Is Iraq Becoming Anti-American?

With U.S. forces gone, the al-Maliki government wasted little time sending a clear and unequivocal message to the world in general and the United States in particular. The Iraq of the future would be a pro-Iranian Shiite nation, and other minorities, particularly the Sunnis that once ruled this nation, were no longer relevant. He sought the arrest of the most important Sunni politician in the nation and invited fiercely pro-Iranian Muktada al-Sadr and his militia into the mainstream political arena. The secular and constitutional democracy that we helped foment , with protections for minority elements in the country, was effectively over. The Kurds in the north, already fairly autonomous with their own standing army, shrugged a collective “I told you so” shoulder, and continued life as usual. The Sunnis pulled out of the parliament and their militant factions stepped up their bombings of Shiite targets.

As if the pulling less-than-subtly into the Iranian camp and disenfranchising Sunnis wasn’t bad enough, the new Iraq is sending an even harsher message to the United States and other Western foreigners: you are not welcome in our country, particularly if you work in the “security” area. Foreign contractors were detained all across Iraq and told either that their visas and work permits had expired, would not be renewed or were simply revoked. “‘We have to apply our own rules now.’ [said] Latif Rashid, a senior adviser to Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, on the recent detentions of several hundred foreign contractors working in Iraq.” New York Times, January 15^th.

“Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month… The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.

“The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of the United States military operation for much of the war… The Iraqi authorities have also imposed new limitations on visas. In some recent cases, contractors have been told they have 10 days to leave Iraq or face arrest in what some industry officials call a form of controlled harassment.” NY Times.

In fairness to the Iraqis, most of these contractors – security forces reminiscent of the Blackwater days of purportedly roughshod attitudes and uncontrolled use of deadly fire – are simply ugly reminders of U.S. domination of everyday life in Iraq. “Mr. Rashid, the adviser to Mr. Talabani, said Iraqis are fed up with foreign contractors. ‘The Iraqi public is not happy with security contractors. They caused a lot of pain,’ he said. ‘There is a general bad feeling towards the security contractors among the Iraqis and that has created bad feelings towards them all.’ … Mr. Rashid said that traveling to the United States to work was no different. ‘Every time I go to the airport in New York they open my suitcase three times,’ he said. ‘How long does it take to get an American visa?’” NY Times. The government claims that this is not an “anti-American effort,” just a decision to run their own country. The departure of U.S. forces was hastened when the al-Maliki government refused to grant immunity to our military for their actions in the country.

The bigger picture is the lesson we seem never to learn. Foreigners who have big weapons – even when the initial motivation to use them may have had the best of intentions – rarely are welcome or desired, especially when those foreigners come from an entirely different culture with an entirely different set of religious and moral expectations, impose their view of what kind of government is best for the locals and overstay their welcome. We were in Iraq for the wrong reason, and even when we “adjusted” our explanation as to why we were there, once we deposed the malevolent dictator, the rest of our effort simply engendered massive resentment.

We have a big military, unhesitatingly use force at a whim and use ignorant occupational tactics that haven’t worked since WWII. And after of few decades of “we’ll never do that again” – the last big war being Vietnam from the 60s and early 70s – we simply repeated our mistakes with the same ugly results. And then there is Afghanistan, where we because we simply cannot impose our will and have otherwise installed one of the most corrupt regimes on earth, we are negotiating with the very same nasty Taliban (whom we removed after they suborned al Qaeda’s 9/11 attackers) for their formal re-involvement in the Afghan government. Do you believe that they will honor any commitments they make to the United States?

Will we learn this lesson or continue to lobby for a huge military that allows us, oh-so-easily, to embroil ourselves in unwinnable wars that kill our soldiers and lots of innocent civilians, polarize our nation, drag on for years and decimate our economy? Exactly what does it take for the United States to understand that it simply cannot continue such mega-wasteful economic expenditure on a military that we do not seem to be able to use effectively? Will the warnings of Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower against his own termed “the military-industrial complex” ever take root in our great nation?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the long-term deficit damage to our very survival as a global power cannot sustain a military that consumes 47% of the entire world’s military budget.