Blair should stop playing fall guy in Rumsfeld's war games

After decades of guerilla conflict in Afghanistan, its intensity is pretty low. So, although Karzai will inevitably fall without Western support, he does not need much troops to play his role of pro-US/UK stooge warlord.

In Iraq, situation is different. This is still a relatively fresh conflict, its intensity is pretty high. So, huge numbers of US/UK troops are needed to keep local stooges in place. However, the number of British troops in Iraq is relatively small.

In this situation, neocons can afford to make Blair a favor and use their local clients to make noises about possible UK withdrawal from Iraq. What is the exact meaning of these noises, is a hard question. Most likely, their only purpose is to make the Brits happy, but, in principle, certain reduction of the UK presence in Iraq is possible. Let us wait and see what will happen next.

Simon Jenkins. Blair should stop playing fall guy in Rumsfeld's war games: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1643584,00.html

Britain is throwing up a stooge's smokescreen to cover US withdrawal from Afghanistan. There is no need for such folly in Iraq
...the occupation has injected the poison of insurgency into both Sunni and Shia areas. They will get tougher the longer the occupation continues. By late next year, one intelligence analyst told me, "We may as well negotiate an exit strategy direct with Tehran".

The default mode of American foreign policy is isolation and of British policy continued intervention. America is shrewdly retreating from Afghanistan, knowing that the place is heading for trouble. Britain is the fall guy. Will the same happen in Iraq?

Jenkins goes on to write:

"The Rumsfeld doctrine was that if you want to beat hell out of a place, do so and get out. If you want to punish the Taliban for hosting Osama bin Laden, smash them to pieces. Bomb their cities, kill their families, but do not stay. Staying is for pinkos and social workers.

"Rumsfeld's Iraq strategy may have been full of holes, but it originally stuck to the same principle. Eliminate Saddam Hussein, obliterate his regime, but do it "lite". Never get bogged down in nation-building, whatever the neocons or neoimperialists may say. Find some stooge such as Ahmed Chalabi and leave him to sort the place out. Avoid large armies of occupation and, above all, avoid allies with moral scruples. As Condoleezza Rice told George Bush during his first election campaign: "We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten."

"In Afghanistan Rumsfeld's plan is now almost complete. From the start Washington insisted that once it had fixed the election of its puppet, Hamid Karzai, to office, it would get out fast. Democracy was in place. Afghanistan should be left to Karzai, the warlords, the Pashtun mullahs and the drug runners. If the Taliban returned, too bad. Find some stooge ally to throw up a smokescreen and get out.

Who is that smokescreen? The answer is John Reid."

In arguing this, Jenkins tells a rather rare truth. The neocons had their own devious agenda with regard to Bush's wars: this agenda was not what the electorate supported and rewarded in last year's election. The policy the electorate, those who voted for Bush, wanted could be summed up in one word. Revenge. As Jenkins says: "If you want to punish the Taliban for hosting Osama bin Laden, smash them to pieces. Bomb their cities, kill their families, but do not stay."

And this reaction is still active amongst the electorate. It is, I suspect, why they are not up in arms about torture, or the use of white phosphorus, or extraordinary rendition, or any of the other soul-rotting atrocities committed in their name. They still want blood.