Alternative Insight


Iraq - False Assumptions and Punishing Choices

U.S. policies towards Iraq have evolved from false assumptions and steered themselves to punishing choices. As examples:

Policies towards Iraq have been derived from the assumptions that an irreconcilable dictator controlled Iraq; that he intended to develop weapons of mass destruction, use them to overthrow Middle East governments and incorporate their nations into Iraq's sphere of influence. These assumptions steered the western nations into creating choices of:

Either allowing Saddam Hussein to continually terrorize his people and neighboring nations or replace his government with an Iraq government that would bring peace and democracy to Iraq and serve as a model for other Middle East nations.

The assumptions were partially correct but the actual choice was:

Between implementing a non-military containment of a Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq that history shows had managed to bring stablity to Iraq and accomodate its ethnic rivalries and between a brutal Civil war in Iraq.

Compounding Mistakes in Iraq
Although, some aspects of the oppression might have been exaggerated, it is evidently true that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and responsible for imprisonment and murder of many Iraqi citizens. Without going into detail, there is much evidence that after1995 Hussein pacified Iraq in all but the Kurdish region, assisted in the construction of mosques, enabled women to gain rights, tolerated all religions, and actually emptied prisons of political prisoners. Iraq was not expanding militarily and could easily be contained by UN actions. Hussein had repressed open dissent, but Iraq's ethnic rivalries had not been totally suppressed. The liberation of Iraq has neither brought peace and democracy to Iraq nor served as a model for other Middle East nations. It has only liberated unaddressed ethnic rivalries. Iraq has killings, imprisonments and attacks on civilan populations equivalent to the most punishing years of Saddam Hussein's regime -- all that and the emergence of a Civil War. If history repeats itself, Iraq cannot be put together again... without the emergence of another strong man:

After World War I, the Ottoman Empire provinces of Mosul (Kurdish), Baghdad(Sunni), and Basra (Shiite) were merged into one political entity, the nation of Iraq. British military authorities remained in control and disparate ethnic groups combined their efforts to defeat the occupiers. Iraq finally emerged as an independent political entity in 1932. Since then, it has been a troubled nation of military coups, assassinations, power seizures, parliament dissolutions and dictatorial rule. Only Saddam Hussein, using brutal methods, had been able to rule for an extended length of time. Since his overthrow, the Kurds and Shiite populations have become more aggressive in gaining power, which makes the challenges for a new Iraq more serious than for previous governments. The future of Iraq, Alternative Insight, May, 2005


Iraq is doomed as a nation. Nir rosen, a fellow at the New America Foundation, who has spent much time in Iraq, writes:

Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy. They, too, are killing Iraqis.

The world wonders if Iraq is on the brink of civil war, while Iraqis fear calling it one, knowing the fate such a description would portend. In truth, the civil war started long before Samarra and long before the first uprisings. It started when U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad. It began when Sunnis discovered what they had lost, and Shiites learned what they had gained. And the worst is yet to come.
Nir rosen, Killing Fields, Washington Post , May 28, 2006

The U.S. is in a lose-lose situation. America is just another enemy of most of the contending factions, except the Kurds, whose atttachment to the U.S. and Israel reinforces the Shiite and Sunni antagonisms towards the U.S. It doesn't matter whether the U.S. stays or goes. It cannot change the Iraq condition. So, who can?

The Contenders for a New Iraq
The usual suspects cannot halt the strife and establish a peaceful Iraq. Similar to Northern Ireland, the religious rivalries only mask the real rivalry -- contention for political and economic domination. A clue to Iraq's recovery can be found in the experience of a wounded nation whose recent history resembles the events in Iraq -- the African nation of Rwanda.

In Rwanda, a minority of Tutsis, who had only 15% of the population, controlled the military, and with its military also controlled the social and economic life of a nation composed of mainly the Hutu tribes. In the early 1990s a government with a Hutu president accomodated the ethnic rivalries. On April 6, 1994, after an airplane carrying the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira, also a Hutu, was shot down as it prepared to land and both presidents died, violence against the Tutsis erupted.

Prepared Hutu gangs managed to kill an estimated 800,000 Tutsis, a figure too large to believe, but one that has been accepted. The story does not end there. It ends where it began. The Tutsi-dominated rebel movement known as the Rwandese Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, overthrew the Hutu government and seized power. Today, ethnic reconciliation is tenuous and perception has the Tutsis once again having real political dominance.

Substitute Sunni for Tutsi and Shiite for Hutu and the relationship is clear. A better educated, well organized, military trained and cohesive ethnic group can overcome the odds and rise from the ashes to regain power. And the Sunnis will not be alone. Turkey and Iran have a strong interest in an Iraq that will not permit the Kurds to increase their power and will prevent a Kurdish nation from becoming a reality. Turkey and Iran also want a stable Iraq on their borders. Iran might favor the Shiites in Iraq, but its attachment to its co-religionists is exaggerated. Religions of the same denomination in foreign countries don't always help one another. As one example, the American Catholics haven't favored the Quebec Catholics in their battles with the Canadian government. The Iraq Shiites are socially and politically detached from the autocratic Iranian government. The Sunni population are preferred for accomplishing the tasks of curbing Kurds and achieving stability:

The destruction of the Baathist administration and the Iraq army after the U.S. invasion has impeded the re-emergence of a unified and stable Iraq nation. It will take time and much suffering, but other relevant situations indicate that the cycle will go full swing and a "strong man" allied with an authoritative government will again rule Iraq. As blood flow and brutality become the norm, those who most effectively use the chaos to advance themselves will emerge as the victors -- which is why the Sunnis will most likely win.

alternativeinsight
june, 2006

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