"Whenever America goes to war, the spoils of victory invariably
include more US military bases overseas." So concludes columnist
Ian Traynor in the Manchester Guardian, one of Britain's leading newspapers.
"The Iraqi deployment plans fall into the century-old pattern of
US foreign bases being built on the back of military victory."
Indeed, since the Second World War, American troops have remained stationed
in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. These nations were certainly capable
of building--or rebuilding in the case of Germany--a democratic civil
society within a couple of years. The threat of Soviet expansion, however,
justified the continued presence of the occupation powers.
Formally, the occupiers recognized Germany and Japan as sovereign states
some six years after the war and then included them in regional U.S.-led
alliances. Yet, both countries had to accept American bases on their
territory, whether they liked it or not, even after the Soviet regime
disintegrated and they no longer needed American supervision or protection.
Nevertheless, any request by Germany or Japan for the withdrawal of
all American troops from their territory would certainly be interpreted
in Washington as unhelpful, if not hostile, even now, 58 years after
the war.
America's 22 major military bases and over 70,000 military personnel
in Germany proved to be far more crucial for the rapid invasion of Iraq
than the few thousand German soldiers Chancellor Schröder did not
want to send. For the past five decades, American soldiers have actually
become an integral part of Germany's multicultural scene. If they suddenly
left, so the mayor of Berchtesgaden told me, thousands of Germans doing
business with American troops would lose their jobs.
I suspect Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Wolfowitz have
already obtained the president's consent to make Iraq into the kind
of hub for the U.S. military in the Middle East that Germany is in Europe.
For that reason alone, all other foreign contingents must remain under
American command. Wolfowitz told the New York Times that U.S. bases
"send a message to everybody, including important countries like
Uzbekistan, that we have a capacity to come back in and will come back
in."
Whether or not the administration agrees to a timetable for the reestablishment
of Iraq's sovereignty in a United Nations resolution, the Iraqis had
better get used to the presence of Americans for many years to come.
Yet, while cultural ties made it relatively easy for Germans to adjust
to American expectations, Iraqis will find the adjustment to a prolonged
American military presence much more difficult. They share the deep
resentments of Arabs and Muslims about the American bias against them
and in favor of the Likud vision of Israel. That resentment is bound
to remain, as long as U.S. governments tolerate Israel's occupation
of Palestinian and Syrian territories and allow Israel to own weapons
of mass destruction.
There was never any violent resistance to the American presence in Germany
and Japan. Iraq, however, has already proven to be fraught with lethal
dangers. Saddam Hussein may have planned to fight the invading forces
not so much with conventional means as rather with guerilla warfare.
Similar to the Vietcong's underground combatants in Vietnam, the Iraqi
resistance has shown that it wants to terrorize not only the occupation
troops but also anybody else cooperating with them, including the humanitarian
workers of the United Nations.
An early American retreat from Iraq could well lead to serious clashes
between the several Iraqi factions opposed to each other. This possibility
gives the Pentagon even more reason to dig in and develop bases for
the long haul. They will not only serve to suppress guerilla activity
but also to intimidate the rulers of neighboring Iran and Syria.
If such a scenario comes true, anti-American resistance is unlikely
to subside soon.