US President George W Bush on Tuesday gave the go-ahead to the US occupation army in Iraq and all those who support the US occupation, to remove the Maliki government, when he publicly withdrew his sponsorship and protection from the puppet regime that he had placed into office.
This will be the second US-organised regime change in Iraq in just 4 years. The first was the removal of the Saddam Hussein administration in April and May 2003 by the US and UK armies.
Bush said: ‘The fundamental question is, will the government respond to the demands of the people?
‘And if the government doesn’t respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government. That’s up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians,’ he said.
However Bush knows that the Iraqi people have been demanding food, shelter, power and clean water in vain for the last four years, and no puppet government official or US leader has paid the slightest attention to their calls for help.
What he means by the people is the supporters of the occupation army, and those groups who are prepared to follow the US lead against Iran. These are now gathering around the long-time CIA agent Allawi, who has made no secret of his intention to overthrow Maliki and establish a regime that will prove to be more amenable to the requirements of the United States.
Bush spoke up about Maliki after two senior US politicians called for the removal the Maliki government.
Senators Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John Warner, the panel’s top Republican, said on Monday, ‘We believe that the recent high-level meetings among Iraqi political leaders could be the last chance for this government to solve the Iraqi political crisis. And should it fail, we believe, the Iraqi Council of Representatives and the Iraqi people need to judge the government of Iraq’s record and determine what actions should be taken – consistent with the Iraqi constitution – to form a true unity government to meet those responsibilities.’
Levin went further saying, ‘I hope that the Iraqi assembly, when it reconvenes in a few weeks, will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and a more unifying prime minister and government.’
At the same time the US ambassador in Baghdad Ryan Crocker was saying that Iraqi political progress has been ‘extremely disappointing,’ and that the US support for the crumbling government of Dawa party leader Nuri al-Maliki was not ‘a blank cheque.’ In fact the Maliki government has disintegrated, with more than half of its cabinet walking out, and with the top governing group looking both ways between the US and Iran.
The police, the Iraqi puppet army and the various government ministries are hotbeds of corruption, are rampant with sectarian militias, and with looting at the very top. This has seen billions of US dollars vanishing into the Swiss bank accounts of government leaders and officials who know that they will have to leave the country along with the American army.
Meanwhile, up to 700,000 civilians have been killed since May 2003, while two million Iraqis have fled to Jordan and Syria with another two million having been displaced internally.
There is no power, no drinking water and no petrol. Millions of homes have been completely destroyed, and thousands of intellectuals and scientists have been placed on death lists by religious extremists and are being assassinated systematically.
This is the democracy of Bush and Blair at work. Now that Bush is preparing for war with Iran, and arming all his allies in the Middle East for that purpose, he intends to try to progress to a more reliable government, led by the CIA agent Allawi, who will not flirt with Iran. The means for doing this will not even be by a rigged election – it will be by a military coup.
The strategic target is still the domination and theft of Iraq’s oil. The method remains the same – mass murder, but this time devoid of any of the democratic flourishes that acted as a disguise for the action in March 2003.
However, any such attempt will be too late to make any difference. Imperialism has been defeated in Iraq. Britain is getting out of Basra and the US will not be far behind.
