Iraq Press Roundup

The Iraqi, Saudi-based Al Basaer newspaper carried an editorial Friday with the headline: "The U.S. swirl in Iraq between withdrawing and staying."

It said the U.S. "bleeding" continues as long as it stays in Iraq.

"The U.S. has two choices to get out of this hole; yet the sweetest choice is bitter," it said.

The paper said the first choice was to "withdraw from Iraq which is what the U.S. public opinion wants."

The second choice is to bear the human, material and military loss and stay in Iraq, which means U.S. forces will have to face the Iraqi resistance until the last U.S. soldier leaves Iraq.

The editorial listed the U.S. loss as viewed by Iraqis: "If we take the financial loss, we know that the war in Iraq has exhausted the U.S. budget which means there will be more pressure on the U.S. people to pay taxes. Then there is the human loss. ... Last is the material loss, which mostly occurs as a result of using the primitive explosives (IEDs)," it said.

"Although the Pentagon has very developed methods of fighting, they couldn't get rid of Iraqi resistance," it added.

The editorial detailed the reasons why it was not possible for the United States to withdraw from Iraq as that would mean that Iraq would be "an easy bite for Iran" which the U.S. doesn't want. Another reason is that if the United States withdrew under the pressure of the Iraqi resistance, that would mean that the United States lost its "war on terrorism," giving other groups all over the world a chance to fight the United States; and thirdly, withdrawing would mean failure for the U.S. plan of turning Iraq in to "the biggest military base for the U.S. in the Middle East."

Al Basaer also said: "It is true the Democrats are pressuring the U.S. administration to withdraw from Iraq but they've never called for an end to the occupation which means the plan to building the biggest military base is still under consideration."

"Building 14 military base all over Iraq and the biggest U.S. Embassy in the world on the Iraqi land doesn't signal that the United States is at all planning to leave Iraq at any point," the paper said.

The editorial said the U.S. success in Iraq requires three steps: ending the Iraqi resistance, forming an Iraqi government that is loyal to the United States, and maintaining U.S. public support.

"The fact the U.S. Army confessed they can't bring down the Iraqi resistance, and that forming a stable central government, so far, has been impossible, and the American people are aware now that their administration is sunk in the Iraq quicksand, means the U.S. administration is losing and drawn between staying and withdrawing."

The Baghdad-based Al Mada carried an editorial with the headlined "Us and America."

It said it is not difficult for those who follow U.S. foreign policy to acknowledge the difference between the natural, economic and human resources that the United States has and the very limited maturity it its foreign policy.

"This contradiction leads to harmful disasters that affect the U.S. as well as the other countries that are subjected to these immature and illogical foreign policies," Al Mada said.

It said many Western countries disapproved of the U.S. policy, fearing Washington would misuse its political power.

"Defining the U.S. as a superpower is a term that was created form World War II's ashes," the editorial said.

It commented that this is not enough time to be experienced in the international fields or to build a foreign policy.

"The U.S. mentality was born and raised to focus on the term 'business' and that affected its sequential governmental systems in that people are put in high position having in mind that positions are no more than bridges to cross to a better position that makes them earn more money and gain better social benefits," it said.

The editorial called U.S. foreign policy "unsustainable" because of elections held every four years.

"This policy doesn't give a government enough time to be focused on its foreign policy," it said.

"No one can deny the U.S. is a superpower because of its resources and potentials; in fact, ignoring that fact is the reason we suffer," the paper said.

The paper concluded: "When there are this many contradictions between U.S. capabilities and its foreign policy, the matter wouldn't be how the United States deals with the outside world, it would be how should the would deal with it."