ICORN Guest Writers Speak Out

by Salah At-Tarjuman

It is all too evident that figures and the timing of agendas are as important in politics as they are in economics and everyday life activities. In Iraq, figures and the timing of agendas tell us a lot about the persistence of violence and the increasingly aggravating situation that amounts to bringing the country to the brink of an open civil war. Figures on money, oil, allocations and appointments tell of a growing but latent social dissatisfaction that would at any moment trigger strife that would push Iraq into primitivism and darkness and may as well send the whole region into chaos. It is only on the surface that this dissatisfaction is a cause of violence. But it is a rule of thumb that dissatisfaction has its roots going deeper in the social economic, ethnic, ethical and historical grassroots of Iraqi society as is the case with all societies in a given time of their history. We see a government provided with all means of force but persistently failing to impose its will, practice veritable power, or at least, protect itself from attacks. Then, a question imposes itself: Was Saddam much more powerful than both the existing government and the few tens of thousand USA soldiers stationed in Iraq? The answer, it seems, lurks in figures and agendas relating to the USA lack of insight and its policy making howlers in Iraq.
 
  One of the gravest mistakes committed by America besides the invasion itself is the timing of its operation which, some observer says it could have been ripe enough ten years earlier. Another is America’s misconceptions of Iraqi society, psychology and world-view. One may ask if America would finally come to (liberate) Iraq in 2003, why, then, did it impose blockade on Iraqi people that went on for more than ten years? For liberation doesn’t incorporate the destruction of the social and psychological structure of the people to be liberated ! Only the poor, the oppressed and the intellectuals suffered from the blockade while ironically Saddam was persistent in showing the world that he was not blockaded building sumptuous palaces and celebrating birth days with pyramids of cakes in open parties, meanwhile only war-mongers, smuggles and thieves thrived in Iraq.
 
  Americans were on the wrong track too when they were led to believing that Iraqis were all dissatisfied with Saddam or against him. Saddam’s parental policy and party vigilance have created a vast social and economic class including special army and security units which enjoyed undreamt of privileges, pay and luxury. The moment Americans entered Iraq, they embarked on bossing, killing and arresting (suspect) Iraqis, watching them out, hunting them down and buffing them away under the threat of guns` muzzles, almost after the British manner when Britain occupied India more than two and a half centuries ago. To send Iraq’s army and other military and security configurations home amounts to declaring a civil war in Iraq. Moreover, Iraqis have been always proud of their flag and army and are themselves militant in mentality, perspective and temperament. To declare that Iraq’s army is defeated, not Saddam’s regime is a downright ego-humbling experience for a people born worriers and boost of seven successive military civilizations which for centuries had mastered the whole Near East including Israel. Even the most law-abiding officer, soldier or partisan started to seek an alternative way for living which he couldn’t find. And the USA knows from the outset that there were many rich Arab and non-Arab neighbours even non-Arab Iraqis who cannot relish a would-be democratic, multi-ethnic and powerful Iraq. Iraqis would rather prefer the West including the USA, of course, not to finance Turkish water projects on Euphrates and Tigris since Turkey stands on a sweet water pool and has many rivers other than Euphrates and Tigris. Iraqis see their land reduced, their water resources depleted, even their very cultural and economic wealth seeping out of their homeland and hands. How could they, then, not resort to violence! If not against the Americans, against their own people. Bremer was either ignorant or indirectly dictated by Israel’s Old Guards to dissolve the Iraqi Armed Forces (which even I, partly Western in education, cannot write but in Capital Initials).Then, came Abu Ghreib scandal which any relational thinking would inescapably link with Israel too: Reading the Old Testament, we encounter a strange almost valid correlation between the curse of Nahum against Nineveh (Iraq in classical times), and Abu Ghreib tortures. The text runs as follows:
 
This is why I am against you, says the Great Lord. I will lift your skirt over your face. I will show the countries your nakedness. I will through garbage at you, etc. which has a striking similarity to the nakedness of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghreib – a straight-forward ego-humbling experience and a cultural insult undeservedly inflicted on a proud and dignified nation upon orders of Zionist circles. Yahweh is blind. He is only a figure-head desert God compared to Assur-Naserpal Pulu and Shalamanser the Third who brought Jehu to his knees kissing the feet of Assyrian might. By what miracle America wants Iraqis to forget and forgive while they are neither humanized to behave as humans nor respected to behave as Gods!
 
  The way the Americans deal with Iraqis and particularly the arrest of women indicates another significant aspect of American ignorance of Iraqi mentality. Adding fuel to fire, the USA has created power vacuum in Iraq. For what few tens of thousands of service men and women can do to stabilize such nation down-trodden, mauled about and dissatisfied in such a vast hide –and-hit, hit-and-run country? The number of the USA forces in active service in Iraq approximately equals the number of arch criminals released by Saddam two months before his downfall some of whom had immediately grown beards , turned into pious Muslims and joined the so-called resistance adding experience and a habit of blood-cold killing to the newly recruited Mujahideen. In fact, the cast of mind of an Iraqi man harbours a composite reversoir of character alternatives. He embraces both negative and positive tendencies, and the adoption of either depends largely on the situation and activation. So, a die-hard Baathist, communist or a criminal can easily turn into a pious Muslim or a violent assassinator and vice versa depending on reward and punishment expectations, contingencies and incentives if not on sheer need.
 
  Before the entry of Americans into Iraq, ethnic and sectarian divisions were fast asleep, and the killing of innocent people jammed in between various fighting factions which were concomitant with Iraq-Iran war, triple folded. Take, for instance, the Kurds: during Saddam reign the Kurds enjoyed more rights and freedoms than their peers in Turkey or Syria who were not even allowed dress their own native garments. However, American policy towards Iraqi Kurds runs counter to its policy towards the Turkish Kurds. Its policy in this respect made everyone believe in the so-called USA double standard behavior which persisted all the way through other regions in the Middle East particularly the way it handles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while it policies towards Iraqi Kurds and their cousins across the borders is in a white and black contrast, providing the former with security and food through Provide Comfort Programme whereas supporting Turkish troops suppress the former, not because the PKK are still communists but rather because the USA historical attitude towards a secular Turkey dictates such a double-standard policy. Kurds generally were much more inclined to disobedience and revolt in Iraq than their counterparts in the neighbouring countries, and while the rest of Iraqis were suffering from the blockade imposed by superpowers on Iraq , the Kurds were in an almost a welfare state saving money and power. Some of them went so far as participating in the looting of weapons, equipment and wealth from Mosul, Kirkuk and other places at the night of the fall of Saddam under the coverage of the American-led coalition forces which brazenly allowed the looting of the Iraqi museum in the open daylight. This and other acts would, of course, create distrust in the Sunni Arabs of the north who never relish a Kurdish control of important offices in the present Iraqi government. Separatist tendencies began to mushroom and Iraq is threatened by disintegration and collapse. All this has taken place under the American umbrella. It was not the case during Saddam`s reign. And it seems logical that in a country made of various ethnicities like old Yugoslavia, the best system of government is a central dictatorship, which many prefer to chaos. So one is led to ask if anything has gone wrong between the outlook, the objectives and the real practices regarding this land-slide intervention in Iraq. A question that must call American people to reflect on and their policy-makers to digest and find solutions to.
 
  Now, America is paying a heavy price for the powers it has unleashed in Iraq. Soldiers on both sides are being killed. The current government of Iraq has tacitly or maybe unconsciously increased not decreased the causes of violence. It is axiomatic that in order to extinguish a fire, it would be more reasonable to remove the causes that have set it out. Again, figures talk in this connection. Most top offices in the State are given out to either Kurds or Shiites. Some lack the qualifications for the offices they hold. This, more or less, like the sectarian cleansing in Kirkuk, powerfully reminds us of Saddam`s nepotism and partisan policies of appointment to high offices. What is the difference then?
 
  Now, America has been almost four years in Iraq. But the government, the country and the state including the Americans themselves are still using the same infrastructure, administrative system and organization Saddam has built in Iraq. Neither electricity nor the general living standard has significantly improved. There was no fuel crises, no assassinations of authors, academics and talented people, there was security and people used to enjoy their spring, summer and even fall and winter staying out at night. Now, fear reigns supreme all over Iraq. Borders are still out of control and the government lacks competent security forces and most importantly intelligence. America does not let them much freedom or rather authority. The irony becomes flagrant when it comes to the needless proposal of changing the Iraqi flag which is the perceived and generally accepted symbol of sovereignty. If local flags are to be flown in different parts of Iraq, America would have done nothing for the unification of a mutilated nation. Rather Chauvinism will replace Chauvinism, disintegration will replace integration and heterogeneity will replace homogeneity. In other words, hatred will replace oppression. America would have done nothing then!
 
  Bananas and Pepsi colas are scattered everywhere in the Iraqi streets but there is also blood, fear and discontent. It is strange indeed to come all the way through the Atlantic Ocean with half-baked strategies and ideas of the Middle East for countries and nations are not what they look in the research papers presented by Bernard Lewis or by maps elegantly detailed and completed by National Geography. It is rather keeping to an ethical and proper line of action: What America has done to its supporters and heroes such as Sadat, Dhia`i-Haq Shah Iran and Saddam has not equally and deservedly done to the corrupt gulf Emirs, Saudi Arabia and other tycoons hot on weapons and porno industries, experts in the selling and buying of human flesh and dignity.  No wonder then that Islam would theoretically as well as practically look a better alternative for a better life for many young people trying a new form of salvation from the poisonous consumer culture preaching something while practicing another. No one would replace light by darkness unless this sort of darkness is coming out of a black midnight sun like that of Paul Eloir or Derrida. People usually compare and some remember the contradictions between open declarations and political statements on the one hand and actual acts on the other. And in comparing politics nowadays, one is strongly reminded by the God-father or Big-brother movie when the strong is always right, correct and obeyed, no matter the howlers and errors he makes.
 

  Syria and Iran form the historical, cultural and ecological grid with Iraq. Shifting a brick in the wall will not in all probabilities affect the whole block. Rather the two states are strongly and violently alarmed and are rigorously doing their very best to crumble American efforts in Iraq. And this might be the last nail in the coffin of the USA policy of expediency and unreason in the whole Middle East.

by Salah At-Tarjuman