An unstable marriage

Defeat in Iraq? The paradox of Baghdad is that a fundamentally anti-western government is umbilically linked to US occupation

By Jonathan Steele
The Guardian

"George Bush has done his critics a new favour. Just when the Iraq issue was in danger of receding from the increasingly frenetic US primary campaign, his effort to formalise a long-term occupation of Iraq has re-ignited the issue and re-emboldened the Democrats.

The much-trumpeted success of the "surge" and General David Petraeus's skilful arguments with Congress had temporarily put the Democrats on the back foot.

Now Bush has fired them up again and Iraq is back on the political agenda. His plan for a new security agreement with the government in Baghdad which would authorise US combat operations for the indefinite future not only reinforces the image of the Iraq government as colonial dependents. It would tie the hands of Bush's successor in the White House.....

The paradox of Baghdad is that a sectarian Shia-dominated and fundamentally anti-western government is umbilically linked to a US occupation because its members now feel so identified with the Bush project that their lives would be at severe risk if and when the Americans leave. Never was a political marriage less stable, or more cynical.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the ultimate defeat for Bush and those who went to war alongside him is that polls show a majority of Iraqis want his troops to leave."