixon�s �plan to end the war,� which merely led to another
�surge� for victory involving the apocalyptic carpet-bombing of Cambodia and
Vietnam. Five years after America voted for his �secret� plan, Nixon resigned
in disgrace. But the US military was still in Vietnam, �training its
replacements.�
The sober lesson to be drawn is that, in the eyes of US
policy makers, any amount of pointless suffering and death is preferable to an
admission of defeat. Even the symbolic defeat involved in bringing the troops
home �before their mission is complete� is deemed unacceptable, as a political
risk, as a return on investment, and as a matter of imperial strategy,
especially at this �moment of perceived weakness.�
The deaths of 650,000 Iraqis and the destruction of their
country have not perceptibly altered the thinking in Washington. More chaos is
on the way, in part because we sustain our deterrent power by proving that we
are willing to fail until we win. We are even willing to earn the universal
hatred of the population because, the confident strategist would assure us,
"by the time they get fed up with killing each other, they�ll be begging
us to settle their disputes."
Is US influence waning in the Middle East? According to the
rules of the previous state of affairs, it certainly is. In the history of US
interventions and occupations, however, influence assumes a variety of forms.
When the levers of goodwill and popular propaganda have been exhausted, the
battle for influence has just begun.
James Brooks serves
as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in
Palestine/Israel. He can be contacted at jamiedb@wildblue.net.