Here’s a scenario for you: American aircraft are firing into residential neighborhoods inhabited by the very people we claim to be protecting; American casualties are spiking; local security forces we’ve built and supported collapse or flee the scene; American officials are confined to their “compounds” because of “security worries”; top officials are rushing on air to claim that things are not what they seem, that progress is occurring; American generals are publicly planning for the possibility of sending in more troops; the President is swearing that we will not “cut and run” but “stay the course”; pundits, editorial writers, and TV journalists are calling the situation a “quagmire”; the American public is catching all this on television, including shots of American troops battling in the streets of major cities; the latest opinion polls indicate that Americans are reconsidering their support for the ongoing war and that rising numbers — 44% — now claim to be in favor of pulling out American troops “as soon as possible”; under the weight of the latest war news, the President’s opinion-poll popularity ratings are dropping fast.
Do we have to wait another day before some official completes this picture by using the phrase “the light at the end of the tunnel”? Here’s the sort of statement that’s already coming out of the mouth of the Coalition Provisional Authority’s L. Paul Bremer:
“‘There is no question we have control over the country. I know if you just report on those few places [where the fighting is taking place], it does look chaotic,’ Bremer said on CNN’s American Morning. ‘But if you travel around the country, what you find is a bustling economy, people opening businesses right and left, unemployment has dropped The story of the house that doesn’t burn down is not much of a story in the news. The story of the house that does burn down is news.”
So is Iraq — yes, we’re talking about Iraq, not Vietnam — a glass half full or half empty? Or could it be half-shattered or is it a glass at all?
Soon enough we’ll undoubtedly hear plaintive murmurings from official Washington that “they” — the Sunni insurgents in that famed “triangle” (reminiscent of “triangles” first named decades ago); and the followers of the young Islamist extremist Muqtada al Sadr — have been militarily “defeated” and should recognize as much and act accordingly. As if that were the point. As if the story were really a military one in the first place.
For anyone of a certain age, memories — particularly of the shocking beginning moment of the surprise 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam — are bound to come flooding back; not, I hasten to add, because that massive nationwide series of assaults which stunned the American public into disbelief and this chaotic spread of rebellion into the Shiite areas of Iraq are in any literal way similar, but because the response is familiar, because the “gap” between events unfolding on television and the Iraq promised by this administration is already large enough to create genuine unease in the “homeland,” to give the alternately sunny and belligerent pronouncements of this administration’s spokesmen in Baghdad and Washington the look of propaganda, not to say surreality.
In the Vietnam years, at least, our government had a series of military regimes, however shaky, to back in South Vietnam (even if we had largely put them in place). Iraq, on the other hand, is like a strange administrative void at the moment. Under other circumstances, an American administration would simply have backed a military strongman or junta of some sort. But this is now inconceivable. With every other announced explanation for the invasion of Iraq from weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda links down the tubes, this administration has nothing left but the idea that it’s bringing “democracy” to the country. Lose that and what is there except dreams, greed, and disaster.
So is Iraq — yes, we’re talking about Iraq, not Vietnam — a glass half full or half empty? Or could it be half-shattered or is it a glass at all?
Soon enough we’ll undoubtedly hear plaintive murmurings from official Washington that “they” — the Sunni insurgents in that famed “triangle” (reminiscent of “triangles” first named decades ago); and the followers of the young Islamist extremist Muqtada al Sadr — have been militarily “defeated” and should recognize as much and act accordingly. As if that were the point. As if the story were really a military one in the first place.
For anyone of a certain age, memories — particularly of the shocking beginning moment of the surprise 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam — are bound to come flooding back; not, I hasten to add, because that massive nationwide series of assaults which stunned the American public into disbelief and this chaotic spread of rebellion into the Shiite areas of Iraq are in any literal way similar, but because the response is familiar, because the “gap” between events unfolding on television and the Iraq promised by this administration is already large enough to create genuine unease in the “homeland,” to give the alternately sunny and belligerent pronouncements of this administration’s spokesmen in Baghdad and Washington the look of propaganda, not to say surreality.
In the Vietnam years, at least, our government had a series of military regimes, however shaky, to back in South Vietnam (even if we had largely put them in place). Iraq, on the other hand, is like a strange administrative void at the moment. Under other circumstances, an American administration would simply have backed a military strongman or junta of some sort. But this is now inconceivable. With every other announced explanation for the invasion of Iraq from weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda links down the tubes, this administration has nothing left but the idea that it’s bringing “democracy” to the country. Lose that and what is there except dreams, greed, and disaster.
Below, in a piece that the Nation Magazine has kindly allowed me to share from its upcoming issue, Jonathan Schell considers what exactly we’ve been planning to turn over to some still-undefined group of Iraqis on June 30 of this year and — no less important — what we’re capable of passing on; what, that is, we actually possess in Iraq right now.
I continue to be fascinated by the language American officials of various sorts are using in this moment of delamination. Senator Joseph Biden, along with Senator Richard Luger — Biden being the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of which Luger is the chairman — has been on TV endlessly the past couple of days complaining about Bush administration neglect, urging more troops for Iraq, and asking what “the plan” for handing over “sovereignty” actually is. (It’s interesting, by the way, that even the Republican chairman of the appropriate Senate committee and a supportive Democratic senator have found themselves so “out of the loop” that they haven’t been able to get as much as a five-minute meeting with the President.) Like various CPA officials over the last months, Biden has spent much time recently discussing the question of “face.” Quite literally.
In a conversation on Fox News Sunday with former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich, for instance, Biden typically said:
“And we need to, in my view, take the total American face off of this [occupation].”
Gingrich responded, ” and I do agree with Senator Biden, we want to get the American face off of this. But the real key is to, as rapidly as possible, get an Iraqi face on it.”
In the Washington Post, Biden wrote an op-ed which said in part (Last Chance for an Alliance):
“Our goal should be to take the ‘American face’ off the occupation so that we are not blamed for everything that doesn’t go right in Iraq Instead, the Bush administration’s current plan is to have a new U.S. ambassador call all the shots, at the risk that Iraqis will think the occupation has not really ended on June 30. Indeed, we will be going from the CPA — which at least has some international flavor — to an exclusively American operation with a ‘Super-Embassy.'”
And in the New York Times he was quoted as saying: “NATO troops could supplement the dwindling American forces and give a more international face to the military presence.”
This is extraordinary language. (Do these people imagine that neither Iraqis, nor Europeans can understand English?) For “face” (or “flavor”) all you need to do is insert the word “mask” — or as the British used to say in happier and blunter colonial days, “façade” — and you immediately know where these men imagine power to lie before and after June 30. My suggestion: What if someone were to imagine adding an Iraqi body to that “face”? Mightn’t that help a tad? Tom
The Phantom Sovereign
By Jonathan SchellThe Iraqi struggle for independence from American rule has begun in earnest.
US forces there now face a double insurrection-one part Sunni Muslim, the
other Shiite Muslim-that threatens at the same time to turn into a civil
war. Only the Kurdish north is quiet. With these events, US policy for Iraq
has taken leave of reality as thoroughly as America’s claims regarding
weapons of mass destruction did before the war. The policy was declared on
November 21, when Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority,
announced that on June 30 of this year the “occupation of Iraq will end,” and Iraq
will then enjoy “sovereignty.” Since then, news commentators and
officials have habitually told the public that on that date the United
States “will hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people” (in the words of Dan
Senor, a senior adviser to the CPA), who will then enjoy what is commonly
called an “interim constitution.” Every word of these short phrases is based
on assumptions radically at odds with the facts.1. “Sovereignty.” According to Webster’s, sovereignty is “supreme power,
especially over a body politic.” But it is no longer possible, if it ever
was, to argue that the United States and its allies wield “supreme power” in
Iraq. True, US forces can go where they like, but do they rule? Do the Iraqi
people obey them? When the American authorities order something to happen,
does it? On the contrary, none of the US plans for running the country
announced by the Bush Administration has so far even been enacted, much less
succeeded. Even now, GOP Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, has said that he has “no idea” what the plans
for the June 30 transition are.Iraqi political figures, by contrast, have been making a lot happen.
According to the always invaluable (and now winner of a Pulitzer prize)
Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post, the most popular of the Shiite
leaders, the comparatively moderate Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, launched a
petition against the US-sponsored “constitution.” The petition quickly
gathered tens of thousands of signatures. This peaceful opposition to
American rule, however, was quickly superseded, at least for the time being,
by the Shiite insurrection, led by the extreme Islamist Muqtada al-Sadr.The Iraqi blogger Zayed, until now pro-occupation, offers the following
portrait of life in Baghdad the day after the insurrection:“No one knows what is happening in the capital right now. Power has been cut
off in my neighbourhood since the afternoon, and I can only hear
helicopters, massive explosions, and continuous shooting nearby. The streets
are empty, someone told us half an hour ago that Mahdi [Sadr’s militia] are
trying to take over our neighbourhood and are being met by resistance from
Sunni hardliners. Doors are locked, and AK-47’s are being loaded and put
close by in case they are needed. The phone keeps ringing frantically.”There is no “sovereign,” American or other, in this Iraq; there is anarchy. The
less “sovereignty” the United States possesses, it appears, the more quickly
it wants to surrender it.2. “Hand over.” How can the United States “hand over” power that it has
never possessed? In any case, sovereignty is not a physical object, like a
desk, that can be moved from one office to another. It is a relationship
among people-one of command and obedience. Even if the United States did
have sovereignty in Iraq, as it obviously does not, it would not be able to
pass it on to someone else. Either the United States would remain the real
sovereign behind the scenes or the new group would have to build up
sovereign power for itself. Admittedly, the United States does possess
something in Iraq — unopposable military force. But this is one thing,
needless to say, that the United States decidedly will not hand over on June
30 or any other day. (Other things it is not planning to hand over are
control of the central bank and the news media.) Will the Governing Council,
which many Iraqis call “the Governed Council,” command American troops or,
for that matter, even their own Iraqi troops? Not likely. Meanwhile, the
misnamed “administrator” of the misnamed “coalition” will be replaced by a
misnamed “ambassador,” presiding over what is to be the largest US “embassy”
in the world.3. “The Iraqi people.” The Iraqi people will have no involvement, whether as
givers or takers of power, on June 30. Those to whom the United States plans
to hand over something or other (it will certainly not be power) are a small
group of Iraqi officials, most of whom are to be US appointees. No one knows
yet exactly who they will be or how they are to be chosen, Bremer’s previous
plan of selecting them by means of managed “caucuses” having been scuttled
in the face of opposition from Ayatollah Sistani.4. “Interim Constitution.” A series of temporary regulations promulgated,
before any election has been held, in the name of a conquering power and its
local appointees is wholly misdescribed as a constitution. A constitution is
the fundamental, enduring law of a country. In a democracy, it proceeds from
the will of the people. Nothing of this kind will be instituted in Iraq on
June 30.5. “June 30, 2004.” Among political observers, it is widely and believably
said that this date is geared not to any events in Iraq but to the 2004 US
presidential election. The Bush Administration wants to bolster the
President’s campaign by creating an impression of progress in Iraq, and is
staffing the CPA’s office of strategic communications with GOP operatives
including Rich Galen, former press spokesman for Newt Gingrich and Dan
Quayle.Keeping all these things in mind, we should revise the commonly used
phrases. Instead of saying, “On June 30, the Coalition will hand over
sovereignty to the Iraqi people,” we should say, “On June 30, the
re-election campaign of George W. Bush will hand over the appearance of
responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq to certain of
its local appointees.”And the Iraqi people? They are busy, violently and otherwise, struggling for
their own future. One of the organizers of the Sistani petition, Saad Taher,
commented to Shadid, “America has a term: the rebuilding of Iraq. We are
rebuilding ourselves. We want to create a new Iraqi personality. That’s our
task. That’s not the Americans’ task.” For better or worse, these words are
already on their way to becoming true.Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of the recently published The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.
This article was originally published in the April 26, 2004 issue of The Nation.
Copyright C2004 Jonathan Schell