What went wrong in Iraq? Wrong answer

[muriel_volestrangler]

The author argues, quite convincingly I think, that it has been the neoliberal economic approach to Iraq that has caused the current chaos, rather than military mistakes in the occupation by Americans.

Bottom line: former army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki was right. If the US had deployed the several hundred thousand troops that he insisted were needed to lock down the country (instead of hustling him into retirement), then the war would have been short and sweet, and the US would now be well on its way both to victory and withdrawal.

This, I think, is a fair summary of the thinking on Iraq currently dominant in the mainstream media and, because it ignores the fundamental cause of the war-after-the-war - the American attempt to neo-liberalize Iraq - it is also profoundly wrong.


We do not remember much of this now, but just after Saddam was toppled the American victors announced that a sweeping reform of Iraqi society would take place. The only part of this still much mentioned today - the now widely regretted dismantling of the Iraqi military - was but one aspect of a far larger effort to dismantle the entire Ba'athist state apparatus, most notably the government-owned factories and other enterprises that constituted just about 40% of the Iraqi economy. This process of dismantling included attempts, still ongoing, to remove various food, product and fuel subsidies that guaranteed low-income Iraqis basic staples, even when they had no gainful employment.
...
This policy was so strict that even state-owned enterprises with specific expertise in Iraqi electrical, sanitation and water purification systems - not to speak of Iraq's massive cement industry - were forbidden from obtaining subcontracts from the multinational corporations placed in charge of rejuvenating the country's infrastructure.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC30Ak02.html

I had thought that reconstruction should have gone better, using much more local expertise (and thus producing local employment). I hadn't appreciated how much it was actively prevented from taking part, because of ideological bias.

[endarkenment]

1. when neofascists say 'freedom and democracy'

they are referring to corporations free from democratic regulation.

I think that the neofascist economic project, under the ideological cover of neoliberalism was in reality a huge criminal scam to plunder Iraq for the benefit of the texas oil mafia aka halliburton etc. and the bush cabal. It is crony capitalism empowered with militarism.

However, even some benevolent rather than rapacious conquest of Iraq was not going to succeed for other reasons.

[TheBaldyMan]

2. Iraq was turned into a test-bad for neo-con economic theories

within days they had halted basic staple food distribution because it was socialist tampering with the free market, this had an almost immediate effect in cutting off material support for the poorest Iraqi families.

Similarly every industry was earmarked for immediate privatisation.

The Iraqi Communist Party was excluded from government, mainly because of the c-word, the fact that they were virulently anti-Ba'athist, had popular support and were one of the few sources of sound pre-war intelligence was beside the point.

Offers of Iraqi police & army units to change allegiance were turned down. Both forces were disbanded as part of an attempt to completely dismantle Iraqi society and rebuild it from scratch to a neo-con design.

The list goes on, the neo-cons alienated nearly everybody that otherwise would have been a natural ally within weeks. We and the Iraqi people continue to reap what the neo-cons have sown.

[calmblueocean]

3. It's just a word, but why 'neo-liberal?

IF the problem the author is trying to describe is one of selling off and privatizing state assets, what makes that a 'neo-liberal' approach? Anyone care to explain that to me? Because to me, privatizing and selling off public assets is what conservatives are all about.

[TheBaldyMan]

6. that's the label the the PNACers and other neo-cons prefer

to robbing SOBs that is ;)

It comes from the Adam Smith revivalist sense of liberal. IOW naked unfettered capitalism (apart from controls that protect capital).

[Inland]

4. An ignored point

There should be more discussion of the entire approach to economics by the occupiers, from removing barriers to imports to breaking up monopolies to requiring work with US companies. I've heard all of that being wave of the hand economic policy set by kids with right wing economic nostroms.

[fasttense]

5. What do you mean by the neoliberal economic approach?

I've seen this neoliberal term several places and I don't understand it. I consider myself ultra-liberal, yet I sure wouldn't turn off the distribution of food to the poor.

[endarkenment]

7. economic liberalism not the same as social liberalism

US political terminology is (deliberately?) confused and ambiguous. Neoliberals advocate classic laissez-faire capitalism spruced up for modern times. It is economic libertarianism, without any need to support freedom in other spheres of human activity.

[Briar]

8. I'm glad he credited Naomi Klein

for her work in drawing attention to this.

Follow the neo-liberal trail back, and it explains a lot of western interventions in countries deemed to be less than welcoming to rape and pillage by global corporations. Belarus is experiencing a neoliberal backlash to its choice of alternative economic arrangements at the moment (however much this may be dressed up in the usual disguise of a concern for democracy and freedom).

[Atman]

9. Nothing went wrong in Iraq

There was never any chance for it to go right.

You cannot have a crime "go right." It is still a crime.

What "went wrong in Iraq" is all about what went wrong in America first. We bought the governments lies, and when the lies were discovered, we shrugged.