By Judith Latham, VOA, Washington
Peter
Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and author of a controversial new
book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End, says
America invaded Iraq with the goal of bringing democracy to it and transforming
the region. Instead, he claims, Iraq has disintegrated into three parts –
a pro-Western Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-dominated Shiite entity in the
south, and a chaotic Sunni Arab region in the center. Speaking with host
Carol Castiel of VOA News Now’s Press Conference USA, Ambassador Galbraith says,
in developing a workable strategy for Iraq, one must begin by facing up to the
current situation.
Ambassador Galbraith states categorically, “There can be no
strategy of keeping Iraq together because it is not together.” For
example, the Kurds in the north don’t want to be part of Iraq, and in a
referendum last year 98 percent voted for independence. It took 6 months
to form the new Iraqi government, he says, but “most important it doesn’t govern
anything” – neither the Kurdish north, nor the south (which is run by Shiite
religious parties) nor the Sunni Arab area (which is a “battleground”) nor even
Baghdad (which beyond the Green Zone is the “frontline of a civil war”).
Ambassador Galbraith suggests there are important historical
parallels between Iraq and other multi-ethnic states put together at the end of
World War I, such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. The
lesson, he argues, is that, “where people in a geographically defined area don’t
want to be part of a state, you can’t keep them in a state.”
Although Iraqi leaders before the war told Washington that
they wanted a unified or a federal Iraq, he says it’s “not surprising” that
exiled leaders would present the case to the U.S. superpower in a way that would
“bring about the result they wanted, which was American military action to
overthrow Saddam.”
According to Ambassador Galbraith, the occupation of Iraq -
from the day that American troops toppled Saddam Hussein’s statue in April 2003
- is probably the “single most incompetently managed major U.S. policy
undertaking in the history of our republic.” The United States, he says,
went into Baghdad with “too few troops,” ignoring the advice of the military,
with “no plans to secure anything, except for the oil ministry,” and furthermore
the “feuding parts of the U.S. government had opposed strategies” for actually
governing Iraq. But most important, Ambassador Galbraith says, Washington
had no plan to avoid the violence, which has “tragically spun out of control.”
It was never the U.S. administration’s plan to break up Iraq,
but according to Ambassador Galbraith, “They knew so little about Iraq that they
never understood that one of the consequences of the invasion was likely to be
the breakup.” Ambassador Galbraith says Iraq has already broken up, and
“to try to put it back together again” would involve U.S. troops fighting Shiite
militias to disarm them with U.S. troops “becoming the police of Baghdad.”
Most troubling, he says, is the administration’s erroneous belief that the
Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis think of themselves primarily “as Iraqis.”
Washington has a choice, Ambassador Galbraith says. If
the mission is to pursue a “unified and democratic Iraq,” it will have to commit
300,000 more troops and accept 10 times as many casualties to disarm the Shiite
militias. If it is unwilling to make that commitment, he argues, it should
“get the coalition out of southern Iraq tomorrow.” And if U.S. troops are
unable to stop the civil war in Baghdad, he argues, there is “no purpose in
being there.” He suggests the Sunni Arabs be encouraged to set up their
own region and to provide their own security.
Ambassador Galbraith notes that Iraq’s neighbors have vital
interests in its fate. He says Iran’s influence in Iraq is unavoidable,
but a formal breakup of Iraq might limit that influence to a southern Shiite
state. Kurdistan, he says, is independent in all but name. He argues
that Turkey’s attitude toward Iraqi Kurdistan has “evolved” over time, and
Ankara now fully endorses “federalism.”
Ambassador Galbraith has held senior positions in the United
States government and with the United Nations. He is currently senior diplomatic
fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
... Payvand News - 8/31/06 ... --
