Ever since Paul Hamer, the US Civilian Administrator in
Baghdad, was recalled to Washington yesterday for talks -- so urgently
that he had to cancel an appointment with the Polish Prime Minister (an
insult of the first water that risks the removal of the Polish troops
from Iraq) -- it is already clear to almost all commentators in the media
that this means that Bush's democracy-strategy (?) has now changed to an
exit-strategy.
What no-one has cottoned onto yet is why Hamer was recalled
exactly when he was. The suicide bombing in Nasiriya in southern
Iraq causing the deaths of at least 17 Italian soldiers occurred
after Hamer had left and thus had no connection with it. In my
view, Hamer was recalled because Bush Senior and Henry Kissinger (Nixon's
former Secretary of State and probably the most experienced and able
"fixer" in the world) had come back from St Petersburg and
Moscow with bad news. In St Petersburg, although they were supposed to be
there on a private visit, Bush Senior and Kissinger would have been able
to talk to the chiefs of all the Russian oil corporations who happened to
be meeting there for their own domestic purposes due to Khodorovsky's
arrest, together with those western oil companies who have an interest in
Russia (and Iraq).
When Bush Junior and Cheney invaded Iraq they had one clear and immediate
objective in their mind. This was to establish control of the oilfields
of Iraq, kick out the Russian, French and Chinese oil corporations
temporarily, and to ensure that US and UK oil corporations -- hitherto
excluded by Saddam -- would have a chance of immediate development . (To
be helpful, Bush ensured that the Oil Ministry in Baghdad was the
only government office that was not bombed in the invasion
blitz.)
Why this objective? Firstly, so that America would be guaranteed more oil
supplies in future years if (and almost certainly when) Saudi Arabia
erupts in internal revolution of some sort; secondly, so that Bush can
say to the Iraqian people: "Saddam was not giving you what was
rightfully yours -- the fruits of your immense oilfields -- we are going
to develop them quickly so you can benefit from our initiative." In
this way, Bush might have been able to keep the peace in Iraq for a few
years while a constitution was formulated and elections held.
But then the US and UK oil corporation didn't play ball. They refused to
take advantage of the situation because they were rightfully afraid that
a future court of law would say that their activities would have been
illegal because there was no lawful government in Iraq at the
time.
Ah! But what about LUKoil, the Russian oil corporation that was about to
start development of the huge Qurna oil field in northern Iraq. It had
stopped activity previously because it refused to disobey UN sanctions.
Two weeks ago it said that, in principle, they would certainly like to
continue with their original contract.
That is what Bush Senior and Kissinger were in St Peterburg for. Would
LUKoil be prepared to recommence development?
I think that LUKoil said No. Like the US and UK oil corporations, they
are not going to develop the oilfields under the jurisdiction of the
Coalition Provisional Authority because it is not the legal government of
Iraq.
That's why Bush Junior recalled Hamer to Washington as soon as he heard
the bad news. Bush now has no way of carrying out either of his original
plans -- oil production, or of any development of a workable constitution
and the holding of elections. And public opinion in America is now
turning against him powerfully. He's either got to push his hand-picked
Governing Council a lot harder in order to produce a constitution in
double-quick time -- and they've resisted him so far -- or he's got to
appoint a Provisional Government over the heads of the Governing Council
in the hope that it will be accepted and obeyed by the Iraqian people and
in due course proceed to elections and ambassadorial acceptability.
There's no chance of that. He could cause a civil war. How can he
possibly reconcile the separate interests of the Sunnis, the Shias and
the Kurds, not to mention the fact that Saddam is still free and may yet
well rise to the top again in any sort of civil war situation.
In my view, the only possible solution for Iraq now is for Bush to be
even more aggressive (albeit constructive for the first time) than he has
been hitherto (not that I am condoning what he has already done) and that
is to divide the country into three parts in just the same way as the
Ottoman Empire administered it -- the Kurds with a capital in Mosul, the
Sunnis in the west with a capital in Baghdad, and the Shias in the south
with a capital in Basra. They could each devise their own constitutions
separately. Bush could hand suitably demarcated territories over to them
with one proviso (of interest only to the Kurds and the Shias) -- that
there is a free market in the allocation of development and production
contracts with the oil corporations.
But Bush has already made his biggest mistake by invading Iraq in the
first place. He no longer has the international credibility to be able to
do this, nor would he have enough troops, nor would the American public
let him try another adventure.
To all intents and purposes, Bush's game is now up. His only strategy now
is to exit Iraq as quickly possible and hope that bloodbaths don't occur
too soon. And then he will either suffer increasing disgrace and
humiliation in the coming year before being defeated in the presidential
election or, if there are further terrorist incidents similar in
consequence to those that have already destroyed the UN and Red Cross
headquarters in Baghdad, then he is likely to be impeached -- as 'they'
almost did for Nixon -- on the grounds of mental incompetence, and a
caretaker president installed. Not Cheney, of course, because he is
implicated as much as, if not more than, Bush, but the Leader of the
Congress as I understand the American constitution.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, Bath, England,
<www.evolutionary-economics.org>
