The Hindu Business Line : <I>US gets deeper into the Iraqi mire </I>

It is said that a pathological gambler does not know when to stop. With every disaster, he keeps on raising the stakes with reckless abandon in the fond hope that somehow the tide can be reversed in his favour. The US exactly fits the portrait of a classical gambler insofar as its moves on Iraq are concerned.

First of all, with the memory of the ignominy of Vietnam still fresh, its illegal invasion of a sovereign country, and that too flaunting forged and fabricated accusations was itself a witless gamble. Since that first utterly reprehensible act of monumental folly, the amount of money the US has thrown away on the Iraqi misadventure has been estimated between $350 and 400 billion. The Wall Street Journal reveals that the drain on this account has touched $120 billion in fiscal 2006, an increase of 18 per cent over the previous year.

Gambling away lives

Remember: With only $25 billion a year, world hunger could have been reduced by half (to 400 million) by 2015, the remorseless advance of AIDS rolled back with an annual outlay of a mere $10 billion, and every child in the world immunised against diseases, leading to a steep fall in infant mortality rate, by the annual provision of a paltry $3 billion.

It is not money alone that the US has been gambling away just to maintain its precarious hold on Iraq: It has sacrificed the lives of 3,000 of its troops, besides leaving 10 times that number maimed in various degrees. And still, nowhere in Iraq is there any sign of either the US or the so-called democratically-elected Government it has underwritten getting to be on top of the situation whether in terms of controlling sectarian violence, quelling jehadi insurgent elements, providing security to the citizens or performing basic law and order functions. The stability of the government itself has been called into question, and but for the manpower and money pumped by the US into Iraq, the whole system might have collapsed long time ago. What will any country in a similar situation do if it is wise and rational enough? It will find ways of quickly reducing its commitments and responsibilities, and draw up a plan of phased and early withdrawal, putting the native government on notice that it should shape up and take over by a given date. But what does the US Administration do? It obstinately opts for a "surge", a word coined with characteristic American quirkiness to do duty for a dispatch of a further contingent of 21,5000 troops to Iraq. In the process, it has knowingly placed itself at odds with public opinion and the US Congress, where not only the Democrats but a sizeable section of the Republicans are up in arms.

On January 24, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bi-partisan, though non-binding, resolution declaring flatly that "It is not in the national interest of the US to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq." It is slated to come before the full Senate next week

Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Clinton, the influential New York Senator and the Presidential hopeful of 2008, is planning to table a resolution to deny funds for Iraqi operations unless the Administration backs down. There is, however, no stopping the US Administration, it seems, from its yet another desperate gamble. Alas, for the US, alas for Iraq!

B. S. RAGHAVAN