Bush's last triumph hails the end of his era

As Muslims all over the world made their way to Eid prayers celebrating the completion of the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, they heard on the news that the American president had chosen to use the most important day in the Muslim calendar in order to pretend that he had achieved anything of significance in Iraq. Now that Saddam is gone, Bush will be increasingly exposed as the fraud he is. Most people won't regret to see him go anymore than they regret the departure of the erstwhile US-sponsored Iraqi dictator.

The disrespect shown by the Neocon administration to the sanctity of the Islamic festival and the application of international law will come back to haunt them. In their blind arrogance and illusion of invincibility they thought Iraq was a cake-walk, but within precious little time they managed to alienate even those Iraqis who had initially welcomed the interference. Hiding behind a ambiguously worded UN security council resolution the usurpers of the White Hosue trampled on international law which prohibits an occupying force from changing the laws and constitution of a country under occupation and from installing their own government. They gave no quarter, and thus will be given no quarter when their time for reckoning will come.

Bush's haste in completing the execution - and he is responsible, for the Iraqi puppet government will do nothing without his approval - indicates that he fears his troops will not be able to stay much longer to finish the job they were sent to accomplish. Bush wanted to end the Iraq occupation on a triumphant note of having accomplished regime change. From here onwards it will be rapidly downhill, since all the US has managed to create is volatility and instability. And the US departure will not be dignified, nor will a temporary addition of troops generate sufficient control over the situation to pretend that all is well and sorted for the battered soldiers to come home. The surrender of Iraq and the splitting of the country into separate regions waiting to be absorbed by rivalling neighbouring countries, notably Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, will harbour the beginning of the overstretched US military having to disengage and withdraw behind their own borders. Not long thereafter they will, in the paraphrased words of UK foreign secretary Margaret Becket, be held to account by an alliance of countries from Venezuela to China who might not have much more in common than their loathing for American hegemony.

Many countries have sat on the sidelines rather than opposed the United States territorial ambitions because, as a retired Russian general pointed out some time ago, it is much easier to let them bleed themselves to death than fight them openly. Likewise, whilst everybody knows that the dollar has lost its value for good and is going to enter freefall anytime soon, countries still holding dollar reserves want to dispose of them slowly and prevent a run that would hurt them equally. But whatever the detail of how these events will play out, the Iraq adventure into which America foolishly sleepwalked upon Israel's behest, will be the historical marker for the end of the American era in the world. The Zionist cabal, who know their time is up, might want to throw in a wild card with a "preemptive" nuclear strike on Iran, but even this will not change the trend in the long term.

In his hurry to execute Saddam Hussein George Bush has played his final trump card. Now the game is up.