04/20/07 – Dilip Hiro – The Scott Horton Show

All right, my friends, welcome back to Anti-War Radio.
I'm your host, Scott Horton.
This is Radio Chaos 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas.
And my guest today is Dilip Hiro.
Hiro?
Hiro?
Something.
He's the author of 28 books, including Iran Today, The Timeline, History of India, Secrets and Lies, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Collapse of American Power in the Middle East, The Iranian Labyrinth, War Without End, and many, many others.
And recently wrote a great article for the Tom Dispatch about al-Sadr and the Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and their role in power politics in Iraq.
Welcome to the show, sir.
Yes, thank you very much.
It's great to have you on.
Thank you.
And now, I guess I had seen the numbers reported that about half a million people have protested.
In your article, you say it was over a million.
A million Iraqis showed up to protest at Todd al-Sadr's call in Najaf last week, is that right?
That's correct, yes.
I think, you know, the police, of course, one knows that whenever a big demonstration happens in any country, police give one figure and the organizers of the demonstration give another figure.
Yes, of course.
And police said up to one million and the organizers said up to one and a half million.
So therefore, I use the word over one million.
And it is the largest demonstration ever held in the city of Najaf.
So it's a very important event.
And this was basically to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of the Ba'ath regime, right?
That's correct.
I think if you remember, April 9, 2003 was the day when Saddam's statue was toppled in Baghdad.
And by the way, that particular whole thing was stage managed, but that doesn't matter.
Of course.
And, you know, the toppling of the statue was stage managed.
It wasn't a spontaneous thing done by ordinary Iraqis.
What had happened was that, if you remember, a gentleman called Ayman Calabi.
Ayman Calabi, who was a Pentagon poster boy, he had his militia of 600 men.
And they were flown into southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah a week before.
And on the 9th of April, most of the crowd consisted of the militia of Ayman Calabi.
And people who looked at the pictures of those two gatherings could see the same people.
So you have to remember that suddenly they were Marines and they arrived with a crane.
So it all seemed very stage managed.
But anyway, there were so many things which were, you know, basically secrets and lawyers.
Well, Saddam apparently had the toppling of his statues in mind when he built them.
And he made them really sturdy.
They needed a tank to pull it down.
And of course, at Antiwar.com, we ran the faraway photos that showed that the massive crowd that was depicted on American television was, in fact, as you say, a few handfuls of Iraqi exiles who were brought in with Ahmed Chalabi.
But that town square there, whatever they call it, was basically empty of people at the time that the statue was felled.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think, as you know, in any hot war, psychological warfare is very important.
So from the Anglo-American forces' point of view, it was a great coup in terms of, you know, getting the world attention.
And see, if you just go back and make a comparison between, say, what happened in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, Taliban were in power, of course, until November 2001.
But Taliban, being extremely puritanical, orthodox Sunni, they did not allow a single image to be posted.
There were no posters.
There were no statues under their rule.
And therefore, when the Taliban fled from Kabul on the night of the 12th of November 2001, and then, of course, the journalists arrived from all over the world, especially from the Western world, they simply did not have any visual image to capture the moment of the fall of Taliban.
So the only thing they could do was to actually, shall I say, corral, or try to, in court, persuade some women wearing their, you know, burqas to take them off and so that they could take pictures.
I mean, that's the only thing they could do to bring about visual transformation.
But in the case of Saddam, you know, and Saddam was everywhere.
I remember that when I went to Iraq, just a year before this invasion, within about five minutes, I counted five images of Saddam Hussein.
Five minutes of arriving in Baghdad.
So he was everywhere.
So therefore, it was, you know, very effective to see his greatest statue being burned down.
Right.
Now, speaking of the power of images, seeing the massive protests in Najaf and in Qut last week, there were, I guess, you know, if you say a million, fine.
But, you know, to my eyeballs, there were hundreds of thousands of people in some of these photographs, and they're all waving Iraqi flags, right, nationalistic flags rather than, you know, Shiite faction flags or some some such thing.
Absolutely.
This was the whole idea.
See, the call was given for this particular demonstration by Muqtada al-Sadr, who, by the way, is underground.
You know, he's not to be seen anywhere, but he's so powerful is he that whatever his call was given, it was so effective.
And, of course, the call was given as a national call, call for all people who are Iraqis.
Therefore, nobody brought in any images or any banners which were sectarian, either Shiite or Sunni or Kurd.
Because, see, all of these parties which are functioning in Iraq have their own party flags, like the Kurds have party flags.
The Shiite groups, they have their own party flags.
None of those flags appeared there.
All the banners were nationalistic, and the national flag was there.
And that was the whole point.
That is, you know, it was a national demonstration, and the main demand was we want to know when the foreign troops made by the Americans are going to withdraw from Iraq.
That was the main drop.
Basically, what they were saying, we had one liberation, which was what Muqtada al-Sadr was saying, now we want a second liberation, which is the end of occupation by a foreign force.
And that was the whole trust of the demonstration.
Okay, now you say in your article that, well, first of all, I guess, is it correct that Najaf is almost an exclusively Shia town, and then secondly, do you not say in your article that there were many Sunni leaders who came to Najaf to be part of this demonstration?
Absolutely.
See, as you know, in any demonstration, you always have leaders of demonstration who stand in the first line, and that's the standard practice of early, peaceful, disciplined demonstration.
And that's what happened.
So it wasn't only the Shiite group, there were Sunni groups.
Also, there were Kurdish lotables as well.
And of course, amongst the marshals, there were Sunnis, and how many even cannot tell because there were 1 million people, and the fact that nobody was carrying sectarian flags, therefore you couldn't say that part is Sunni, that part is Shiite.
But for the first time, so many Sunni leaders, also Kurdish leaders were in that particular march leading them.
See, what happened was not simply that, you know, it was called given by Muqaddad, but it really represents an actual feeling.
So you see, you probably noticed that, you know, there was a poll conducted recently by the BBC and the ABC News of the USA, which found that 97% of Sunnis and 82% of Shiites in Iraq are against the occupation forces.
So I think that is an interesting figure to keep in mind, that therefore this demonstration was, even though it was called what was given by a Shia cleric, it's a demonstration which actually showed in very visual and effective terms what is the general opinion and feeling in the whole country.
Right.
Now, we've known that basically the entire Sunni community, basically since the war began, has been against the occupation, has been, you know, at least tacitly supporting the Sunni-led insurgency.
But I guess the common conception is that the Shiites have welcomed us, and it's the Shiites who we're installing in power, they've won the election, they have the majority, and that we have to stay there and, you know, we won't stand down until they can stand up and be the legitimate government of Iraq.
But I guess it's really important to note, isn't it, that when we talk about installing the majority Shia in power, what we're talking about is installing a tiny minority of the majority Shia in power.
The actual Shiite population, the actual Shiite Arabs of Iraq, they want us out.
It's merely the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution and the Daba party who need us there to prop up them in power.
Is that not the case?
Yeah, I think, you see, when it comes to the Shiites, you see, they again understand the basic facts of life in Iraq.
And for that, of course, the book that you mentioned, Secrets in Law, is The Operation for Freedom, and after actually gives the full understanding of that, with all these books, you mentioned the published foundation books, but the point is, you see, that when there was a rule by the Ba'ath party, Baathist party, of course, at the top was Saddam Hussein, and the Baath party was everywhere, in society, in offices, in industry, in military, everywhere.
Now, when that particular structure was overthrown by force of the Anglo-American troops, then something which had existed underground came to the surface.
What was existing underground was the Shiite religious hierarchy and its network, because the Shiites, even though our majority is 60%, for historical reasons, they were persecuted and kept down very quickly because Iraq, or what was called Mesopotamia, was a part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
Ottoman Turkish Empire was a Sunni Islam, and because they were ruled by the Sunni emperor, therefore, the Shiites were persecuted, or they were kept down, and the Sunni minority in Mesopotamia, which spoke Iraq, was in the driving seat.
Now, after the end of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in 1918, World War I, when a king was put in place by the British, he also was Sunni.
When a king was overthrown by the Baath party, he, the Baath party, mainly Sunni party.
So, naturally, if a minority has been in power for so long, and if it's overthrown, of course, it would not like that, would want to come back with one.
Secondly, the Shiites, and again, to understand that Shiites are much more religious, and they have tried to find a kind of solace in pursuing religion very quickly.
Of course, they were talking of America.
Why is it that African Americans are more religious than white Americans?
Because African Americans were persecuted, kept down.
So, when you are suffering in this life, you say, another life, I pray, then the Lord will save me, or I'll have a better life next time around, et cetera, et cetera.
Same thing with the Shiites.
Therefore, the Shiites had very strong religious practice and belief, and they had set up their underground network, which functioned without being checked, or they were being repressed by the oppressive intelligence of the Baath party regime.
And once that Baath party was destroyed, then that whole network, which existed before, came to the fore.
One.
Two, among Shiites, there is a religious hierarchy, very quickly.
If you take a Catholic church, a cardinal Catholic church will be like a Grand Ayatollah in Shia Islam.
An archbishop will be like an Ayatollah, and a bishop will be like Khujut al-Islam.
Now, this Muqaddad al-Assad is Khujut al-Islam.
He is still quite junior.
Now, so you follow what the Grand Ayatollah says, and here, in Iraq, I can say with all my conviction and knowledge that the most important leader in Iraq today is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, because he is a Grand Ayatollah, and what he did, this is the point we have to understand, the Sunnis are supporting insurgency, and of course, they want foreign troops out.
Ali Sistani also has the same objective.
Get the foreign troops out.
He has refused to meet any American or British official or any of their emissaries, but he has said to Shiites, all Muslims of course, because he is a religious figure, that we participate in the political process, not because we believe in it, but that is the peaceful way to get Americans out.
So it was Ali Sistani who issued a fatwa, which is a religious decree, calling and saying it is the religious duty of all Muslims to go and vote.
That was the first time when the vote took place, and the Shiites followed him, almost to the man and woman.
Some Sunnis followed him, not many, because he was very upset to lose power.
And that is the first time when 8 million people went and participated in the election.
That is the time when you saw these people who dipped their fingers in a purple ink, indelible ink, and that the figures held up.
And that is an image which Bush and company stole from Sistani.
Sistani is following the same objective, but he saw that if you participate, get the representatives into power, and they can negotiate with the goal of foreign troops.
I don't think he has changed his opinion.
He is using different means, but both the Sunni insurgents and the Sistani followers have the same objective, because ultimately they are Iraqi nationals.
Well, let me ask you about that.
Let me try to sum up actually what you just said, see if I can get it right, and then ask you about Sistani's nationalism.
Basically what you're saying, and this has been a very useful analogy for me, honestly, I'm from Texas, what do I know about Islam?
But you say that the Shiites, you can make a rough analogy to Catholicism, in that they have one chain of command, the Grand Ayatollah, and then all the other Ayatollahs are under him, etc., just like the Pope and the Cardinals and the Bishops, right?
Yeah, I think they don't have a Pope.
That's the main point.
They only go up the level of Cardinals.
There's no Pope.
But you see, basically in this hierarchy, the lower grade cleric is bound to accept the ruling or the decree or the opinion of the highest cleric, and the highest cleric in this case is Ali Sistani.
See, Ali Sistani has acted at every major point in the history of Iraq after the invasion.
Now, remember one thing, when Paul Bremer became the viceroy of Iraq, of course the first thing was to have a constitution for Iraq, and the original idea, his idea, and Bush's idea was that we have handpicked Iraqis who will draft a constitution advised by American constitutional experts.
And Sistani said, wait a minute, wait a minute, and he was the first one to ask his followers to come out in the street, peaceful demonstrations, which happened in January 2004, peaceful demonstrations in Baghdad, in Bajra, and they said, listen, you are democracy, and that's what we want.
And of course, Bush and company yielded to that thing because Sistani was talking sense.
And then the second thing, as I said, in the next election in 2005, had Sistani not given his religious decree for Muslims to vote, then so many people would not have turned up.
You see, so he has been very crucial, and the last thing that he has done is, you see, the Maliki government, under pressure from Bush, has come up with legislation which will allow the old party members to get their jobs back.
Now, this was shown to Sistani, and Sistani said, no way.
Basically, that thing is off.
Right, well, and that's happened over and over again, right?
There's been five or six different attempts to bring the Baathist back into the government that he has vetoed, basically, right?
No, that's what you see.
Again, let me put it this way.
Even if that law goes through, I'm afraid all the important or even semi-important Baathists have either fled the country, or they would be very reluctant to go back to the job because by now, most of the military and police is Shiite-dominated.
It's too late for that now.
Basically, it is the Bush and company, they are pushing Maliki to do certain things.
You see, he doesn't have the internal or domestic support strength to do certain things, but it is basically the agenda of the Bush White House which is being touched down his throat.
You see, that really is the basic problem.
Okay, now let me ask you about Sistani's nationalism.
My understanding is that he's an Iranian and has refused to even apply for Iraqi citizenship, and that he's much closer to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution and the Dava Party than he is to Muqtada al-Sadr.
That he's much more in favor of federalism or even regional autonomy and long-term alliance with Iran than holding the Iraqi state together in a nationalist sense, and it would seem like his refusal to allow Baathists back into the government, however effective or ineffective they may be at this point, is an example of that, no?
No, no, no.
Of course, he was born in the city of Mashhad.
Okay, I think actually there's a brief biography of him in my other book, The East and the Middle East.
Okay, he was born in Iran, but he is now 75 years old.
He has lived in Iraq for the past 53 years.
When he was a theological student, he came to live in Najaf.
Najaf is the highest place of Shiite learning in the world, and he has been living there.
It was there.
In fact, of course, he is an Iraqi national because he became the Grand Ayatollah in the days of Saddam Hussein.
Do you expect Saddam Hussein to allow an Iranian national to become the Grand Ayatollah in Iraq?
No way.
Of course, he is an Iraqi national.
He's been living there for all his time, but yes, when he speaks Arabic, he speaks the Persian accent.
There are lots of people who are from Britain.
They live in America for a long time.
They speak the British accent, so I think that doesn't go against him, but he finally, of course, he is an Iraqi national.
Remember also, that is again in my earlier book, Secrets and Lies, on January the 25th, when the American troops were marching towards Najaf during the invasion.
Invasions, remember, happened on the 20th of March, 2003, local time.
And as they were marching to Najaf at that point, Shistani issued again a religious decree calling on all Muslims in the world to help them to resist the invasion by foreign infidel troops.
And interestingly enough, if I tell you something, because in my book I've mentioned that, I try to get that particular information, you know, summary of his religious decree, not even the French news agency had it.
But only the Chinese agency, Shenhua, they had a summary of his decree, which of course I quote in my book.
So from day one, Shistani had been Iraqi nationalist.
He stands for Iraqi integrity, territorial integrity, and he is the one who said that hydrocar bonds are a national property.
Therefore, Bremer dared not privatize oil industry of Iraq.
See, so this man is not to be trifled with.
He's a very important man, but he does not dabble in day-to-day politics.
He keeps himself, he's a recluse, he's essentially a religious man, but then he sees as a matter, a subject of national importance, whether it's oil nationalization or denationalization, whether it's a question of giving the right to popular representatives of Iraq to draft their constitution with the country, whether it's a question of not allowing the ex-botist to get back their positions in the government.
That is the point where he speaks up, but of course he physically doesn't speak up here.
They speak on his behalf, I think.
So ultimately he is, and that's the man America should be afraid of, and I think they understand that he is the most powerful figure.
I guess since he's the Supreme Ayatollah, what's his opinion or relationship with the Sadr forces, the Mahdi army on one side and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution and the Dawa party on the other?
Those two are the Iran-backed factions, correct?
Yeah, I think you see again, these three parties that you mentioned, the Sadr group and of course the Supreme Council of Iraq, which was actually Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Dawa al-Islamiyya, which is Islamic College.
Now you see, after three groups, the two groups, Supreme Council and what actually established in Tehran, November 1982.
May I happen to be in Tehran doing a particular story, but I mean, so they have a historical connection with Iran.
As far as al-Dawa is concerned, al-Dawa actually was established clandestinely in Iraq in 1959, but during the Iran-Iraq war, most of their leaders went to live in Iran, including Maliki has lived in Iran for several years.
Before him, the prime minister, Ibrahim Jafri, lived there for 10 years, and so al-Dawa also has a historic connection with Iran.
The only group which does not have any historic connection with Iran is the group of Sabra, because Sabra is so important very quickly because his father, who was a Grand Ayatollah, and his two elder brothers were gunned down by the henchmen of Saddam Hussein in February 1999.
Now they were, as they were coming out of the mosque after praying in Najaf, they were gunned down.
Now at that time, Muqadda, who was the youngest son, he was not with them, therefore his life was saved, but he went underground in 1999, and he only resurfaced after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
So you see, if you as a Shiite and a Shia cleric come from a family where three of your blood relations have been, in quote, martyred or killed, then every Shia will respect you because Shia Islam was not of value on martyrdom.
You see, the founder of Shia Islam, Imam Ali, he was assassinated.
His son, Hussein, he was killed in a very unequal battle.
So if you are a Shia, it doesn't matter which party you belong to, the fact that Sabra comes from a martyred family, that puts him in a place where he is respected.
Even though he is not an ayatollah, definitely not a ground ayatollah, you really have to be very old to become a ground ayatollah.
Last December, for example, when George Bush was meeting with Abdulaziz Aqim in the White House, and the Shiite death squads were going around sticking drills in the heads of suspected insurgent leaders, Muqtada al-Sadr was trying to make a deal with, he had at least one of the major Kurdish factions, and had brought in Sunni religious leaders and ex-Bathists, and was trying to form what they call the national unity government of last chance or last resort or last hope or something like that.
And while that was happening, Bush was meeting with Abdulaziz Aqim and saying, you know, you're doing a fine job, Abdul, keep it up.
And that fine job, of course, is waging a civil war against the Sunni.
I have to admit, I'm kind of confused, when you talk about Sistani as a nationalist, but he draws the line at letting Sunnis back in the government, I mean, how can it be, it sounds to me like he is siding, you know, much more with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution than Muqtada al-Sadr.
Now, I see again, I'm sure you see, in the Sunni, let's look at Sunni insurgency.
Sunni insurgency is not a homogeneous body.
It has different aspects.
There are Iraqi Sunni nationalists there, and there are also jihadists, who you might call the internationalist jihadists, of which al-Qaeda is very important.
Now, al-Qaeda leadership, especially from Saudi Arabia, it comes from a small sect within Shia Islam called Wahhabis.
Now, Wahhabis in Shia, I'm sorry, in Sunni Islam, Wahhabis in Sunni Islam, in fact, do not consider Shias to be proper Muslims.
They call them heretics.
So you see, so much of these, you have noticed all these bombings which go on, and including the big one in February of last year, when they blew up the tomb of the Shia imam, because there are 12 Shia imams, and two of them are buried in Samara, and that particular mosque tomb was blown up.
And that was the starting point of division between Sunnis and Shiites, because see, al-Qaeda are determined to fight the Shiites.
Now, it doesn't matter whether they're fighting Shiites because they are cooperating with Americans or they're participating in the political process, but they are theologically and ideologically against Shiites, no matter where they live, whether they live in Pakistan, whether they live in Iran, whether they live in Iraq.
So that is really the point which has created this whole division and confusion, because those Sunnis who are not al-Qaeda, they have their own historical gripe in Iraq, because they were, as I said earlier, in power for 365 years, and now they're out of power.
They're very angry, and though they want to create chaos and mayhem, so they go along with this anti-Shiite policies of al-Qaeda, because this is a kind of, shall I say, alliance of convenience.
Both have the same common aim, but ultimately, if you ask me, what is the most disturbing, or not disturbing in a political sense, what's the most factor which is creating a lot of tension, is the al-Qaeda element within the insurgency.
And remember, al-Qaeda is only one part, already, as you know, in the province of Anbar, which is one province, but Anbar is one-third of the area of Iraq.
Now, in Anbar, already Sunni tribes are actually fighting al-Qaeda, because they say that they are, A, they're foreigners and they are very anti-Shiite, they don't like that, but you see, in Iraq, things are not so simple.
Now, one particular tribe is the Shamar, or al-Jaburi.
Now, some of the people in al-Shamar are Sunni, and some of them are Shiites, but they are the same tribe.
And so if al-Qaeda starts to attack Shiites, no matter what tribe it is, etc., that is something which is creating a lot of problems and so on.
Right, so ultimately, al-Qaeda in Iraq is a marginal part of the Sunni insurgency, right?
I mean, if Sadr could come down, you know, if America was gone, and Sadr and Sistani both said, OK, Sunni, former Baathists and local religious leaders, let's make a deal, you guys get rid of al-Qaeda and we'll form a coalition government of some kind, etc., if it really came down to that, the Sunni, the local Sunnis wouldn't really have a problem getting rid of al-Qaeda, right?
I mean, al-Qaeda is the tail and the Sunni insurgency is the dog.
No, absolutely.
I think, you know, if you look at some of the basics, you know, I mean, if you just look at the Constitution of Iraq, for example, you know, and it says, there are two articles very important.
It says, sharia, Islamic law is to be the main source of Iraqi legislation.
There's another article in the Constitution which says that no law shall be passed which is against the undisputed principles of Islam.
Now, from that point of view, and the fact that the coalition government in Baghdad is led by three Shiite religious parties, of course, Sadr has withdrawn his ministers until about last week, and so they are Shiite religious parties.
Of course, they are Shiite secular group, which belongs to Iyad al-Awli and, of course, the other guy, Ahmad al-Shalabi.
He doesn't have a single neighbor in Parliament.
So, see, the point is that in terms of having Islam as an important leading factor in the political life of Iraq, there is no dispute on the two sides.
This constitution, which was basically put together by the Shiites and the Kurds, you know, has Islam as a leading place, et cetera, et cetera, but you see, it really goes down much deeper.
Deeper meaning it is what you call al-Qaeda.
It's not al-Qaeda's element simply to fight, to follow, but they are also very much against the Shiites themselves.
And the Shiites are, of course, Muslims.
The Shiites are Arabs, but you see, they are attacking them in such a way, and that is what is the major problem.
So, in terms of wanting to have Islamic State, the constitution itself is almost practically, you can say, all but in name, it is Islamic Republic of Iraq.
But, you know, they have their own agenda, and they really want to, you know, create this anti-Shiite feeling, and which, of course, is very, not only it's, you know, hurtful to Iraq, but you see, if the Sunni-Shiite, maybe sometime next time you can, not next time, but one can go into much further.
If the Sunni-Shiite divisions spill over into Iran, into Saudi Arabia, into Turkey, because in Turkey, 15 to 20 percent of Muslims are Shiites, then into Syria, then it's going to be a huge problem for the oil supply, because you see, the Shiites in Saudi Arabia, though they are only 10 percent of the population, most of them live in the eastern province, which has all the oil, and if they start fighting, you know, if the Al Qaeda type or the Wahhabis get very anti-Shiite, then the Shiites will rise up against the Saudi regime, and that will mean they will start sabotaging the oil supply, and that is going to have impact, not only in the Muslim world, all over.
Okay, well, so the question is, then, whether the American presence is making that more or less likely.
The president gave a speech, or answered some questions, what have you, yesterday, where he said that if America leaves, that Iraq will become a bloodbath, and that that is why we must stay, so if America brought its army out of Iraq, in as quick a manner as possible, do you think that the civil war would just go all out, and that it would be, you know, the Shiites fighting for dominance completely over the Sunni Arabs, and vice versa, and as you say, the neighbors, the Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc., sending their fighters to join in, or is that what's already happening because America is occupying the place?
Yeah, I think it's a very interesting question.
In fact, as it happens, in front of me here, an op-ed published in the New York Times yesterday by Barry Posen, who is the director of security studies program at MIT, and I quote you one paragraph, which sums up, and I agree with him, the current civil war, I mean, he's giving a scenario that, you know, Americans leave, the current civil war will escalate, fighting may indeed intensify after U.S. disengagement.
To come to an understanding of how wealth and power in Iraq will be shared, the political forces there must measure their relative capacity and will.
The United States now stands in the way of such a measurement, and the U.S. presence delegitimizes any outcome.
The promise of a certain withdrawal date by the U.S. may clear the heads of some Iraqi politicians.
A negotiated settlement could start to look better to them than escalation of fighting.
I think that's what it is.
So you have to allow these forces to really go all out, and ultimately, you see, I mean, I read you one sentence, and again, I'm reading Barry Posen, very well summarized, I agree with him.
Whatever success is achieved by the U.S., the end result will not be the stable, liberal, democratic vision of the war supporters.
However, after a lot more killing, exhaustion may set in, deals may be struck, and factions may retreat to tend their own battered gardens, unquote.
I think that's what's going to happen.
In that sense, you have to go to look at what happened in the Lebanese civil war.
You know, the same thing happened.
The outside got exhausted.
So I think the presence of Americans is making this difficult because the different forces are not able to, as he said, measure up their strength and weakness.
The only way is to let them do it and see how far they can go.
And then they will have to say, you know, see, these civil wars only end, and I speak as the author of the book on the Lebanese civil war, they only end when there's exhaustion, and exhaustion can only happen if Americans don't sit there and try to have their own policy, their agenda pushed on the throats of the politicians there.
Right.
Well, a couple of things there.
I talked with an Iraqi American, a Shiite named Sami Rasouli, just a couple of weeks ago, and he told me his belief was that if America left, that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution and the Dawa Party would be out of power, that probably Sadr would inherit most of the authority in the Shiite area of the country, that the Iran-backed parties would basically be marginalized.
But, you know, I have to ask you, if you were George Bush's national security adviser, and, I mean, you can see the trouble in selling him a plan where, yes, everything gets much, much worse, but that's how it's supposed to be so that then everybody can work things out.
You can see why he would, even if he admits to himself, boy, I really should not have invaded this country, you can see why he wants to, you know, still have the American army there when a political settlement is reached on how the oil money is to be divided up, et cetera, et cetera, so that, you know, I mean, what you're saying is, Mr. President, pull your troops out.
Yes, the Civil War will get much worse, but that's all for the better.
That would be pretty hard to swallow from the point of view of the person making the decision, probably, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
That's true.
I think, again, when I look at some certain basics, the basics are very simple.
Look at 1991 Gulf War, when Bush Sr. was president, he gave a call to the Rockies to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north rolled up, and the Shiites in the south, Bush Sr. did not help them.
He allowed Saddam's military to use helicopter gunships and artillery and so on and so forth.
He underestimated the people who did the insurrection.
Why?
Why Bush Sr.?
Because Bush Sr. understood exactly that if Saddam is overthrown, Shiites are 60% population.
They will be in the driving seat.
In the south, they are 80 to 90% of the population.
They will be friends with Iran, and therefore influence of Iran will be next door to Kuwait and next door to Saudi Arabia.
Bush Jr. understood because, after all, he had been vice president for eight years.
He was the director of CIA, et cetera, et cetera.
And if he didn't understand the rulers of Kuwait, and so they picked up the phone, talked to him, that's what happened.
Now, unlike what happened in 1991, his son, Bush Jr., here is something which really should make us worry.
In 2003, three leading Iraqi exile leaders had a meeting with Bush in the Oval Office, that is, Chalabi Alavi and Conan Makiya.
And they realized they were talking to the president of the USA, who was about to attack Iraq, and he, in general, did not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite.
See, I mean, that is something which is really, I don't know, I don't know what word to use.
I mean, this is shocking because he just wanted to get us to understand.
He did not understand exactly what the structure is, what the culture is, what the history is, simply get us to understand.
Yeah, well, don't be shocked.
I doubt if he knows now.
Having done that, having done that, you see, if you do it, there's a cause and effect follows.
If you do what you did, then there's going to be Shiite power.
Now he's trying to reverse the process and keep on blaming Iran.
Iran is interfering, Iran is interfering.
You see, the man has no idea.
And you see, what I said earlier about Bush, that is in the book by Peter Galbraith, End of Iraq, he mentions that, that, you know, these three Iraqi leaders sitting there six weeks before the invasion, eight weeks before the invasion, and found that this gentleman who's been hurt, he did not know the basic difference between Sunni and Shiite.
I mean, that is something, you see, and so all this, I mean, I don't have to go through what has happened since then.
And so you really have something, and go back to the book by Bob Woodward, Bush That War, when Bob Woodward had a 120-minute long, 140-minute long, one-to-one interview with Bush, and Bush basically said, I go by my gut feeling.
So that's what happened.
He's become that gut feeling.
He hasn't tried to understand the implications, what have followed, and there we are.
And sadly, that's the case.
Right, so basically what you're saying is, if you don't want this bloody civil war that's going to happen when you leave, then you shouldn't have invaded in the first place, but there's no way to stop that now.
No, see, that's what I'm saying.
See, if you do one thing, another thing follows.
There's a particular logic.
And that is why somebody like me or other people, experts, we study history.
We see the factors.
We see A&P.
We see interconnections.
Now, this gentleman, he had no interest in that.
He simply wanted to get rid of it.
Remember, again, in Bush's, Bob Woodward's last book, A Plan of Attack.
Now, remember, it was only November 12 that Al Qaeda and the Taliban left Kabul, and Kandahar, Mullah Omar was not captured yet.
On November 21st, nine days after this, and before the fall of Kandahar on December 8th, according to Woodward, in his book, A Plan of Attack, Bush almost gets Rumsfeld by the collar and said, what are the plans about Iraq?
What are the plans about Iraq?
And so he said, you know, we are working on this.
He said, just make it quick.
And so this fellow Rumsfeld turns off his message to Tommy Franks, who sent home commander.
So I want this whole thing within a week.
And when Frank gets it, he says, what the hell?
You know, I mean, I haven't finished Afghanistan.
And they want now the plan to attack Iraq.
See, I mean, this is all in Bob Woodward's book.
So what I'm saying is that, see, and this is basically what shall I say, criminal negligence of duty of the chief executive of the USA, which is basically war and peace is the most important decision a politician in power can make.
And you see on what basis George W. Bush has made his decisions.
We can see that already clearly.
Okay?
Yeah, great.
So all right.
Well, thank you very much for your time.
This has been very interesting.
Dilipiro, he's the author of Secrets and Lies, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Collapse of American Power in the Middle East.
Thanks again.
My pleasure.
All right, my friends, this is Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's Chaos Radio 95-9 in Austin, Texas.
We'll be right back.