The 27 Key Points for US Success in Iraq

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, Orientalist

(http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36427#top)

There are basic mistakes in the American (I mean the governmental) approach to Iraq. The present administration failed to realize the following basic parameters:

1. Iraq does not exist, it never did! After 1258 (destruction of Baghdad) the area belonged to various successive administrations with faraway capitals (Istanbul). Earlier, Baghdad did not rule the area of that land but a much larger one. As concept, Iraq is a colonial technical entity, nothing more.

2. America is a non-colonial country; either its policies will reflect this (as abnegation of the entire colonial approach to the Middle East) or simply America will fail. By its nature, America cannot be France or England - in their stead. The ideological content (non-colonial in the case of the States) predestines the political form (and targets).

3. Consequently, the only way for America to be successful in Iraq is that America shapes a genuinely new – non-colonial as it fits America (and as is the wish of so many colonized peoples allover the world, and more specifically of the Iraqis) – policy for the area of that technical entity that does not and cannot exist as such outside colonial environment.

4. A genuinely non-colonial approach would use as a tool, and rather focus on UNESCO, not the UN itself.

5. A genuinely non-colonial approach would first take into consideration that nothing can keep so many different peoples together. Kurds have nothing to do with Arabic - speaking populations, Aramaeans aspire to their free country, Turkmens want to be closer with Turkey, and of course Shia and Sunni can be united only for terrorist purposes, not for the average citizen’s prosperous perspective.

6. Since there has been a total lack of democratic culture, any majority in Iraq (and this is only Shia) will behave dictatorially, if free elections offer the opportunity – which is not permissible for any democratic intention and approach to that area. Democracy is NOT a totalitarian rule of the majority.

7. America must understand that its non-colonial nature must lead its administration to non-colonial type of impact / interference.

8. The only way to destroy the colonial structures in that land is to bring forth a genuine, local rejection of these structures, be they known to the local peoples or not (if they are not, and truly speaking they are not at all, this is the result of colonial disinformation and educational-academic-intellectual machinated guidance, which means more work for America!).

9. Local rejection of the colonialism means definitely return to 1917, before the arrival of the British forces at Basra, and then at Baghdad, and commitment to ameliorate the then prevailing situation.

10. There was no local identification with any sort of Arab nation and/or nationalism (that are both a colonial - disreputable and criminal - fabrication) before 1917 in that land, so Arabic nationalism of any form and expression must be totally uprooted from Mesopotamia, a land that was never 'Arabic'.

11. The only chance for America to obtain a success in Mesopotamia is to diffuse unbiased, non-colonial History, Culture, and Education throughout that land, and make it be reflected at the social and political levels.

12. The only chance to get it done is to separate various populations through mass transfers, and to delineate territories for the Kurds, the Turkmens, the Aramaeans, the Shia Arabic speaking, and the Sunni Arabic speaking.

13. These constituencies must start functioning as different cantons according to the Swiss model.

14. Americans should concentrate their efforts on the Arabic speaking constituencies-to-be (Shia and Sunni).

15. Education must prevail over barbarism (and this concerns mostly the Arabic speaking populations that have been victimized as engulfed in tenebrous ignorance and fanaticism), and in this regard History must be taught properly. The Arabic speaking populations are Aramaeans and not Arabs. It must become clear to the entire world and to all the modern Mesopotamians that linguistic Arabization - as a consequence of the islamization - means nothing in terms of genuine ethnic and cultural identity, tradition, and expression.

In the same way African origin Americans, who are born in the States as English native speakers, are NOT Anglo-Saxons or Indo-Europeans, the Arabic speaking populations of Mesopotamia are NOT Arabs. They are Aramaeans, who got linguistically arabized.

16. Sunni or Shia Arabic speaking populations must understand that liberation from Saddam Hussein is only a tiny success story, if compared to the ultimate liberation from the colonial chains. America can help in this regrad. Self-knowledge is what is mostly needed in this regard.

17. Syriac Aramaic must be imposed as national language along with Arabic, and must become an obligatory course throughout Primary and Secondary Education addressed to Arabic speaking people of Mesopotamia. Aramaic speaking Aramaeans of Mesopotamia will teach Aramaic the Arabic speaking Aramaeans of that land. This is the only way for exit.

18. The name of the country must be its authentic one – as in Syriac Aramaic: Aram – Nahrain (Mesopotamia).

19. Americans must understand that deportation is conditio sine qua non for an ultimate success in Iraq, and actually it was always part of Mesopotamian politics and practices. Deportation was decided and imposed upon Greeks and Turks (and it did concern millions of people in 1923 - 1925) following the terms of the Lausanne Treaty; so, what is the point of avoiding and even ignoring this solution now for Iraq?

20. Deportation must take place not only in delineating Kurds from Turkmens, and Aramaeans from Arabic speaking, but also within the constituencies where any form of terrorist act and/or group rebellion is to be attested.

21. Necessarily, the entire country is to be reshaped, so progressive elements have to be separated from radical and terrorist extremists. Zones must be made everywhere, kept isolated, and then controlled and crosschecked house by house. The choice must be personal and nominal.

22. Any person or family that denies to accept and contribute to the aforementioned process of educational de-arabization and re-aramaization has to be transferred to special camps for compulsory works of public infrastructure and reparation.

23. De-arabization must go in parallel with a re-spiritualized, re-'intellectualized' and re-civilized Islam. All Mesopotamian Muslim intellectuals, who have the intention to participate in such a great work, must meet in an extraordinary Conference, set up ideological pillars, and develop a great variety of modern approaches to and interpretations of Islam that will be the only permitted to be diffused through any sort of meeting within a mosque and a medresa (religious school)

24. Neoterisms must certainly be introduced in this regard, and the main Sermon (Khutbah) of the Friday Prayer must be retransmitted by radio and/or TV set throughout all the mosques of the country. Like this, only one top religious leader will be allowed to give a speech, and none else. This leader’s Sermon will be heard (and watched) by all the Muslims in all the mosques of Mesopotamia.

25. The US Administration must understand that the Lerna Hydra Americans face in Iraq has three heads: French Colonialism – Arabic Nationalism – Islamic Extremism. The first head fabricated the second, and contributed – through machinations – to partly shaping and to successfully canalizing the third. The tripartite communicating vessels (rather call it a monster) must be totally broken down, if success is still a target in Mesopotamia.

26. Americans must understand as early as possible (and this already means yesterday) that the ideological creature of France was not opposed by the British. So, it is omnipresent on the territories the French wished it diffused. It is meant to keep the local peoples in permanent underdevelopment and confusion, ignorance and fratricide strife, colonial dependence and cultural alteration. But it is also meant to make any foreign intruder, who would jeopardize the global interests of colonial France, fail. It is not military might that will guarantee for the American administration the ultimate success; it is high intellect, unbiased historiography (in the way of Martin Bernal, who demolished the Colonial Greco-Romano-centrism of France in his celebrated ‘Black Athena’), and rich conceptual thought. It is not just a coincidence that all sorts of bad intentions have been directed by the French against the Aramaeans of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar and the Emirates.

27. Ultimately, the average American – misinformed through the pitifully silent mass media, namely the likes of New York Times and the Washington Post – must come to learn what the French colonial diplomats and academicians do not want him to know with respect to the deep back thoughts of the Arab nationalist and Islamic extremist groups that currently practice Anti-American terrorism in Mesopotamia (and elsewhere):

These groups – all – believe that we are living at the end of times (Al Yom Al Ahar) and that the long awaited Saviour, the Islamic Messiah, named Al Mahdi (the Guided One), will appear very soon to coordinate efforts with Jesus (in Arabic: Isa), conceived as Islamic Prophet and not as Messiah or God, against America and Europe, i.e. the entire system of the Western World that they consider as the Realm of the Antichrist (key notion for the Islamic concept of the End of Times, Masih al Dajjal in Arabic).

They view their fight as sacrifice that earns them a ticket for the Paradise, and they believe that the expected events are imminent and encompassing great natural disasters. More they keep the Americans busy, greater their contribution to the ‘forthcoming’ arrival of Al Mahdi is.

Theirs is a completely erroneous interpretation of the Coran and the Hadith, but this is all they believe and they care about.