U.S. concept of victory in Iraq is laughable

 

By Fatih Abdulsalam

 

Azzaman, December 7, 2006

 

Nearly four years after President Bush declared victory in his ill-fated invasion of Iraq, U.S. officials are still dealing with our country as a real battlefield.

 

Despite the quagmire, the current U.S. administration has failed to design a road map or new strategy on how to salvage its own image and standing as a superpower.

 

To say the invasion and subsequent occupation were for the sake of delivering the Iraqis from a brutal dictator is a big lie.

 

And the reason is evident. Until the publication of the report of Iraq Study Group Washington seemed to have no strategy.

 

It remains to be seen whether the group’s recommendations are to be heeded by an administration notorious for shutting its ears to advice.

 

When talking about strategy the U.S.’s ultimate target has been the redeployment of its forces inside the country. U.S. military commanders’ strategy has been confined to the replacement of troops and construction of bases, camps and prisons.

 

So far U.S. Iraq strategy has been moving in a vicious circle where military solutions – despite their grave consequences – take priority.

 

The U.S. mind has been focused on war in Iraq with only half-hearted calls for political solutions and reconciliation.

 

Therefore, it is doubtful the U.S. is capable of delivering first itself from the Iraqi quagmire and then the Iraqi people who have borne the brunt to the gates of hell its invasion has unleashed.

 

Look at the new Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In his confirmation hearings he said the U.S. was not winning the war in Iraq.

 

In other words despite the calamities and the devastation, Gates was still seeking victory.

 

But what victory the U.S. would like to achieve in an already broken Iraq and after four years of bloody battles that have almost touch every corner of the country.

 

The U.S. administration must first define the concept of victory it wants to achieve in Iraq. In the lack of a proper definition, any strategy is doomed.

 

The word ‘victory’ is so frequently used in the U.S. political rhetoric that it has almost lost its meanings.

 

For example, U.S. officials call the opening of a hair dressing saloon led by a Muslim woman in Afghanistan a victory even if they are certain that the hapless woman will eventually lose her life as a result.

 

And the talk of victory over ‘terrorists’ in Iraq has been these officials’ mantra since the fall of the former regime.

 

But they hide the fact that the country was free of all forms of their so-called terror.

 

The war on ‘terror’ which the U.S. wants others to believe it is waging in Iraq has no basis. For many Iraqis it is a pretext to have them tormented further.

The U.S. war allegedly waged to crush ‘terror’ in Iraq is an excuse to disparage the country’s resistance fighters. It is also part of a political game which has its adherents inside Iraq.