أمريكا و العراق: تبعات الانسحاب

هيرالد تريبيون – أوكسفورد 21/6/2007

على الرغم من بعض النجاحات التكتيكية, إلا أن الناخبين الأمريكيين مقتنعون تماماً بأن القوات الأمريكية غير قادرة على إعادة الاستقرار إلى العراق.

US/IRAQ: Withdrawal consequences

Oxford Analytica

Published: June 21, 2007

Despite some tactical successes, US voters are increasingly convinced that US forces will be unable to restore stability in Iraq . As political disillusionment with the Iraq project gradually forces a troop drawdown, attention is turning to the likely consequences for Iraq and the region of a reduced US military presence after 2009.

According to the latest (June 1-3) Gallup polling data, 71% of the US public believes that the campaign in Iraq is going "badly or very badly", a record high, and a majority now support a timetable for withdrawal. Conscious of these political realities, US officials -- including President George Bush -- realize that time is running out on the Iraq project. While there is little prospect that the bulk of US forces will be withdrawn before Bush leaves office in January 2009, it is equally certain that a major drawdown will occur before the next presidential election cycle in 2012. This pullout will likely occur before the United States has achieved its strategic objectives, which will have significant consequences of Iraq , the wider Middle East and the outlook for US foreign policy.

A substantial near-term US troop pullout from Iraq is unlikely as long as Bush is president. It would represent a humiliating defeat for the administration and an admission of failure on Bush's signature effort in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The president remains the commander-in-chief, and are no signs that he believes even a phased withdrawal is compatible with US national security interests.

Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely that Bush's successor, Republican or Democrat, could win re-election in 2012 with a large US troop presence in Iraq . Public opinion has soured on the war, and in many ways has soured on the Iraqis. Hundreds of billions of dollars in assistance and over 3,500 US soldiers' lives have failed to produce either a strong Iraqi government or a grateful Iraqi public. Increasingly, US voters see Iraq as an ever-deepening quagmire. The Iraqi central government, to the extent it exists, is a collection of sectarian fiefdoms with so weak an institutional capacity that it cannot even spend money -- let alone build infrastructure. Ministries are handed over to sectarian parties (few of any other kind are left), who then put their cronies in positions of influence and push out whatever talented bureaucrats might still be left after four years of chronic violence. The assembly remains paralyzed, and there is no notion of constituent services. To the extent that anything can get done on the governmental level, to an increasing degree it is done locally, via provincial warlords, militias or their proxies, each with its own agendas, clients, and enemies.

Meanwhile, Washington is facing up to the inadequacy of its policy and strategy over the past four years. Infrastructure has been blown up time after time, hastily constructed buildings have begun to crumble, and it is clear that the US-trained Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are still not up to the job. Moreover, the policy tools that the United States has at its disposal are rapidly diminishing, since its influence over the central government appears to be shrinking, its ability to execute projects is crippled, and even its ability to be Iraq 's security guarantor is dwindling. Washington no longer calls the shots, and it is no longer indispensable to the outcome of disputes. Iraqis will increasingly direct strategy according to their own objectives without reference to US goals.

Europe appears to have largely washed its hands of Iraq , leaving Washington largely on its own to manage security and reconstruction. Although the coalition that the Bush administration assembled was always more rhetorical than practical, it is increasingly clear that the US president went into Iraq alone, and a future US president will have to get out alone, regardless of the consequences.

Washington's presence in Iraq will gradually diminish over the next five years, leaving in place a weak, decentralised system of warlords with some foreign support. The central government appears certain to weaken over time, but the prospect of a new al-Qaida haven arising in the Sunni triangle is not the most significant threat that would emerge from a post-US Iraq. Rather, it is the galvanising effect that a US troop pullout would have on Islamist radicals in the Maghreb , the Palestinian territories, Jordan and beyond.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/21/news/21.oxan.php

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نشرنا لهذه المقالات لا يعني أنها تعبر عن وجهة نظر المركز كلياً أو جزئياً

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من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ