“The staging of a coup d’état is still there in the minds of some politicians but the possibility of its success is no longer there in Iraq,” a high senior government official has been reported as saying.

To say military coups are not possible in Iraq is merely part of an offensive policy. A coup d’état and its specter is even there in the mind of the official himself.

Let us discuss the issue calmly. To give it its due, I think we may need more than one article.

When was the specter of military coups not part of Iraq’s political landscape? The answer is clear. Coups have always been there in Iraq. It did not matter whether Iraq was ruled by a democratic government or a despot. That is what its history tells us since it emerged as a state in the 1920s up to the period under U.S. military occupation.

And how should we view the U.S. occupation of Baghdad? It is none but a classical example of a military coup. In fact it is the worst example.

In Iraq-style coups, Iraqi tanks would barge into the presidential palace. In U.S. –style coup, American tanks barged into the presidential palace. The only difference is that the former tanks were made in Russia and the latter ones in the U.S.

How could any observer or official then say the possibility of staging a military coup in Iraq is an illusion? Those entertaining such ideas are simple-minded people who have not read Iraq’s history carefully.

Iraqi political mind is conspiracy-stricken by nature. There are no restraints to control such conspiratorial mind. The only thing that stops a coup from taking place is the presence of U.S. troops in the country. A coup against the government will be a coup against Washington. The U.S. will not let that happen.

But who could ascertain that the U.S. itself might not support some form of a coup in Iraq. This is indeed what bothers those who see the staging of a coup quite a possibility.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index...02-03\kurd.htm