Sami Ramadani

Most people in Britain want troops withdrawn from Iraq - and so do most Iraqis, according to opinion polls. But many well-intentioned people argue that the US-led occupation must end only when the country is stable. A swift withdrawal, they fear, would plunge the country into civil war. In one sense this position is the same as that of Bush and Blair, who consistently say troops will not stay in Iraq “a moment longer than necessary’’ and will withdraw when asked to do so by a democratically chosen government. In reality, with over 200,000 foreign troops and auxiliaries in control of Iraq, even an elected government will owe its survival to the occupation. It was a reflection of Iraqi popular hatred of the occupation that 82 of the national assembly’s 275 members signed a petition calling for a speedy withdrawal, after the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, appeared to be breaking his election promise to insist on a scheduled pullout. Jaafari went on to renege in the most humiliating fashion, standing next to George Bush at the White House as the US president declared: “I told the prime minister that there will be no scheduled withdrawal.’’ It would be wrong to dismiss the fears of those who argue for “withdrawal but not now’’ just because it is also the position of Bush and Blair. But those who are genuinely concerned about withdrawal should examine the facts on the ground before giving support to continued occupation.

Some pro-war commentators warned early on that the country would be blighted by sectarian violence. The war leaders reacted by destroying the foundations of the state and following the old colonial policy of divide and rule, imposing a sectarian model on every institution they set up, including arrangements for the January poll. When it became clear that the poorest areas of Baghdad and the south were even more hostile to the occupation than the so-called Sunni towns - answering the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s call to arms - Bush and Blair tried to defeat the resistance piecemeal, under the guise of fighting foreign terrorists. The occupation’s sectarian discourse has acquired a hold as powerful as the WMD fiction that prepared the public for war. In fact, the occupation is the main architect of institutionalised sectarian and ethnic divisions; its removal would act as a catalyst for Iraqis to resolve some of their differences politically.

There is now broad agreement in Iraq to build a non-sectarian, democratic Iraq that guarantees Kurdish national rights. The occupation is making the achievement of these goals more difficult. Every day the occupation increases tension and makes people’s lives worse, fuelling the violence. Creating a client regime in Baghdad, backed by permanent bases, is the route that US strategists followed in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, popular resistance in Iraq and

the wider Middle East will not go away but will grow stronger, until it eventually unites to force a US-British withdrawal. —The Guardian