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A dent to Washington's Iraqi
designs
By Erich Marquardt
After analyzing the results of Iraq's
national elections of January 30, it is clear that
the outcome is not what the Bush administration
had intended during its planning of the March 2003
invasion that toppled the government of former
president Saddam Hussein.
When Iraqis went
to the polls, 48% cast their ballots for the
United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the party that
represented the country's long-oppressed Shi'ite
majority. This result will give UIA control of
about half the seats in the 275-member National
Assembly. The remaining seats will be awarded to
the other political parties, primarily the
Kurdistan Alliance and the secular-oriented Iraqi
List, led by US-backed interim Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi.
The pivotal win for Iraq's Shi'ite
majority - a victory that was expected - is a
worrying development for the US since it will
likely result in an improvement of relations
between Iraq and Iran, two long-time antagonists
that each received support from the US at one time
due to Washington's interests of preventing any
one Middle Eastern state from gaining enough power
in the region to make a run for regional hegemony.
The path toward regional hegemony in a region as
rich with oil and gas reserves would create
dangerous instability and develop into a situation
where the Middle Eastern hegemon would be able to
extract concessions from Western powers in
exchange for energy supplies.
Washington's perceived
interests
Iraq has long posed a problem to
US and Western interests. During the leadership of
Saddam, Iraq received generous political, economic
and military support from the US. This support
grew out of Washington's concern over the 1979
Islamic Revolution in Iran. Due to the nature of
Iran's revolution - which was led by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini and was religiously-inspired,
having as a central pillar the goal of spreading
Islamic revolution elsewhere - the US wanted to
prevent Iran from defeating Iraq during the
large-scale Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980
to 1988.
Yet, after the war, Saddam's
regime sought to expand its territory and power in
the Middle East. In 1990, Baghdad made a grab at
the oil-rich sheikdom of Kuwait, invading it under
the justification that it had been part of the
Ottoman Empire subject to Iraqi suzerainty and
that therefore its territory should be under
Baghdad's control. Yet, Baghdad's invasion of
Kuwait City sounded alarms in Washington since the
attack increased Baghdad's regional power and
threat capability. If the invasion were allowed to
stand, Baghdad would have been more capable at
becoming a regional hegemon and, therefore, having
the ability to threaten the flow of oil and gas to
the West.
Washington built a coalition
through the United Nations and successfully
repelled Iraqi troops back to Baghdad. Washington,
with the help of its allies, later instituted
various measures - such as no-fly zones - to
contain Baghdad and keep its power in a state of
weakness. The Bill Clinton administration, which
controlled the White House from 1993 through 2000,
was resigned to containing the Iraqi regime,
occasionally targeting key Iraqi facilities and
troop formations with missiles and bombs, yet made
no attempt to seriously remove the Iraqi
government from power.
With the White
House falling under the control of the Bush
administration in January 2001, US policy toward
Iraq dramatically changed. The Bush administration
saw Saddam's regime as a liability and as an
opportunity. It was a liability because Washington
could not trust that a Baghdad free from US
military oversight would remain within its borders
and not make challenges toward tilting the
regional balance of power. Furthermore, Baghdad's
one-time project to acquire a nuclear deterrent,
in addition to chemical and biological weapons,
raised concern that if the US-enforced sanctions
regime were to end, or if the US military ceased
its air patrols, that Saddam's government would
work to reacquire nuclear weapons and use those
weapons to push for regional hegemony. Indeed,
there was no end in sight to this dilemma, since
on the death of Saddam it was predicted that
either his sons, or individuals closely aligned
with Saddam's interests, would take power.
In addition to the established
understanding of the leadership in Baghdad being a
liability, neo-conservative thinkers within the
Bush administration portrayed Iraq as a potential
opportunity. These leaders argued that Saddam had
alienated so much of the country through his
brutal and dictatorial rule, especially the
majority Shi'ite and minority Kurdish populations.
On a US invasion of Iraq, these analysts asserted,
the majority of Iraq's population would welcome US
troops and consider the US to be the liberators of
Baghdad.
Indeed, in September 2003, six
months after the US invasion was executed, when
questioned by the US House Armed Services
Committee about an increase in insurgent activity
in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
downplayed the threat, saying, "I think these
people [attacking coalition forces] are the last
remnants of a dying cause." He said US forces
"have the sympathy of the population, not the
surviving elements of the Ba'athist regime".
Due to the perceived feasibility of a
relatively painless invasion and subsequent
occupation, it was proposed that an invasion of
Iraq would be in the interests of the US. In
addition to removing the liability of Saddam and
his Ba'ath Party, the US would likely be able to
support a new democratic government in Baghdad
that would work with Washington to secure their
mutual interests: internal and regional stability,
oil and gas exploration, and establishing Iraq as
a bridgehead against recognized foes in the
region, primarily Iran and Syria.
The Bush
administration thought that its invasion and
liberation would result in a US-friendly
government in Baghdad, one that Washington could
assist to heal the sectarian rifts within Iraqi
society, such as the historical conflict between
the country's Sunni Arabs, Shi'ite Arabs and Sunni
Kurds. The new government in Baghdad would no
longer hold the territorial aspirations of Saddam,
helping to secure a future of regional stability,
important in an area that contains vast quantities
of oil and natural gas. Furthermore, with the
removal of Saddam, the UN sanctions regime would
end and multinational companies would be able to
invest in the country. The Bush administration saw
such investment as a win-win situation for both
the US and Iraq: US companies would be able to
begin and expand operations, which would assist
the US economy, while Iraqis would benefit from
the capital earned on increased production of oil
and natural gas made possible through US and
Western technology.
The final major gain
to US interests brought through an invasion would
be to transform Iraq into a bridgehead against
enemies of US designs, challengers that also had
historical tensions with Iraq. Washington hoped
that the new government in Iraq would work with
the US to contain the power of Iran, a country
that fought a brutal war with Iraq from 1980 to
1988 and one that has funded organizations, such
as Hezbollah, that continue to take actions
against US interests. Iran, too, is a state that
is developing the technology that will give it the
knowledge necessary to create an arsenal of
nuclear weapons. Syria, which sided with Iran
during the Iran-Iraq war, in addition to siding
against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, has also
supported such groups as Hezbollah, along with
threatening the security of Israel, a major US
ally in the region that also collaborates with
Washington to prevent any Middle Eastern state
from gaining too much power.
According to
this projected scenario, it is clear that US
interests would be best served by an invasion of
Iraq and the removal of Saddam and the Ba'athist
leadership. However, there were major flaws with
this theory. For one, in order for the theory to
come to fruition, it was largely dependent on
best-case scenarios. When many of these best-case
scenarios failed to materialize, such as the
assumption that no local insurgency would form to
counter US occupation efforts, the Bush
administration's plans in Iraq quickly unraveled
and have resulted in the precarious situation that
now exists in the country and one that may
actually harm US long-term interests.
Major setbacks to US plans
The
initial setback to US plans, and the most
devastating one, was the formation of a local
insurgency that began to attack US-led troops. In
the months after the completion of major combat
operations, US-led forces saw a dramatic
escalation of insurgent activity. Thought to be
emanating from the disenfranchised Sunni Arab
minority, and complemented by more Islamist
elements that find affinity with al-Qaeda's
ideology, the insurgency has now spiraled into a
force that numbers in the thousands; indeed, its
growing size has kept Washington from reducing its
troop presence in the country, resulting in the
overextension of the American military.
The conflict raging between insurgents and
US-led forces created a poor security climate in
the country. Insurgent activity slowed the ability
of US-led forces to train indigenous police and
security personnel capable of providing
protection. In the absence of adequate polices
forces, the population saw a rise in criminal
violence, such as robberies, rapes and murders.
The insurgent attacks on oil pipelines,
electricity conduits, and other essential
infrastructure deprived the Iraqi population of
basic social services.
The poor security
climate in Iraq, and the lack of essential social
services, was largely blamed on the US-led
occupation. Unable to count on protection from the
primary power source within the country, Iraqis
had to rely on local support bases. Iraqis
identified increasingly with their sectarian
leaders, rather than their national ones; their
national leaders were considered incompetent and
unrepresentative of the country. This development
explained the widespread support for Shi'ite
leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who led a brief
insurrection against US-led troops until it was
finally settled by the more prominent and
influential members of the Shi'ite community.
The lack of confidence in the US, and by
implication the more US-oriented Iraqi political
parties, greatly affected the January 30 general
elections. The Iraqi List party, led by US-backed
interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, made a poor
showing in the elections, receiving only 13.7% of
the national vote despite a major media campaign.
The Iraqi List party espouses secularism and is
most closely aligned with the US; indeed, Allawi
was given the honor of addressing a joint session
of US Congress in September 2004. He was also
responsible for the suppression of Muqtada's
uprising in the Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and
Karbala. Allawi was involved in approving the
heavy US-organized assaults on the Sunni Arab
strongholds of Fallujah and Samarra. These actions
by Allawi were not popular among the Iraqi
population and resulted in much of the popular
anger that is now directed toward the US.
Instead, the bulk of the votes went to the
UIA, a Shi'ite clergy-supported party with the
tacit approval of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
the most prominent Shi'ite leader in Iraq. The UIA
won 48% of the nationwide votes, earning them
control of about half the seats in the 275-member
National Assembly. This will ensure predominant
Shi'ite influence in the construction of Iraq's
constitution and all government dealings. The UIA
is expected to appoint one of its own as prime
minister, the country's most powerful political
position. While the UIA will not be able to
dominate Iraq - many important bureaucratic and
policy decisions rely on a two-thirds majority
vote by the National Assembly, requiring the
formation of coalitions - it will be able to
greatly influence the affairs of the country.
The UIA has reached an initial agreement
to back Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the country's next
prime minister. Jaafari is the leader of the Da'wa
Party, one of the two leading religious parties in
the alliance, the other being the the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI).
Implications of Shi'ite
influence
Increased influence by the UIA
and Iraq's Shi'ite community will likely affect US
interests negatively. Within Islam, the Shi'ites
share a history of persecution by the more
prevalent Sunni majority. Even within Iraq's
modern history, the Shi'ites were oppressed for
decades by the dominant Sunni Arab establishment.
However, to Iraq's east lies Iran, a Shi'ite-led
power that has incorporated clergy rule into its
government structure. Because of this connection,
and in light of the historical conflict between
Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, it can be expected that
an Iraq led by a Shi'ite majority will see
relations improve with neighboring Iran.
Looking past the shared sense of history,
many members of UIA spent years and even decades
of exile in Iran, persecuted by Saddam's security
apparatus. Many members of the various Shi'ite
militias received training and military supplies
from Iran. Sistani is of Iranian origin, and the
head of the SCIRI is an avid supporter of Iran,
especially considering that he lived in exile in
the country for almost two decades and has, in the
past, been the recipient of significant funding
from Tehran. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim told United Press
International on January 27, "Iran has helped the
whole Iraqi nation for two decades. We believe
that with regard to the historical, cultural,
religious and political commonalities that exist
between the two nations, the relations between
Iran and Iraq will be based on friendship, mutual
respect, and noninterference in each other's
affairs."
Despite these religious bonds,
Iraqi and Iranian Shi'ites share many points of
contention. For one, Iranian Shi'ites are Persian,
whereas Iraqi Shi'ites are Arab. During the
Iran-Iraq war, for instance, Iraqi Shi'ites fought
on the side of Iraq and Iranian Shi'ites fought on
the side of Iran. Also, the UIA plans on wielding
its own power and it is not in the party's
interest to submit to Iran. That being said,
however, it can be expected that Baghdad will join
Tehran on many issues, varying from the US's role
in the Middle East to decisions on oil output.
Most importantly, it is unlikely that the UIA will
view Iran in the same negative light as does the
US; the failure to support the Bush
administration's hardline policy on Iran will
leave one of the central objectives of the US
invasion unfulfilled.
Additionally, the
UIA is also expected to push for a larger role of
Islam in the Iraqi constitution and in Iraqi
society as a whole. Recognizing that the
institution of Islamic law in the country would be
resisted by Iraq's minority political parties, UIA
may push for the institution of Islamic law in
certain provinces or municipalities. The US, which
believe secularism to be more aligned with its
interests, would prefer this development not
occur, since it could create religious radicals
who seek to join Iran in exporting Shi'ism abroad,
or in supporting militant religious organizations
such as Hezbollah.
Post-election role
for US troops
Due to the lasting nature of
the insurgency, US troops will remain in the
country until Washington can assess what impact
the elections have had on the insurgency. At first
glance, however, it appears that the elections
will have a limited impact. For instance, the
Sunni Arab party led by present interim President
Ghazi al-Yawar, known as The Iraqis party, won
only 1.8% of the national votes, giving it about
five seats in the National Assembly. This poor
representation disenfranchises the Sunni Arab
community and will do nothing to quell their fears
that they will have little influence in the new
Iraqi government.
The explanation behind
such poor representation is that the Sunni Arabs,
by and large, boycotted the polls, explaining why
The Iraqis and the Iraqi List received so little
support. For example, in the predominately Sunni
Arab province of Anbar, less than 14,000 Iraqis
voted, which only amounted to 2% of those
eligible. This decision showed how many Sunni
Arabs see violence as the only effective answer to
the grim political future they face.
Therefore, confronted with a sustained
insurgency, the US is now hoping to create some
semblance of stable government in Iraq, even if
that government takes a form contrary to what the
US originally intended or hoped for. In addition
to creating a stable government, the US is rapidly
working on training indigenous security personnel
to handle policing and military tasks. The US will
only be able to continue its current troop
commitment to Iraq for so long, since its military
force is overextended and the recent bold actions
of Iran and North Korea have highlighted how other
states perceive the US as weaker and less able to
react to a changing power balance due to its
costly invasion and occupation in the Middle East.
Conclusion
The major
reasons behind the US invasion of Iraq derived
from Saddam's regime being a liability to US and
Western interests, in addition to the
neo-conservative vision of Iraq as an opportunity
to foster long-term internal stability in Iraq and
the region as a whole, to expand oil and gas
exploration projects that would benefit the Iraqi
population along with American and multinational
energy companies, and the opportunity to turn Iraq
into a bridgehead against established foes in the
region, primarily Iran and Syria.
Yet, the
US ran into an immediate snag, and that was the
development of a local insurgency which has had a
strong enough impact to prevent US-led forces from
fostering stability. The continued failure to
quell the insurgency has unraveled the bulk of the
Bush administration's goals and has created
problems of its own.
Now, with the
conclusion of the January 30 elections, Iran
stands to gain as a major winner. If the UIA
manages to improve relations with Iran, the US may
see the bulk of its objectives in Iraq go
unfulfilled. More significantly, Washington could
find itself sitting in a poorer strategic position
relative to where it sat when it pursued its
policy of containment.
Published with
permission of the Power and Interest News
Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into
various conflicts, regions and points of interest
around the globe. All comments should be directed
to content@pinr.com |
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