April 10, 2004

Rout

The Emperor has no uniform...

Patrick Sabatier, Liberation: Faced with uprisings
that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the
willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the
US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing
itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The
Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South
Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards
and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The
Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking
themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with
the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having
been swindled by the United States about the risks of
the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on
it. Hostage-taking risks precipitating a rout.

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http://truthout.org/docs_04/041004I.shtml

Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation

Friday 09 April 2004

Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and
harden, the "coalition of the willing", that
disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with
flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a
"coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have
beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone
to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait
for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help.
The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The
Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter
certainty of having been swindled by the United States
about the risks of the adventure as well as the
reasons for embarking on it. Hostage-taking risks
precipitating a rout.

For the most part, the Americans are entrenched in
their four mega-bases from which they launch reprisal
raids. Their Iraqi auxiliaries have vanished into thin
air. One year after Saddam Hussein's fall, the
coalition, in fact, no longer controls very much in an
Iraq that has come to resemble Afghanistan during the
Soviet occupation. From a military point of view, the
collapse of "the coalition" changes nothing for the
United States. From a political perspective, it's a
heavy blow.

Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too
late) to get him out of a bad situation by
legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some
simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June
30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that
transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries
whose opposition to the war he derided- including
France - to ask them to participate in a multinational
force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may
imagine that these countries will think twice before
jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into
after having dug it himself.

Posted by richard at April 10, 2004 11:38 AM