A Peaceful Democratic Iraq
The British created the artificial state of Iraq after World War I by drawing a border to enjoin three diverse ethnic groups with a long history of enmity: the Shiites in the south, Kurds in the north and the Sunnis in the center.
This is a contemporary geographic and geopolitical reality that has to be addressed sooner than later. The Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis never have and never will get along as one. The current truce between the Sunnis and Shiites while they collaborate to get rid of the U.S.-led occupation will end the minute foreign troops leave Iraq. The bloodshed that will follow will make the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the civil war in Lebanon look like walks in the park.
The Shiites, especially Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers – the Sadriyyin – see themselves in the footsteps of their forefathers who led the Great Rebellion after World War I that expelled the British in 1925 and created modern Iraq. They fought the British and Sunnis, who threw in their lot with the British, who repaid the favor and made them masters of the new artificial country. The repeated brutal tactics used by the Sunni minority to suppress the Shiite majority were best exemplified by the rule of Saddam Hussein. In 1991, when former President George H.W. Bush encouraged Shiites to overthrow Saddam, thousands were slaughtered as America stood by in what was a terrible foreign policy disaster.
Ultimately, the deep, vindictive ethnic and religious factions will fracture the government and country. Nationalism, as manifested by Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab, is no different than the nationalism expressed by the Serbs, Croats and Macedonians in Yugoslavia, or the Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. The World War I remnants of the Austria-Hungary Empire are no different than Iraq, itself an Ottoman remnant.
The artificial national boundaries created by colonial overlords to facilitate their domination and control of natural resources can only be enforced by ruthless and oppressive authoritarian regimes. The colonial borders disappear under democracies and tribal borders are redrawn as former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia remind us. Likewise Iraq will have to be divided into three separate countries to accommodate the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. To keep them together in a democratic state under the dated “divide and conquer” political theory ignores the religious and ethnic historical differences and grudges that have been temporarily put aside as they try to rid their collective tribal lands of the occupying infidels.
Iraqi politics is steeped in violence. Iraq’s last monarch, King Faisall, was assassinated in 1958. His successor was assassinated five years later. Three more coups preceded Saddam’s rise to power in 1979. Nevertheless, Iraq could become one of the first Arab democracies because of the large number of Iraqis involved in the democratic opposition parties that have developed and are active in exile, courtesy of Saddam’s repressive policies at home. The exiled Iraqis have not been embraced as openly by their fellow citizens as they are by Americans. Iraqis who suffered under Hussein’s iron rule do not trust the returning exiles. And for good reason as the U.S. found out the expensive, hard way.
The exiled Iraqi opposition had only one interest -- the liberation of Iraq for their personal benefit. They used managed perception to the max -- with a bonus – oil. Saddam believed his Russo-Franco oil partners would convince the Bushites that the exiles were lying and that the weapons of mass destruction didn’t exist. However, the exiled bazaar salesmen outsmarted Saddam and America’s faith-based political and military establishment. Another Bush foreign policy disaster.
A democratic Kurdistan and democratic Sunni and Shiite states will do to Iran and the Middle East what glasnost did to Russia and now democratic Eastern Europe. Iran’s mullahs and the royals in Saudi Arabia will go the way of the ruling elites in Romania, Poland and Czechoslovakia. America has to make sure it finishes what it started in Iraq and not repeat its failures of 1991 after the Gulf War. It has to install democratic regimes and make sure they survive. “Americans are experts at destruction but not construction. Look at what happened in Afghanistan. There is no law and order at all,” Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based daily Al Quds al-Arabi, said.
Like the Afghans, Iraqis eagerly await the removal of their shackles and opening of their society to the world. U.N. Resolution 678, which authorized the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait, called for America and its allies to restore peace and security in the region. It also allows a change of regime to achieve this objective. It is up to America to install the right democratic regimes and not repeat the mistakes of its British predecessors. It is important to avoid another U.S. foreign policy disaster in Iraq because it would be a colossal catastrophe. America must deliver on its promises, to the Iraqi people, the world and America. Do it right and get out. America cannot afford to fail in Iraq. If it does, it will be relegated to a 21st-century debt- burdened bankrupt – financially and politically.
This is a contemporary geographic and geopolitical reality that has to be addressed sooner than later. The Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis never have and never will get along as one. The current truce between the Sunnis and Shiites while they collaborate to get rid of the U.S.-led occupation will end the minute foreign troops leave Iraq. The bloodshed that will follow will make the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the civil war in Lebanon look like walks in the park.
The Shiites, especially Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers – the Sadriyyin – see themselves in the footsteps of their forefathers who led the Great Rebellion after World War I that expelled the British in 1925 and created modern Iraq. They fought the British and Sunnis, who threw in their lot with the British, who repaid the favor and made them masters of the new artificial country. The repeated brutal tactics used by the Sunni minority to suppress the Shiite majority were best exemplified by the rule of Saddam Hussein. In 1991, when former President George H.W. Bush encouraged Shiites to overthrow Saddam, thousands were slaughtered as America stood by in what was a terrible foreign policy disaster.
Ultimately, the deep, vindictive ethnic and religious factions will fracture the government and country. Nationalism, as manifested by Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab, is no different than the nationalism expressed by the Serbs, Croats and Macedonians in Yugoslavia, or the Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. The World War I remnants of the Austria-Hungary Empire are no different than Iraq, itself an Ottoman remnant.
The artificial national boundaries created by colonial overlords to facilitate their domination and control of natural resources can only be enforced by ruthless and oppressive authoritarian regimes. The colonial borders disappear under democracies and tribal borders are redrawn as former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia remind us. Likewise Iraq will have to be divided into three separate countries to accommodate the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. To keep them together in a democratic state under the dated “divide and conquer” political theory ignores the religious and ethnic historical differences and grudges that have been temporarily put aside as they try to rid their collective tribal lands of the occupying infidels.
Iraqi politics is steeped in violence. Iraq’s last monarch, King Faisall, was assassinated in 1958. His successor was assassinated five years later. Three more coups preceded Saddam’s rise to power in 1979. Nevertheless, Iraq could become one of the first Arab democracies because of the large number of Iraqis involved in the democratic opposition parties that have developed and are active in exile, courtesy of Saddam’s repressive policies at home. The exiled Iraqis have not been embraced as openly by their fellow citizens as they are by Americans. Iraqis who suffered under Hussein’s iron rule do not trust the returning exiles. And for good reason as the U.S. found out the expensive, hard way.
The exiled Iraqi opposition had only one interest -- the liberation of Iraq for their personal benefit. They used managed perception to the max -- with a bonus – oil. Saddam believed his Russo-Franco oil partners would convince the Bushites that the exiles were lying and that the weapons of mass destruction didn’t exist. However, the exiled bazaar salesmen outsmarted Saddam and America’s faith-based political and military establishment. Another Bush foreign policy disaster.
A democratic Kurdistan and democratic Sunni and Shiite states will do to Iran and the Middle East what glasnost did to Russia and now democratic Eastern Europe. Iran’s mullahs and the royals in Saudi Arabia will go the way of the ruling elites in Romania, Poland and Czechoslovakia. America has to make sure it finishes what it started in Iraq and not repeat its failures of 1991 after the Gulf War. It has to install democratic regimes and make sure they survive. “Americans are experts at destruction but not construction. Look at what happened in Afghanistan. There is no law and order at all,” Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based daily Al Quds al-Arabi, said.
Like the Afghans, Iraqis eagerly await the removal of their shackles and opening of their society to the world. U.N. Resolution 678, which authorized the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait, called for America and its allies to restore peace and security in the region. It also allows a change of regime to achieve this objective. It is up to America to install the right democratic regimes and not repeat the mistakes of its British predecessors. It is important to avoid another U.S. foreign policy disaster in Iraq because it would be a colossal catastrophe. America must deliver on its promises, to the Iraqi people, the world and America. Do it right and get out. America cannot afford to fail in Iraq. If it does, it will be relegated to a 21st-century debt- burdened bankrupt – financially and politically.
posted by Peter de Krassel's Custom Maid Politics at 1:48 PM
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