The Dubya Wing

by Christopher Houseman by Christopher Houseman

According to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, history is going to forgive him and his senior partner President George W. Bush for their continuing adventures by proxy in Iraq (apparently, there’s nothing to forgive about Afghanistan · the one we weren’t going to just forget this time round, remember…?).

The Iraqi people have been liberated from the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, who is completely unrelated to the CIA-backed, pro-Western "strong leader" Saddam Hussein of days gone by. Iraqis are now free of the fear of random acts of politically sanctioned violence (from other Iraqis; unless you include the "terrorists"), and can get on with rebuilding what remains of their country in the hope that one day it really will be their country. One hesitates to use the word "again" at this point; it seems ambitious and untrue.

Well, hard as it may be to say about the very real sufferings of those who’ve been caught in the crossfire of The War Against Terror (TWAT for short), I’m getting bored of watching this tragi-comic political soap opera unfolding on the evening news. I am simultaneously repelled by what I see and hear of it, and frustrated by my powerlessness to change the course of events.

Late last year, I repeatedly told anyone who would listen that coalition forces would win a convincing conventional victory in Iraq only to get bogged down in a guerilla war. I didn’t bother telling the politicians, of course, because I knew that our leaders had already decided what they wanted to do. A mere individual "voter" such as myself wasn’t going to understand the subtleties of the situation, which may be summed up as "We want to control their very large oil reserves and their foreign policies for as long as possible".

Now, I realize that claims like that are easy to make at this stage, so let me give you my predictions about forthcoming highlights of the prime-time series known to us all as "The Dubya Wing":

  1. Season 2 is good to go.

There are seemingly formidable reasons why this should not be so. Audience research has suggested that many viewers regard the four billion dollars per month production budget as profligate · who said reality TV was cheap? Worse yet, some viewers still haven’t forgotten the alleged "irregularities" surrounding Dubya’s appointment to the starring role.

The bill for the production of the Anglo-Iraqi subplot isn’t cheap either, given the UK’s smaller economy. What’s more, the recent death of British extra and WMD expert Dr. David Kelly has led to further criticism of Blair’s lead support role. A damaging industrial relations dispute with British actors’ union Equity is looming, especially if Lord Hutton or Inspector Morse find any evidence of politically-sanctioned foul play surrounding the termination of Dr. Kelly’s contract. So seriously is this prospect viewed that the British Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, has visited the Doctor’s widow and family in person.

The problem is that, even when Bush and Blair do eventually exit stage left, bureaucratic inertia will probably dictate that the troops stay where they are for another few years regardless of who get to be the front men for Season 2 and beyond. Politicians and soldiers alike do not like to lead retreats.

  1. The guerilla operations subplot will continue and intensify.

American soldiers will continue to die or be seriously injured in and around Baghdad in particular. Every American soldier lost will be seen by the Iraqis as a dent in America’s political prestige, and will highlight the limitations of being a military superpower trained and equipped to fight yesterday’s wars.

Forget the media speculation about a "controlling mind" for now. Saddam did a pretty thorough job of liquidating internal political alternatives to his regime, but is not yet in a position to be able to co-ordinate anything as complex as a proper guerilla war. The recent retirement of his two sons from their special guest starring roles will not have helped him, either. It won’t be too long now before we start to see that the current guerilla campaign is being waged by disparate groups: Saddam loyalists, Islamists, and those out to avenge the "collateral damage" they suffered during the "liberation" of their country. These groups have no basis to unite politically: the only goal they share is the eviction of the Americans and their front men. Once the Americans and the British look like they’ll be leaving soon, these groups will turn on each other in the quest for power.

  1. An actors’ strike will frustrate efforts to reach an agreement that leaves the US in charge in Iraq.

Mao said that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Actually, it grows out of the reactions of others to those who hold and use the guns. Returning exiles such as Mr. Chalabi are seen as puppets of the Americans, and are not fighting them at present. So, what about the guerilla factions?

Secret talks will eventually be held by the US with the guerilla groups. Unfortunately, the resistance will be too fragmented and too politically unskilled to negotiate effectively. As men who will by then have grown accustomed to imposing their will at gunpoint, they won’t initially see any need to resort to the compromises and consensus building that political dialogue involves. Especially not while the glittering prize of supreme power seems a likely prospect to one or more of them.

  1. The economic reconstruction story line will be canned.

The commercial feel-good factor about those big reconstruction contracts won’t last. If you’ve bought shares in Halliburton or Bechtel, I question your ethics and leave it to you to lock in your gains. Guerilla fighters will soon target any contractors who go out to Iraq as "American collaborators"; partly because they will be a relatively soft target, and partly because any delays to visible economic reconstruction will lend credibility to Iraqis who question the Bush administration’s motives for perhaps the most expensive location shoot (no pun intended) in history.

  1. The occupation story line will end in humiliation for the occupiers.

That’s what happens when the politicians send in the troops with no credible political plan for getting them out again. Political victory has been ruled out by the lack of a pre-existing, sharply defined and well-publicized exit strategy. The only alternative is political defeat. This is perhaps the most important lesson that team Bush hasn’t learned from Vietnam. Mr. Blair, meanwhile, thinks that the key lesson of Suez is to be sure of US support before embarking on any Middle Eastern adventures. That’s one lesson; but it isn’t the only one, or even the most important one. The support of one’s own party helps too, along with that missing exit strategy. Never mind; perhaps British weapons inspectors will find it buried in the sands of Iraq · next to the WMD, no doubt.

  1. British losses will remain lower than American losses throughout the life of the Iraq story arc.

This will happen for three reasons: firstly, the British are not in charge in Iraq, so killing a squaddie will never cause the same ripples in Iraq as killing a GI; secondly, the British are operating in and around Basra in southern Iraq, the political heartland of the Shia Muslim opposition to Saddam’s Sunni dominated regime, which means the locals will give them the benefit of the doubt… for a while; finally, the British army has over thirty years’ experience of policing amidst, and dealing with, guerilla warfare. Thanks in part to their experiences in Northern Ireland, British soldiers know how to spot and deal with civil unrest and urban terrorism. Perhaps the British squaddie finally has a reason to thank certain generous Irish-American sponsors of the IRA.

  1. The democratisation and regional stabilisation themes will need to be reworked.

Freedom as the absence of constraint is the indispensable means to the end of human achievement, and herein lies its value: but as TV detectives like to remind us about the ultimate act of human destruction, the use (or abuse) of freedom is a matter of motive, means and opportunity. To be truly free, I have to want to exercise my freedom to achieve something; I have to have, or be able to gain, the opportunity to achieve what I want (this is what the absence of constraint can give me); and I need to have, or be able to acquire, the tools to exploit my opportunity when it arises. If the means or the opportunity prove to be unobtainable, my only remaining freedom is to revise my plans, and start again. Anyone who has to revise their expectations too often may eventually conclude that they are unable to satisfy any of their newly-freed desires, and are therefore not nearly as free as they initially imagined.

An unexercised freedom is simply a blank canvas. Those who only think of freedom as an absence of constraint cannot tell anyone what a "free society" looks like, because a blank canvas doesn’t look like much else. They can only reply, properly speaking, with the words "What do you want a free society to look like?"

Unfortunately, a good many Iraqis may want to use their post-occupation freedom to settle some scores with the only bit of the US they can hope to reach: Israel. What those Iraqis don’t know is that a new freedom story line can’t be written as a tie-in with previous failures. By allowing very real past and present grievances to determine their political agenda, such Iraqis will in fact be sacrificing their freedom to build the kind of country in which they might actually want to live.

If, on the other hand, Iraq implodes in the near future, the only beneficiaries of the resulting power vacuum will be its neighbours: Syria and Iran. You may therefore be certain that, in an effort to forestall this, the US is already trying to turn student unrest in Iran to its advantage. Even Dubya knows he couldn’t get away with another invasion at this stage.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Arab world is watching to see what happens next. State-run Arab media outlets have spent over fifty years talking about a "Zionist-Imperialist Conspiracy" against the Arab people. Every Iraqi shot by Coalition forces and every day the Americans in particular spend in Iraq will only serve to confirm the truth of such allegations in their eyes. If you think the installation of Western-backed puppet regimes in Iran, Iraq and/or Syria will change this, I suggest you find out what happened to the Shah of Iran. So much for regional stabilisation.

  1. Rebranding the Iraq story line might boost the ratings and raise audience participation.

I don’t know about US readers, but certain sections of the British populace are ridiculing TWAT because its acronym spells out a British slang word for a stupid person. This clearly poses an image challenge for White House spin doctors, who know that team Bush can use all the support it can muster. Perhaps The War Against Terror could be rebranded as the Internationally Deployed Interdiction On Terror?

This offers two important advantages for everyone. Firstly, it may be used to suggest the existence of substantial international support for President Bush. Secondly, the new improved acronym, IDIOT, would leave nobody in any doubt that this campaign is a worthy successor to the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine of the Cold War era. But rebranding campaigns can be hazardous affairs, and must be aggressively marketed from the top down if they are to succeed. The White House can do its bit by reworking some job titles, and private enterprise can be used to produce plenty of campaign merchandise.

All official bodies connected with planning, implementing or supervising the current campaign could be reclassified as IDIOT boards. Dick Cheney, as the prime mover of Operation Iraqi Freedom, could be redesignated Chief IDIOT. The President could be known as IDIOT in Chief of the Armed Forces, and Mr. Blair may qualify as a Junior Prize IDIOT. So get online and buy some of that soon to be rebranded merchandise (badges, bumper stickers, tee-shirts, sweaters, baseball caps, coffee mugs, banners, etc.) as soon as it hits the e-streets. Your country’s economy needs you · to spend, spend, spend.

  1. Some thoughts on decommissioning after Series 2.

Once this turkey has finally died the death, a number of Iraqi actors will try to sue the British and American players for higher fees (known in the trade as compensation). This act will be born out of a heady cocktail of opportunism, desperation and vengefulness. Any such lawsuit will drag on for a minimum of years and years. Lawyers on both sides will be the real winners. Tax payers on both sides will be the real losers (so no change there, then).

Meanwhile, nobody is going to care what happens to the demoralised, the guilt-ridden and the traumatised among our returning troops. Most civilians won’t understand what they’ve been through, and won’t want to try to bridge the gap. The politicians and the armed forces will try to cast aside these "walking wounded" as quickly and cheaply as possible. The physically wounded can be paraded as heroes. Those damaged in mind or spirit are simply regarded as weaklings and/or loose cannons (again, no pun intended). This happens after every military campaign regardless of its participants, location, duration and outcome. Perhaps, like me, you’ll try to help the next batch of the betrayed to find their voice. If so, they may be able to raise the alarm and warn off some of those young ears already twitching in anticipation of the state’s next call to arms…