US troops landed as liberators. The commanding officer read a statement proclaiming the dawn of a new age of democracy for the country. The populace was skeptical but there were those who greeted the Yanquis with open arms, happy to be rid of oppressors.

The commanding officer was Nelson Miles, the populace spoke Spanish, the country was Puerto Rico and the century was the 19th. It may sound a lot different than the ongoing war in Iraq, but I believe the colonial experience in Puerto Rico can help us understand what may happen in Iraq. There are differences between the two situations, to be sure, but the similarities are striking.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, colonial holdings meant cheap labor, raw materials, and greater profit. The US military strategy for achieving its colonial dreams changed in the 1880s when Navy Captain Alfred T. Mahan became the federal government’s leading military strategist and advisor. Mahan developed a strategy for military supremacy, and colonial supremacy, based on naval power. This new doctrine meant that US foreign policy would emphasize building and maintaining naval might throughout the Western Hemisphere. The US invasion of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, was guided by the US’s strategic aim to obtain these colonies, and therefore military power, in Latin America and the Pacific.

The Spanish-American War established the US as a world imperialist power. The US victory, however, did present some problems. Spain’s empire had been in decline for some time and had little to offer the victors except land. As the head US negotiator Whitelaw Reid put it, “No indemnity was possible, save for territory”. With Cuba ravaged by its war for independence, the US took Puerto Rico as its Caribbean base for commerce.

The booty from the Iraq war is astronomical in comparison. Almost $2.5 billion in reconstruction and relief contracts awarded to Bechtel, the $7 billion in army contracts given to a division of Halliburton, and that’s just for starters. We haven’t even added up the oil yet. Some degree of privatization is guaranteed. There’s no question these measures will lead to mega-profits for US companies, the question is how are they going to do it. Given the administration’s bumbling so far it’s possible they’ll just hand it over to the corporations in plain daylight. But if we assume they’ll make their best move, and one should always plan on the opponent making the best move, daylight will be reserved only for public relations.

Over the last 100 years, the United States has used its colonial holdings (especially Puerto Rico) as a laboratory where the mechanisms of neocolonialism and the policies of today’s digital globalization have been perfected. What can we expect in Iraq? Using Puerto Rico as a model, I’m expecting three things:

A civilian government will come to the country…eventually
Direct military rule is expensive and politically difficult to maintain. It’s just easier to have a proxy government do the dirty work. What’s more, the creation of the government is a chance to economically tie the colony to the country. The US did this to Puerto Rico in 1900 with what quickly became known as the Foraker Act. It codified Puerto Rico’s status as a colonial territory. The law established a civilian government under complete US control with all key positions from the governor to the Supreme Court to the executive council appointed by the US president. The Act also made all US federal laws binding on the island and established the tariff system to keep the country economically hobbled. I doubt whether the US will make its laws binding on Iraq in such an overt way, but wars aren’t fought to make other countries rich.

Expect a struggle around reality.
In the 21st century colonial relationships are maintained by pretending there are no colonial relationships. The relationships haven’t changed in the last 100 years, just the definitions. So a country that has to have every decision approved by Washington DC is considered free and associated to the US purely out of choice. Any anti-colonial struggle is a struggle, in part, to define reality. Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon’s chosen successor to Saddam, has virtually no support among Iraqis, but that’s irrelevant. If all the Pentagon can do is point to an Iraqi and call him “president,” then that will be the official definition of democracy in Iraq. The anti-colonial struggle in Iraq will attempt expose the fallacy of the Pentagon’s definition.

Again, if the colonial history of Puerto Rico is a guide then we can expect other elites in the country to attempt to try. But being elites, they can be easily bought off. The variable here are the fundamentalists. The last thing the Pentagon wants is the rise of a fundamentalist movement outside of their control. The control may be political. Perhaps a multi-party democracy which includes a fundamentalist political group. The danger to the Pentagon is, of course, the fundamentalists may win.

It took 48 years for Puerto Ricans to elect our own governor. It happened after the independence movement was tightly controlled and migration programs installed to drain support from the movement. I don’t expect those types of strategies in Iraq. Religious fundamentalism is something the US government is not going to allow if it can help it. The control will come through violence. Expect Saddam’s secret police to keep their jobs with some COINTELPRO training courtesy of the FBI.

The FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (CONINTELPRO) begun in the 1950s had a devastating effect on organizing in Puerto Rico. COINTELPRO, along with military intelligence agencies, assisted the colonial government in illegally keeping files on more than 140,000 independence activists. Each faced years of harassment and blacklisting. If this is any indicator, expect Iraqi detention centers to fill with a new class of political prisoners real soon.

Expect a plebiscite with meaningless choices.
The type of government proposed for Iraq will be based on the US model, whether the Iraqis want it or not. The constitution may or may not be written by US occupiers, but it will definitely be approved by them. Iraqis will be given a choice, but the choice will be meaningless. Just as it has been in Puerto Rico.

Over a four-year period after World War II the US government engineered the creation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, keeping the colonial relationship intact while providing political cover. The US Congress made cosmetic changes to previous laws defining the relationship between the two countries. Congress mandated the creation of a local constitution, a constitutional convention, and a popular vote. It also reserved the right to edit the constitution and pre-approve the document before allowing the vote.

Since the constitution didn’t address the exploitative nature of the colonial relationship (and why would colonizers write a document detailing their colonial efforts), the only real decision was how closely associated the country would be with the US. Commonwealth status was “approved” and the US proclaimed the end of colonization. At no point has serious considerations been given to reparations for the last 100 years of exploitation. Instead Puerto Ricans are told our only guarantee of economic independence is association with the US. This has meant a confined debate on independence since ending an economic relationship with the US is considered the equivalent of a heroin addict quitting cold turkey.

The plebiscite is still a weapon that allows the US to keep its colony, but also threaten Puerto Ricans with economic devastation. The wording on each plebiscite ballot is approved by the US Congress. The terms of the vote are approved by the US Congress. The outcome, whatever it may be, is pre-determined by the US Congress.

Iraq’s oil reserves ensures there will be a strict form of control, but such direct colonization looks bad. How can the US maintain the same nature of control but in a form that looks like “liberation”? Part of the answer is privatization. Already the oil fields are under control by a Haliburton subsidiary. There will be a vote in Iraq, but it won’t be about Haliburton’s control of the oil. Or about withdrawing membership in OPEC. Or about anything meaningful.

Puerto Rico has 1/8 the population of Iraq. Our primary export is cheap labor (along with great boxers, J Lo and some of the best food you ever had in your life). Still, more than 100 years later the US has a firm foothold and refuses to leave. Iraq, with its vast oil reserves and strategic location, can expect much worse. The US is already showing its face. The debacle of a US flag over the Saddam statue showed the reality of power in the country, a signal not overlooked by the Iraqi people or anyone else in the Middle East. The war in Iraq has gone on for 13 years. We can expect the occupation to last much, much longer. And it’s going to be bloody.

Dan is program director for Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide (www.projectsouth.org ). He has been a labor union organizer, community organizer, human rights educator, freelance writer and anti-racism facilitator. This essay is based on a longer piece originally published in The Roots of Terror, available from Project South

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