The future of Iraq

By

Stuart Yates

The future of Iraq in terms of her relationship with the West is very clear. What will happen will happen whatever the success or failure of the current escalation of American forces to Iraq in order to 'stabilise' Baghdad, 'pacify' Baghdad, call it what you will. The history of countries whose disparate elements have been held together by strong, authoritarian governments or even more so, have had order imposed on them by external forces follows a pattern. Take India - held together by the British - and Yugoslavia - held together by Marshall Tito. Once the British had left, partition followed and the relationship between India, Pakistan remains fragile. Once Marshall Tito had died, there was no-one strong enough to hold the varying ethnic and religious groups together. The enmities re-kindled and exacerbated by Milosovic's actions will take decades, centuries, to abate.

So it will be with Iraq. It is impossible to form an absolute prediction about the break up of Iraq. Ironically, the development of a genuine democracy is the greatest threat to the integrity of present day Iraq. Once the strong man, Saddam Hussein, was toppled, especially by a foreign invasion and once those foreign troops failed to establish order quickly and the Iraqis experienced significant improvements in their lives, then the break up of Iraq was likely. The sectarian killings have causes. They are not carried out exclusively by people with no ethical sensibilities, who kill for the sake of it. Ther are certainly not all terrorists. Whether or not order is restored before the coalition troops leave is irrelevant. If there is a temporary period of peace when the US withdraws, this will merely serve to help George Bush to believe he was right.

When Iraq starts to govern herself, those internal forces will emerge - if they were ever contained. Only an authoritarian government has any chance of binding Iraq together for any length of time. In other words another, hopefully more benign Saddam Hussein. Even so, such a dictator is unlikely to be able to portray himself as a friend of the West. There has been too much Iraqi blood spilled, people will not forget Abu Ghraib, Haditha, quickly. There will political capital tied up in an anti-Western stance. The fragile state of Iraq will also mean that any dictator has to look very warily towards Iran, at best. At worst, from the orthodox Western stance, an Iraqi dictator might wish to form an alliance with Iran.

Let us however also look at the other possibility: that Iraq comes out of this with a genuine democratic government and democratic institutions and that the first government is pro-Western. After all, that was what the invasion of Iraq was all about, was it not? According to Bush-speak anyway. That democratic government will come under enormous pressure to be independent of the West. At the same time that government has to form a relationship with Iran and, let us not forget, Israel. If a dictator would find this balancing act difficult, it would be impossible for a genuinely democratic government to maintain a viable balance for more than a few years at best. All it takes is one faction with sufficient backing - internally or externally sourced - to tap into one group's disaffections and grievances and you have at least a very weak government, prone to appease one faction then another. At worst, one faction takes over and demolishes the democratic institutions. Either way, a weak democratic government or an undemcocratic government has no reason to be pro-Western except to pay lip service to this for the sake of some perceived benefits. In Iraq there will be a fiercely anti-American feeling for people to exploit for decades.

The situation in Saudi Arabia is similar. As long as the West appeases, pays, bribes, call it what you will, the House of Saud, Saudia Arabia is a valued ally. Stop such payments, raise the legitimate human rights concerns in Saudi Arabia, and the pro-Western stance would quickly disappear. The case of the UK arms deal demonstrates that the pro-Western stance is but a thin veneer. This is not anti-Arab, or anti-Islam. Quite the contrary. The US has abused its power so much in the world that no nation has reason to be genuinely friendly towards her. America is still in the grip of her past, is still a violent society, a society that responds instinctively to a problem by picking up the nearest weapon. A society whose automatic position is encapsulated by the word 'dominate'. The sad history of the native Americans, the slaughtering of the buffalo, the appalling, frankly, rate at which American politicians are assasinated or assasination attempts are made, all point to what we know. That US policy is governed by the use of force. That peace-making, peace-keeping, nation building are alien concepts.

I rarely use Biblical phrases, but one seems apposite. 'As you sow, so shall you reap'. The US, in the case of Iraq, will indeed reap what has been sown. Whether that is an Iraq in fragments, under the domination (irony intended) of Iran, Turkey and possibly Saudi Arabia, or an Iraq governed yet again by a dictator, either openly hostile to the West, or paying lip service homage to the US, Iraq will not be a trusted ally, a friend, a stable democracy in the Middle East. US abuse of its military power has ensured that.

Back in 2002 I, naively, hoped that Iraq might be able to help the world by causing America to pause in its wholesale crusade (I use the word advisedly, even in the secular, capitalism is the best system, sense) around the world. See Iraq - the saviour of the world? Alas it was not to be. The lesson still has to be learned. More harvest blood has to be reaped. It is a tragedy, primarily for Iraq and her citizens that American hubris has not yet been tamed.

January 2007