Bush outfoxed in the Iraqi sands

[Heimdallr]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's demand for a timetable for complete United States military withdrawal from Iraq, confirmed on Tuesday by his National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, has signaled the almost certain defeat of the George W Bush administration's aim of establishing a long-term military presence in the country.

The official Iraqi demand for US withdrawal confirms what was becoming increasingly clear in recent months - that the Iraqi administration has decided to shed its military dependence on the United States.

The use of military bases in Iraq to project US power into the region to carry out regime change in Iran and elsewhere had been an essential part of the neo-conservative plan for invading Iraq from the beginning. But the Iraqi demand for withdrawal makes it clear that the Bush administration was not really in control of events in Iraq, and that Shi'ite political opposition and Iranian diplomacy could trump US military power.

AsiaTimes >>> Bush outfoxed in the Iraqi sands


Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist
specializing in US national security policy.

[Heimdallr]

RELATED:

The United States invasion of Iraq then takes on an even broader meaning. Not only does it constitute an attempt to control the global oil spigot and hence the global economy though domination over the Middle East. It also constitutes a powerful US military bridgehead on the Eurasian land mass which ... yields it a powerful geostrategic position in Eurasia with at least the potentiality to disrupt any consolidation of an Eurasian power that could indeed be the next step in that endless accumulation of political power that must always accompany the equally endless accumulation of capital. ~ David Harvey, The New Imperialism, 2003

AsiaTimes >>> Why Iraq will not be South Korea