We've Been Stupid

It was always about the oil. How could we have let ourselves forget that?

I managed to, until this article by uber-blogger and major foreign policy and Iraq wonk Juan Cole brought me back to my senses. The minute I read it, everything fell into place. And my first thought is now the title of this post.

Come, my friends, and I shall lead you through the wilderness to the simple, terrible truth.

It's always been about the oil. And Ahmed Chalabi. And restoring a dictator to run Iraq who would cooperate with the U.S. oil companies as well as support U.S. foreign policy in the region (specifically regime change in Syria and Iran).

So here's how it is going to go down. Once we've described that, I will then show you how every action taken by the Bush Administration's appointees both civilian and military has feed perfectly into this strategy tree. Whoever is running this (my guess is Brent Scowcroft and whomever he has trained up as his replacement) has managed a perfect storm of realpolitik and we all missed it.

Okay, let's start with the way things are going to unfold between now and November 2008.

A) In about two to three months, there will be a really horrific insurgent attack in Iraq. Lots of dead, infrastructure damage, the whole shebang. Leading clerics will demand the ouster of Maliki as he cannot do anything to stop the carnage.

B) A group of military leaders, sunni and shia together, will overthow maliki and set up a regime similar to the one described in Mr. Cole's article. There is one addendum, however; Ahmed Chalabi will be on the governing council. Not the leader, but on it. If not, there will be a subsequent coup to put him there.

C) The new "council" will order the us out of iraqi cities and towns into laager positions to protect against "external threats", namely iran and syria. The US will happily comply. minor troop reductions will occur at this point, especially the more exhausted units.

D) The new Iraq government will then shut down the death squads and destroy everyone that doesn't toe the line fast, just like saddam did. The US will wring its hands but will have to allow it. By mid 2009, the Iraq situation will be stabilized, security wise.

E) Suddenly all those reconstruction projects that haven't been done or have been done poorly, will just blossom into place. Iraq will suddenly have power, water, schools, universities, air travel, functioning oil pipelines, refineries, pumping stations and deep water ports to export oil from. The U.S. oil industry will fall all over itself helping (and the Production Sharing Agreements will be signed in secret by the rubber stamp body as needed.)

F) The Iraqi military will suddenly have tanks and planes and helicopters and radios and all the needed things to keep order and preserve the country's integrity. Not enough to challenge the American laagered (an old tank warfare term meaning drawn up into a defensive position for a short while, usually in unfriendly terrain) forces, but enough to keep Iran from getting frisky just in case (and Syria and Turkey as well).

G) The Kurds will not like any of this, but will behave for two reasons. One, the massed Iranian and Turkish armed forces on their borders. Two, the massed laager of US forces. There will not be Kurds on the "council" but they will be allowed autonomy PROVIDED they leave Kirkuk alone. If not, the Turks will invade and crush them and the US and Iraq will wring their hands.

H) By election time, Iraq "won't be a problem" just like Karl Rove said. (Scrowcroft must have finally briefed him in...)

I) About May or June of 2009 there will be an "incident" involving Iraqi and Iranian armed forces. It will rapidly escalate and result in the U.S. bombing Iran's military and economic infrastructure heavily. Iran will retaliate with terrorist attacks on the EU, the Continental United States, and of course in Iraq. Also, Hezbollah will restart its war with Israel. Syria will try to remain uninvolved but will probably fail.

J) The U.S. will of course insist that it has no plans for sending troops into Iran. It does, however, reinforce selected border areas and eventually (right around election time) does become involved in a limited ground war in border regions with Iranian forces.

K) The election will focus on the terror threat (if there have been successful attacks inside the US) and/or on the need to "stay the course", "liberate Iran", etc. War hysteria will be kept at a high level but managed to avoid the negative casualty feedback.

L) Regardless of who wins the election, the US troops will stay in Iraq, and the US oil companies will get what they wanted from chimpy. Have a nice day.

Now let's examine the actions that were taken that, on the surface, seem so foolhardy, when in fact they were in response to conditions on the ground which we never considered, for what reason I cannot imagine since they were just as obvious then as now.

A) The complete destruction of the Iraqi army. This was needed to create the security mess that will lead to the demand for a new dictatorship. If we had left the Iraqi army intact it would have long since dealt with the death squads and the local insurgents, and we could then have finished off the AQ guys.

B) The allowing of the looting of the weapons caches. The security mess we need to have the demand for dictatorship will require weapons. So use what's there.

C) The denying of all Baath Party members any posts (even that of school teacher) in the current govt. Setting it up to fail big time and create a huge sunni pool ready to get back in the good life by supporting the desired dictatorship.

D) The refusing to rebuild any significant part of the infrastructure, or even maintain it. Again, we want people good and ready to surrender their "freedom" for the desired dictatorship. And as soon as it gets going, we suddenly fix everything and wow! Isn't dictatorship grand?

E) The continuing putting up of the oil law to the parliaments even when they refuse it. Needed to keep reminding the coming dictatorship's power players what we want, and what we'll do to get it.

F) The total lack of interest in forcing the political parties in Iraq to work together. We want them to fail, that's why. That is another pavestone in the road to the compliant dictatorship.

G) The careful maintenance of the Kurds as pseudo-independent but without real power because they can't have Kirkuk, and the encouragement of Turkey to mass all those troops on the border. The Kurds are a nuisance but it would look bad if WE or the Iraqis killed them. If they'll accept second class poverty in exchange for being let live, fine. Otherwise let the Turks slaughter them, they're good at that sort of thing.

H) The militant (proactive) indifference to repairing oil exporting facilities and pipeline and well head infrastructure. We don't want THIS government getting any serious oil money, that comes later when OUR dictatorship has taken over.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. No, they weren't stupid at all. Just amoral beyond belief.

Now of course, the final question is, why start all this five years ago? Answer: the Iraqis didn't fight correctly. It was assumed that they would fight hard and well and the war itself take until 2005 or even 2006 to complete. The destruction would have been so complete that we could pick the new ruler (Chalabi) sign the oil deals and go into laager by the end of 2006. All nice and neat. But the Iraqis simply fell apart, with little or no damage to the country's infrastructure and next to no american casualties and relatively few Iraqi ones. The country was left with lots of perfectly healthy soldiers, a fully functional civilian society and a great belief in the arrival of democracy. So they had to be given "democracy". Just not one that would work, or in the long run impede the American oil companies de fact seizure of the oil fields.

Everything flowed from that.

It has always been about the oil.