U.S. forecasts of further violence scare Iraqis

 

By Fatih Abdulsalam

 

Azzaman, January 23, 2006

 

Many Iraqis have expressed their indignation and disappointment at U.S. President George W. Bush’s predictions that violence is set to intensify further this year.

 

They were even angrier when the president openly supported the government’s decision to boost fuel prices nearly fivefold.

 

Some even accused the president of negligence and inaction. His predictions show that he is aware of the calamities that are to come while he does nothing about them, they said.

 

This is a president Iraqis have come to know and in many respects even better than the U.S. citizens he rules.

 

Many of them believe in the hands of this president rests their destiny and that he has a hand in whatever has been happening to the country since his 2003 invasion.

 

Two months ago he raised Iraqis’ expectations when he presented U.S. legislators with a new strategy for what he described as ‘victory’ in the war against the violence plaguing the country.

 

He also promised to speed up the reconstruction of the war-torn country.

 

Then he made his New Year remarks that violence was to continue and even intensify.

 

The president, many now say, has dumped our hopes of ‘victory’. He simply gave us no time to relish the good news of his new strategy for ‘victory’ in Iraq, they said.

 

In the nearly three years since the president dispatched his troops to deliver the country from dictatorship, many Iraqis receive his remarks with sarcasm.

 

Here are a number of ideas of what Iraqis say they will do if the president fails to deliver his promise of ‘victory’ in the war:

 

·          We will launch another November 11 attack

·          We will establish a new sovereign government that will prevent our own president from visiting America and meeting with U.S. president

·          We will not prevent our own president from addressing the U.S. congress using a script prepared for him by the State Department

·          We will persuade our forthcoming parliament to regain the control of our oil output and exports, scrap latest fuel increases and hike prices on international markets that will eventually lead to a fivefold increase in fuel rates in the U.S.

·          We will withdraw our support to the U.S. in its war on terror

·          We will torpedo the Middle East peace process

 

There are of course many other ideas which I cannot mention here for fear of accountability.

 

But I would like to end my article by giving President Bush credit for being frank and candid with the Iraqi people.

 

Unlike our politicians whose statements are far from reality and work behind concrete walls and closed doors, at least the president of the United States now talks the truth about his expectations for the course of events in Iraq.