|
CounterPunch
February
18, 2003
"Conquerors Always
Call Themselves Liberators"
Kurds
Outraged by American Plan to Occupy Iraq
by PATRICK COCKBURN
in Arbil, northern Iraq
The US is abandoning plans to introduce democracy
in Iraq after a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, according to
Kurdish leaders who recently met American officials.
The Kurds say the decision resulted from
pressure from US allies in the Middle East who fear a war will
lead to radical political change in the region.
The Kurdish leaders are enraged by an
American plan to occupy Iraq but largely retain the government
in Baghdad. The only changes would be the replacement of President
Saddam and his lieutenants with senior US military officers.
It undercuts the argument by George Bush
and Tony Blair that war is justified by the evil nature of the
regime in Baghdad.
"Conquerors always call themselves
liberators," said Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy prime minister
of the Kurdish administration, in a reference to Mr Bush's speech
last week in which he said US troops were going to liberate Iraq.
Mr Abdul-Rahman said the US had reneged
on earlier promises to promote democratic change in Iraq. "It
is very disappointing," he said. "In every Iraqi ministry
they are just going to remove one or two officials and replace
them with American military officers."
Kurdish officials strongly believe the
new US policy is the result of pressure from regional powers,
notably Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The US appears to be quietly abandoning
earlier declarations that it would make Iraq a model democracy
in the Middle East. In Iraq, free elections would lead to revolutionary
change because although the Shia Muslims and Kurds constitute
three-quarters of the population, they are excluded from power
in Baghdad by the Sunni Muslim establishment.
Kurdish leaders are deeply alarmed by
US intentions, which only became clear at a meeting in Ankara
earlier in the month and from recent public declarations by US
officials. Hoshyar Zebari, a veteran Kurdish leader, said: "If
the US wants to impose its own government, regardless of the
ethnic and religious composition of Iraq, there is going to be
a backlash."
Mr Abdul-Rahman accuses the US of planning
cosmetic changes in Iraq. "This is to give the government
on a platter to the second line of Ba'athists [the ruling party],"
he said.
The US appears to be returning to the
policy it pursued at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. It did
seek to get rid of President Saddambut wanted to avoid a radical
change in Iraq. The US did not support the uprisings of Shia
Muslims and Kurdsbecause it feared a transformation in Iraqi
politics that might have destabilised its allies in the Middle
East or benefited Iran.
The two Kurdish parties - the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP), which rules western Kurdistan, and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - are at the heart of the Iraqi
opposition. Together they rule four million people in an area
the size of Switzerland that has been outside President Saddam's
control since 1991.
The change in American policy means marginalising
the Iraqi opposition which has been seeking to unite. In response
to the US decision, the Kurds and their allies have accelerated
moves to hold a conference of opposition parties in Salahudin,
the headquarters of the KDP, now scheduled for tomorrow. "We
want to know if we are partners in regime change or not,"
Mr Zebari said.
He spoke scathingly of any attempt by
America "to bring in an Iraqi from the United States who
has not seen his country for years and impose him by armed force".
The destabilising impact of the impending
war is already being felt in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Turkey has demanded that its troops be allowed to take over a
swath of territory along the border inside Iraq. The ostensible
reason is to prevent a flood of Kurdish refugees trying to flee
into Turkey, but the Kurdish parties say they are quite capable
of doing this themselves. They say the Turkish demand, to which
they suspect the US has agreed in return for the use of Turkish
military facilities, is the first step in a Turkish plan to advance
into Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Kurds fear that a US-led war against
President Saddam might be the occasion for a Turkish effort to
end the de facto independence enjoyed by Iraqi Kurds for more
than a decade. One Kurdish leader said: "Turkey has made
up its mind that it will intervene in northern Iraq in order
to destroy us."
Patrick Cockburn
is the author (with Andrew Cockburn) of Out
of the Ashes: the Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.
Yesterday's
Features
CounterPunch News Service
Slow
Lerner: It May Not Help Kids in Iraq, But It Sure Got Michael
Lerner Airtime
Andrew Murray
Tony
Blair Versus the British People
Ben Tripp
President
A**hole
Peggy Thomson
My
Close Encounter with Saddam
Gary Leupp
Meet Mr. Blowback:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, CIA Op and Homicidal Thug
Saul Landau
Bush and Corporate Fraud
Adam Engel
A Civilian Occupation:
The Politics of Israeli Architecture
Anthony Gancarski
Jacksonville in Crisis
Rick Giombetti
Specific Threats to Democracy
Jean-David Levitte
A Warning on Iraq from France:
Make War the Last Option
Ian Gurney
Whose Side is Bush On?
Maria Engqvist
Did
the FARC Shoot Down a US Military Plane in Colombia?
Ron Jacobs
This Madness Must Cease
Josh Frank
Call to Washington:
Stonewall Bush
Website of the Day
Rock
Out Against War
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
February 15
/ 16, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Colin
Powell and the Great "Intelligence Fraud"
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
The Whole World is Watching
Edward Said
A Monumental Hypocrisy
Wouter Hijink
Report from Amsterdam
"War: Do Not Feed!"
Linda Heard
At Last! Proud to be British
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Taking a Stand on Iraq
Robert Fisk
The Case Against War
Lev Grinberg
Lessons from Israel
A War Without Legitimacy
Chris Floyd
Cold Fronts:
Bush War Profits
Ahmad Faruqui
Stepping Back from the Brink of War
Norman Madarasz
French Kisses from the Citizens of France
Adam Lebowitz
Scott Ritter in Tokyo
Kurt Nimmo
Bring Us the Head of Osama bin Laden
Forrest Hylton
The Revolt in Bolivia
Col. Dan Smith
Irrelevance and Credibility:
Bush, NATO and the UN
Wayne Madsen
The Lies of Tom Lantos
Ranjit Hoskote
The Invisible Modernities of the Islamic World
Emily Zitter-Smith
Who's Safe Now?
An American in Cairo
Rich Procter
Anybody Remember the Powell Doctrine?
Poets Basement:
Eliot
Katz, Scott Handleman, and Bruce Tomczak
Website of the Weekend
Anti-War
Posters
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|