Page 2 of 2 Playing politics with (and
in) Iraq By Sami Moubayed
Sunnis share in government and
responsibility, they will also share in security
of Iraq. Not all Ba'athists, the Sunnis claim,
should be punished for the wrongdoings of Saddam.
Many had joined the party either out of conviction
in its Arab nationalistic ideology or, more
frequently, because it was a guaranteed path to
professional development in government and a
military career.
That groundbreaking
legislation, which is yet to see the light of day,
along with investing in Aref's death, will also
polish the prime
minister's image in the eyes
of Iraq's Sunnis.
Remembering - or
forgetting - Aref Aref was one of the
officers who engineered the revolution that
toppled Iraq's pro-Western monarchy in 1958. The
officers actually massacred the entire royal
family, boy king, crown prince, royal
chamberlains, women, children - even pets. For
years, the date of the revolution - July 14 - was
an official holiday in Baghdad. That holiday was
canceled after the toppling of Saddam in 2003, and
in theory so should have been all homage to its
symbols, Aref included.
The former
president became chief of staff after his brother
Abdulsalam became president in 1963, killing
Iraq's first dictator, Abdul-Karim Qasim. When
Abdulsalam Aref died in a helicopter crash in
1966, his brother took over as president, staying
in power until being toppled (while he was
sleeping) by the Ba'ath and his own assistants, in
1968.
Democrats, in theory (as Maliki
claims to be), would be opposed to his regime
since it was a one-party military rule, an
authoritarian system not very different from that
of Saddam. It was actually a dictatorship without
a dictator. Religiously driven politicians, as
Maliki is, would also be opposed to him since he
presided over a secular state and cracked down on
political Islam during his years in power. The
Ba'athists should also oppose him since he
belonged to the pre-Ba'ath era.
The
pro-American politicians should oppose him because
he was a pro-Soviet leader (who actually had been
ambassador to the Soviet Union before becoming
president in 1966). The only parties who logically
would mourn Aref would be his regime associates,
who are now either dead or retired. Or the Kurds,
with whom he had excellent relations.
This
explains why Talabani was one of the first to
offer condolences for the late president, saying
he represented one of the "white pages" of Iraqi
history. But Aref's era represented the heyday of
military rule in Iraq where the military
establishment, rather than one single officer like
Saddam, was in control of political life of Iraq.
The soldiers got Aref to dismiss his
reformist prime minister Abdul-Rahman al-Bazzaz,
and replace him with an officer, Naji Talib. The
powers given by Aref to officers, or his inability
to control them, is what dragged Iraq into the
humiliating Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Saddam,
toppled by the Americans in 2003, is a product of
the system laid out by Aref in the 1960s.
Had he been strong enough to survive and
outsmart the Ba'athists in 1968, he probably would
have remained in power until 2003. Aref was an
exception among Iraqi leaders. While King Faysal
II was shot, Abdul Karim Qasim was executed,
Abdulsalam Aref died prematurely (or was killed),
and Saddam was hanged, he is the only leader to
lead a normal post-presidential life, and die
respectably.
He died when a majority of
Iraqis are digging for what remains of their sane
and normal past - reminders of the pre-Saddam era.
Everything under Saddam, and everything after him,
has been horrible. A media stunt, which went by
largely unnoticed, was a photograph published in
the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat, which is
critical of the Iran-backed Iraqi government of
Maliki. It showed Aref at an official function
with deputy Iraqi prime minister Tariq Aziz, who
is currently languishing in a US jail, taken in
1999. Aref, after all, was friends with the Saddam
regime, having returned to live in Baghdad in the
early 1980s, with Saddam's direct blessing. The
photo - if anything - showed the double standards
of the current Iraqi government.
As Iraq's
Sunnis were romanticizing about the era of their
former president, a report was published in
Al-Hayat saying that the number of Iraqi detainees
in US prisons had risen from 19,000 to 24,000. Of
that number, 85% are Sunnis (a total of 20,740).
Another report released by the Associated Press
said that the number of deaths per day had risen
from 33 in 2006 to 62 in 2007. One thousand more
people have been killed in violence during the
first eight months of 2007 than in all of 2006.
This year, as of August, a total of 14,800
Iraqis have been killed. In 2006, the entire year
had a death toll of only 13,811. Iraqi observers
claim that most of the arrests, and deaths, have
been in the Sunni community. Remembering Aref -
despite his shortcomings - is certainly more
rewarding to them than acknowledging their very
difficult current reality. It actually is a direct
response to this difficult reality.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
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