3 Years into Iraq

On this third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I have my own comments that I would like to add to the general discussion. Since it would be impossible for me to get these published anywhere (since I am in no way an expert on this subject, and there are many far more distinguished people who are infinitely more qualified than me), I am merely offering them as observations here to whoever the hell reads this anyway. Also: this is meant to be the point of this entire exercise, to give me an opportunity to vent my thoughts, and hear any comments/thoughts that anyone out there has.

I never bought the idea that the U.S. went into Iraq solely for the oil. I always thought that it was more a case of rampant hopeless idealism by the Bush administration who were convinced that they were performing some sort of massive act of public good in liberating the country of an evil despot. I think the oil helped push the issue over the edge (as in it gave them an extra incentive to go there), but I do not think it was the only driver. I really do not buy that Halliburton was behind the entire process. If it was just a way of fleecing the nation (either Iraqi or American), well, there are infinitely easier ways of doing it.

So, three years on, does the Bush Iraq look anything like a liberated country that is better off than when it was under Saddam’s jackboot? The only real answer I can come up with is no. Not only is the country still being ripped apart internally, prodded along by nihilistic terrorists eager to wreak havoc for their own means, but now we have the real prospect that the conclusion will be a return to the former state of affairs, except the Shiite’s will enjoy their moment in the sun as leaders of the nation to the detriment of the Sunni minority. The Shiite’s undoubtedly see it as their turn in this superior position, given Saddam’s previous preference towards Sunni over Shiite in the past, and anyway, the demographics favour the Shiite’s who outnumber the Sunni’s (an all-participatory democratic vote would simply strengthen the Shia control, which is why the Sunni’s refuse to participate at all).

Already, we see Shiite’s assembling their own militias, or simply outnumbering the Sunni’s in official military units. Hence, it does not seem sensible to conclude that the Iraqi military apparatus is being strengthened in a bipartisan fashion.

Second, I am unsure whether Ibrahim al-Jafari or Iyad Allawi, can be counted as the sort of democrat that the Americans really envisioned when they went into Iraq (I suppose we all know the kind that they wanted, Ahmed Chalabi, who appears to be clawing his way back into respectability). Yet, even counting Chalabi, these are all Arab strongmen with backgrounds that do not necessarily coincide with America’s interests. Allawi was a henchman in Saddam’s regime before he fell out of favour and fled; Jafari is suspected to have very close links to the Iranian regime, and some have even suggested that he is eager to replicate the Iranian model in Iraq; and Chalabi has turned out to be a nightmarish political liability.

Suffice to say, it seems to me like we are heading to simply finding another Arab strongman to take over the country. On top of that, we are handing him an army that is likely to break up along sectarian lines, and not be the bipartisan dream that the neoconservatives envisioned.

So where is the benefit to anyone? American troops will draw down to safely watch the chaos from bases in adjacent Gulf nations, where American casualties and press interest will drop. Iraq will be turned over to a person who will increasingly find that in order to maintain the Iraqi nation’s structural integrity, they will have to use steadily more draconian measures. Given the current sectarian divides, the chances are high that the Shia will emerge as the dominators, and we will have fully returned to the pre-war state, except now it will be the Shia ruling the roost, and the entire nation’s foreign policy will tend towards supporting Iran.

Iraq is already plagued by sectarian death squads, and the occasional religious site bombing that we hear about in the press in the West does not reflect the reality on the ground where they are in fact more frequent. Given this chaotic background, it will be easy for a hard line leader to rally support for increasingly drastic measures to regain control. Since the Americans have led with such excellent example in Abu Ghirab it will be unsurprising if it turns out that the government is sanctioning atrocities to suppress their opposition.

As foreign troops leave, the media glare upon the nation will die down, and a success of sorts will be quietly declared. The end result will be a full return to the initial power structure of Iraq under Saddam, with the key difference of being the religious affinity of the person in charge.

This negative outlook is by no means a definitive conclusion (after all, what do I know), it just seems the result we are heading towards. The other alternative I see is a continual gradual escalation of the low level chaos, occasionally peaking and then dying down again, until finally (possibly many years down the line – a decade or so) a semblance of peace arises as the people finally grow sick of their lot and start to impose from the grass roots some sort of organic secular power structure. The sad thing is that the only way I see us reaching this outcome at this point is simply leaving the country to rip itself apart in the short run, so that it can rebuild itself in the future, and the problem with this is that this would require the rest of the world to simply leave Iraq alone for many years to figure itself out. And here we return to the oil wealth (or curse), which will mean that there will always be parties willing to support whichever tin pot dictator assumes control.