US debacle in Iraq

Bill Van Auken Column Name
The events that have unfolded in Iraq over the past several days represent the greatest debacle for US imperialism since the fall of Saigon in 1975 sent the last Americans scurrying onto helicopters atop the embassy roof.
The collapse of the Iraqi army, a force the Pentagon spent some US$22 billion and a decade to arm and train, and the overrunning of much of the country by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, represent more than the failure of a single foreign intervention.

What is involved is the implosion of an entire set of policies that have been pursued over the course of more than two decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The decision to invade Iraq in 2003, using the pretexts of the “war on terrorism” and “weapons of mass destruction”, flowed from the conclusion reached by the US ruling elite that, with the end of the USSR, nothing stood in the way of utilising America’s military might to assert unrestricted domination over strategic regions of the globe.

The conception was that by means of pre-emptive war and the use of military power, American capitalism could reverse the consequences of its long-term economic decline.

After the events of September 11, 2001, the “war on terrorism” was continuously invoked to justify the unrestrained use of militarism to attain the aims of US imperialism.

The crude ideology underlying this imperialist strategy was exemplified by the infamous statement of the Wall Street Journal, following the first invasion of Iraq in 1991, that “force works”.

The war launched against Iraq in March of 2003 was based on out and out lies combined with a callous contempt for the lives of the Iraqi people.
Almost from its first hours, the delusional policies and expectations that underlay the war began to unravel.

Washington’s response to each new crisis and failure was to ratchet up the violence, laying waste to what had been one of the most advanced societies in the Middle East.

In an editorial on the Iraq crisis Friday, the New York Times took the position, increasingly popular with the American corporate media, that Iraq’s President Maliki “more than anyone… is to blame for the catastrophe” now unfolding in the country.

The obvious question raised by such a claim is, “Where did Maliki come from?” The answer is that he was a chosen instrument of the US invasion, installed as president during the American occupation of Iraq.

The problems that US imperialism now sees in Maliki’s rule are the product of the contradictions of US policy in Iraq and the surrounding region.
Pointing to US interests in Iraq, Obama openly declared, “obviously our troops and the American people and the American taxpayers made huge investments and sacrifices in order to give Iraqis the opportunity to chart a better course, a better destiny.”

What lies! The Iraq war was not a humanitarian crusade to bring democracy to the Iraqi people.
It was justified on the basis of lies about “weapons of mass destruction” and non-existent ties between Baghdad and Al-Qaeda and was carried out to further US imperialism’s drive to assert hegemony over the Middle East and its vast energy reserves. Far from providing a “better destiny” to the Iraqis, the war laid waste to an entire society.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed by the US war, millions more were turned into refugees, and every facet of the economic, social and political infrastructure holding the country together was reduced to rubble.

Nearly 4500 US troops lost their lives, tens of thousands were wounded, and hundreds of thousands were left with the psychological and emotional toll of having been part of a dirty colonial-style war. Trillions of dollars were squandered on a criminal enterprise that enriched politically connected contractors and oil companies, while leaving Iraq’s population in a state of abject misery.

While the last of the US occupation troops were pulled out of the country at the end of 2011 – as a result of the Obama administration’s inability to secure a status of forces agreement – the Iraq war was hardly an aberration. It was part of a series of operations launched by Washington. From Afghanistan to Libya, Syria and Ukraine, US imperialism has left a trail of blood and destruction wherever it has intervened. Everywhere it is driven by the most base motives: what resources can be plundered, markets seized and financial interests advanced.

The criminal character of these policies is rooted in the very nature of the US ruling elite, whose wealth is embedded to an overwhelming extent in financial parasitism and swindling.

Every section of the American ruling establishment is deeply implicated in the destruction of Iraqi society and responsible for the catastrophe that is unfolding in that country today. – wsws.