A Puppet Government In Iraq Equals Disaster for the US
"The will of the people... is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waring, 1801. ME 10:236
After five years of trying to impose an artificial democracy onto the people of Iraq, it’s clear the experiment is failing.
Bush’s surge is winding down, and without the American “cops” on every corner, violence is again returning to the streets in Iraq.
Why? Because Nouri al-Maliki’s government is not popularly supported by the Iraqi people. It’s a puppet government set up and maintained by the United States. And puppet governments just don’t work. They didn’t work, for example, in Vietnam, and they won’t work in Iraq.
Why not? Let’s look at some facts:
In Iraq, Shi’a Muslims comprise over 65% of the population; Sunni Muslims about 37%. Christians constitute a much smaller minority.
Through the Ba’ath Party, Sunni Muslims have ruthlessly controlled Iraq, subjugating the Shi’a as well as all the other religious minorities since 1963. Much of that time, the Ba’ath Party worked hand in hand with the CIA, including during most of Saddam’s reign – Saddam really didn’t fall from grace with the CIA or the US generally, until after he invaded Kuwait in 1990. That, of course, precipitated the First Gulf War.
Then came the current war.
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I won’t go into a discussion of the present war in Iraq here. Let me just say only that there was no just cause for invading Iraq. There are no weapons of mass destruction; no ties between Saddam and al Qaeda; there was no reason at all for going to war. None.
Saddam Hussein was certainly a despicable, evil, tyrant, but he really wasn’t in a position to harm anyone outside Iraq.
Since the start of this un-just war, the US has been careful to showcase the pretense of coalition building; and more recently, careful to not ostensibly ignore the Shi’a Muslims in forming the present Iraqi government.
But the plain fact is that the Shi’a majority don’t want a democracy. Since nearly the time of Christ, these people have lived under Islamic law in a religious theocracy. That’s what they’re used to; that’s what they’re comfortable with; that’s what they want.
History is a good indicator as to the likely success of the machinations by the US to artificially impose a democracy on these people.
And interestingly, the similarities to the situation in Vietnam are numerous. Let’s look at some history…
The Vietnam Saga
In Vietnam, dating from the 1950’s, France and later the United States, propped up a total of around a dozen puppet governments.
None of those governments ever gained popular support from the people – and it was chiefly because of that lack of support that most of the different governments failed.
In Vietnam, the big issue for the United States was communism – the “terrorists” of the 50’s and 60’s. According to the doctrine established by President Eisenhower – called the “Domino Theory” – if Vietnam fell to the communists, then the whole of Southeast Asia was in jeopardy.
Following the close of the Second World War, France wanted to re-assume control of Vietnam – it had been a French colony since the mid-nineteenth century. France looked to the United States for support in the re-establishment of the colony, which it claimed was integral to its recovery as a nation.
The United States was in an uncomfortable position because during the war, it had actively supported a local rebel group – the Vietminh, formed in 1941 – who fought against the Japanese, and against the Vichy French government (which had collaborated with the Japanese during the occupation).
The Vietminh was led by a communist educated in London, Paris and Moscow, Ho Chi Minh.
Following the departure of the Japanese in the fall of 1945, the Vietminh declared Vietnam an independent sovereign nation with its capital in Hanoi, and set up an interim government with
Ho Chi Minh as the head. Based on the close ties they had established with us during the war, they too looked to the United States for help.
The United States was in a quandary. Ho Chi Minh may have worked for us during the war, but the economic revival of Europe was one of the number-one, top goals of the time.
And so, under tremendous pressure from Great Britain and France and other countries, the US turned its back on Ho Chi Minh, and stood idle allowing the French to reestablish their colony in Vietnam in 1946.
Thus started the First Indochina War.
To give their colonial occupation legitimacy, in 1949, the French installed a puppet government headed by the former Emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai – a westernized playboy who had no real influence. Ngo Dinh Diem became Premier.
Diem was more popular than Bao Dai. Diem was an aristocratic Catholic from Central Vietnam, a supposed nationalist, with no real ties to the French.
The United States contributed heavy financial support during this period. By some estimates, the US may have financed as much as 80% of the costs of the French war in Vietnam.
As time went by, the French controlled less and less of the country. Finally, in late 1953, after a prolonged siege, the French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu. They decided it was finally time to get out.
At the Geneva Conference in 1954, a cease-fire agreement was worked out which partitioned Vietnam into two separate countries. The North was controlled by the Vietminh.
The Bao Dai government controlled the South – although that was short-lived.
Diem soon rigged an election where Bao Dai was overthrown, and then proclaimed himself President. Diem, who enjoyed a very close relationship with the CIA, was aggressively and ruthlessly anti-communist, and employed many of the same tactics as Saddam Hussein to stay in power (although Diem wasn’t even as good a player as Saddam).
The United States Gets Involved
After France had completed pulling its troops out in 1956, the first US military advisors arrived in strength, ostensibly to train the South Vietnamese Army. For the period from 1956 through the early sixties, they maintained a relatively low profile.
In this early period, the Diem regime was quite successful in military operations against the Vietminh.
To counter Diem’s successes, the Vietminh responded by establishing an umbrella organization, the National Liberation Front (NLF) – also derisively known as the Viet Cong – to operate in South Vietnam.
While set-up by the North Vietnamese, the NLF was ostensibly a partisan nationalistic organization with membership open to any and all who opposed Diem – not just communists. In practice, its membership was widely comprised of groups from most of the political and religious spectrum of South Vietnam.
The NLF’s main goals were to overthrow Diem – whom they perceived to be an American, colonial, puppet – and to “institute a largely liberal and democratic regime.” This held great appeal for the people of South Vietnam.
Historically, Vietnam had been under foreign rule for much of the last couple thousand years. Most of that time was spent under Chinese rule, but from the mid-nineteenth century, Vietnam had existed as a French colony. The sentiment for self-rule was quite strong among the Vietnamese.
The NLF played on these sentiments and was very successful in unifying the local populations, in opposition to Diem and the United States.
The Diem government’s final downfall came in 1963 after Diem attempted to establish Catholicism as the national religion in the predominately Buddhist country. In Vietnam, Buddhists comprised as much as 70% of the population at that time, Catholics less than 10%.
This and other repressive, dictatorial, measures instituted by Diem sparked massive protests from Buddhist and many other groups, including students and intellectuals. Many Buddhist monks actually set themselves on fire in protest. At the same time, the NLF had come to control greater and greater portions of the country.
The Diem government became an embarrassment to the United States.
Unable to get Diem to agree to reforms, and figuring that South Vietnam was teetering on the verge of total collapse, the United States gave its tacit approval to a coup led by some of the top generals in the South Vietnamese Army. Diem and his brother were assassinated.
Following that, there were a series of new, less popular governments all heavily propped up by the United States.
And from that time on, by necessity, the American involvement in Vietnam grew and grew.
H2>Gulf of Tonkin Incident
In 1964, citing an attack in international waters by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on two American destroyers, the Maddox and the C. Turner Joy, President Lyndon Johnson succeeded in having congress pass the Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution, which essentially allowed him to wage all-out war against North Vietnam – without having actually declared war.
The number of American troops in Vietnam had been steadily climbing. In 1961, there were about 900 American advisors in South Vietnam; by 1964, this had risen to around 11,000 soldiers. By the end of 1965, this jumped to nearly 200,000 US combat troops on the ground in Vietnam. By 1968, US troop strength would peak at over 536,000.
Though these years, the US anti-war movement gained momentum, and began to have effect. Sentiment at home eventually turned heavily against the war. Because of this vast decline in public support, the United States was forced to pursue a peace with the North Vietnamese. The number of American troops began to be reduced in 1969. The war began to wind down.
Following the final withdrawal of American troops in March 1973, the last government of South Vietnam – now without American support to prop it up – fell in April 1975.
The cost was more than 50,000 American lives mostly over a period of about 10 years.
These lives were completely lost in vain; their loss did not change the eventual outcome of the Vietnamese political situation by one iota; they merely stalled it off for a period of time.
Pursuing Democracy in Iraq is a Fool’s Quest
The current situation in Iraq is not really all that different.
At this point, we’re a little over five years into our occupation of Iraq. We’ve lost more than 4,300 American lives. With the ending of the surge, the fighting intensifies on a daily basis.
The Iraqis have several thousand years of their own history to draw guidance from. But at no time during those thousands of years of a long and very illustrious history, has there ever been a democracy in Iraq. The simple notion of a democracy is quite foreign to Iraqi citizens. From their standpoint, they don’t understand it, don’t need it, and don’t want it.
So who exactly are we trying to fool?
Keeping our experiences in the Vietnam War in mind, we need to ask ourselves the question, that if we continue our occupation in Iraq for another 8 or 10 or 100 years – or as John McCain says, “For as long as it takes…” – will Iraq ever become an actual democracy? Will our occupation ever change the inevitable outcome?
While considering this, we need to bear in mind the fact that the Shi’a‘s comprise over 65% of the population, and it’s almost certain they will eventually end up dominant in any government.
Based on these facts, I believe the only rational and logical answer is that this plan to implement a democracy in Iraq is no more likely to succeed than any of the dozen different puppet governments we propped up in Vietnam.
We have no business trying to impose artificial westernized styles of government on the people of Iraq. If a clear majority of the country wants a religious theocracy or monarchy or whatever, then so be it – that’s what they should have – and will have as soon as we’re finally gone.
The are only two ways an unpopular minority government can stay in power: the way Saddam Hussein stayed in power – by ruthlessly killing all those who opposed him and by subjugating the population; or, with the help and support of a large occupying army – as it was in Vietnam, and as currently exists in Iraq.
This is a fool’s quest.
Because you can’t change what is inevitable. You just flat can’t. It didn’t work in Vietnam, it’s not working in Afghanistan, and it won’t work in Iraq.
The only responsible course is to get out now and let the chips fall where they will. If it results in an Islamic theocracy dominated by the Shi’a, then we must accept that.
>"Every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will; and externally to transact business with other nations through whatever organ it chooses, whether that be a King, Convention, Assembly, Committee, President, or whatever it be. The only thing essential is, the will of the nation." – Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney, 1792. ME 9:7
All our current occupation does is forestall the puppet government’s almost certain, eventual collapse.
The Iraqi people have extremely long memories. They refer to us as the “Crusaders.” We’re looked on as invaders, not liberators. To a very large degree, our very presence in Iraq aggravates the situation there. Our presence in Iraq gives the Islamic extremist groups a cause célèbre – a reason for existence – and is responsible for driving thousands of new recruits into their folds. Our presence in Iraq just prolongs the agony of the Iraqi people.
The presence of our troops serves no useful purpose at all.
The American troops must come home at once. We must quickly withdraw all Americans from Iraq.
Because no puppet government will ever prevail in Iraq.
I just hope we don’t have to spend another 50,000 American lives – in vain – before people accept this truth.
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