articles of Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty

Innovation in religious thinking is good; sectarianism in religion is a crime. Our country, Iraq, and its people reached a degree of consciousness and experience that they can differentiate between what is innovation and what is a crime.

By their sectarian practices, sectarians commit political suicide. Iraq cannot tolerate sectarian violence for long. The first who will abandon sectarians are the members of the sect whom they pretend to defend, for there is no interest for any human being to accept killing or repressing innocents from other sects. If the mentality of someone is so low that he accepts killing innocents, in what abyss he is falling! How can someone defend the sectarian killings of Zarqawi or Abu Drii?

We were shocked when we heard that some made a fatwa saying it is legal to kill Baathists and when some of Al-Mahdi army men declared in Beirut that the Baathists deserve death. We thought they are religious and defend justice and we did not know that they are for blood and killing innocents.

Baathists, Nationalists, Communists, Nasserists, Leftists and patriotic liberals are the best sons of Baghdad and from the best sons of Iraq. All Baghdad and Iraq will rise to defend them.

And the biggest tragedy of sectarians is that they will never realize their own objectives, present and future. He who kills on identity can kill a lot of people, especially when he is a partner of the occupation and he is under its protection. But his destiny will be, in the end, the rubbish of history. How can a sane person think he can subjugate Baghdad by force?

Baghdad will never be subjugated and it will never be owned by someone; neither by a party nor by an ethnic group nor by a religion or a religious sect. Baghdad is a city of liberty and co-existence and a refuge for those who are oppressed elsewhere. The proof is that Abu Drii and the like and their families would not come to settle in Baghdad if they were not oppressed in the south. The additional proof is that thousands of scientists, intellectuals, military and sons of the middle classes from all Iraq chose to settle in Baghdad because it is the city of civilization and progress.

If some wants to control Baghdad by force we say this is impossible. Ask all the parties, the powers and the regimes who tried to control Baghdad by force since it was built by Abu Jaafar Al Mansur until now. Their destiny, all, is a destiny of being rejected.

I add, he who doesn’t digest and assimilate the culture of the people of Baghdad, the inheritors of all the successive civilizations of Iraq, should go — he and his leaders — to the place from whence he came.

Baghdad is not Shia and it will not be. Baghdad is not Sunni and it will not be. Baghdad is the city of innovation, creation, science and knowledge. It will not bow its head to the force of violence or money.

Our justification is that Baghdad is the city of Great Imam Abu Hannifa College, Imam Al Khalisy School, Baghdad University and Mustansiriah University. Those institutions educate our youth with values of science, justice and progress.

Where the old colonialist system shattered amid the Suez crisis, a new Arab struggle is breaking the back of present imperialisms, writes Abdul Ilah Albayaty

The nationalisation of the Suez Canal, all accept, was a turning point. The colonised peoples of Asia and Africa thought that promises of freedom from the West, a dividend for supporting them against the Nazis, were genuine. They supported the West during World War II. When the war ended, the West denied independence to these colonised countries. China fought for its independence. India paid dearly for hers. Vietnam was obliged to wage a war of liberation. Mao Moa in Kenya began to attack whites. Musadiq in Iran tried to nationalise oil and many other countries followed a similar principle.

Arabs who supported ideas of liberation were the ones who lost out through cooperation with the West in World War II. Algeria was denied independence. Palestine was given to Zionists. The West began a new attack against national movements in all Arab countries in the name of opposing communism. It wanted to impose Israel as a partner in the Middle East, though it denies Palestinian rights.

The ’52 Revolution in Egypt was the first reply. Timid in the beginning but loyal to Arab rights, it was followed by the Baathist coup d’etat of Mustafa Hamdoun in Syria in 1954, the Algerian revolution in 1954, and the Moroccan and Tunisian national resistance movements.

It was evident that the Arabs were searching for their path to independence and dignity. I was young then and uninformed. I liked Hollywood films that expressed individual liberty but I sympathised with the struggle of political groups against the Baghdad Pact. I didn’t feel that Moscow was a threat to Iraq. I felt that the puppet regime was oppressing my people. My family, a middle class Baghdadi family, was against the regime. The misery around me prevented me from thinking of individual salvation. I was not alone: a whole Arab generation was like me.

When Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal it was not the battle of Nasserists or Egyptians but the battle of my entire generation everywhere. It was a battle for the right of all Third World countries to independence, sovereignty over land and resources, and dignity. We won it by the unity of our patriotic forces: leftist, nationalist and Islamist. They fought together not only in Egypt but all over the Arab world. What followed is well known: the colonialist system collapsed and all Asia and Africa won its liberty, even if only formally.

Now the West is waging a new battle against Arabs. Arabs are waging a new battle against the imperialist West. The world has changed. Arabs too. They are no longer ignorant Bedouins whose leaders the West can buy in order to control. They have a large middle class, a long history of national struggle, and strong urban societies, knowing their potential and capacities and regretting every minute the misery of workers and farmers and their families.

The educated, the middle classes and the political elites don’t refuse globalisation but they don’t accept that globalisation means regression. They don’t understand why in Europe globalisation means more unity between peoples and in their countries more divisions of Arabs. They don’t understand why globalisation leads to unity between many states and for Arabs the division of their states. They don’t understand why globalisation in the West means more liberties while in the Orient it means anti-Islamist, anti-nationalist, anti-leftist policies. They don’t understand why the US, France and the like appeal to national or class interests while we Arabs are forbidden to do so.

This battle is not over yet, but as the nationalisation of the Suez Canal heralded the end of the old colonialist system, the present battle, focused in Iraq, heralds the end of globalisation by force for only the interests of the West.

The Bush - Maliki Convention to be signed is not binding to anyone except to its own signatories. It is illegal and contradicts with the principles of international law regulating relations between an occupation and the occupied country. It is also a non-binding one because of the ineligibility of those who will sign it. Neither the US nor the Iraqi State is bound by it. It is not binding for US as it will not be presented to the American Congress so as to become an obliging treaty and in plus the actual US president will leave the presidency soon taking with him his policies. It is not binding for the Iraqi State because the Iraqis who will sign it are non-representative of the people of Iraq neither legally, nor in terms of national legitimacy nor politically. They are a government installed by and for the occupier after its invasion of Iraq.

Everyone wonders why President Bush resorted to continue his policies contrary to the interests of the United States. The interests of US in Iraq can only be realized through friendship with the people of Iraq. Did he not learn after six years that the people of Iraq will not subjugated not only by such treaties, but also will not and cannot be subjugated even by all the American military power? In reality the insistence on signing this agreement is a proof of defeat of US in Iraq, not an evidence of victory. What Bush’s administration could not achieve after six years in power, a functioning legitimate state accepted by Iraqis, how can he achieve it while he is about to leave in months? Would it not be better for him to respond to the wishes of the American people, tired of a war which weakened the U.S. economically, politically and led it to its moral suicide because it made it a people of a state which committed the crime of genocide, and the people of a state which is the first violator of human rights and of international laws, particularly the Charter of the United Nations, so that it became a state of aggression, terrorism and banditry?

We Iraqis hope to have the American people and all peoples of the world as allies in our struggle for the values of progress, democracy and human civilization embodied in international laws and conventions.

Our first right is to manage our affairs ourselves in a civilized and peaceful manner. What gives the right to the United States to use its military strength to defend the government that it installed to destroy Iraq as a people and as a state.

And, our first right is to live in a unified state based on citizenship, equality and justice. What gives the U.S. the right to pledge to defend a Constitution based on the division of Iraq and the promotion of religious fascism and Kurdish chauvinism?

The first of our rights is to be able to establish a democratic state that respects human rights, integrity and public service. What gives the United States the right to pledge to destroy the Arab civil currents and the progressive educated middle-class' thought and organizations, and actively promote religious fascism by allying itself with warlords and war bandits?

The first of our rights is to our own property of our land and resources, particularly our oil so that we can use it to develop our life by selling it on the global market. What gives the US the right to undertake the protection of thieves and brokers in the name of the free market economy?

The political and economical adventurers and gamblers in the administration of President Bush, in agreement with the Kurdish two party leaderships and the retarded and fascist Islamists adventurers dragged the United States into a failed adventure. Its only result is destroying Iraq as a people and state, as well as rendering the American super power no longer capable of leading the world as it is discredited morally, politically and economically. Why does the Bush administration insist on an agreement that has no value politically or legally to be signed? After six years of military, civil and popular resistance to the occupation the Iraqi people has proven that it will never accept it?

The mere news of negotiations to sign an convention which gives US the right to keeps forces in Iraq has united all the Iraqi National Movement against it. In plus how can the government installed by the occupation sign this Convention without saying to anyone its content? What will be the reaction of the people?. I just remind them ,as I reminded on the pages of the Internet before the invasion Mr Khalilzada, of the uprisings and demonstrations of the years 1948, 1952,I9 56 and 1958 against binding Iraq by military treaties with foreign powers.

As the Iraqi popular proverb says, they should put the paper they will sign in water, and then drink the water. This means that what is written on the paper is of no use or value. It will not prevent the people of Iraq from the struggle to liberate its country and establish real democracy. It is better for the next U.S. administration to abandon this convention and to abandon its signatories, as did the U.S. administration with Barzani in the year 1975. The people of Iraq will continue their resistance and struggle for their cause as their cause is a just one, and it is a cause for life or death for them and they are certain of victory. They know that all the peoples of the world turn their eyes toward them to learn the road to emancipation and progress.

We know the panic of those who came with the American tanks if the American tanks leave. It is they themselves who insist on signing the agreement. They ask for American guarantees against the people of Iraq, so that, they believe, could continue their crimes against Iraq and the people of Iraq. Iraq could not be divided or occupied or subjugated. Iraq has the moral and material civilized strength and developed national forces to win all the challenges, the first of all is its unity, its liberation and its sovereignty on its land and wealth.

Much ado about nothing
Albayaty Abdul Ilah, 20 November 2008

US forces in Iraq will not stay or leave because the Al Maliki government or its parliament tells them to stay or to leave. US imperial thought and practice until now holds that US interests and will is international law. They invaded an independant state illegally and cannot legalise this invasion. We will see how Obama reacts.

The balance of forces on the ground which will not change: An occupied country that struggles against its occupiers. The only thing that will change, I think, is that those who tried to convince Iraqis that the political process will lead to the departure of US armies cannot repeat the same lie. The proof is that on paper the US will stay forever by their political submission. Only struggling against the occupation will oblige the US to leave. The Iraqi people are convinced of this.

The US will leave, if it leaves, for three reasons. One, its occupation costs much money. Two, it tires their army. Third, no military victory is possible.

Iraqis will continue their struggle for three reasons. One, they loose more by not struggling. Two, they have the power to prevent the US from winning. Three, it will be a paradise for them if they win in comparison with submission.

The US knows that winning hearts is the most important factor in winning a war or legalizing an occupation. After six years of war, committing crimes, spending money and sending its sons to death, it is Saadam Hussein who won hearts. Will the religious fascists, ethnic chauvinists and corrupted warlords win Iraqi support? I doubt it. Iraq is but a small people but it has a dignity and patriotism that US think tanks cannot understand and will not understand.

Bush expected flowers, he got invincible resistance. He imposes treaties, he will get indifference. Iraqis know that outside their free will Bush's attempts are but ridiculous. If he wants to serve the US he should tell Obama that Iraqis are invincible.

The United States would not withdraw because the Iraqi government and its members signed an agreement with them on withdrawal, this has been very well analyzed in articles by Salah Al Mukhtar and Awni Qalamji.

Obama wants to withdraw because the US can no longer bear the burden of the occupation's costs for the United States. Obama may only be interested in the financial burden, which in fact is the direct cause of the U.S.'s and the global financial crisis. If so, he will try to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, so as to reduce costs, while maintaining the same policies as Bush, thinking that the members of the Maliki government will fight the Iraqis in place of America.

But this form of withdrawal, even if for financial reasons, has caused many members of the government to panic. The first of which are the two Kurdish leaders. They want American protection for the fragile acquisitions they've obtained and that are enshrined in the divisive and chauvinist Constitution. These would disappear as soon as the people of Iraq hear the news of a potential withdrawal. The Kurdish leaders want to convince the United States that they are more American than the U.S. and Israel themselves, and that the US must remain rewarded by oil concessions at the expense of Iraq and the Kurds.

The second is the Shi'ite and Sunni Islamist parties who know that their failure is a historical failure from which they will not recover. This is the reason why they want to remind America and Iran that the main enemy and threat remains the Baath Party and the Iraqi patriots, hoping to re-air the climate of the first year of occupation when the people felt that these parties through cooperating with Iran and America would end the suffering of the embargo period.

The third group, the Bush clan and the Zionist forces in America — for whom a victory of the people of Iraq and its resistance represents a historic end not only in Iraq and the region but in America itself — are trying to achieve what they call a "responsible withdrawal", preventing their condemnation for the crimes they committed in Iraq over the past six years. This is why they insist on signing this Convention.

However history and political work are a process. Obama’s policy is but one of the active parts of this process. If Obama follows the same policies as Bush then its consequences will face the same defeat as Bush's policy. On the one hand, not only did the United States lose money but also a military victory in Iraq is impossible. Occupation amounts to sacrificing US children for imperialist forces who do not represent the interests of the American people. And in the same way, the Bush administration engaged in an imperialist project which represents a moral suicide and a disgrace for the United States, and from which they can only recover by repairing their mistakes through effective actions and not just media propaganda.

The Iraqi resistance reports show that Iraqis want a U.S. withdrawal without conditions or manipulation and a return of justice, otherwise the resistance will continue and no doubt it will win.

The attempts to create new strife or relying on bargaining with one side or the other will not succeed because the screams of the orphans and the widows, the disabled and the hungry and the displaced persons will keep on resonating in the minds of each Iraqi patriot and will not stop unless all the Iraqi nation obtains its freedom and sovereignty over its land and wealth.

We say this not out of ideology or partisan perceptions but out of political realism that dazzles the eyes. We all want the end of the bloodshed and destruction, the death and oppression, and the torture. And we seek for an Iraq in which "each one is walking proud," as Baghdadis say. But the crimes of the occupation have brought everyone to have the same say. Even the children say: "Either a life that pleases a friend or a death that angers the enemy". ‘Victory is a patience of an hour or a year. That is why I advise everyone to keep off from the bargaining talk, in the name of realism or pragmatism. Because the real realism is to see the occupation's defeat and the real pragmatism is the search of how to participate in the resistance's victory.

The Kurdish leaders, the Islamic parties or the Zionist Bush clan know that Iraqi patriotism has awakened. They know that neither the U.S. or the Iranian nor the Kurdish chauvinist parties or religious fascism, individually or collectively, can defeat it.

Our situation now is as follows: the American imperialist project has been defeated thanks to the pride of the people of Iraq but the Iraqi resistance has not won yet and will not win definitively if it doesn't renounce its differences and conflicts, and provide a national democratic project uniting all living forces of our beloved country Iraq.

In this regard I call upon all to forget about the past and to head towards the future because the national honor today is to participate in the liberation of Iraq. Because what drives one sad and angry is that all domestic, regional and international conditions are qualifying our people for victory, that is if the regimes, parties and currents weren't conspiring and fighting one against the other leading to a rupture that is paralyzing all.

We should not differ because of our party affiliations because each who struggles against occupation raises his party's esteem. We should not differ on forms of struggle because all these forms complement each other whether they are strike, demonstration, disobedience, uprising or armed struggle. The truth actually is that one form cannot be implemented without the presence of the others. We should not differ because of criticism or the canonization of the past. The past is dead so let us leave it for historians to study so as to strip it from the numerous lies and propaganda that Zionist and imperialist forces have spread.

In this regard, I appreciate all the anti-occupation Baathists, Islamists, Nasserites and leftists who proved that the nation and the people's interests are more important than parties and ideologies and factional interests.

US foreign policy experts suggested to the Bush administration that the only way to defend American interests in Iraq was by replacing current rejected figures of the political process with new figures that appear independent of the United States. We must recognise that Americans have partially succeeded in this by leaving Maliki without opposition, and obstacles, adopting slogans of the Iraqi resistance movement on the national unity of Iraq.

Maliki has proven to the Americans that he is, by his sectarian nature, more capable than Allawi in pursuing the interests of Iran/US: he saw no contradiction between WALYAT AL-FAQIH — the rule of clerics — that he long used as cover, and close cooperation with the United States. In not wearing the religious turban he can provide loyalty to Iran without creating competition with Al-Sistani and Khamenei, and can also touch the sectarian feelings of Iran while serving the interests of the United States. His signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US is proof.

The United States and their advisers in Iraq — Americans, Israelis or Iraqis — are happy about this situation because what interests them is how to control Iraq after the failed policies of Bush. What matters most to them aren’t the persons, or the support of Iraqis, but world opinion, the image of America, and guaranteeing US imperial interests.

Two trends are involved in improving the image of the United States. The first presents the Iraqi resistance as a barbaric movement concerned only with blood, murder and persecution, and that has nothing to do with the liberation of Iraq. Al-Qaeda and its like and Zionist and imperialist propaganda serve this tendency. The second trend suggests that cooperation could be established between the US and the Iraqi people under occupation or semi-occupation. The most important participants in this trend are Allawi, the Communist Party, Kurdish leaders and the Shia and Sunni parties.

All political analysts know that the American project of cooperation between the US and Israel to encourage the dreams of imperial Iran to tear the region apart and realise the “New Middle East” has failed. One reason for this failure is the exaggeration of the abilities and ambitions of the Iranians and Kurds. These ambitions have not only awakened Iraqi patriotism, but also Iraqi national and Arab solidarity. This has emerged as evident in recent days during the local elections. Their results will not change much, especially since they were conducted under the brutal US occupation, with the US-drafted constitution that threatens the unity of Iraq and under the sectarian quota system, heinous in its composition and terms of reference. Iraq with these elections does not change and remains an occupied country. The only thing noteworthy of these elections is that they reflect the balance of forces and trends at the moment.

The Iraqi resistance boycotted the local elections. It has been very successful in the boycott, but at the same time it decided not to disrupt the elections to let the parties in the political process settle accounts between themselves and allow the forces that think they can somewhat improve the situation in some provinces through the elections perform their task. This tactic was a success:

- The Iraqi resistance has proven that it is not against the use of polls, but boycotts the elections because they take place under occupation and it is the occupation that controls the election results.

- The Iraqi resistance has proven that Iraqi patriots would win every election if they were free and fair, because patriotism is stronger than sectarianism and chauvinism. The proof is the adoption by the majority of candidates of the slogan of the resistance: “Sunni or Shia, we will not sell this country.”

- The Iraqi resistance has demonstrated that resistance is not only a military action but also the political mobilisation of the masses in the various forms of support for armed action and the process of the liberation of Iraq, including the movement of the defence of the rights of individuals or groups of the population, and participation in the popular political struggle in its various forms.

The vote for Al-Hadaba list in Mosul and for Al-Haboub in Karbala put an end to what remained of the attempted US-Israeli-Iranian project of promoting Sunni and Shia sectarianism, Kurdish chauvinism and the communist liberals’ complicity with them. For fear of the victory of the national movement, the pro-occupation movement wanted to reduce the value of this victory by saying that they are former Baathists. So be it. The Baathists, the Nasserists, leftists and Islamists are the best sons of Iraq if they are the defenders of Iraqi patriotism, anywhere they are.

The summary of the election is as follows: the US has managed to scrap their allies, which became cumbersome, for Maliki’s profit. Elections are cut to his measure. But the resistance with its wise tactic has proven that the national movement is the one that will decide the future of Iraq in order that the Iraqi people is sovereign on its territory and over its wealth. Will America recognise this obvious fact or will it continue to hide its head in the sand, leaving its army and its puppets mired in their crimes against Iraq?

I thank Madame Luisa Morgantini for giving us the opportunity to be present and to discuss in this illustrious institution that represents the peoples of Europe. And I thank the members of the European parliament and those present for listening to us, and for their participation in our interests.

Like any country in the world, Iraq is in strong need of peace and stability, and I add, in the current situation, of democracy. Because peace and stability, and peaceful coexistence for society in Iraq, is the only road by which Iraqis can restore what they lost. Whenever there was independence and stability in Iraq, the Iraqis were able to create great civilisations. Iraq is the country of Sumer and Babel and Akad and Ashour, and the Abbasid state, which is the cradle of the Arab-Islamic civilisation. Baghdad, the capital of Al-Rashid, had one million inhabitants when Paris was just a village. Iraq is a small country, but it has great potential. All Iraqis know that we own great resources, and we have knowledge, and we have political movements with long experience.

Iraq is not only for Iraqis. The importance of Iraq and its location is reached in peace not only domestically, but also with its neighbours and the world. Without this peace between neighbours, and with neighbours, the region as a whole is unstable. And Iraq is in need of its neighbours — all its neighbours. Between Iraq and Turkey there are solid relations. We were one country and one empire for centuries. And we fought the Crusades together, with the leadership of the Seljuks. And in the modern world, in the 20th century, Turkey is important for us because it is our path to Europe, and our mediator with Europe.

And we need our Arab neighbours, because they are our brothers in language and civilisation and history, and interests, and because we could progress together and exchange both benefits and knowledge. And we need Iran, because it is our road to Asia, and it is our neighbour in the Arabian Gulf. And the more there are relations of stability between us, the more the Gulf grows and develops.

Iraq is not only important to its neighbours. Iraq is the country of the second largest oil resources in the world. And the whole world, because of the global economy, depends on the stability of oil prices and the distribution of oil in a peaceful manner, and without wars and problems. This is the importance of Iraq.

The United States knows that Iraq is an important economic centre because of oil. It decided to invade Iraq to seize its oil. No, all the lies are now known around the reasons for the invasion. And in its invasion, the US followed a clear plan, and it was to destroy Iraq economically, politically and militarily, and to force its partition, and to destroy its thinking, and all its capacity to build. For the United States, the important thing is to control Iraq’s oil. And for this it poured on us problems … Article 140, sectarianism and sectarian killing, all kinds of conflicts and problems, and the parliament that is so-called democratic and open. For six years we see nothing except destruction and killing and prisons and prisoners and kidnappings. Why? Because without the destruction of the essential values of Iraqi society, controlling Iraq is not possible.

Thinking this possible is the biggest mistake of the United States. The plan, as it is six years on, has become clear. By culture, all the Iraqis know that Iraq is founded, since the Abbasid state, on equality between citizens. Iraq in the era of the Abbasid created the idea of citizenship, of the state of its citizens. There are no conflicts in Iraq’s history between Muslims and Christians and Jews. In Iraq, everyone participated in progress: when the capacities of Iraq progressed, Iraqis progressed together and developed together. There were no civil wars. If there were conflicts between Shias and Sunnis in the past they were theological conflicts or political, but there was never social conflict or confrontation. Shias and Sunnis coexist since the beginning of the Arab-Islamic civilisation, together, and in modern Iraq the mixing of areas and the number of mixed marriages and the progress of the broad middle class, secular or liberal, made the idea of the partition of Iraq into Shias and Sunnis and Kurds simply laughable. The Americans tried in every way to light the fire of civil war and the result is that they awakened the feeling of Iraqi patriotism. Today, Iraqi patriotism, as is clear and also to the United States, shows that the occupation has failed; that Iraqis refuse the occupation, and they refuse division, and they refuse the privatisation of their oil, and that all the goals in Iraq failed.

All Iraqis affirm, whatever their ideology: first of all, equality between citizens. Second, solidarity among the people and defence of the weak. Even in the Arab countries it is rare to use the word khatiya, or “poor one”, said so often in Iraq. Khatiya means defence of the weak and of their rights and solidarity with them. And Iraq is built on the idea of being a welfare state from its formation up until now. The state is responsible for basic services from Hammurabi to date, from the idea that the state is in charge of care — for geographical and geopolitical reasons — and control over agriculture and the two rivers. The state plays a fundamental role in these. The third idea — and this is part of Iraqi culture and political thinking, whether of Islamic or leftist or nationalist ideology — is that the land and what is inside it is the property of the umma, or nation, in all its consecutive generations. Nobody has a right to transfer this ownership to any other party, public or private.

These are values shared by all Iraqis. And the United States had to destroy them, and to destroy the state and to destroy everything Iraq built throughout its history, and to destroy the unity of Iraqis and their pride in being Iraqi. And the result is that the United States has committed the first crime of genocide of the 21st century. They have destroyed Iraq completely. They have destroyed its economic and social and political infrastructure. But at the same time the proud Iraqis have resisted this occupation in a heroic way and they have made it fail. The occupation has failed along with its plans. No one defends the partition of Iraq or this or that article. Nor are there any Iraqis who believe that there is an open democracy. They promised the Iraqis democracy and they produced a state built on corruption and plunder and conflict for personal interests. Because the idea of partition of Iraq is an attack on the idea of citizenship. If you want to build a democracy in Iraq, you need to have a state of its citizens, not a state of sects and tribes and parties and warlords and militias. The second condition to build democracy in Iraq is, as all the political analysts say, the middle class, for without it the building of democracy is not possible. The forced displacement of four million Iraqis is the elimination of the culture of the middle class and its presence in Iraq. Those who sought refuge in Syria and Jordan, it is the Iraqi middle class that refuses the occupation — the educated middle class.

And so in this way they cut the tree that they rest on. Because without the middle class, we have this ridiculous, disgustingly rude and despicable system built on plunder and lies and rigging of all kinds. Here it becomes clear: it has failed, failed, failed. The occupation has failed. And the political process has failed. And the greatest evidence of the failure of the political process and the end of the parties that wanted the partition of Iraq is the latest elections that took place in Iraq. All logic was changed, and they adopted the slogans that the resistance upheld from the beginning. In the latest elections, all started to claim innocence of being the representatives of sectarian and ethnic parties. All started to talk about secularism. But it is a big lie, to promise the Iraqis democracy in the future. How can it be possible for democracy to take root from a political process built on rigging and cheating and lies and plunder and stealing? How can it be possible for them to succeed in convincing the great people of Iraq that they deserve this rule?

The Iraqis — and you know this, there is no doubt that you take an interest — know the parties that called for federalism, which is not really federalism, it is a plan for the partition of Iraq. Federalism is a system like any other system, like centralism, which the Iraqi people if there were a need to build it would build it. However this con-federalism, built on sectarianism and ethnic division, is for the partition of Iraq. It is not possible that democracy take root in these conditions. And the Iraqi people in these latest elections, 50 per cent as you know boycotted the elections, as the Iraqi resistance stood for the boycott, and another 50 per cent participated, if the figures are true. However, they voted against the plan of the political process. As for what has been said about the creation of a government, whatever the intention of Al-Maliki was, and whatever the intentions of the Iraqi government, it is not possible to reform the political process. The graft won’t work. It will end. And I believe the Americans have understood this well. The political process has become a burden for the Americans, instead of a help to them.

There is no other future except the independence of Iraq and democracy. The occupation has no right to decide Iraq’s future. Iraq has been an independent state since 1931, a member of the United Nations, and the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law, and what happened was against international law and against the United Nations. If they wanted the establishment of an empire, it ended as the United States committed moral and political suicide.

The laws of the occupation are not binding on the Iraqi people, be they oil laws, the law of parties, or federalism, or whatever they may be. The occupation has no right to change the laws of the occupied territory. Only if the occupation ends, and there are democratic elections, is it possible for Iraq to build a democracy that makes its own laws. Now, there is no work to be done except resistance.

We need to be clear. Resistance does not only mean armed struggle. Resistance is armed and civil and political. And it takes many forms in Iraq. Muntather Al-Zaidi is one of the resistant, because he expressed his refusal of the occupation and his contempt for Bush. There are new forms of struggle, not only armed struggle. If the United States will not give Iraq its independence, the resistance will continue. I know the Iraqi people well. And I said it before the invasion. This occupation is a failed occupation, for well-known reasons. Military superiority is not enough in the 21st century; it would need the ability to occupy. Vietnam proved that. South Lebanon proved that.

The future of Iraq is peace, stability and democracy. No one will build that except the Iraqi people. Occupation is the highest form of dictatorship because it decides for other people what they themselves have to decide.

US think tanks, trying to serve US interests, which is normal if they don’t sacrifice human and democratic values, insist that the past local elections, the SOFA and the next general elections will save US interests and install a civil pro-US regime in Iraq. Instead of a horrible division of Iraq, which they supported for six bloody years, they advocate nowadays “soft partition”. Instead of totalitarian dictatorship, they advocate by corruption and lie-based propaganda an elected pro-US dictatorship. They write scenarios and pieces of theatre to be executed by US stooges and their forces in which the Iraqi people are but the audience, and most of the time the canon fodder.

The next piece of theatre they have already written is the next elections. They claim that the next election will bring reconciliation and stability to Iraq; that the US can then withdraw and give Iraq to its people. “All’s well that ends well”. They oppressed Baathists, Sunnis and the Iraqi Army through the first elections, constitution and “government”. They got rid of Sadrists, the Iraqi middle class and Sunnis of Baghdad with the “Surge”. They weakened and isolated the pro-Iranian religious groups by the local elections. The next election, they think, will produce a pro-US liberal modern parliament independent of Iran, Turkey and Arab states if by military and political measures, including attacking Syria, they can prevent all those who refuse the division of Iraq from running in the election or voting against their plans and stooges.

What a beautiful stupidity they advocate! They don’t realise that the more they push Iraq against its neighbours, the more their puppet government is isolated. And the more they try to divide Iraq, the more Iraqis are united against those who try to divide them. Maliki now is Nero, and just as meagre and reviled. No future for his government but putting fire to the Green Zone or Baghdad.

Iraq is a secret alchemy. None of those who don’t feel the essence of this alchemy can comprehend it. Neither US think tanks, nor their Israeli advisers can understand it. It is an existence and continuity of 8000 years of culture and appurtenance that occidental Orientalists and political analysts could not apply their theories and plans to. Only Iraqis without outside interference can produce a real Iraq. I can qualify what the US and its think tanks try to do in dividing Iraq to control it with an Iraqi saying: “They write on water.”

Yes, Americans can, with the next corrupted elections, as they control the rules of elections, as they control Iraqi resources, and as they have one million armed persons in their service, in addition of the silence of the world’s states, produce whatever parliament they wish. But what for? To continue the crimes and genocide? To continue the plunder, the oppression and destruction?

It is time to let Iraq to Iraqis, to withdraw unconditionally and let Iraq to a transitional government that is supported by the resistance and the anti-occupation forces and masses. It is this government that can offer a sincere election. The US government and think tank theatre for Iraq hasn’t produced — and will not produce — but blood, death and destruction for Iraqis.

Abdul Ilah Albayaty is an Iraqi analyst, member of the BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee.

From the beginning of the occupation until now, American experts and advisers are laughing at the men of the political process by portraying democracy as merely a series of mock elections. Democracy is a political system based on the theoretical and effective equality between citizens — men and women — without any discrimination in ethnicity, religion, sect or political belief, and in all aspects including equality of citizens in elections. Any breach of this equality, whether by law or without law, private or public, through good or bad intentions, renders the system undemocratic. And if this equality has not been met, then the election becomes a charade for governors doing it for themselves. This is what happened with the election law voted by the so-called Iraqi new parliament.

It is no longer a secret to anyone that the anti-occupation movement is the first political force in Iraq. Even the United States and Iraq’s neighbours have recognised this fact. Following six years of carnage, arrest campaigns, propaganda, disinformation and deception, the persistence of these forces’ position in defence of the people of Iraq, its freedom and its supreme interests, rendered them a key to the future that cannot be ignored. In fact, several factors have helped in accomplishing this. First are the achievements of the Iraqi national government and the failure of the rule of the occupation. Second, the national movements’ renewal. The shock suffered by Iraq could not but produce the rise of a new national upheaval in parties and also among new generations. Third, the growing rapprochement between the patriotic, national, Islamic and leftist currents. Forth, the financial and military collapse of the United States. And finally, the non-acceptance by most of Iraq’s neighbouring countries of what is happening in Iraq.

The fact that the anti-occupation movement is the power of Iraq’s future, either through armed, political or civil action, has made the occupation and its allies panic. What was left for them is to win battles for two days or a week. Thereafter rises to the front the core antithesis, which is between the resistance and anti-occupation movement and the occupation, as the main and decisive battle. The next election is but an episode in this battle. The anti-occupation movement cannot participate in this election and present candidates. In spite of this, it clearly has a strong presence in the political climate of Iraq. It cannot participate for it knows that it is the United States that decides the results of the elections according to its own interests and plans, as it decides laws and rules, controls all Iraq’s affairs, as well as the army and police of occupied Iraq. Any other pretence than this fact is a lie.

In staging elections the United States is working on two levels. On the one hand it tries to lure some of the resistant forces to engage in the political process while at the same time it helps Maliki in the persecution of the masses of the very same forces it lures in order to prevent them from participating in the elections. Why? The meaning is clear. The US does not want lawmakers to have a popular base, so it can direct them as it wishes. It realised that the forced displacement of millions of people, including Baathists, Sunni Arabs, the military and civil apparatus of the state, experts and academics, Turkmen, Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, Sabeans, and patriots in general, constitutes violations of human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The current attempt to make the representation of Iraqis abroad unequal to the representation of those at home is a continuation of these crimes and a proof of them. It abolishes the principle of equality between Iraqis. The US leaves Maliki’s government and the political actors who support the occupation to do this dirty job.