Photo Credit: Associated Press

The United States has gotten used to being the colonial power in Iraq for six years. It invaded the country against international opinion, without United Nations sanction and with no credible threat present.

It then went on to establish the Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA] which sought to mandate every aspect of Iraqi governance not with consultation with the Iraqi people or even selected administrators, but with complete discretion given to Paul Bremer who behaved like a colonial emperor. Iraqis joked that the “CPA” stood for “Condescending and Patronizing Americans.”

The United States never had any intention for real democracy in Iraq. They first had the temerity to draft a constitution from some lobby on K Street and sought to impose it on the Iraqi people in their infinite arrogance. But the Iraqis justifiable rejected such a colonial endeavor.

And America sought to have a caucus system of elections rather than a ballot box system. A caucus, for those who don’t know, is when elections are decided by party loyalists who gather in a room, debate for several hours, and whomever wins the most amount of supporters at the end of the debate wins that district. This is what the Iowa caucus is all about. The United States favored this type of democracy because it suited its hand-picked puppet candidates [like Ahmad Chalabi]. The United States would have rigged the caucus because caucus are determined by whoever can get the most supporters in a room, and the U.S. would have provided support by way of transportation and mobilization to its puppet foot-soldiers [figuratively speaking].

But it was the senior Shia cleric who told the U.S. that if Iraqis are not given a ballot box election then he would call for open rebellion. The U.S. could not afford that and agreed to have elections which say its puppet candidates lose. Ahmad Chalabi who had ambitions to be president did not even a seat in the parliament.

Even though it was constrained in this two instances, the United States had still had unqualified power to roam the streets of Iraq, kill Iraqis it deemed suspect, launch raids and home invasions, and do whatever else it wanted.

It apparently believed that its free-range “rights” were to remain even after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities. That is why U.S. generals are not upset that the Iraqi government had the temerity to restrict their actions:

The Iraqi government has moved to sharply restrict the movement and activities of U.S. forces in a new reading of a six-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that has startled American commanders and raised concerns about the safety of their troops.

In a curt missive issued by the Baghdad Operations Command on July 2 — the day after Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. troops to bases outside city centers — Iraq’s top commanders told their U.S. counterparts to “stop all joint patrols” in Baghdad. It said U.S. resupply convoys could travel only at night and ordered the Americans to “notify us immediately of any violations of the agreement.”

First of all, this is why the U.S. media is unprofessional: it simply follows the dictates of its government rather than being objective. Looked at how the Washington Post puts the word “new” in there as if the Iraqis are attributing a new understanding to the withdrawal agreement by not letting U.S. troops freely roam their cities. It is not the Iraqis who are being “new” in their reading, but the arrogant U.S. generals and the biased journalists for the Withdrawal Agreement explicitly stated that U.S. troops have to leave all cities. Here is what Article 24, Clause 1 and 2 state:

1. All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.

2. All United States combat forces shall withdraw from Iraqi cities, villages, and localities no later than the time at which Iraqi Security Forces assume full responsibility for security in an Iraqi province, provided that such withdrawal is completed no later than June 30, 2009.

Who’s being revisionist?

Then Article 4, Clauses 2 and 3:

2. All such military operations that are carried out pursuant to this Agreement shall be conducted with the agreement of the Government of Iraq. Such operations shall be fully coordinated with the Iraqi authorities...

3. All such operations shall be conducted with full respect for the Iraqi Constitution and the laws of Iraq. Execution of such operations shall not infringe upon the sovereignty of Iraq and its nation interests, as defined by the Government of Iraq. It is the duty of the United States Forces to respect the laws, customs, and traditions of Iraq and applicable international law.

The WP reporter probably did not even read the Withdrawal Agreement.

But the U.S. generals have the temerity to suggest the Iraqi government is lying - for what? going by the book? - and dismiss the rights of the government to control its territory:

The Americans have been taken aback by the new restrictions on their activities. The Iraqi order runs “contrary to the spirit and practice of our last several months of operations,” Maj. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, commander of the Baghdad division, wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post.

“Maybe something was ‘lost in translation,’ ” Bolger wrote. “We are not going to hide our support role in the city. I’m sorry the Iraqi politicians lied/dissembled/spun, but we are not invisible nor should we be.” He said U.S. troops intend to engage in combat operations in urban areas to avert or respond to threats, with or without help from the Iraqis.

They just can’t help it. All those years behaving like imperial guards.