Foreign troops in Iraq fuel insurgency

WASHINGTON -- It may seem like small potatoes as the reality of Iraq goes, and as Americans and Iraqis continue to die in Iraq, but in Washington and in the discussion in general, there is a growing sophistication about the complexity of the problems we face.
At a recent meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations, held in Istanbul and attended by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for instance, participants overwhelmingly came to the conclusion that it was not exclusively or even primarily religion that was inspiring the insurgency in Iraq, but resentment and rage over the presence of foreign troops there.
The secretary-general said in a memorable speech that calls for change "will have little impact if the current climate of fear and suspicion continues to be refueled by political events (my emphasis), especially those in which Muslim peoples -- Iraqis, Afghans, Chechens and, perhaps most of all, Palestinians -- are seen to be the victims of military action by non-Muslim powers ..."
This idea is also supported by research on the motivation of suicide bombers. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has updated his comprehensive research of the last few years and now writes of how the hatred of occupations inspires people hundreds and even thousands of miles away.
Suicide terrorism
"Deep anger at the use of foreign combat forces to suppress national self-determination by kindred groups is sufficient to inspire self-sacrifice, even when personal motives for revenge are completely absent," he writes. "Understanding that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism has important implications for how the U.S. government should conduct the war on terrorism ...
"Instead of religion, almost all suicide terrorist attacks around the world have in common a specific political goal: to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland or prize greatly."
A number of highly placed American generals treat these issues gingerly. Several have acknowledged that American occupation troops do indeed feed the rage and humiliation of the insurgents. But then they say we must 1) stay until the new Iraqi forces are sufficiently formed, or 2) put in more troops to "finish the job."
The truth that our presence is exacerbating the conflict, not solving it, is now acknowledged. But it's not yet part of the calculus of conceiving a solution. A little schizophrenia here?
For example, the United States continues, with remarkably little coverage in the press here, to build bases in Iraq, and we are building an immense new embassy in Baghdad, blocks long, with nearly a dozen cranes working around the clock. There is an implacable contradiction between realizing how occupations mobilize people against them and the planning that is still going on, dependent upon Iraqis who are seen locally as the cats' paws of the occupiers.
But even as the analysis becomes more sophisticated, many analysts are feeling increasingly hopeless. "If we stay in Iraq," William Lind, a military analyst and teacher, says, "the civil war there will intensify, with American troops caught in the middle. ... But if we withdraw, the civil war will intensify all the more rapidly. Unless that civil war is won by someone ... Iraq will become a stateless region of permanent chaos, a generator and supplier of the non-state Islamic forces who are our real enemy."
So there you have it -- the riddle, the enigma, the constant contradiction of Iraq. Our leaders, political and military, incredibly did not see in the beginning that this was a country whose history was one of brutal and cruel clashes -- between ethnic groups, between clans, between religions, and always against hated outsiders. They didn't have a clue that Iraq, never really a country at all, was always on the edge of chaos.
Many years ago, in the early '80s, I was covering the Sultanate of Oman and interviewing the progressive country's Sultan Qaboos. As the Iraq/Iran war started, he wisely engaged American troops to protect the strategic Strait of Hormuz area, but kept them "over the horizon" -- either on ships or on remote islands, but NOT on Omani ground, where they could provoke the nationalistic hatred we see in Iraq and elsewhere today. It was his idea, and it worked brilliantly.
Universal Press Syndicate