No

by Matthew Scott

Created on: July 31, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2008

An embassy-no matter how large or small-if not approved of by the Iraqi people, clearly should not exist. As most know, the United States military presence in Iraq is slated to be substantial for years and years to come. This is why, of course, many permanent military bases are being constructed. Iraq was supposedly an independent, sovereign nation that would decide its own future and craft its own laws as their legal bodies saw fit. But since under their Constitution, they cannot purge the immutable and American-imposed autocratic "Bremer's Laws," it is eminently clear that true sovereignty is not to be allowed.
It is my presumption that a huge U.S. embassy only implies substantial American interests in the region. While some may say "democracy" constitutes much of those interests, I whole-heartedly defer to fact. As revealed with other actual democratic elections in the region, it is not necessarily true that our political leaders and their donors think democracy is all that suitable in that region of the world. The Iraqi parliament's primary objective, as America sees it fit, is to draft and pass oil revenue sharing agreements. Of course, anybody that has seen or read of such drafts has perceived the incredible and inexplicable leverage towards international oil interests over Iraqi people.
Many are perplexed as to why American forces continue to occupy Iraq. Since it should be very clear by now that Iraq continues to degrade because of our presence, it becomes quite natural to explore other known non-propagandistic "reasons" for our continuing presence. Besides the obvious interests of oil, we really remain over there for the purpose of continually lending credence to a faux "War on Terror," which has been a windfall for the military industrial complex. The President's rhetoric and behavior do not match; it is obvious that allowing the Iraqi people to decide for themselves what is best and most appropriate for them is meaningless since there is profit to be had. Most of the Iraqi people want our occupation of their country to end; if democracy and sovereignty were so important, clearly there would no longer be an American presence. The Iraq people do not trust us; we should not, therefore, be building any installations that would further promote our true "long-term" interests.
In summation, I think that there is not justification to build a huge new embassy on Iraqi land. None of this is meant to convey that no embassy should ever be sustained, however. Rather, first, trust must be earned. It is clear that we should have never invaded Iraq, but what is even clearer is that we should have never permitted the ostensible "mistakes" of our leaders to constitute an immutable path to national annihilation; we have destroyed Iraq and our own Treasury in the so-called progress of "staying the course." If we can earn the Iraqi peoples' trust back by actually giving them full autonomy of their future and offering earnest monetary, industrial, diplomatic, and intellectual assistance, then perhaps a U.S. embassy is appropriate. A good first step would be to actually help them re-develop a viable electric grid and water system. However, as we continue to ruin their country and dictate to them what they ought to do, it becomes a difficult endeavor to maintain that they are truly free.

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