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COMMENTARY
Old Iraqi nemeses,
deadly demands
By Ehsan Ahrari
If the United States was looking for kudos
from the Iraqis for liberating them from the
tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein, on the second
anniversary of his fall (April 9) there was no
manifestation of gratitude. Instead, thousands of
Iraqis poured out into the streets of Baghdad
chanting, "No, no to the Americans, yes, yes to
Islam." To be sure, the demonstrators were mostly
followers of the young Shi'ite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr.
However, almost immediately
after the creation of the new interim
government, this and other demonstrations in
different parts of Iraq were foreboding and
ominous. A noteworthy occasion was when the crowd
in Firdos Square mimicked the famous images of the
American soldiers toppling the statue of Saddam on
the day of the fall of Baghdad. Only this time,
the protesters toppled the effigies of President
George W Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair
and Saddam, all dressed in red jumpsuits similar
to those worn by Iraqi prisoners.
The new
government faces some old nemeses, yet its
foremost challenge is to take immediate measures
to create a public image that - unlike the
previous interim government - is independent of
the Americans. The Iraqi people view this new
government differently, since they elected its
officials. In this sense, the new government is
making an auspicious start. But the Iraqis are
also highly suspicious that even the new
government will become a stooge of the Americans.
So the elected officials in Iraq know they are
likely to lose that legitimacy quickly if they do
not perform according to the expectations of their
constituents. In the meantime, their enemies will
do everything to make their job nearly impossible.
The questions related to America's motives
about invading Iraq are too cumbersome and grim
for the majority of Iraqis to demonstrate any
enthusiasm about the continued presence of foreign
troops in their country. US forces, indeed,
were envisaged as liberators, but that window was
very narrow, and disappeared soon after the fall
of Saddam. Too much has happened since then for
most Iraqis to maintain a positive attitude toward
the US. (It should be noted that the Kurds are the
exception to these observations.) A majority of
Iraqis remain convinced that the real purpose of
the US invasion of their country was to acquire
control of its vast oil reserves. They quickly
recall the connections of the Bush presidents
(both father and son) with big oil. In addition,
they refuse to forget that Halliburton, the former
employer of Vice President Dick Cheney, has earned
hundreds of millions of dollars since the toppling
of the Saddam regime.
Now, the Iraqi thinking
is that the US is really interested in making
their country its colony, as it has already done
to Afghanistan. The United States' Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) has left a terrible
legacy of governing Iraq, especially when it so
cavalierly abolished the Ba'athist Party and the
Iraqi army, thereby making many thousands of
Iraqis unemployed almost instantly. The Iraqi
insurgent movement rose from the ashes of those
ruinous decisions.
There were hopes
that the previous interim administration would have
a better start when it was created, but Iyad
Allawi - an Iraqi expatriate who spent most of his
life wheeling and dealing with US and
British intelligence - headed it. Still, there were
hopes that he would carve out a niche and a style
that would convince the Iraqis that he was
independent of US control. However, that did not happen.
Allawi and his administration never succeeded in
establishing an image among their countrymen that
they were nationalistic in orientation. To be
fair, the Iraqi insurgency did not allow much room
to maneuver.
Terrorist attacks were
relentless. They left no breathing room for anyone
who "collaborated" with the Western occupying
forces. Consequently, the government could never
crawl out of the security cocoon long enough to
establish its legitimacy. A sad irony in Iraq is
that rulers of that country, no matter what form
of government they claim to practice, have to
remain fearful of the governed. That was true
about Saddam, and is also true regarding the
current government.
In the period when
Iraq was ruled under the stewardships of the CPA
and Allawi, two Shi'ite clerics - the Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Muqtada - were able
to carve out their respective niches. One was to
play a crucial role in the establishment of the
post-Saddam order, while the other was to emerge
as the enemy of that order.
Unlike Iran's
revolutionary leader, the late ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, Sistani belonged to the Shi'ite school
that advocated separation of religion and
politics. However, that separation never had the
same meaning as it is understood in the Western
world with the concept "secularism". He was to be
the mentor-in-chief of the new government, without
holding any official title.
Sistani
was the grand chess player. He had the entire
game figured out - from the first to the last move.
The bottom line for him was that, by the time
he finished his grand game, Iraq would be a
moderate Islamic democracy governed by the
Shi'ite majority. To be sure, other sectarian and
ethnic groups will have ample room to participate,
but only as minority partners. Sistani made sure
that the Shi'ites did not spill any US blood.
They went along with the US plans to move
Iraq toward self-rule, while the Sunni groups
became the chief antagonists. Indeed, a
substantial portion of the insurgency came from
the Sunni community of Iraq.
Muqtada, on the
other hand, always acted as if he were not sure
what he wanted, while making it abundantly clear
what he did not want. He did not want the Americans
to stay in Iraq or make important decisions
about its future. But he showed ample clarity
about assigning Islam primacy in Iraq, and even
closely affiliating it with Iran. The battle
lines were being drawn. Sadr clashed with
the Americans, and, in the process, lost many
young fighters of his Mehdi militia. In Muqtada's
version of the power game, everyone was
expendable, including himself. The Shi'ite notion
of self-sacrifice in the tradition of Imam
Hussain, grandson of the Prophet of Islam, very
much seems to be driving Muqtada. However, unlike
Sistani, Muqtada did not have a clear vision about
where Iraq would head under his guardianship.
These two clerical visions
(in the case of Muqtada the lack of a
clear vision) spoke volumes about the future of Iraq.
It was an important country when Saddam was at
the helm. Yet Iraq's sense of purpose in the
region was a source of concern, even consternation, for its
neighbors, because of the unpredictable nature
of Saddam. After all, he fought a
major regional war with Iran between 1981 and 1989.
Then, within two years of that conflict, he
invaded Kuwait. Now, Iraq as a country seems to be
driven by a sense that it remain a major actor in
the region; however, it does not yet appear to
have a definite sense of purpose, because it is an
occupied country. Under the Sistani vision, it was
to emerge as a moderate democracy. But then what?
Would it emerge as one of the leading nations of
the Arab world? No one knows. No one can even
begin to think along those lines, since the
affairs of Iraq are so confusing and in such a
state of flux at present.
There is a new
interim government under US occupation, but
new demands and old enemies not only promise to
sap the energy from the new government, they are
also likely to challenge or even threaten its very
existence.
The constitution written during
the US occupation has resulted in the emergence in
the new government of two of the representatives
of the most suppressed groups - the Shi'ites and
the Kurds. Jalal Talabani has become the
president. Even though that post is largely
symbolic, the ascension of a Kurd in that job is a
major development. Ibrahim Jaafari, the new
premier, is a Shi'ite. Even though the Sunnis form
only 20% of the Iraqi population, they largely
boycotted the elections. Thus their representation
in the new parliament remains slim. Still, the
party that has emerged as the slightly dominant
one, the United Iraqi Alliance, has gone out of
its way to include the Sunnis in the government.
The most crucial test of the new government is
whether it will be envisaged as a legitimate
entity by a majority of the Iraqis. To enhance its
legitimacy, it must quickly prove that it, indeed,
is independent of the Americans.
However,
the new government, like its predecessor, faces a
major challenge from the Iraqi insurgency.
Consequently, its reliance on US forces also
will continue out of necessity. Still, it must
find a balance between containing the insurgents
and keeping the Americans on a tight leash
regarding security operations. Given the fact that
the Iraqi security forces have become somewhat
credible players in the domestic arena, the new
government might be able to use them instead of
heavily relying on US troops.
The
representation of various groups in a new Iraqi
government remains a fancy notion, and it is being
watched with interest in the rest of the Middle
East. Interestingly enough, Lebanon has a similar
arrangement, but even that arrangement was
established because of French influence. It will
be interesting to see whether it will work and for
how long. The Iraqi insurgents, the strongest
enemies of such an arrangement, are doing their
best to destroy it. An important question is
whether Muqtada, another old nemesis of the
US-established order, will want it to work.
Despite the fact that the new government
has enabled the Shi'ites to emerge as the dominant
group, Muqtada might be motivated by the notion of
personal gain. As long as he stays out of the
government, he has little to lose by remaining as
an outside critic. Right now, he has a major issue
to put periodic and intense pressure on the new
government: the demand for the withdrawal of
US troops. The fact that the Bush
administration has no intention of withdrawing
from Iraq any time soon guarantees that Muqtada
does not have to worry about losing a highly
emotional issue that could enable him to whip up
massive fervor against the new government.
The new government, for its part, also has
two trump cards. First, it has the support and
prestige of Sistani on its side. As long as he is
around, Muqtada will feel like the second banana,
and will stay within his limits. Second, the new
government also has the option of focusing on new
economic policies that will enable Iraq to
reemerge as a major Arab state. What about the
Iraqi insurgency? It, too, will dissipate if the
new government were to become increasingly
successful in governing Iraq.
Even as the
new government takes charge, the Iraqi political
milieu remains punishing to those who don't
succeed, or don't succeed within the shortest
timespan. One of the basic principles of
democratic government is that failure on the part
of the elected officials does not carry a harsh
sentence like death. However, death remains a
routinely recurring event for everyone who is part
of the new order in Iraq. The price of failure is
death, but so is the price of success. Just ask
the young Iraqi recruits who are hoping to build a
new Iraq, while they are attempting to secure a
stable and promising future for themselves.
Graveyards of that country are increasingly being
filled with those youngsters.
Ehsan
Ahrari is an
independent strategic analyst based in Alexandria,
Virginia, US. His columns appear regularly in Asia
Times Online. He is also a regular contributor to
the Global Beat Syndicate. His website:
www.ehsanahrari.com.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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