The domestic debate over the setting of a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has been most instructive. On the one hand it dlearly demonstrated to the whole world that there is dwindling support for the war in Iraq and the Republicans barely managed to stave off defeat in the Senate because Democrats like Hilary Clinton went along with the majority. However we have not seen the end of the debate. The Democrats made acrucial tactical blunder by emphasing the timetable for troop withdawal instad of highlighting the conduct and strategy of war. Had they concentrated their attack on the muddled and incompetent manner in which the war is being conducted along with loud and imaginatively constructed wails of protest against the brutal nature of the American occupation in Iraq, the Democrats would have made a better show. The Republicans did a superb job of defelecting any criticism by trumpetting the canard that even suggesting a timetable for troop withdrawal is unpatriotic and anti American. Thus the Democrats gave a crucial tactical victory to the Democrats.
Yet disturbing questions remain. Three years after the War Iraq is nowhere near stability and reconstruction. The fatigue induced by this senseless war would mean that the US will abandon Iraq sooner than later. A wounded, bleeding Iraq will become a bigger recruiting soil for the Al Qaeda. Infact, before the invasion of Iraq there was not a single Al Qaeda cell in Iraq except perhaps in the Kurdish noth which was insulated by a no fly zone enforced by US airforce. Now Iraq is chalk-a-block with terrorists of very colour, ideological hue, and training. The USA remains clueless about the next step.
The much vaunted elections in Iraq have not helped to bring stability to the country. A devastated civil society can hardly throw up national leaders with strong plitical base. The quislings who call themselves Iraq's political leadership will not survive single day after the exit of the US troops. In fact those quislings have realised that by hitching their political wagons to the American band wagon they political future will lie burried in the sands of Nineveh like the palaces of Nebuchenazzer. So they hit upon a most cynical ploy. Amnesty to all those who have not shed Iraqi blood. Think of the implications of this move. It is a massive vote of no confidence in the American Occupation and the fact that amnesty covers the killing of American soldiers meabns that the present Iraqi regime asees the US occupation as a period of hostile action and hence kid glove treatment to those responsible for killing US troops. 2,569 soldiers of the US 1562 American civillians have been killed since Bush accomlished his great mission. Of the Iraqi dead and wounded there is no count. The shallow rooted political system of al-Maliki and his goons will not outlive the exit of the Americans and everyone knows now that the US exit is only a matter of time.
The entire fabric of Iraqi society has been torn by the fissures created by American style Identity politics. In Iraq Shiaa, Sunni and Kurd were by and large coexiasting, I am not saying peacefully, but they were not slaughtering each other like the way things are happening now. In fact even the few Green Zone supporters of the Occupation admit in private that US has made conditions far far worse in Iraq than they ever were. The proliferation of private militias has made the so called central government extremely fragile and the INsurgency is becoming more sophisticated after the killing of Zarqawi. Now the Iraqi nationalists and the Baathists have joined hands with the Shiaa resistance groups and are to a large exten appropriating the political space vacated by the retreat of the Malaki regime. Indeed the average Iraqi has unmitigated contempt foral Maliki and his supporters who are seen as traitors.
Will the USA be able to set the Agenda in Iraq. Froam all accounts the USA has realised that it cannot hang on to Iraq in this manner and the strategy of fashioning an Iraqi political government has come unstuck.