Not even Maliki

President George W. Bush’s farewell European tour was marked by his seemingly inane insistence that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was both righteous and successful. Once again, the facts on the ground in Iraq were colliding with Bush’s words as he spoke them.

Think back to Bush’s original promises as the administration launched this illegal war of aggression. A majority of Iraqis, he said, would greet the U.S. with open arms for liberating them from Saddam Hussein and a new democratic, sovereign Iraq, having become a friend to Washington, would use its oil wealth for the benefit of its people—after paying off Washington’s expenses for the war, of course. The mass media duly echoed this line and Congress approved the funds.

Now, more than five years later, a million Iraqis are dead, millions more have been turned into refugees, the nation itself is torn asunder, thousands of GIs have died and tens of thousands are badly wounded, and Bush is trying to impose a long-term “agreement” on the allegedly sovereign government of Iraq.

The military agreement Bush proposes involves the permanent placement of 58 U.S. military bases in Iraq, including five that a Boston Globe editorial described as “mega-bases that replicate the amenities of an American town,” each housing 10,000 to 20,000 troops. The Pentagon would control Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet. U.S. troops and private mercenaries, now called “contractors,” would be immune from legal prosecution in Iraq, no matter how many Iraqi civilians they slaughtered or Iraqi prisoners they tortured.

The economic agreement involves—you guessed it—Iraqi oil. Except it would no longer really be Iraqi. Almost all the oil would go to Western, mostly U.S., companies. The Iraq National Oil Co. would hold only 17 of Iraq’s 80 existing oilfields. Foreign corporations would control the rest, including all yet-to-be-discovered oil, for 30 years.

If anyone could have missed the point of the U.S. invasion over the last five years, the U.S. proposals spell it out: Washington and Wall Street want an abject colony in Iraq, to rob Iraq’s oil wealth and use its soil as a military launching pad for the next war.

Now consider that the Iraqi regime consists of politicians who owe their office to the U.S. invasion. They are secure only within the Green Zone of Baghdad, surrounded by a wall and U.S. troops. They are beholden to Washington.

Yet even they could not go along with these arrogant U.S. demands! Nuri al-Maliki, the premier, said the talks were “at an impasse.” Other members of the Iraqi Parliament had stronger criticism, even after the U.S. discussed some concessions. One Kurdish member said: “We will not sign.”

If the politicians most dependent on the U.S. are shouting out their anger against the pact, imagine how the other Iraqis feel. From resistance fighter to schoolchild, no Iraqi in 2008 can accept living as a colonial subject of U.S. imperialism. They ended colonial slavery in 1958, kicking out the British overlords.

Bush’s aggression was and is criminal. The Iraqi people won’t accept it, but, without a militant, organized opposition in the U.S., the military machine grinds on.