How the "surge" strategy might succeed

While reading Monday’s White House Briefing on George’s “surge” strategy, the following theory came to me as if in a dream. Things that didn’t make sense suddenly fell into place. For those of you who like a little drama, below I lay out the whole story in five acts. For the rest of you, here’s the summary:

The “surge” strategy is not just smoke and mirrors on the domestic front intended to help George save face, although it is that. It is also something liquid and crude. Dick Cheney has promised to keep the Maliki government in power through January 20^th, 2009, in exchange for passage of a new Petroleum Law. This new Petroleum Law, drawn up with the help of the consulting firm BearingPoint, will provide extremely preferential access to Iraq’s here-to-fore-nationalized oil reserves for US-based oil companies. See the article “Blood and Oil” which appeared in The Independent for a description of the New Petroleum Law. The “surge” is essentially Dick Cheney sending in the Marines, literally and figuratively, to protect the Maliki government long enough so that it can put the new law on the books. Only in this light does the surge strategy make any sense whatsoever.

Here’s the play in five acts…

Act I – Where in we learn the facts on the ground

First, the purpose of the war, as Helen Thomas so regularly reminds us, has never been explained with any plausibility. Every justification given so far has fallen, sometimes like a brick, usually like a feather. None have stood the test of time. We are fighting “to get the job done,” but George will not tell us what the job is.

Second, the current proposal for “going forward”, described as a troop “surge” by some and “escalation” by others, is the same weak hand of cards George tried to play in 2004, 2005, and 2006. But lets put aside the gambler’s hope that this time he’s going to draw three aces, the fact is that not a single substantial assertion about Iraq made by George and his friends has come to pass. Whatever rhetoric is employed to explain and/or justify the “surge” strategy it should be ignored.

Third, an Iraqi “government” doesn’t really exist, by any normal definition of the term. It does not have the monopoly on violence; it could not collect taxes if it wanted to; it barely provides basic human services to its people. Virtually all of the day-to-day political power is held by religious based organizations usually operating at the sub-municipal level. However, the Maliki administration does hold, for the moment, one thread of national power and that is the ability to pass laws, even if it cannot enforce them.

Act II – Where in the Hedgehog plays mouse with the Fox

First, George is a simple man. Once approvingly described as an ‘every man’ by Peggy Noonan, George is as easily read as a children’s book. George has been playing president for six years and for a while it was fun, but now George is tired. George is also willful and proud and doesn’t bargain with himself. He’s not going to give up in Iraq even if Barney and Dick Cheney are the last two dawgs in the country who support him. Another thing we know about George is that when he plays chess he thinks two or three moves ahead.

Second, Dick Cheney is a complex man. He is determined, intelligent, detail-oriented, and cunning. Dick Cheney is the hedgehog who knows many big things. Dick Cheney is Chuck Norris on steroids. To Dick Cheney, water boarding is just a dunk in the water. Dick Cheney is an oilman who understands peak oil and knows that energy conservation is nothing more than “a personal virtue.” Dick Cheney has a strong sense of his nation’s destiny. When Dick Cheney plays chess…he just shoots you.

Third, the mainstream media has discovered the real motive behind the "surge" strategy, and hard-boiled beatniks that they are, they’re not afraid to print it. Poor Georgee, that great mansion in the rolling hills of west Texas that he hoped to leave as his legacy is looking more like a broken down West Virginia outhouse. Nothing is going right in Iraq and even George—the fox who knows one thing—knows that the clock is ticking. What if--these streetwise Freudians provocatively ask--the whole “surge” strategy is just George’s egotistical attempt to quickly drywall a legacy worthy of his own deluded sense of self? These, of course, are the same reporters who deliberately obscure the truth by using such misleading terms as “the Bush administration.” But Dick Cheney doesn't leave things to chance. So while the pundits are blabbering about George's psychological motivations, Dick Cheney is keeping his mouth shut and making things happen, telling George what to think, who to fire, who to hire, where to invade, and what the job in Iraq really is.

Act III – Where in the laws are passed, the surge is made, and the blood is shed

First, Maliki and company will pull out all of the stops to get the new Petroleum Law through the parliament. Maliki and friends will do this as if their lives depend on it, because they do. Their gift to the people of Iraq and America will be wrapped in the traditional rhetoric of imperialism. US papers, to the extent that they actually cover it, will dutifully relay the words of American government officials and businessmen who will describe the new Petroleum Law as “necessary” and as “a first step in modernizing the out dated laws put in place under the old dictator.” Above all else, the bow on the box so to speak, the new law will be labeled as “fair.” (Here we will be given a chance to see the chasm that separates the right wing press from the far-right wing press. The far right wing press will describe the law as “fair,” while the right wing press will describe the law as “fair, given the circumstances.”) In reality, as described in a recent article in The Independent, the Petroleum Law as currently conceived will be extremely generous to US oil companies, allowing them to secure long-term contracts to exploit Iraqi oil resources at profit margins that are twice the industry average. Oil companies will also have the opportunity to sign these contracts when the national government is the weakest it has been in nearly 40 years. And as for the problem of enforcement, well unlike any other OPEC country, Iraq’s new Petroleum Law will permit international arbitration of disputes. The story of the new Petroleum Law is presented by The Indpendent in "Future of Iraq: the spoils of war" and "Blood and Oil".

Second, the troop escalation will take place. There will be tens-of-thousands of US troops added to the cauldron that is Iraq. They will operate to provide protection to the Maliki government on the one hand, and on the other, they will be a constant reminder to him and his friends of who is filling their off shore accounts.

Third, more American soldiers will die and maybe even die at a higher rate than they have over the past six months. The blood shed, suffering, and death will be a thousand-fold worse for the Iraqis.

Act IV – Where in much that was inexplicable now makes sense

First, what was the purpose of the US invasion of Iraq? Each time a “mission accomplished” is banner is waved—Saddam Hussein is toppled, the WMDs are…, a constitution is passed, free elections are held, a government is formed—the goal line is pushed back and we are told, “The job is not yet done.” But if the “job” is still not done, then clearly those other goals were simply necessary steps along the way to the ultimate goal. The real goal, the only goal, is and always has been to provide US-based oil companies with legalized access to the Iraqi oil fields.

Second, what are these “consequences” that the Maliki government is going to suffer if it doesn’t shape up? The notion that now George really means business is nonsensical. What partial steps could George take against the Maliki government to get it back on track? And if you can think of one, why hasn’t George already taken it? The only card that the Maliki government holds is the power to grant the legal right to exploit Iraq’s oil fields. The only “consequence” that the Maliki government can suffer is political and personal extinction.

Third, what could the addition of twenty-thousand troops actually achieve? The escalation cannot really affect the long-term prospects for peace in the country. Military experts uniformly agree that securing Iraq would take a force of about 500,000 troops. Going from about 140,000 to about 160,000 is clearly meaningless in the grand scheme of peace. It could however provide a good level of protection for the Maliki government, especially if things were to heat up on account of their giving away the nation’s oil reserves to the occupying force. The “surge” is about one more chance, but it is not one more chance to save Bush’s ego. It’s about one more chance for the Maliki government to deliver the goods that Dick Cheney wanted yesterday. And if Maliki and company don’t come through, well as we learned in Act II, Dick Cheney only thinks one move ahead, ‘cause he’s just gonna shoot you.

Act V – Where in the predictions are made and George suffers the consequences

First, the Democrats will hem-and-haw about the escalation and a few will even threaten to withhold funds to pay for it. Nothing will come of this.

Second, a new Petroleum Law, extremely favorable to US-based oil companies, will be pushed through the Iraqi parliament by the Maliki government. This may or may not result in increased attacks against the Maliki government; it will surely further erode its legitimacy.

Third, the escalation will happen. Many more will die on all sides. The increased death rates for Americans will be billed by the Dick Cheney administration as further evidence that we are winning and that the insurgency is in its last throes.

Third, the Maliki government will stay in power at least through January 2009 with or with out any appreciable change in its effectiveness as a governing entity. (Corollary prediction: many of the people in the Maliki government as well as their sons and brothers will become extraordinarily rich and virtually none of them will live in Iraq.)

Fourth, in ten years, regardless of the political situation that plays out in Iraq over the next few years, US-based oil companies will be pumping cheap Iraqi crude and making billions of dollars thanks to the contracts that they will have signed under the aegis of the Maliki government’s Petroleum Law.

Fifth, for the majority of American citizens no one will care very much about the US’s illegal invasion of a sovereign country in 2003. But before that happens Oliver Stone will make a movie about the drama that was MESSOPATAMIA…