U.S. to stay in Iraq, political science professors believe
By Monte Ashqar
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: News
Originally published: 3/13/08 at 2:38 PM CSTLast update: 3/13/08 at 5:56 PM CST
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Dr. Mansour El-Kikhia, political science and geography chair at UTSA, said he does not believe the United States will ever withdraw its troops from Iraq regardless of who is in the White House.
"The United States will maintain some sort of troop presence in the Green Zone," El-Kikhia said.
El-Kikhia thinks that the recent troop surge was not the true reason behind declining violence in Iraq.
Involving Sunnis in the political process is what caused the decline in violence, said El-Kikhia, who immigrated to the United States from Libya 30 years ago and writes a weekly column for the San Antonio Express-News.
"The people of Iraq are fed up with the constant violence and killing, so they took the fight into their own hands and now the Sunnis are fighting al-Qaida," El-Kikhia said.
El-Kikhia said Shiites cannot fight al-Qaida because ideologically, al-Qaida considers Shiites to be infidels ;therefore, it is easier for Sunnis to infiltrate al-Qaida's ranks and help destroy it given that al-Qaida is composed of Sunni Muslims. "It is farcical to say the surge has worked because violence goes in cycles," El-Kikhia said.
"Saddam was a monster, but he was successful in taming the sectarian tendencies of the Iraqi society," El-Kikhia said.
Until today, no one knows what precise motives were behind invading Iraq, El-Kikhia said.
One element is the dominance of a neo-conservative faction within the Bush administration that is forcing the United States to act in a way similar to 19th century European hegemony, El-Kikhia said.
El-Kikhia said a powerful public relations apparatus through conservative radio and television talk shows helped justify and explain to the people that what the United States was doing in Iraq was the right and only solution.
"People like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity helped sell this war to the public," El-Kikhia added. "Those guys were guns for hire."
He disputed the theory that oil companies had a stake in promoting the war.
"The oil companies do not need the president to promote their agenda," he said. "They will work with anyone and don't need a war." Exxon's profits in the first quarter of this year were $11.66 billion despite the recession we are in," he said. "War is a detriment for companies' well being."
El-Kikhia said the war costs Americans about $12 billion every month.
"If you add all costs, this war will cost far more than $1 trillion, especially if you include the cost on lost future investment," he said. "Keep in mind that America now has a national debt of $8.9 trillion, and this year, the national deficit is going to be about $400 billion, while Texas' annual education budget is $33 billion.
"If you only pay $300 million in interest, still that is a lot of money."
El-Kikhia said the biggest losers in this war are Americans and Iraqis.
"I think the major casualty for American soldiers who come back is that they become psychologically screwed up," he said. "These guys will always be on some sort of mental disability, and those who die in this war might find more peace in death than in a life of sickness.
"The same goes for the Iraqis where the whole society will never be the same," El-Kikhia said. "That society has been turned against itself."
Dr. Phil Rogers, political science professor at this college, said the Bush administration had made the decision to invade Iraq and topple Hussein before Sept. 11, 2001.
"I think some factions in the administration legitimately believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," Rogers added. "Although, the idea that Saddam had ties to al-Qaida was promoted in the media to sell the idea to the public.
Rogers said he thinks this was the most important reason behind the war.
"Those people wanted to topple Saddam because they perceived him to be a likely threat to the region," Rogers added. "He invaded Kuwait and Iran."
Rogers disagreed with El-Kikhia about the influence of the military-industrial complex on promoting the war.
"I don't believe the military had any influence because several voices in the military were against the war," Rogers said. "The military itself is divided over the issue.
"Cherry-picking at the intelligence by the Bush administration was very apparent, though," Rogers said. "Right before the war, Saddam offered to bring the inspectors back into Iraq."
On the effectiveness of the recent troop surge, Rogers said he agreed with El-Kikhia that what caused the decline in sectarian violence was the shift of attitude of Sunnis, but he also gave some credit to the surge.
"Another factor also is the de facto ethnic cleansing and separation of neighborhoods," Rogers said. "The notion of the surge's success is dependent upon the parties willing to compromise, otherwise this surge's effectiveness is temporary."
Rogers said there was no moral justification for Hussein's actions against the Kurds.
"His motivations were not ethnic or religious, and I don't want to justify genocide, but there was some rationale to his actions against the Kurds." Rogers said. "Still, gassing a whole population because of some Kurds' actions is extreme."
Rogers also said he believes that there will be no immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of who moves in to the White House next year.
"If McCain becomes president, we will be in Iraq indefinitely," he said. "On the other hand, if the Democrats get into the White House, we will be in Iraq for at least 10 years."
As of Tuesday, 3,987 Americans have died in Iraq according to an Associated Press estimate.
On the other hand, as of Tuesday about 90,000 Iraqis have died since the beginning of the war according to www.iraqbodycount.org, while an estimate by Opinion Research Business said that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the U.S. invasion.
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