The hanging of Saddam Hussein and the conditions under which it took place signal only one thing: the United States has lost control of the Iraq War. Our troops may stay in Iraq, but their mission will have changed and they no longer have the freedom to carry out missions that have not been approved by the Shiites who now control what remains of the country.There had been signs of this in recent weeks. For example, when an American with Iraqi ties disappeared when he decided to make a trip outside the Green Zone, our troops were ordered to stand down in their search for him. This past week under pressure from both Iran and the Iraqi government, U.S. troops released two Iranians they had accused of running guns and planning Shiite attacks. Last fall, General George Casey forced U.S. troops to release a sheikh they accused of being involved in death squads. The sheikh was an ally of Moktada al-Sadr, who increasingly seems to be calling the shots in Iraq.
From reports from various news sources, Saddam’s final hours appear to have been totally scripted by the majority Shiite government in Iraq. At the center of the conflict was the date of Saddam’s execution as well as the Muslim holy days that began yesterday. The official procedure for Saddam’s execution required a unanimous vote by the three-man presidential council composed of a Kurd, a Shiite, and a Sunni. A senior Bush administration official said the Kurds had called for a delay because they wanted to see Saddam prosecuted for crimes against them. It is assumed the Sunni official would have probably supported this, if only to delay the execution. But Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki would have none of this and signed the death sentence with only minimal input from the council and a great deal of browbeating. He issued a further statement to the Sunni minority warning that their hopes of ever returning to power were lost.
According to the New York Times, the pace of events left some of the American legal advisors working on the case stunned, according to one Western official. For all the guidance the Americans provided, in the end the dictator�s demise did not go the way they expected, the officials said. �It just goes to show that the Iraqis call the shots on something like this,� the official said. Given Maliki’s quick action, all Bush officials could do was to issue a weak statement saying they had no desire to seek a delay in the execution.
The interesting twist to all this is that Saddam was in American custody, so in order for the execution to be carried out he had to be handed over to the Iraqis, which they did in the early hours of the morning. That they did this knowing that Maliki had arm-twisted his council and also knowing that a major religious holiday was about to start, suggests that the calculated decision to hand Saddam over to Maliki represented a calculated wimping out at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In short George W. Bush capitulated to Maliki and al-Sadr.
This morning finds the administration back pedaling to recover some of their lost dignity and power. Stories are placing emphasis on the American negotiators in Iraq who worked with Maliki through the night to try to work out some kind of deal about how Saddam would be put to death.
The theme of today’s stories is that these local American officials were the ones who made the decisions, not people back in Washington. But one has to be incredibly naive to believe that the decision to execute Saddam was not made at the highest levels. Just to speculate, sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning, the Bush inner circle in essence gave the green light to the negotiators in Baghdad to cut the best deal they could, but if Maliki insisted they were to go along.
Even more curious is the reaction of the American media. The San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times originally ran stories in the morning editions of their papers that carried details of Maliki’s actions and the reactions of Bush officials that are quoted above. In later accounts of the execution these details were omitted from the Times’ coverage. In fact when I wrote the post last night I had to rely on a print copy because the Internet copy had strangely been pulled. Other media failed to mention how far Maliki had gone.
Meanwhile evidence has surfaced indicating Moktada al-Sadr himself may have had a hand in the death of Saddam. According to recently released first-hand accounts of those who were there two guards uttered the name of of Mokatada directly at Hussein. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, asked Saddam about the killing of al-Sadr’s father, a crime widely attributed to Saddam. The answer could not be heard. Sources also say the guard detail for the execution was a “newly trained unit of the Iraqi National Police.” All of which makes one wonder if members of al-Sadr’s own militia did not do the job or were at least present.
This morning as transcripts of the infamous “cell phone pictures” are making clear, my late night hint was right on the mark. Several media sources now have identified some of the guards as militia members who deliberately taunted Saddam. In essence they have turned this sick murderer into a martyr. Only someone equally sick–read al-Sadr–could have masterminded such an atrocity.
The timing of the execution at the opening of the Muslim holy festival of Eid-al-Adha, particularly incensed many Muslims across the world. According to the BBC, Syrian Cabinet Minister Bouthaina Shaban took great objection to the timing. He said, “I think there is a large moral responsibility in doing it on such a holy holiday [Muslim festival of Eid-al-Adha] whether Christian or Muslim, there are moral things that one should do, and nobody is convinced that this is an implementation of justice…”
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai also criticized the timing, “�We wish to say that Eid is a day for happiness and reconciliation. It is not a day for revenge,” Karzai told reporters at the presidential palace after offering an Eid prayer at Kabul�s main mosque early Saturday.
Even Iraqi officials found the timing of the event distateful. “According to the law, no execution can be carried out during the holidays,” said one official involved in the negotiations. “After all the hard work we have done, why would we break the law and ruin what we have built.”
The events surrounding Saddam’s execution testify strongly that the United States is no longer in control in Iraq. Who is in control is open to question, but if our government can no longer stand up to Maliki, al-Sadr and the Shiite militias who back them then it has lost any leverage it might have over the situation. It is ironic that as the war began, the United States talked confidently about a day when the Iraqi’s would call the shots. Now that that time has come, it is increasingly clear many of those shots are aimed in our direction.
As usual, the troops on the ground know exactly what is going down. In a rare display of candor by a senior American officer, Maj. William Voorhies pointed out in the December 28, New York Times, “I have come to the conclusion that this is no longer America’s war in Iraq but the Iraqi civil war where America is fighting.”
In the end, the death of Saddam Hussein may mark the nadir of American incompetence in Iraq. It may also mark the death of something far more important than a tin-horn dictator: it marks the end of any hope that this country can play a meaningful role in the Middle East or in world politics as long as George Bush and company remain in the White House. In fact, the damage may be so severe, that a new administration may not be able to untangle the mess, especially if it is Republican.
In timing the execution at the start of a religious holiday the Iraqis played us for a sucker, knowing the Muslim world–which already sees this country as anti-Muslim–would blame it on us, not Maliki. That we would allow ourselves to be placed in such a situation shows that the impact of the Religious Right on this administration must still be strong or else our foreign policy people are incredibly insensitive, stupid or both.
For all practical purposes the game is over. As Major Voorhies testified, the Iraqis–read Maliki, al-Sadr and the Shiites–now hold all the cards. A Republican Party that once berated Bill Clinton for allowing American troops to even conduct joint exercises with foreign troops in Bosnia now finds itself in the impossible position of having to explain American soldiers being bossed by Maliki. I cannot think of a lower point in American military history. When our commanders on the ground must scrap missions, modify them or even reverse them because Maliki says so, shows how low this nation has fallen.
It is one thing to ask Americans to die for “liberating” Iraq. It is quite another to ask them to die for Maliki and al-Sadr. Ironically when we left Vietnam people predicted there would be a blood bath. It never happened. My guess is that when we withdraw from Iraq Arab countries in the area will also not allow a blood bath to happen on their doorsteps or to those of their faith.
When I completed writing The Strange Death of Liberal America, I did not know how far the Republican Counterrevolution’s disregard for the level playing field and its four cornerstones would go. Now we have the answer. As a New Year dawns we need to reassert the primacy of Liberal America’s core values not only at home but throughout the world. When that rope snapped the neck of Saddam Hussein, something also snapped in America. Now it is time to bury the Counterrevolution as the Iraqis buried Saddam. This country and Iraq need to return to sanity.
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