June 30th was a day for Iraqis to celebrate, as U.S. troops finally withdrew from their major cities. After more than six years of foreign soldiers kicking in doors, paying off murderers, and soaking villages with white phosphorous, the Iraqis finally gained control of their land (and their problems).

This is part of Obama’s new “grand strategy” to “pull out” from Iraq by December 31, 2011, and until then U.S. forces will remain as night watchmen and have permission to enter cities only when the Iraqi government asks them to. U.S. puppet Prime Minister Malaki is hailing this as a “victory” for the Iraqi people, though there are still going to be 130,000 troops waiting for his call to crush anyone him and his Army can’t handle on their own.

This partial pull-out is nothing more than a metaphorical passing of the emperor-torch to Malaki, who now has the “sole” authority to request American troops. Obama’s new “grand strategy” (the perfect name for a plan coming from the Egomaniac-in-Chief) in Iraq is a way of making it seem like U.S. troops are being taken out of harm’s way so that he can justify keeping them there as long as possible.

The point of the invasion of Iraq was never to declare “victory” and go home. Empires don’t go home, and the U.S. invaded Iraq to continue its expansion of bases and Vatican-size embassies, expand its hegemonic influence in the region, and take out one of Israel’s biggest threats. Gen. George Casey, who used to be in charge of all forces in Iraq, has suggested U.S. forces will have to stay in the region for at least ten years. Well, ten more years isn’t really that long of a time compared to the sixty-four years (and counting) that the U.S. has occupied Germany and South Korea.

Iraq truly is a mess, which is why U.S. troops aren’t going to be knocking on their parents’ or wives’ doors anytime soon. Iraq is an artificial country with at least three different major ethnic tribes competing for power. The only way Iraq can heal these divisions and remain unified is if an ugly civil war occurs, and the winning faction holds the fractured country together by force, i.e. Saddam. Ivan Eland highlights some of the reasons why Iraq is broken beyond repair: a corrupt Parliament, hatred of U.S. forces, poor to no training of the Iraqi Army, factionalism, suicide bombing after suicide bombing, and basic sanitary services are still a rarity.

The U.S. military, overstretched and broke, was given the impossible job of  fixing these problems, some of them centuries old, and now will be waiting on the sidelines if (when) they are needed for support. When will the American Empire learn that the world’s problems are too complex and too numerous to be fixed by our “surges” or our massive indiscriminate bombings?

Obama, like any good emperor, is convinced that the mess in the Middle East that he inherited can only be solved by overwhelming and crushing force (on a side note, the Air Force bombed a funeral the other day. We won’t even let them bury their dead before we create new graves to fill). This is why he is also sending thousands of more young Marines to Afghanistan and ordering soulless drones to fire missiles at anything and everything in Pakistan. The option of withdrawing and dealing openly and diplomatically with Iraq and her neighbors never seems to cross the mind of the U.S. war machine and the empty-suited emperors in the White House.

The U.S. is occupying over 120 countries with over 800 bases around the world, and Iraq is just another colony in our empire of bases, and we’re not leaving anytime soon.

» You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.