by Jeremy Hammond

Created on: September 15, 2008

The suggestion that it is up to U.S. military forces to "win the peace" in Iraq is an absurdity.

The violence that has plagued Iraq is a direct consequence of the U.S. invasion and continuing occupation. It is preposterous to suggest that continuing to engage in the very behaviors that are the cause of the thing will result in bringing it to an end.

The Iraqi people themselves are not so deceived about the facts on the ground in their country. Polls consistently show that they view the U.S. war as imperialistic, and the U.S. presence the principle reason for the violence. The Washington Post, for instance, noted last December that "Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation".

The prevailing belief among many Americans that it is up to the U.S. to bring "peace" and democracy" to the Iraqi people, who are incapable of achieving such goals on their own, reveals an astounding level of ignorance, and of arrogance.

One hardly need to elaborate on this elementary observation, but it's useful to recognize how the Bush administration continues to lie and deceive about Iraq after waging a war of aggression, "the supreme international crime" as defined at Nuremberg, based on a false pretext with the claim, contrary to all evidence at the time, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.

Take the example of the 2005 elections in Iraq, which the Bush administration touted as a great achievement for the U.S. and a landmark step towards bringing stability back to the country. There was just one problem with this self-praise; the U.S. had firmly opposed the elections, wanting rather to hand pick members of the assembly that would draft the Iraqi constitution.

It would thus be only be after the U.S. had rewritten Iraq's new founding document that the Iraqi people would be granted a small measure of self-determination, had everything gone according to the plan of the Bush administration. It was only after the highly influential Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani used his power to pressure the U.S. to hold the elections. It was only massive public pressure from the Iraqi people themselves that the elections were held prior to the drafting of the constitution.

Though limited (Iraqis didn't even know who was on the ballot until they went to vote), this was indeed a major achievement - not for

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