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All that we seem to hear about when it comes to Iraq is the tale of the " security " agreement that President Bush has been trying to shove down the Iraqi's throats. We already know what our government wants to do with Iraq and that it was only our government that had any input when it came to writing this agreement.
The press in Iran has a different look at this agreement, which you may find somewhat interesting. It certainly is a different viewpoint from what we hear from our press.
June 21, 2008
U.S. colonialism in Iraq
By Ardeshir Ommani
Earlier this month, that part of humanity that respects its own freedom and dignity was a witness to an impending conclusion of a unilateral ‘security’ agreement between the U.S., the sole author of this forced concession, and the Iraqi government.
The one-sided accord is an example of colonial rule and a pseudo-legal foundation for the extension of the violent U.S. occupation of that country. By means of this so-called treaty, with no time and space limitations, George W. Bush’s Washington intends to disguise its ugly and brutal treatment of the people of Iraq with a veneer of legality, such that in the eyes of the least-informed American people, and some of the European members of the UN Security Council, the presence of the U.S. military machine in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region would not be construed as an indefinite continuation of the U.S. military occupation. Furthermore, the agreement would probably be exploited to serve as a basis for using Iraq’s territory as a launch pad for more wars against regional countries.
Meanwhile, in talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Tehran in early June, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei made his rejection of this proposed ‘security pact’ clear by stating that “occupiers who interfere in Iraq’s affairs through their military and security might” are the main cause of Iraq’s problems and are the “…main obstacle in the way of the Iraqi nation’s progress and prosperity.”
Clearly, there is no doubt that the continued aggression of U.S. forces in Iraq should not be tolerated by the Iranian people.
Some years ago, when the early draft version of today’s pact was in its infancy, the nationalist forces and religious leaders of Iraq were led to believe that signing the agreement would sooner or later lead to U.S. troop withdrawal and Iraq’s independence. But today that presumption has been turned on its head and it has become transparent to everyone that the U.S. objective is to pull the noose tight and attain the position of the permanent hangman of modern history. Today some Iraqi officials are trying to convince the Iraqi and Arab popular masses that the agreement will result in the invalidation of paragraph seven of the UN resolution on Iraq that made the U.S. the guarantor of Iraq’s security until the end of this year.
At the same time as this hoax is being pushed, the U.S., by attempting to depict Iran as a serious threat in the Persian Gulf region, is making every effort to define the agreement between Washington and Baghdad as a means to maintain Iraq’s security as a shield against Iranian interference in Iraq and the region. What hypocrisy: the invader of Iraq and Afghanistan claims to be an agent of peace and security!
This agreement imposes capitulation on Iraq for decades to come. It is revealing that the details of the ‘agreement’ have not been made public or grasped by the people of Iraq, who will have very little say in the matter and that is why the package is being furiously pushed through the Iraqi Parliament before its terms are thoroughly exposed. This so-called ‘security agreement’ could more correctly be called ‘The Legitimization of America’s Occupation of Iraq’. According to some reliable Iraqi sources, the agreement does not assure Iraq’s independence, national integrity, and national sovereignty as an inalienable right.
The empire also has to deal with its own American public, which is war-weary and demanding an end to the occupation. The intent of the Bush administration is to blur the differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates on the question of immediate troop withdrawal. Should the White House be able to impose such an enslaving order on the people of Iraq, the chance of Senator McCain’s election improves, while the lot of Senator Barack Obama plummets. It seems tricky George has a card up his sleeve for stealing yet another election.
Once again, the sorcerer in the White House is orchestrating another fabrication. If the current administration can pull this off, they intend to proclaim to the American people that the Iraqi people have agreed to the continuation of the U.S. occupation of their country and “want us to stay to protect them.”
On the other side of this cruel and long occupation stands a fighting force, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, who announced and called for widespread demonstrations against the disreputable and colonial infliction. Responding to the call on Friday, June 1, 2008, hundreds of thousands of indignant and offended Iraqis poured into the streets of all major cities and their reaction was a clear refutation of George W. Bush’s plot: they burned American flags in the hundreds.
Should this Washington document between the invader and the invaded succeed, it would be a clear violation of the national sovereignty of Iraq, to say the least. Meanwhile, the U.S. will continue to plunder Iraq’s natural resources and subject its labor force to the most de-humanizing exploitation and degradation.
The patriotic forces, first and foremost the laboring people’s movement, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, along with other nationalist organizations, have expressed their outrage over such an agreement, which would capitulate their country’s independence to an occupying power. Nevertheless, some Iraqi officials speak in favor of signing the agreement. A draft of this ‘agreement’ emerged for the first time in 2006. It was meant to serve as a legal document legitimizing the crimes committed by individual U.S. servicemen and contract mercenaries (Blackwater comes to mind) against Iraqi citizens with no involvement in the national conflict. The document deprives the Iraqi state apparatus of the right to arrest or prosecute any American involved in service to the occupation, even when he or she commits crimes not related to the U.S. war effort. In the last quarter of 2007, the Bush administration once again brought the issue of the ‘agreement’ forward for discussion in the Iraqi Parliament.
It could safely be said with a high degree of certainty that, for a long time, the U.S. has not been a country that is able to convince other nations to follow its path to peace, democracy and lasting prosperity, the way it has been showcased by an army of advertisers promoting the old cliché of American exceptionalism. In the minds of the overwhelming majority of humanity, including the nations of Western Europe that the U.S. has for almost a century taken for granted, the U.S. socioeconomic system has increasingly become a symbol of violence and fraud. The history of the last half century in particular brilliantly shows that the U.S. has been synonymous with wars, killings, palace coups, threats of annihilation, strangulating sanctions, and false allegations about many countries and nations on earth. Iraq and Afghanistan are only the latest examples
