Naked Imperialism

The Big 4

Recent stories about James Baker's admission to the elite circle of imperial strategists illustrates the shallow analysis that is the corporate media.

Mr. Baker, we are told, believes America has a myriad of options on the spectrum between "cut and run" and "stay the course". Baker's "commission", which I can only assume includes no Iraqis, is considering dividing the nation into three regions under some rag-tag federal system.

The entire article rests on the assumption that James Baker has the right to decide how Iraq should be structured and governed. Unburdened by any challenge to this assumption, the author of the article directs the audience to a false debate whether there is a middle ground between the hollow cliches of "cut and run" or "stay the course". Such is the arrogance of naked imperialism.

The headline brought to mind the Versailles Treaty. On January 18, 1919, after the end of WWI, the leading statesmen of the United States, France, Britain, and Italy -- the so-called "big four" -- met in Paris to decide about the future of the defeated German and Ottoman Empires. In addition to unanimously agreeing to punish Germany for causing WWI, the Big Four divided up the vast Ottoman Empire among themselves. Britain created a "mandate" in Palestine, which is the precursor to the endless violence that has plagued its people since 1948. Jordan was created out of thin air, arbitrarily imprisoning the wandering Bedouin into an invisible cage. Iraq, another fictitious nation, and Jordan were gifted to the Hussein brothers, who had betrayed the Turks at the behest of the British.

The conflicts we witness today are the direct result of the invisible lines carved on the imperial map in 1919. Kurdistan, as a contiguous region of ethnic Kurds, ceased to exist. With the haughty wave of a pen thousands of miles away, Kurds instantly became citizens of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria, needing passports to visit their families in a village one mile away. The Shia of Iraq, once freely allowed to travel to the religious shrines of Iran, were now restricted in their practice and pilgrimages and ruled by an illegitimate monarchy that used Sunni Islam to justify its control over the vast energy resources of the region.

Fast forward almost 100 years and history is once again repeating itself. In the hands of a nameless American bi-partisan commission lies the fate of the Iraqi people and the nation of Iraq. Perhaps the Americans will decide to keep Iraq unified or maybe, with the haughty wave of the pen, the nation will be divided into three regions. One can envision James Baker and his imperial cohorts sitting around a table with an army of erasers, undoing the lines drawn on that fateful day in Paris in 1919, substituting them with the better judgment of a new century.

While it is unclear what the outcome of the commission will be, one thing remains certain -- the people on the ground will once again be excluded from the decisions of the naked imperialists. History never fails to repeat itself.