Welcome back to Antiwar Radio, it's Chaos 92.7 FM in Austin, Texas, streaming live worldwide on the internet, ChaosRadioAustin.org and Antiwar.com slash radio.
And it's my pleasure.
Welcome back to the show, Dar Jamal, he's the author of Beyond the Green Zone, Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, he writes for IPS News.
Welcome back to the show, Dar.
Good to be with you, Scott, thanks.
Well, I'm very happy to have you here, and I have to say, I was very surprised to see your, well I guess I won't say your most recent article anymore, but your last article that we have up at Antiwar.com anyway, it's New Iraq Operation Gets Surprise Support, co-written with Ahmed Ali, and I guess this is your stringer in Iraq, is that right?
Right, he's based in Baquba.
Based in Baquba.
And now you're safe and sound back here in America, right?
For now.
And the C.D. says that the security situation is perfectly fine, so you can go back any time, right?
Well, it's funny, yeah, you and I both know that's basically, fundamentally not true.
And it's interesting, the story that you just mentioned, and this is in Baquba, this is not Baghdad, but really the theme of the story, I mean it's kind of subtle, it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek, the title of the story called New Operation Gets Surprise Support is kind of tongue-in-cheek, because really I think the important point of the story is that the government, the Maliki government, has had to concede to the Sahwa in Diyala province and give them, promise them 3,000 jobs as members in the National Security Force, and this is something that Maliki has been vehemently opposed to from the very beginning.
So the point of the story is to really show that the fragmentation of what's happening in Iraq is increasing, and I think this is really setting the stage for future conflict between members of the Sahwa forces, which are primarily comprised of former Sunni resistance fighters, against the various Shia militias that really comprise the brunt of the Iraqi security forces based in Baghdad.
So it's really a story kind of underscoring the fragmentation that's going on, and a situation that's very dangerous in that it sets the stage for, I think, more intersectarian conflict.
Well, it's certain that in the background of this story is the fact that these concerned local citizens, the sons of Iraq, which are really the former Sunni insurgency, that they are not, as of this point, part of the government and have been up until this point quite unwelcome in it.
However, does this article not indicate that Maliki, you know, whether by hook or by crook or whatever, feeling the pressure, has decided that, well, it's time to go ahead and try to re-bothify the government, bring these guys back in?
Well, it's certainly...
I don't know if we can say that it's that overt of machinations going on of him thinking that's what's going to happen, but like you said, by hook or by crook, one way or another, he's in a position where he's obviously facing enough pressure where he has to start giving these people some positions, at least within the security forces.
Now, this doesn't mean they actually have political representation in the government.
They do not.
But this is a big step, because 3,000 fighters now in the government security forces on the government payroll, that's a large number of fighters.
And if this trend continues, that's what's going to be very interesting to watch, because, of course, who has power in Iraq is pretty much based on who has connections to fighters and militias and how many boots they have on the ground to really back them up in their desires.
And so this is a significant step in that respect.
Well, it's interesting, too, that you say in the article that the concerned local citizens, they came to the Iraqi army and said, hey, we have an enemies list.
Why don't we all work together and go in after these guys, their al-Qaeda?
That's right.
And that's essentially how they pulled it off, where they showed the government has been largely incompetent.
I mean, everyone knows who follows the situation, knows that government security forces, they're basically, like we were talking about earlier, comprised of various militias, and they don't really have much power on their own.
Anytime they do an operation, it's usually they're falling on the heels of the U.S. military backed by U.S. air power.
So on their own, they really aren't competent at going out and finding fighters that they're going after.
And, of course, they have a very bad reputation of carrying out nasty acts against the Iraqi civilian population as well.
And so they're particularly strong in Diyala province and the areas around, but Cuba can then step in and say, look, we can help you with that.
And so kind of then you have this desperate government security forces saying, okay, well, if you can help us, we'll take it.
And that's basically how kind of the card they played to get the power or the leverage necessary to get these positions.
Well, is there any reason to believe that what they were really doing was going after Al Qaeda and Iraq types or just enemies for power in their realm?
No, I think that's the latter, specifically what you said, that, no, it's made up things.
I mean, who are these names?
Who are these people?
Is it legitimate, kind of these kangaroo courts being set up around these operations that are going on?
They're just naming some names to get the positions that they want.
But no, this really has nothing to do with finding quote unquote Al Qaeda members.
And now how true is it that, well, you know, TV would, I guess, make it sound that any Sunni fighter in Iraq who continues to resist is a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and that the entire rest of the Sunni insurgency basically has renamed themselves the sons of Iraq and become our friends.
That's basically true.
You know, empire is as empire does, the old cliche, because throughout history, anyone who stands in the way to resist any empire, whether it's the Roman Empire or the British Empire or currently the U.S. Empire, is labeled a terrorist.
And then that gives the empire legitimacy and authority in doing whatever they want to these people.
And this is why over 90% of the people in Abu Ghraib are innocent.
The vast majority of the people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent.
But, you know, the word terrorist gets thrown around like nobody's business.
And then anyone who is doing something that somebody doesn't like, well, in Iraq, for example, if I have a grudge against a neighbor, well, I can go to the Americans and say, hey, he's a terrorist.
And I'm going to have my neighbor thrown in Abu Ghraib.
And that's basically how it works.
And so, and you really nailed it, that all of these former resistance fighters, there's now about 90,000 members in the SAWA, and they're all on the U.S. government payroll.
So U.S. taxpayers are paying these people an average of $300 a month to be in the SAWA and to not attack the Americans.
And, of course, these are mostly resistance fighters.
Some of them are even Al Qaeda members, according to the U.S. military, and they're on the U.S. payroll.
So these guys are clearly having the last laugh, sitting back, getting their paychecks, getting good intelligence on the Americans that they're going around with.
And I think a very important question, when we talk about the SAWA, is when will this end?
Because this is not something that can continue indefinitely.
These are people that are taking the money, they're biding their time, they're waiting for an opportunity to arise for them to get a leg up on some of the Shia militias, or better yet, on occupation forces.
And this is really the key reason why violence is down right now to the level where it is.
This is a temporary situation.
And the question is, when do the members of the SAWA feel, okay, well, they're strong enough, they have enough power, now they can make a move, or now they can resume operations against the Americans or against the government security apparatus?
And that's another factor of why I think this is an important development in having 3,000 members of the SAWA now becoming part of the government security apparatus, because it's a step in that direction.
It's a step in that direction or a step away from it?
It seems like if there was going to be a restarting of the war, that this would tend to dissipate that.
Well, that's one way to look at it, but the reality is, just looking at it from the perspective that when we talk about the Iraqi military today, we know that all of these members are loyal first to the militias they come from, so whether it's a political leader or a religious leader.
Like, for example, we have thousands and thousands of members of the Mahdi Army, Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, that are members of the government security apparatus.
So they're paid by the government, but their first loyalty is to Muqtada al-Sadr.
We have a very clear example of what happened in Basra earlier this summer when there was a large government military operation, Maliki flew down there himself to oversee it, and it was a dismal failure because it started, and over 1,000 of the government security people were members of the Mahdi Army, and they literally took off their uniforms and walked over to say, no, we're going to fight with our brothers in the Mahdi Army.
And so that's really the situation with the security apparatus, where the members, their loyalty first is not to the government, it's to whatever militia they've come from.
And I think the same can be said now with the SAWA.
They're joining the security forces, they're getting the paychecks, they're getting some extra guns and ammunition, and better yet, even some uniforms, so they can go around with even more legitimacy, but their loyalty will be first to their tribe.
So basically, the next battle for Baghdad is still somewhere down the road.
It is somewhere down the road, and this is the maneuvering going on between the first battle, which of course the Sunni fighters largely lost, and them regrouping and gaining strength and trying to set the table so that they'll have more advantages next time it arises.
And this is a significant step in that direction, because if this trend continues, and we start getting not 3,000, but 10,000 or 15,000 or 20,000 members of the SAWA that become actually part of the military, and then what happens if they start getting some tanks and things like that?
Then the tables are going to turn pretty dramatically.
Well, you know, I read an article the other day where, well, and who knows how indicative this is of widespread feeling or whatever, but it was a Shia Iraqi Arab who talked about how when she used to drive around, she would always basically say to the security forces on the side of the road, I'm one of you, meaning a Shiite like you, so please let me go by.
And that that's always worked, basically.
But that the last time she said that, they told her, hey, don't say that.
You're an Iraqi.
We're all Iraqis.
And that, you know, that at some level of these security forces, they're trying to get back to nationalism and pass the, the, you know, factional divides that seem to be centered mostly around religious differences.
Well, there is there is that trend.
And, you know, it's an interesting situation now where I'll use that to segue into, I think it's important we talk about what's happening in Kirkuk, because this is the reason why the government just went into recess without agreeing on having elections, provincial elections in October.
It looks like it's basically not going to happen.
And that's because of disagreement about Kirkuk.
And when we talk about nationalism, we can talk about a situation here where the Sunni and Shia, you know, there's all this talk of Sunni versus Shia and, you know, sectarian warfare and all of this.
But Kirkuk is a situation which would actually dramatically change events on the ground and that it would be a unifying factor between Sunni and Shia.
Of course, we even had members of parliament trying to pass laws that are going to distribute power a little bit more equally in Kirkuk, giving Turkmen, giving Arabs a bit more say.
And this, of course, was vehemently opposed by the Kurds.
Jalal Talabani flatly refused.
Barzani flies home from the sessions in Baghdad and is, within two hours of him getting home, two brigades of Kurdish Peshmerga are deployed in the area between the border of Kurdistan proper and Kirkuk as kind of a threat to, look, you're not going to take Kirkuk.
We're going to be annexing this as part of the independent Kurdistan.
And this is something that absolutely Arabs, meaning both Sunni and Shia, will not stand for.
And this is going to be something very important to watch because, you know, Sunni and most of the Sunni and Shia want a unified Iraq.
They do not want it to be split up into three.
They do not want Kurdistan to go independent.
And this would be grounds of a real civil war along the lines that would possibly even make what we've seen over the last couple of years of all of this sectarian killing pale by comparison.
I mean, this would be a massive, massive war if the Kurds really try to annex Kirkuk and take it away from the government of Baghdad.
This is a very, very dangerous situation, and this is why the government hasn't been able to agree on this.
Elections in Kirkuk, provincial elections in that area, are not going to happen until at least 2009 now, probably until at least summer of 2009.
And this is something we need to watch very closely.
I think Kirkuk is going to be, you know, kind of the next, you know, we've already seen a battle for Baghdad, and we've seen other huge flashpoints and battles down in Basra.
But I think the stage is more than set for a similar situation to occur in Kirkuk.
Yeah, people have said for years that it's just a pile of matchsticks waiting to go off there.
And I guess the history is really complicated.
You have, I believe, a historically Arab city that then the Kurds had more or less cleansed it of Arabs, and then Saddam Hussein relocated a bunch of Arabs to Kirkuk to make it a majority Arab city.
And then now we have, we had, what, eight years, ten years of blockade and sanctions, twelve years, and then now this war.
And now the Kurds are trying to pretend that this has always been a historically Kurdish city.
They have a bunch of oil nearby, and they're determined to maintain the power and authority in that city, whereas there's still, what, tens of thousands of Arabs of different descriptions who still live there.
Oh, exactly.
And the ethnic cleansing has been going on for years now.
It's not something that started recently.
They're raising, they're flying the Kurdish flag everywhere.
They're taking down signs, whether they be road signs or building signs that were in Arabic and replacing them with Kurdish signs.
They're starting to prohibit Arabic from being taught and spoken in schools in parts of Kirkuk.
So ethnic cleansing has been going on for years now, and of course it's, every time one of these actions takes place, it rises the tensions.
The Arab Turkmen there will not stand for it.
They don't want it to happen, and of course are pleading for help from groups that have political power.
For example, Muqadda al-Sadr, there's many members in the Sadr movement who live in Kirkuk, so that's now going to be a very big factor.
Of course, Sunni's there, I remember even early on in the occupation being in Baghdad and talking to people who said, no, there will be a real war if the Kurds try to take Kirkuk.
And this was back in 2003, and here we are about five years later, and the Kurds are closer than ever of taking Kirkuk and annexing it, and they're making that move.
And they've been very, very clear from the very beginning that Kirkuk will be part of Greater Kurdistan.
We cannot have a Greater Kurdistan without it.
Of course they need the oil reserves that are there.
Of course they're very happy to have the Americans have bases in that region, because they need them there for their own protection, because they face threats from countries, all the countries surrounding them in that area that have Kurdish populations, because those countries are not in favor of an independent Kurdistan, because it threatens their own sovereignty, Turkey being a case in point.
But nevertheless, the Kurds are going for it.
They feel this is their time.
They've been waiting decades for this opportunity.
They don't want to let it pass.
They're a very, very large ethnic population that does not have their own country anywhere, and they feel like it's their right to do this.
And of course, the rest of Iraq, the vast majority of the people there being very, very nationalistic, do not want to have their country fragmented and broken apart.
And therein lies the crux of the problem.
So what will happen?
Because neither side wants to compromise, and right now the stage is set, as you said.
We're just waiting for an ill-timed spark to fall on this dry pile of extremely flammable material and who knows what's going to happen.
Well, America can't withdraw now, because things could get much worse.
Right.
And it's amazing, isn't it?
I mean, it's kind of like what's happening now with all these U.S. lawmakers being up in arms saying, oh, well, all of a sudden there's a GAO report that comes out and shows that Iraq's pulling in billions and billions of dollars for their oil, and now they're trying to force the Iraqi government to start paying for more of the reconstruction, which is absolutely ludicrous, where the U.S. comes in after 12 and a half years of genocidal sanctions that strangles the country, comes in, bombs the hell out of it, completely destroys the infrastructure, takes Iraqi and U.S. taxpayer money, billions and billions of dollars, gives it to these Western corporations with no accountability, who basically take the money and don't do the work, and then now they're trying to force the Iraqis themselves to use their money to rebuild the country that the United States government and military have destroyed.
So, you know, another case in point, but if the U.S. would leave, things are going to get worse.
I mean, you know, if any rational person with two functional brain cells could see, this is an absolutely ludicrous argument, and people that keep making it, it's amazing to me.
Even many people who call themselves anti-war think, well, what happens if the U.S. will leave?
It will get worse.
Well, what happens if the U.S. leaves is Iraqis then have a chance at real sovereignty and figuring out their own problem, and have a chance at actually rebuilding their country using their money to do so, which they'll have plenty of, and actually then if you remove the military, you have a generator of one-third of all the death that's happened in Iraq.
We're talking about over 300,000 people.
That generator of that amount of death and destruction will immediately be removed.
So I mean, and these are just a few reasons off the top of my head.
We could go on for a long time talking about why the U.S. should withdraw, plus it would be in accordance with international law, and it's what the vast majority of Iraqis and Americans want, but then that would be assuming both countries are a democracy.
Well, yeah, and that would be assuming a lot.
Hey, listen, you know, the thing is, too, that this is the same argument that was put forward when things basically couldn't get any worse, and the worst moments of 2006 and 2007, and the war over Baghdad, 3,000-something deaths a month, and that was why we couldn't leave then.
Now things are relatively calm as the Sunni insurgency's been bought off, as Sater has ordered his men to back down and is undergoing religious training in Iran, as Kirkuk smolders, but has not yet burst into flame.
Now we can't leave because things will get worse, too.
And so I don't know why that argument should be able to work in all cases, but apparently it does.
Well, in relatively calm or relatively better, let's focus in on that.
Yeah, that means only a few dozen murders a day.
Right.
I mean, we're still talking about 800 attacks a month against U.S. and collaboration forces.
1,800.
I mean, this is still a very, very high level.
This is still back around, you know, parts of 2005 we were talking about these levels, and even then they were being referred to as catastrophic.
We're talking about a minimum of 500 Iraqis being killed a month that the government admits to.
I think the real number's several times higher than that.
But we're still talking about that.
I mean, let's shift the lens a little bit.
What if, you know, 500 Americans were being killed a month in random type of violence?
How would that be reported here?
Would that be being reported?
Oh, things are getting better.
Only 500 Americans are being killed a month.
I mean, you know, I mean, it's a fundamental racism inherent in this type of reporting or lack thereof.
Well, things are getting better.
The average house in Iraq has about four hours of electricity per day.
Things are getting better.
Unemployment's around 50%.
Things are getting better.
Inflation in Iraq's about 70%.
Things are getting better.
Only 500 people a month are being killed.
This is absolutely ludicrous.
Things are getting better.
Over 5 million people, one out of five Iraqis is a refugee from their own home.
Things are getting better.
Over 1.2 million Iraqis have died.
I mean, it's a completely baseless argument.
Let's stick with the facts.
Let's look at the situation on the ground.
You know, 2.5 million people have fled the country altogether, and they're not going back.
Most of these people do not want to go back.
They don't have homes to go back to.
They don't have a country to go back to, because it's completely changed.
And the bottom line is there's still just as many people leaving Iraq as there are people going back home, and so the numbers are staying the same, which I think is a very key indicator.
If we want to look and judge, let's let the Iraqis judge for themselves.
If things were really getting better and really improving, we should see a massive return of people going back to their homes.
Instead, we have at least the same number of people leaving Iraq as who have decided, well, we're going to take our chances and go back home.
Yeah.
Hey, when you say the 1,800 attacks, that's how often?
Per week?
Per month, would you say?
Per month.
Per month.
Now, is your understanding that that's the Sunni insurgency just fighting at night, the same concerned local citizens who are our friends now in the daytime, or is that sort of just unorganized, pissed-off Iraqis taking potshots when they can?
I think it's all of the above.
It's definitely people going out and getting revenge attacks because they've had family members killed or detained by occupation forces.
Some of them are the concerned local citizens, and again, this is all according to the U.S. military.
They know, even the people who have been training some of these individuals, said, look, we don't trust them.
We don't like them.
We know that these guys are coming and working with us during the day, and at night, they're lobbying mortars into our bases, so it's that, and then there's still a fair number of resistance groups that are very decentralized guerrilla groups that are going out, carrying on with their attacks, so we still have, I mean, this is still why we're still seeing an average of about one American soldier and between five and eight being killed and wounded every single day because there's still a very large number of attacks, and then even higher numbers of Iraqi security personnel being killed by these same attackers, and again, this is when things are quote-unquote better, 1,800 attacks a month.
We're still talking about a very high level.
Let me ask you about the support for, well, not just Maliki, but basically the winners of the election of 2005, the United Iraqi Alliance, which is dominated by the Supreme Islamic Council and the Dawah Party, which is the group Maliki is from, however you say his name.
He's talked lately about, oh yeah, I agree with Barack Obama when he claims that he wants troops out within a year or two or whatever, that he seems to be indicating that he doesn't think he needs America anymore, that his backing from the Iranians will be plenty from now on.
Do you think that that's just for domestic politics?
Do you think that the Dawah Party Supreme Islamic Council types still need us, or have we trained them up?
They're standing up.
Now we can stand down, and now that they don't need us anymore, they're insisting that we stand down.
My read on it is that most of it is from popular pressure.
The vast majority of Iraqis, the opinion is so strongly opposed to the occupation that they don't support the Iraqi government.
I mean, it's a two-fold process.
One, there's the vast majority of people, according to polls, are in favor of a U.S. withdrawal, coupled with most people are so disgruntled with the government in Baghdad.
I mean, this is a government that can't really accomplish anything, that doesn't have any ability to act on its own without U.S. permission for virtually everything that it does.
This is not lost to the Iraqi people.
They see that.
They see Maliki maybe making some tough talk, and then being slapped down by someone in the Bush administration, and then coming out and saying the next day, oh, well, the interpreter was wrong, or this is not exactly what I meant.
I meant to say this.
So part of it is that, that he is basically being forced, because there's so much popular pressure against the continued U.S. presence in Iraq, that he has to come out and be saying things like, yes, I agree with Barack Obama's plan to have troops out in X amount of time, or yes, now there are a couple of Iraqi lawmakers that came out yesterday, I believe it was, late yesterday, and said, yes, there is a plan to have all U.S. troops, or the vast majority of U.S. troops out by 2010, and then the remainder out a short while after that.
So much of this is from popular pressure, where if they want to maintain, if Maliki wants to maintain any sort of legitimacy whatsoever, he has to at least appear as though he's opposing the occupation, try to kind of pretend he's a Muqtada al-Sadr who's been anti-occupation from the very beginning.
But you know, this is, it's really, it's too late.
I mean, this is a government that doesn't have legitimacy, because there's no electricity, there's no security, there's no jobs, nothing is getting better with this government in power, and the Iraqi people are the ones that have to suffer that fact, and so of course that is not missed to them.
But the other thing, too, is I think Maliki does believe that in the Da'wah Party and the SIIC, that with a little bit more time and U.S. support in propping them up, maybe they will then be able to kind of transfer more of their needed support from the U.S. over to Iran, which they're certainly getting some from Iran as well.
I mean, it's interesting in that right now we're in this kind of Venn diagram meeting place of a situation where the government in Baghdad is being really supported both by the United States and Iran.
This is a temporary situation, it's not going to continue.
I think as more time goes on, more of that support is coming from Iran, and you know, less can come from the United States if it's going to maintain any sort of facade of being independent and sovereign, and while that's happening, more is coming from Iran.
So I think over time, again, the longer this occupation persists, in a way one could argue at least as far as support for the government of Baghdad, the winner in this over time is going to be more Iran as opposed to the United States.
Right.
And we've seen this coming since the day that the Supreme Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said to the people of southern Iraq, hey, if any of you believe in Allah, I'd like you to go outside and demand a one man, one vote election, please.
And it's been a done deal since then, right?
Well, it really has.
I mean, just out of out of sheer numbers where, you know, he, you know, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, born and raised in Iran, moved to Najaf in 1953.
Yeah, the second the first bomb would fall on Iran from an Israeli or US warplane, he basically lifts his finger and we'll have resistance in Iraq like we've never seen before.
And just like you said, you called it, I mean, he is the sole reason why the SIIC has the power that it does in the government.
I remember being in Baghdad in January 05 for the elections and him issuing the fatwa that basically told his followers, which are the majority of the Shia, if you don't vote and vote for this list, you're going to burn in hell.
So everyone went out and voted and voted for the United Iraqi Alliance.
And here we are today.
I still remember the Washington Post headline winners of Iraqi election, the opposite of the U.S. vision.
Oops.
That's what happens when you when you have a, quote, unquote, democracy, but things don't go the way the United States wanted it to go, kind of like Hamas winning the elections in Palestine.
Well, it's a real democracy and this is what the people want.
So theoretically, if people vote and this is what they have, then you need to support that.
But now, as you said, this is this is exactly contravening the U.S. agenda in Iraq.
All right.
Now, do you think that there's any possibility?
I guess it doesn't seem likely now, although it did sort of seem like they were headed this direction.
That is the direction of the Khalilzad plan from 05, which is forget Sistani and Maliki and the rest of them.
Let's reinstall the Baathists in power.
We've bought off the concern, local citizens.
And frankly, if you want to be an imperialist colonial occupying power, it's really only pragmatic to prop up the minority.
Now, I guess they've propped up the minority among the majority.
That is the Dawa Party and Supreme Islamic Council over the Mahdi army, Muqtada al-Sadr follower types who are really the majority of the Shiites.
But that hasn't worked out because or is not working out because, as you indicate, they're also backed by Iran and they only need us to a certain degree.
And and that it's a temporary situation the way it's set up now.
But if I was Dick Cheney, wouldn't I just go ahead and try to rehire Saddam Hussein's henchmen and put the Sunnis back in power?
I guess it's just too late for that now, huh?
I think it is.
And I think that, you know, there was there were rumblings of that, I believe it was even about a year ago, spring a year ago, where there was a lot of talk of there being a coup of trying to bring in a Yedolawi and install him as prime minister, bring a lot of these members back.
And I think that window has closed because I think now, you know, really power has solidified and crystallized enough around the Dawa party, SIIC, those in power in the government now and the deals they've been making with the Kurds, which up until this Kirkuk problem has been really moving forward and solidifying that relationship.
And it's it is, I think, too late where really, you know, Iran has enough power in this government now.
And this is kind of illustrates what we're just talking about as far as the more time goes on, the more Iran is benefiting from this occupation than than the Americans.
I mean, it's amazing the way Iran has played this, which has been very, very smart.
The U.S. has spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars already to invade and occupy Iraq.
Over 4000 U.S. troops have been killed.
Over 50000 have been wounded physically and psychologically.
Over 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed, 5 million displaced from their homes.
The U.S. has lost all credibility in the international scene.
The mask is off.
The empire's ugly face is there staring at the world.
And through this occupation, this failed occupation of Iraq, who is the winner?
Is it the United States?
No.
Is it the Iraqi people?
No.
Is it Iran?
Absolutely.
And the longer this goes on, the more power Iran is able to solidify in the government of Baghdad without firing one shot, without having one Iranian person killed, without taking really any fundamental risk to their own government in Tehran, and they've come out the big winner.
And the more time goes on, the more power they're getting from this occupation.
I mean, we have a theocracy now in Iraq.
We have basically religious clerics that are in charge of the political puppets inside of the government of Baghdad.
And those religious clerics are answerable directly to people in Iran.
And we have Iraq now as being and turning into a fundamentalist state.
And this is directly the opposite of the Khalilzad plan, of the neocon plan, that we're going to come in, have a, you know, chop off the head of Saddam Hussein and put on a pro-Western head and have Walmarts and McDonald's all over the place, and Iraqis being very happy with, you know, Western consumerism, et cetera, et cetera.
And instead, we've had the opposite, where Iran has really played the Americans like a harp politically, to where it hasn't really cost them much of anything.
The U.S. has paid all the money and all the blood and has come out the big loser.
Yeah, well, and I guess that's why they hired Ahmed Chalabi, whose headquarters was in Tehran, to sell the story of the soon-to-be Hashemite kingdom and the oil pipeline to Haifa and all the rest of these lies to the neoconservatives.
It's a good point.
I mean, this guy was a known liar and snake and thief from the very beginning.
And he was who they chose to get in bed with.
And you get what you pay for, I guess, right?
Yep.
All right, one more thing real quick here.
And I'm sorry, Chaos Radio, if I go over time, just one minute.
I want to emphasize a point that you made, which is that if America strikes Iran, Ayatollah Sistani, you said, can disrupt everything for America by lifting his finger.
Please be specific.
I want people to understand exactly what it means that Americans are surrounded by Shia Arabs in southern Iraq.
Well, they control southern Iraq.
Anyone that knows anything about the situation understands that.
That's always been the case and probably always will be.
The southern Iraq is primarily Shia.
This is where the biggest oil field in the country is.
This is where the main ground supply line for the occupation that runs from Kuwait goes all the way through southern Iraq up to Baghdad.
And of course, this is where Grand Ayatollah Sistani lives and the majority of his followers are.
And when Iran is bombed by either Israel or the US or both, he basically says, OK, now I am going to issue a fatwa and I want everyone to attack occupation forces because we cannot tolerate this, that our brothers over in Iran are being bombed now.
And that ground supply line will be cut immediately.
All US bases and US soldiers are going to be attacked by followers.
And we're talking about numbers of people here that would dwarf the size of any Iraqi resistance we've seen so far, even at the height of the Iraqi resistance operations, like during the attacks on Fallujah or other times like in early 2005, et cetera.
We would see a resistance that would make those times look mild by comparison.
All those supply lines, you just picture Iraq in your head from the sky or from the map point of view there.
There's Baghdad and there's Kuwait and there's a straight line of American supplies between here and there.
And it's all through Shiite territory.
Right.
And that would be cut.
And then, of course, going on to talk about what Iran would be able to do to the oil infrastructure of the Gulf.
And then it was a minister in the Iranian Defense Department saying, you know, the US boast of having over a thousand selected targets already chosen in Iran, but we already have one hundred and sixty thousand in Iraq.
You know, William S. Lynn, I guess a year and a half ago, wrote for the American Conservative Magazine an article called How to Lose an Army.
And the subtitle was Surge into Iraq and then Dare to Strike Iran.
And one of the quotes in there, I know we've all heard Muqtada al-Sadr say publicly over the years that if America attacked Iran, his men would fight.
And I know you imply and I don't have any evidence to to indicate otherwise, that Sistani would would indicate that that's what he wanted people who believed in his authority to do.
But there's a quote in that William S. Lynn article from Abdulaziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Islamic Council.
When asked by a British reporter what would happen, what would the Baader Brigade do in the event that America attacked Iran and the Baader Brigade, that is the Iraqi army that we've been talking about this whole time, what would they do?
And Hakim's reply was, we would do our duty, which means to Iran against America.
That's all the Shiite factions you can name, basically, right there.
It is.
It is literally all of them.
And then, of course, if the if the Americans are being attacked in that way, of course, then Sunni resistance operations continue as well.
And those would possibly increase because, you know, if your opponent is in a weakened state, well, that's the best time to attack.
So I think the whole point that you mentioned early on about that Lynd article is, you know, the best way to lose an army and invade and occupy a country and then and then start threatening Iran, Iraq being the country invaded and occupied, of course, and then start threatening Iran.
I mean, it is.
And that's where we're at.
And we're very, very likely, I think, within months of seeing this occur.
Well, that's a whole nother subject.
And let's hope that's not right.
But listen, I really appreciate all your time today and your analysis, everybody.
That's Darja Mail from IPS News.
He's the author of Beyond the Green Zone Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.
Thank you very much for your time today, Dar.
