Iraq: Flawed sovereignty

It caught the whole world by surprise. Two days earlier than officially scheduled, the United States handed sove-reignty over to Iraq last Monday. . There was no fanfare, no glitz, no frills. The transfer ceremonies were top secret. They were held at Baghdad’s Green Zone, probably the most secured area in the world at the time, inside a conference hall, where only about a dozen US and Iraqi officials were present.

The transfer was simplicity itself. Within three winks of the eye, US Administrator L. Paul Bremer handed Iraqi Prime Minister Ayal Allawi a blue-bound book officializing the sovereignty transfer. . And that was that. CNN broke the story an hour or so afterward first through Hala Gorani at the desk in Atlanta, then Christiane Amanpour in situs, namely, the conference building.

I have known no event in contemporay history when an occupying power transferred sovereignty to an occupied country with all the curtains down.

We were in Hong Kong more than three years ago. That was when Prince Charles of Britain officiated the transfer of this Bri-tish colony to Hong Kong Administrator Tung Chee Hua in representation of the People’s Republic of China. All the world had been invited to the event and it was gala in every sense. Long, florid speeches were delivered interminably by day and ultra-sensational fireworks sprawled across the sky over the Bay Area by night.

The whole thing was gorgeous, the event itself historically stupendous. Britain was yielding its last jewel in Asia, ending centuries of occupation, marking the final, irreversible end of British colonialism in the continent. Journalists from all over the universe covered the event. It seemed the co-verage would never end. Media took historic aim, told and retold the saga of Hong Kong where the Opium Wars were hatched, as well as most of the Unequal Treaties that sliced China into zones dominated by the colonial powers.

In Baghdad at 10:20 in the morning Monday, local time, history was made, with not a single salvo fired in commemoration.

In retrospect, it was easy to explain why. America wanted the transfer of so-vereignty staged two days earlier to "wrong-foot" the growing army of Iraq insurgents. The insurgents weeks earlier had transformed Iraq into a charnel house, killing hundreds, injuring hundreds, if not thousands, more. They very presumably planned to sabotage the US transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, which was scheduled Wednesday, two days later (today actually).

Now the sovereignty is a fait accompli. By virtue of diplomatic diktat, Washington, head of the coalition forces in Iraq, wrenched history back two days earlier and foiled the insurgents’ agenda to storm the sovereignty ceremonies scheduled Wednesday. In a sense, it was a coup, a coup de grace. This enabled America to "end" its occupation of Iraq, and announce to the world this sovereignty now belonged to the Iraqi governent and people.

This froze the insurgents in their tracks.

There would be no "Tet offensive" in Iraq. There would be no Gen. Nguyen Van Giap stealing the whole show in 1968, sending his guerrilla Vietcong forces exploding in Saigon at dawn, causing havoc at Saigon’s international airport, marshalling his commandos close to the US Embassy, startling the whole world with their speed, the instant capacity to kill and destroy, and "humiliating" the US miltary almost at America’s very doorstep. This Wednesday, the Iraqi insurgents could have laid siege on Baghdad.

Well, they probably can’t anymore. But the question remains: Would the US transfer of sovereignty to Iraq last Monday work?

Many will probably riposte (even some American allies) the whole thing could turn out to be a huge joke.What price this so-vereignty, they say, when the entire American military force of 140,000 combat troops will remain in Iraq?What price this sove-reignty when the Iraqi security forces are virtually powerless to contain the insurgency and would continue to rely on American ground, air, and possibly sea power? What price this sovereignty when Iraq is financially dead broke, owes billions of dollars in foreign debt, and will need Uncle Sam to get it out of a big economic hole?

As CNN’s Hala Gorani asked Iraq’s fo-reign minister Hoshiyar Zabari in a satellite interview Monday, what if the "sovereign" Iraqi government should one day decide to ask the US military to git, remove all its occupation forces from Iraq? Would America comply? The question was so embarassing Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebario convulsed into tortured diplomatese to avoid answering directly.

And if American forces left, wouldn’t Iraq easily stumble into civil war? Already, Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, and other major racial groups, historically unable to get their act together, could very easily, under a weak and fragile government, break into little wars, later into bloody fratricidal wars.

And how about the Iraqi security forces, wasn’t it too early in the day to eventually leave them alone? They didn’t have the arms, the tools. How about Saddam Hussein?Would a sove-reign Iraq hale him to court?How about democracy, the American brand? Would it ever get a chance to take root in a Muslim country, determined to preserve its Muslim culture, its ties with the Muslim world?

To all these questions, the answers have always been fuzzy.

I must add that rising American hosti-lity to the US occupation of Iraq, and the coming presidential elections November, plus some still contentious holes in the US economy have a lot to do with America’s premature agenda to pull out of Iraq. The military pull-out could take place September or October to give President George W. Bush the elbow room he needs to wrap up the elections. Otherwise, if the US military should continue to occupy Iraq up to and beyond December, the Christmas and New Year holidays, and the insurgency gets worse, George Bush goes to the polling booth a defeated man. And John Kerry becomes president.

This would be Vietnam all over again.

America’s war on Iraq was a colossal blunder from beginning to end (the end is still to come). It was waged by a man who heard voices that America was destined to rule the world because America was exceptional in almost every sense. Its democracy was incomparable. Its economy would blind even Croesus. Its military might could pulverize any three enemy nations in one instant. America was awesome. And therefore its world role was awesome. Who cares about the Old World? About Western Europe? Who cares about the United Nations? America would go it alone in Iraq.

Enter Lord Acton. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolultely."

The US is now learning, or relearning this lesson only too well. America was caught in the act. Its leadership, particularly George W.Bush, brought the US to war on the big lie that Iraq had amassed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, including the beginnings of a nuclear strike force. And weren’t Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaida and Saddam in cahoots with regard to 9/11? Besides, Saddam Hussein was a bloody butcher who gassed his own people, murdered even his closest relatives. Saddam had to be eliminated.

Okay, maybe Saddm had to be eliminated.

But does that justify the US going to war to eliminate a dictator? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. Recent history shows America backing up some of the world’s most notorious dictators. And is there any dictator in the world now worse than North Korea’s Kim Jong-il? How about the ge-nerals in Burma who brutalized Aung San Suu Kyi? And wasn’t Ferdinand Marcos a despicable dictator? And didn’t Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a great man, a greater US president, consort for sometime with Josef Stalin?

And yet there are those in the Middle East who see hope, even promise, in the US handing of sovereignty to Iraq.

Al Jazeera, the Arab TV network, underscored this in so many interviews with ordinary Arabs. In the handover, they saw the hand of God, and the beginning of a greater tomorrow for all of Araby. They probably figured the event was a beachhead. And from this beachhead Iraq would manage, Allah willing, Destiny willing, to spread out with freedom in hand, more of the goods of the universe in hand.

Who knows really?

The mystique of Islam will always reside in Iraq and its people. It is a mystique that almost always eludes the eye of the non-Muslim, a mystique that spiked what was once the unerring battle eye of President George W.Bush. And so he went to war. He has regretted it ever since.