Occupation, protests, polls. posted by Richard Seymour

You can get some of the latest referendum news here. Whatever else these polls prelude, and my assessment is not sanguine, the strong Shiite vote for the constitution does mark growing confidence among them - and particularly among the largely sectarian political leadership. For instance, I noticed earlier this week that the Daily Mail or some such rag was whinging about the British paying Basra authorities for the damage done to the prison and the casualties incurred by Iraqis on the day UK troops rescued two undercover agents. There's a certain familiarity in the despairing, resentful tone of the reactionary press on this issue, and I think it in part derives from a recognition of the serious weakness of Britain's hegemony in the south, which had previously been sufficient to hold the peace. Now that the troops there are being targeted by the leftovers from an old colonial war, and Basra locals are refusing to cooperate with the British, the benign image is in shatters. (They can try to blame Iran for the bombings, but that's a game the Islamic Republic knows how to play too).

The occupation must end, regardless of how Iraqis negotiate their future together. There are to be protests beginning this Wednesday by some of the military families who have lost kin. Rose Gentle and Susan Smith will camp outside Downing Street to demand an end to the occupation and the safe return of the troops, mimicking Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside Bush's . Whatever else it achieves, it may at least inspire the Late Christopher Hitchens to dispense another inept insult - what alliterative epithet will Rose earn, I wonder? Will she be a 'grief ghoul', perhaps? A 'hurtin' harpy'? A 'lamenting Lizzy'? 'Sob sister' will be hard to beat, but I am confident that the renowned belle-lettrist will come up with something. Another locus of protest ought to be the court-martialing of an RAF doctor who refused to go to Iraq and risk death on behalf of the state in a war he regards as unlawful. It is no small matter - in asserting a basic right not to be treated as cannon fodder, this man happens to be challenging the state's right to wield hegemonic violence, which just happens to be the most important right that accrues to any state in the world.

As I write this, I see that some old Nixonian realpolitiker has written a nauseating article for Foreign Affairs, urging readers to stop looking with such an unkind gaze on US subventions in Indochina. That episode may yet have lessons, and we can't simply regard it as a "bad idea", he says. Set aside any prejudice you might have in favour of the idea that mass murder at a level that would make Saddam Hussein envious must perforce be at least a 'bad idea'. Melvin R. Laird, former Secretary of Defense and close friend of Donald Rumsfeld, has the answer for Iraq. Bear in mind, before you read further, that he is what is known in teevee-speak as a 'moderate'. He opposed Nixon's widening of the war to Cambodia and was queasy about any strategy that did not involve 'de-Americanising' the war. In this article, Laird explains that 'success' in Vietnam could have been obtained if Congress had not tied America's loving hands. He had cautiously engineered the withdrawal of troops, strengthening "the South's ability to defend itself" (which means to say that he strengthened the ability of a client state to murder insurgent peasants who wanted to unite North and South Vietnam under the rubric of communism). South Vietnam, he said, could easily have held its own had Congress not cut off funding. America had not lost that war. Forget for a second the standard tic-like manoeuvre in which Laird pretends that the war was not in fact a war against South Vietnam, which was being bombarded much more intensively than the North. Let's just start with the fact that Laird accepts the analogy of this war with his own, and proceed from there.

He advocates 'Vietnamisation' as the 'model' for dealing with Iraq. You see, what is needed is for the Iraqi government and security forces - the torturing, murdering ones - to be sufficiently trained and armed that they can secure the country by themselves. They, supposing they are up for it, will easily win a war against Sadrist Shi'ites and the Sunni resistance. Although I don't expect a withdrawal, except perhaps to the permanent bases presently still in construction in Iraq, I think Mr Laird may well have got the 'exit strategy' down to the last full stop. It certainly resembles the sort of thing a Bush administration might try in some variation. That said, Iran's influence with the SCIRI, which exerts the bulk of support among Iraqi Shiites, is troublesome for the US. The client state may, they must reason, be less than loyal if its ideological confederates and co-religionists hold any sway. Perhaps that is one reason why a door marked 'exit' appears to be forming on the border with Iran?