by Jack Dresser, Ph.D.
Capt., Medical Service Corps, USAR (1962-65)

Why a billion people are furious with America I

Iraq has vastly increased Islamic terrorism.  Terrorist events worldwide have increased precipitously since our invasion, tripling from 2004 to 2005.  While only 3-7% of "insurgents" in Iraq are estimated to be Islamic jihadists, our occupation is being used by them as an OJT site for practice, invention, adaptation and worldwide dissemination of terrorist strategies and methods.  Can this be simply attributed to colossal incompetence by the Bush administration?

Transactional and family therapists have learned a great deal about human intentions.  In “dysfunctional” families and systems, people’s stated intentions don’t match
their actions, and their real intentions only become evident in the outcomes.

Applying this principle to the Iraq morass, it is apparent that Bush, Cheney and their neocon administration must be purged before any solution can be found. Their
strategic agenda, first developed by Cheney and Wolfowitz in 1992 and openly advocated since 1998 on their Project for the New American Century website, has
been the displacement of Saddam, seizure of Iraq, and its permanent occupation for control of Iraqi oil, water resources, and geopolitical position.  At this they are
succeeding by creation of a permanently crippled Iraqi state dependent forever on the U.S.  Political analysts are uniformly attributing this to incompetence, to serial
“mistakes,” but incompetence of this magnitude, consistency and duration is not a credible explanation.  Rather, we must suspect a secret intelligent design.

A deliberate design accounts for what we see.  After 2½ years, only one of some 115 Iraqi battalions is judged capable of operating independently (down from 3 a
year ago!).  During a 2004 visit to Iraq, independent journalist Naomi Klein reported “a huge amount of construction” on military bases, in the Green Zone, at
Bechtel’s headquarters and the grand new U.S. embassy, but “on the streets of Baghdad... they hadn’t even cleared away the rubble, let alone started the
reconstruction process.”

All Klein saw in Baghdad were “shiny new billboards advertising the glories of the global economy.”  The old city was left in ruins and the clear message was that
foreign companies would come in and modernize their country, giving no voice or role to Iraqis.  The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under Paul Bremer laid
off 500,000 Iraqis including their 400,000-member military and the competent Baathist professionals who had built and knew how to operate the Iraqi
infrastructure.

This is a sure recipe for failure to achieve the stated goals, but a sure recipe for success in achieving the hidden goals. Democracy?  Hardly. The majority of Iraqis
support the United Iraqi Alliance, which wants a timetable for withdrawal of coalition troops and full employment in the public sector. But this collides with the
administration’s plan for permanent occupation and profitable privatization of the Iraq economy for U.S. companies.

By assuring continuing chaos, fury, and insurgency through high unemployment, failure to restore electricity in 120 degree weather, perpetuating ethnic rage and
conflict by excluding Baathists from jobs and political office, and killing thousands of their loved ones, the administration maintains their excuse to stay.  “When the
Iraqis stand up, we will stand down” is the now-familiar mantra, while the Iraqi ability to stand up is relentlessly and systematically sabotaged.

So, while Iraqi security forces remain woefully untrained for independence, the U.S. constructs 14 “enduring bases” (reported 3/23/04 by the Chicago Tribune),
plans to consolidate U.S. forces into four massive “contingency operating bases” (reported 5/22/05 by the Washington Post), and has appropriated $597 million for
military construction in Iraq in fiscal 2005 according to the Congressional Research Service.  Our secret goal is a permanent co-dependency.

Thus, first of all, the Bush administration must be replaced, hopefully through impeachment by a new Democratic majority Congress in 2006.  Moreover, it must be
replaced by an administration committed to radical reversal of U.S. foreign policy to which terrorism in general and the Iraqi insurgency in particular have been direct
and predictable responses.

International survey research has consistently shown that anti-American sentiment among Muslims does not reflect rejection of our way of life as the administration
has often claimed, but resentment of our foreign policy. Former CPA adviser Larry Diamond states that opposition to long-term U.S. military presence and imperial
domination is “a passionate motivation” uniting otherwise disparate factions of the Iraq insurgency. With us gone, the insurgency would lose much of its energy and
would probably expel its foreign fighters.  They would be no longer needed, as unwelcome as the Americans, and no longer anti-American if we cease evoking
hatred.

Second, the new administration must give up American imperial designs, both military and corporate.

We must demonstrably reduce and quickly eliminate our military presence, expeditiously completing our long-delayed training of Iraqi security forces and helping
them to convert our bases to their own uses.

We must give our reconstruction dollars to the Iraqis to employ their own people and rebuild their own country as they choose, not to American companies for
post-war profiteering.

We must relinquish control of political mediation to neutral international bodies, principally the U.N.  The solution Iraqis are likely to settle upon will be a federation
of three semi-autonomous regions to accommodate their ethnic divisions, with a negotiated arrangement for fair oil revenue sharing.  But their distrust prohibits our
ability to broker any settlements. I think U.N. agencies will be secure if their presence is negotiated in advance with all parties, the U.S. is gone, and the U.N. goals
and methods are clearly distinguished from ours.

We must allow the Iraqis to control their own oil resources through oil companies of their own choosing.  Evidence suggests that the real reason for our invasion was
Saddam’s refusal to accept the same sweetheart arrangements we had with the Saudis and his negotiations with the French, German, Russian and Chinese oil
industries.

We must accept whatever political system or systems the Iraqis settle upon.  If a federation is formed, the southern region might well choose Islamic law while the
Sunni and Kurdish regions remain secular.

We must compensate the many thousands of Iraqi victims for their undeserved losses and suffering at our hands.  “Making amends” is a key element in 12-step
programs, which I believe our power-addicted nation needs badly.

These steps demonstrating care and humility would not be a retreat under terrorist threat, but would simply be the right thing to do. The Islamic and larger world
would see and appreciate this, and their trust and affection for America might be somewhat restored. These steps would also be profoundly Christian in character.

As a pragmatic strategy, these steps would vastly reduce the justified anger of the Islamic world toward us.  Following 9/11, international surveys showed high levels
of sympathy among Muslims for the U.S.  After our invasion of Iraq, the numbers reversed with some 90% of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims becoming
anti-American.  Their anger vastly inflated terrorist recruitment, and terrorist incidents worldwide have more than doubled since the Iraq invasion.

That’s the first half of the solution.  The other great and lingering source of Islamic anger toward the U.S. – generating terrorism at its extreme end –  has been our
one-sided support of Israel in their domination and humiliation of the Palestinians.

I have a proposed solution for that one too, and the Gaza pullout isn’t it.
 

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Copyright 2006 Jack Dresser, Ph.D.