Civil war is a U.S. option in Iraq

 

By Hadi Maraai

 

Azzaman, October 23, 2005

 

Events taking place in the Iraqi arena and the surrounding region may contradict or agree with those of the American occupier. But rest assured nothing is going on in Iraq’s favor.

 

Neighboring states fear American military might and they try, as far as possible, to avoid the calamitous fate that has befallen our land at the hands of U.S. marines.

 

But in the meantime, not all of them will easily succumb to American pressure. The deeper the U.S. drags itself into the Iraqi quagmire, the better these countries’ chances of averting an Iraqi-style American invasion.

 

And the U.S. itself now senses and feels the pain of its reckless Iraqi adventure. The drastic failure of its Iraq polices has put the White House under immense pressure both at home and abroad.

 

What about the forces fighting the U.S. inside Iraq? These groups’ conditions are deteriorating. This is not because of U.S. military operations. U.S. troops’ conditions are deplorable too.

 

U.S. troops have now come to realize that they cannot defeat their Iraqi opponents through military means. Anti-U.S. armed factions knew from the very beginning their tactics would not force the U.S. to flee.

 

Therefore, there is apparently some form of tacit agreement between the major players in the Iraqi arena and regional states with an interest in Iraq-related developments.

 

With anti-U.S. forces currently under less U.S. military pressure, they have begun to unleash their wrath against innocent Iraqis.

 

There is a change in targeting. With U.S. troops more and more concerned about their own safety and withdrawing steadily into fortified fortresses, their opponents are now almost free to roam, kill, car bomb, kidnap, assassinate and play their game of blood and fire in what has become for them a football arena with no referee and opposing team.

 

Failing to spread its control and restore order, the U.S. is changing tact. But halt. It is not for the interest of the Iraqi people.

 

The U.S. now realizes the country is on the brink of a civil war and it is utilizing the status quo for its own benefit in the hope it will eventually lead it to a way out of its Iraqi quagmire.

 

Iraqi casualties and losses are mounting, the country’s infrastructure, which the U.S. was supposed to modernize, is creaking as a result. But these issues are no longer a matter of concern for those who once called themselves “the liberators.”

 

The past few months have seen a shift in U.S. Iraq strategy. It has abandoned the traditional military means it pursued against armed groups opposing it.

 

The U.S. has become a principal player in the “match of terror” going on in the country.

 

The U.S. is now in fact feeding violence in Iraq by using the country’s disparate sectarian, ethnic and religious factions in a way that will eventually help it realize some of its aims of coming to Iraq.

 

The U.S. is now sowing seeds of strife and civil war. It wants Iraqi factions to do the fighting instead of its troops.

 

The U.S. is fueling sectarian tensions in the hope that the groups, who previously directed their guns almost solely against its marines, would now shoot Iraqis instead.

 

The U.S. now believes if it can set Iraqi factions against each other, it will then withdraw – not from Iraq – but to safe Iraqi havens and watch from there the disintegration of the country in a civil strife that will leave no faction strong enough to put up a fight against its troops.