Iraq Won't Be "Reconstructed"
by Lou Paulsen
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I have spent some depressing hours over the last few days trying to think
like Perle and Wolfowitz. In the course of this soul-damaging exercise, I
actually wrote a neocon position paper which embodies my projection of how
they really intend to approach the "reconstruction of Iraq" issue.
Rereading this abominable paper, which is perhaps not far from being
publishable in evil journals, I feel like a germ warfare scientist who has
reverse-engineered the ebola virus. The following paragraph will give you a
sample of its horrible nature:
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"Those who opposed or were uneasy about our action in Iraq and who did not
understand its historic necessity - and this refers to our opponents within
and outside the US - are going to propose 'reconstruction' schemes which
will amount in essence to the rebuilding and recreation of the very prewar
Iraq society which was such an obstacle to progress in the past. Those
buildings which have been destroyed, we will be invited to rebuild or
replace; those enterprises which have been ruined, we will be invited to
refinance and recreate; those cities which will have become unliveable, we
will be invited to reinvigorate; those individuals and strata who were
privileged and are now impoverished, we will be invited to make rich again;
to those classes which had 'decent lives' under the Ba'athist welfare state,
we will be invited to assure the same. In short, many will proceed on the
assumption, and will not question the assumption, that the goal of our
activities relating to Iraq during the coming decades should be to make it
look as it did in 1990, only without certain unpleasant features of the
Saddam Hussein government.
"How we address these matters publicly is a separate issue, because there
are many illusions and weaknesses in the American people's understanding of
these matters, but among ourselves we should be clear that that is not our
intention; it is not practically possible; it is not even logically
possible; it would be contrary to the national interest if it were possible;
and it would be insanity, having embarked on a transformative course at the
cost of American treasure and American lives, to reverse course out of
unwillingness to face the actual historic tasks that we are confronted
with."
My simulation of neocon strategy yields the following predictions:
- The US will focus entirely on maintaining the oil flow in the northern
and southern fields and on developing 'Free Trade Zones' around those fields
in which imperialist industrial and commercial activity will have free rein.
(I don't have a prediction about whether Basra will make it into the
southern zone, or Kirkuk into the northern zone.)
- These zones will function for the foreseeable future as virtually
complete US colonies, with their own economy, administration, educational
system, etc
- The vast majority of Iraq - everything from An-Nasiriya to Baghdad to
Tikrit - will be left completely unreconstructed, without commerce,
industry, or amenities. It will essentially be a mass of disarmed paupers
living on subsistence rations.
From the paper (if you can stand it):
"Similarly, the consequences of the Iraqi Arabs' intoxication with the past
are now clearly seen in every city of Iraq. They must now live in warrens
without utilities, without modern infrastructure, without hospitals or
banks, without jobs, without commercial capital, without hope of new
housing, without centers of modern learning. They have destroyed their own
museums and archives. They are forced to the indignity of begging U.S.
marines to patrol their own streets to protect them from themselves. They
have been pursuing a vision from the 11th century and as a consequence they
must live as their ancestors lived in the 11th century. We do not have any
intentions of persecuting them further; really their current situation is
the consequence of their persecution of themselves, their forcing themselves
to pursue visions from the past. And the centers of the new Iraq will
throughout this period be a haven for those who wish to rehabilitate
themselves and live in the present day."
- Investment will be directed to the Free Trade Zones and not to the rest
of Iraq
- To ensure that, investment will be controlled solely by the U.S. without
any European or UN input
- The U.S. will attempt to divest Iraq of all weapons above small arms,
control its borders, and establish permanent garrisons so as to prevent any
threats to US interests in Iraq - that is, the Free Trade Zones - from
developing. It will not be very interested in the local government of Iraq
per se. There will be very little in the way of commerce outside the Free
Trade Zones. If there is an Iraqi state at all, it will be a very weak one.
If there are warring factions, disunity, paralysis - good. As long as they
fight each other, not the US. To this end, I think there will be a real
push to issue a Balfour Declaration for the Kurds (remember, the whole idea,
as Herzl spelled it out, was that the Jews in Palestine would be dependable
servants of imperialism because they would have no other choice; same deal
with the Kurds), and to make a Kurdistan the real US garrison state in
Assyria
- Iraq will have no sovereignty over the Free Trade Zones:
"For the purposes of structuring this, it is worth bearing in mind that the
'new Iraq' zones, while they will for the next generation contain only a
small percentage of the people within the borders of Iraq, will be producing
the vast majority of Iraq's wealth and close to 100% of its foreign
exchange. To extend this thought, the new Iraq will be producing all the
wealth which will finance the food rations and basic health and sanitary
requirements for the old Iraq. This is a readily understandable
humanitarian argument, for which we may actually be able to win
international support, that the new Iraq must not be allowed to fail and
must be permitted the freedom to organize its own affairs in order to
prosper. Any agitation, any subversion, any interference with the secular
free market in the new Iraq is an attack on the caloric intake of the old
Iraq."
As I have said before, I would like to be proven wrong, because this is so
horrible a concept. My simulated neocon plan is very close to being a plan
for genocide. There should be a term ("policide"?) for the destruction of a
nation which leaves individuals alive; for a strategy which is intended to
destroy the economic, political, and cultural structure of a nation and
reduce it to a mass of undifferentiated human raw material; like what
happens when you take a living sea sponge and put it in a blender,
transforming it into a soup of living individual cells without structure.
However, every day convinces me that this is the correct picture. They have
restarted oil production in Rumaila. They have rehired the oil workers as
employees of the United States. Meanwhile they have encouraged or allowed
the destruction of -everything- in Baghdad. There was a reporter from the
New Yorker (didn't get his name, sorry) who was speaking on the Charlie Rose
show and who was emphasizing that
"every institution here has been
destroyed. Whoever comes in here to rebuild will be starting from nothing."
Fortunately for the U.S. budget, there are no plans to "come in here to
rebuild."
According to a Reuters story there is already a debate among unnamed "Bush
aides" over the developing fragmentation of power in Iraq: Najaf, Kerbala,
and Kut are being run by various clerics, Kurdish autonomy is consolidating
in the north, and so on. Some people think this is a problem. My take is
that it is the old-fashioned State Department types who think this is a
problem because they are still thinking in terms of reconstructing an Iraqi
state; and that it is the neocons who think there is no problem because they
don't see the need to do that.
These are my personal speculations only,
- – Lou Paulsen, Chicago, April 2003
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