Patrick Cockburn "Why America Will Have to Get Out of Iraq Regardless of Who Wins the Presidential Election"
Cooper Union (7 E 7th Street)
This event has ended.
Patrick Cockburn argues that a central political fact in Iraq today is that the great majority of Iraqis have always opposed the US occupation. Though Iraqi factions sometimes find it convenient to ally themselves with the US military, these alliances are based upon short term interests rather than any form of longstanding allegiance. Iraqis may have problems with one another for whatever reason, but a strong sense of national identity ensures that, together, Iraqis will simply not allow a long-term US occupation.
Another mistake consistently made by the US is the supposition that the US controls the political weather in Iraq. It does not. The last five years have taught us that it is ultimately up to Iraqis to determine how and when the US withdraws. This will happen soon. After all, the recent fall in violence has more to do with Iranian support for the Iraqi government, the Mahdi Army ceasefire, and the Sunni insurgents' defeat by Shia militias in Baghdad than it does with the American fantasy that the troop surge provided the backdrop for the recent period of relative stability.
And yet present-day Iraq still remains the most dangerous place in the world. Many are convinced that circumstances are improving, yet television correspondents pictured strolling down peaceful streets are protected by armed bodyguards perched just beyond the view of the camera. Granted, things are "getting better," but for Iraqis, the point of comparison would be the bloodbath of 2006-2007.
At the end of the day, the reality remains that there will be no end to the fighting in Iraq insofar as the occupation persists. In a fundamental way, the occupation destabilizes the country by discrediting any government allowed to subsist alongside it, marking it in the minds of the Iraqi population as a foreign-installed puppet regime with little to no claim to power. A US withdrawal and return to Iraqi sovereignty therefore must be real and not nominal. For all Bush's talk of respect for Iraqi sovereignty, the US still overtly controls the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and controls much of the army covertly.
Media
Schedule
October 22, 2008 from 19:00