[Texgreen] Superpower soap opera

[Roger Baker]

Hey it just don't get no better than this:

A pissing match between the rival secretaries of the state of the
father and the son over their failing empire and its control over the
part of the world that supplies its critical substance addiction:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/world/middleeast/08diplo.html?
hp&ex=3D1165554000&en=3De3562ba45ebf372c&ei=3D5094&partner=3Dhomepage>

... At a midday meeting with reporters on Thursday, Mr. Baker
insisted that the study group had =93rejected looking backward.=94 But =
he
then proceeded to make a passionate argument for a course of action
he believed Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of state, should
be pursuing =97 while carefully never mentioning Ms. Rice by name.

The United States should engage Iran, Mr. Baker contended, if only to
reveal its =93rejectionist attitude=94; it should try to =93flip the
Syrians=94; and it should begin a renewed quest for peace between
Israel and the Palestinians that, he maintained, would help convince
Arab moderates that America was not all about invasions and regime
change.

Meanwhile, Ms. Rice remained publicly silent, sitting across town in
the office that Mr. Baker gave up 14 years ago. She has yet to say
anything about the public tutorial being conducted by the man who
first knew her when she was a mid-level Soviet expert on the National
Security Council. She has not responded...



Flashback to reality:

<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2054595.ece>
Robert Fisk: The Roman Empire is falling - so it turns to Iran and Syria

Published: 07 December 2006

The Roman Empire is falling. That, in a phrase, is what the Baker
report says. The legions cannot impose their rule on Mesopotamia.

Just as Crassus lost his legions' banners in the deserts of Syria-
Iraq, so has George W Bush. There is no Mark Antony to retrieve the
honour of the empire. The policy "is not working". "Collapse" and
"catastrophe" - words heard in the Roman senate many a time - were
embedded in the text of the Baker report. Et tu, James?

This is also the language of the Arab world, always waiting for the
collapse of empire, for the destruction of the safe Western world
which has provided it with money, weapons, political support. First,
the Arabs trusted the British Empire and Winston Churchill, and then
they trusted the American Empire and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and
the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and all the other men who
would give guns to the Israelis and billions to the Arabs - Nixon,
Carter, Clinton, Bush...

And now they are told that the Americans are not winning the war;
that they are losing. If you were an Arab, what would you do?

Be sure, they are not asking this question in Washington. The Middle
East - so all-important (supposedly) in the "war on terror" - in
itself, a myth - doesn't really matter in the White House. It is a
district, a map, a region, every bit as amorphous as the crescent of
"crisis" which the Clinton administration invented when it wanted to
land its troops in Somalia. How to get out, how to save face, that's
the question. To hell with the people who live there: the Arabs, the
Iraqis, the men, women and children whom we kill - and whom the
Iraqis kill - every day.

Note how our "spokesmen" in Afghanistan now acknowledge the dead
woman and children of Nato airstrikes as if it is quite in order to
slaughter these innocents because we are at war with the horrid Taliban.

Some of the same mindset has arrived in Baghdad, where "coalition"
spokesmen also - from time to time - jump in front of the video-tape
evidence by accepting that they, too, kill women and children in
their war against "terror". But it is the sentences of impotence that
doom empires. "The ability of the United States to influence events
within Iraq is diminishing." There is a risk of a "slide towards
chaos [sic] [that] could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government
and a humanitarian catastrophe."

But hasn't that already happened? "Collapse" and "catastrophe" are
daily present in Iraq. America's ability "to influence events" has
been absent for years. And let's just re-read the following sentence:
"Violence is increasing in scope and lethality. It is fed by a Sunni
Arab insurgency. Shiite [Shia] militias, death squads, al-Qa'ida and
widespread criminality. Sectarian conflict is the principal challenge
to stability."

Come again? Where was this "widespread criminality," this "sectarian
conflict" when Saddam, our favourite war criminal, was in power? What
do the Iraqis think about this? And how typical that the American
media went at once to hear Bush's view of the Baker report - rather
than the reaction of the Iraqis, those who are on the receiving end
of our self-induced tragedy in Mesopotamia.

They will enjoy the idea that American troops should be "embedded"
with Iraqi forces - not so long ago, it was the press that had to be
"embedded" with the Americans! - as if the Romans were ready to put
their legions amid the Goths, Ostrogoths and Visigoths to ensure
their loyalty.

What the Romans did do, of course - and what the Americans would
never do - is offer their subjects Roman citizenship. Every tribe -
in Gaul or Bythinia or Mesopotamia - who fell under Roman rule became
a citizen of Rome. What could Washington have done with Iraq if it
had offered American citizenship to every Iraqi? There would have
been no insurrection, no violence, no collapse or catastrophe, no
Baker report. But no. We wanted to give these people the fruits of
our civilisation - not the civilisation itself. =46rom this, they were
banned.

And the result? The nations we supposedly hated - Iran and Syria -
are now expected to save us from ourselves. "Given the ability [sic]
of Iran and Syria to influence events and their interest in avoiding
chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage [sic] them
constructively."

I love those words. Especially "engage". Yes, the "influence of
America" is diminishing. The influence of Syria and Iran is growing.
That just about sums up the "war on terror". Any word yet, I wonder,
from Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara?

The strategies

The Baker panel considered four options, all of which it rejected:

Cut And Run

Baker believes it would cause a humanitarian disaster, while al-
Qa'ida would expand further.

Stay The Course

Baker accepts that current US policy is not working. Nearly 100
Americans are dying every month. The US is spending $2bn (=A31bn) a
week and has lost public support.

Send In More Troops

Increases in US troop levels would not solve the cause of violence in
Iraq. Violence would simply rekindle as soon as US forces moved.

Regional Devolution

If the country broke up into its Shia, Sunni and Kurd regions, it
would lead to ethnic cleansing and mass population moves.

Baker outlines a fifth option - 'responsible transition' - in which
the number of US forces could be increased to shore up the Iraqi army
while it takes over primary responsibility for combat operations. US
troops would then decrease slowly.