Bush’s Constitutional delusions

When the Bush administration ordered the U.S. military into Iraq, the would-be conquerors in Washington were enveloped in an extravagant fantasy-the vision of U.S. forces joyously being greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people who were preparing to shower them with flowers as they marched triumphantly through the streets of Baghdad.

The deaths of almost 2,000 U.S. troops, the wounding of thousands more and the determined intransigence of the Iraqi resistance have not cured Bush and company of its penchant towards self-delusion. For it took self-delusion for Washington to imagine that it could order the unholy collection of bourgeois stooges it brought out of exile and its gang of domestic collaborators to construct a constitutional order that would neatly demonstrate the neo-con theory of “bringing democracy” to Iraq.

Instead, the 75-member “constitutional committee,” which is composed of U.S.-approved power brokers, has broken up into a war of irreconcilable, unprincipled factions grabbing for oil, territory and power that threatens to break up Iraq.

Among the principle actors in this farce are Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, spokesperson for the Shiite Dawa Party, who was part of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council; Jalil Talabani, a leader of the Kurdish landlords whose Pesh merga fought alongside U.S. troops during the March 2003 invasion and in Falluja; and Baqir Al-Hakim of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), associated with Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. Now SCIRI is promoting Islam in the constitutional process. But SCIRI folded its hands and collaborated with U.S. forces during the U.S. invasion and desecration of the holy city of Najaf to put down the insurrection of fellow Shiite Muqtada al-Sadr.

And then there is Ahmad Chalabi, Pentagon favorite, banker-embezzler and exile who is the so-called “secular” representative of the Shiites. The Defense Minister, Sadoon al-Dulaimi, is a Sunni who fled to Britain in 1990 and returned with the bayonets of U.S. forces in 2003. The Islamic Party, the Dawa Party, the followers of the al-Hakim dynasty and the Kurdish Democratic Party were all opposed to the revolution of 1958 which ousted the British-backed monarchy, overturned the privileges of the landlords, gave rights to women and finally nationalized Iraqi oil. Now they see a chance to regain their class privileges under the protection of the Pentagon and U.S. imperialism.

These conspirators have been “negotiating” behind the backs of the Iraqi masses for over 70 sessions now and they are still at each others throats. Under the guise of “federalism” versus centralism, and Islamic rule versus secularism, class interests of bosses, landlords and warlords are being fought out. The so-called “constitutional process” is a complete farce. And all of Bush’s projections have gone up in smoke.

The lust for loot among the collaborators and puppets has run riot in the Green Zone. It is only exceeded by the voracious appetite of the U.S. oil companies, the Penta gon and the military-industrial complex. Washington has failed as miserably at orchestrating a “constitutional” settlement in Iraq as it has in the war.

Fortunately for the workers and oppressed of the world, the heroic Iraqi resistance is exhibiting the most extraordinary self-sacrifice and determination to destroy Bush’s triumphalist delusions—both military and political.