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Now
The history of Iraq since the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein has been full of fake turning-points--the capture
of Saddam in 2003, the supposed handover of sovereignty to Iraqis
in 2004, the parliamentary elections and referendum in 2005.
All these events were greeted by the White House and Downing
Street at the time as important and encouraging signs of progress,
justifying the invasion of 2003. But with every year the war
has become more intense. Iraqis are now dying at the rate of
about 1,000 a week, according to the UN. Civil war is raging
in central Iraq. The war against the US soldiers has also escalated,
though American casualties are far lower. The country is awash
with blood.
There were two real turning-points
of very different kinds in Iraq in 2006:
the blowing up of the Shia
al-Askari shrine in Samarra on 22 February;
and the Republican defeat in
the US mid-term elections, in which Iraq was the main issue,
on 7 November.
The first was the starting
gun for the present sectarian bloodbath. The second also had
a vast effect within Iraq as the US began to contemplate failure.
In Samarra, nobody was killed
by the explosion itself, though it wrecked the great golden dome
of the shrine. But the attack led to a Shia onslaught on Sunni
Arabs. Shia restraint, already close to breaking point, finally
gave way after more than two years of bombs aimed at army and
police recruits, who were mostly Shia, as well as at purely civilian
targets. Within days, 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were dead.
People caught in the wrong areas at the wrong time were dragged
from their cars and slaughtered.
Amid this bloodbath, it is
difficult to pick out long-term trends. However, several were
clearly visible in 2006:
* There is civil war between
Shia and Sunni in central Iraq, and it is getting worse by the
day. The most important battle is for control of Baghdad.
* The US is becoming weaker
in Iraq because of its evident failure to gain control of the
country, and because of the Republicans' defeat in the mid-term
elections. The number of Americans who support continuing the
war is decreasing.
* The US tried, under its astute
and affable envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, to conciliate the Sunni by
offering them positions in government,
limiting provisions in the constitution they disliked and
seeking to talk to the insurgents.
The strategy shows little sign of working, and Khalilzad's star
is waning.
* The Shia, never comfortable
with the US-led forces but prepared to work with the US for their
own ends, are increasingly hostile to the occupation. The percentage
of Shia who agree with armed attacks on US-led forces rose from
41 per cent to 62 per cent in the first nine months of 2006.
* The US is considering negotiations
with Iran and Syria, though this would be a confession of weakness.
It also knows that they would look for concessions, such as a
US withdrawal and an increase in their regional influence. Sunni
powers like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are increasingly worried
by Shia successes in Iraq and Lebanon.
* The Kurds are losing confidence
that Iraq will hold together, though they do not want to be blamed
for it coming apart. Kurdistan is the only peaceful part of Iraq.
* The militias grew stronger
during the year because the army and police cannot provide security.
Iraq is disintegrating. In
areas where there was a mixed population--above all in Baghdad
itself--there have been mass killings. After the Samarra bomb,
the capital began to divide up into hostile districts, each protected
by its own militiamen. The militias themselves became stronger
as everybody wanted armed men they could trust at the end of
their street. Shia and Sunni families--whichever was in a minority--received
letters, often enclosing bullets, telling them to move within
24 hours or be killed. Few dared to stay.
By the end of the year, the
UN High Commission for Refugees estimated that 1.6 million Iraqis
had fled within the country and another 1.8 million had gone
abroad, mostly to Jordan and Syria. At one point, an estimated
1,000 people a day were crossing the border into Jordan and a
further 2,000 a day into Syria.
Can anybody put Iraq back together
again? As Iraqi and American politicians announced that they
opposed partition, the country was undergoing de facto division.
The worst fighting was in places like the fruit-growing province
of Diyala, where Sunni and Shia are evenly balanced in numbers.
The chief of police in the provincial capital Baquba estimated
that 9,000 people had been
killed, mainly Shia. Sectarianism penetrated everywhere. There
is one Iraqi army division in Diyala but it is almost entirely
Shia. It only arrests Sunni. The same pattern is seen across
Iraq.
In Baghdad, people in the Sunni
enclave of al-Adhamiyah demanded that an army battalion be moved
from their area because it was Shia. The Sunni regard the Baghdad
police and police commandos as Shia death-squads in uniform.
Shia-Sunni hostility is not
the only reason why Iraq is breaking up. In the northern city
of Mosul, 70,000 Kurds have fled, fearing assassination by Sunni
gunmen. In the Shia bastion of Basra,the few Sunni are escaping.
Inside Baghdad, it is the Shia
who are advancing, using their superior numbers. Sunni are being
pushed back into the south and west of the city. But in the furthest
outskirts, in dusty towns that were once mixed, the Sunni are
on the attack. There is brutal fighting in towns such as Balad,
one of the few places with a Shia majority north of Baghdad,
and Mahmudiyah, on the main road to the south. The Sunni are
increasingly in a position to encircle Baghdad.
The US troops are largely bystanders
in this ferocious civil war. Where they do intervene it is usually
to defend the Sunni, angering the Shia. It is a nasty feature
of present-day Iraqi politics that Sunni, Shia and Kurds all
see themselves as victims and have little sympathy for or knowledge
of the woes of others. In conversation, they tell of atrocities
committed against their own community but scarcely mention the
killings perpetrated by their own militias and gunmen. Shia describe
their Sunni opponents as "Wahabis" and cat's-paws of
Saudi Arabia, while Sunni view Iraqi Shia as pawns of Iran.
By the end of the year, the
US was desperately casting around for a policy. It is not easy.
US control is slipping. Iraqis and neighbouring countries alike
can see it. But President Bush--with Tony Blair trailing behind--still
stoutly maintains that they will "stay until the job is
done". They speak of training and equipping the Iraqi army
and police. But the problem is not training or equipment, but
loyalty. The Kurdish leaders believe that the army and police
would split if they were ever used against their own community.
When the British withdrew from their base, called Abu Naji, in
Amara in August and handed it over to Iraqi security forces,
it was promptly looted.
Worse, the US is still toying
with some very dangerous ideas. For instance, on 8 November the
US National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, in a memo about
the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki (which was promptly
leaked to the US press), suggested that the prime minister turn
on Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric, and his Mehdi
army militia. The other militias are not mentioned. But Maliki
can hardly attack his own community. Shia Iraqis, perhaps 16
million out of the 27 million Iraqi population, suspect that
the US is trying to rob them of the victory they won in the two
elections in 2005. Khalilzad did his best to conciliate the Sunni,
but without much effect.
It is difficult to see an alternative
to the present Shia-Kurdish alliance--80 per cent of the population--ruling
Iraq. The elections showed that there are few secular moderate
Iraqis. Friends of the US are often seen as American pawns.
During the first part of the
year, the US put great effort into getting rid of Ibrahim al-Jaafari
and replacing him with Maliki. It was unclear why Washington
thought this would do them much good. In the event, both prime
ministers this year have proved very similar. Neither can do
much because their governments--like that of Lebanon--are made
up of ministers who represent their community or party. The appointment
of these ministers is the fruit of prolonged negotiations. They
cannot be fired easily for corruption or incompetence. Ministries
have become bastions--and a source of money and jobs--for the
party running them. In November, the police commandos from the
Shia-controlled Interior Ministry stormed the Sunni Higher Education
Ministry and took 150 prisoners. The Ministry of Health is controlled
by supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr. Doctors from other communities
are commonly dismissed or forced out.
Some things did not change
in Iraq in 2006. Supplies of electricity, water, gasoline and
kerosene remain inadequate. Prices went up. In the heat of the
summer, there is not enough power for the air conditioners. Iraqis
rely on small generators, but the rise in the cost of fuel has
made them prohibitively expensive. Iraqis asked by foreign reporters
about the verdict in the Saddam trial, or some speech by President
Bush, often respond that their only priority is to keep themselves
and their families alive. They regard their own government as
a parasitic body interested primarily in extracting bribes to
evade deliberately complicated red tape.
The Republicans' loss of both
Houses of Congress on 7 November is affecting Iraq greatly. For
a start, the White House will be subject to far more criticism.
The US media has been emboldened. Some networks have started
calling the violence a "civil war"--as it is. The Iraq
Study Group under James Baker is to produce new proposals.
But the outcome may be less
productive than many expect. There is talk of involving Iran,
Syria and other neighbours of Iraq, whose governments Washington
was threatening to overthrow only two years ago. But the conversion
of the White House to such diplomacy is very uncertain.
And it is a mistake to think
that either the Sunni insurgents or the Shia militias are under
the full control of Damascus or Tehran--though both have influence.
The Democrats are as incoherent on Iraq as the Republicans, but
both are intent on not being blamed for any disasters to come.
What options are open to the
US?
It could reinforce its troops
with 20,000 to 30,000 more men, but these numbers add little
security in a city the size of Baghdad.
It could pull back to its bases, prepared to intervene in support
of Iraqi government forces. But these bases depend on vulnerable
supply lines.
It could pick a fight with
the militias, notably the Mehdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr, as it
did before in 2004--it would win militarily, but it cannot eliminate
the Sadrists because they are too numerous and too popular.
Negotiations are unlikely to
succeed that do not have at their centre an agreement for a timetable
for US and British withdrawal.
It is their presence in Iraq
that is destabilising the region.
Their departure should also
be unambiguous, with no American bases established inside Iraq.
The US and Britain have argued
that this would lead to the Iraqi government unwinding, and would
embolden the insurgents. But both these processes are going on
already. Sunni resistance to the occupation has created a sympathetic
environment for al-Qa'ida-type organisations to flourish in central
Iraq. The longer the war goes on, the more entrenched the fanatical
Islamic groups will become.
The last justification for
keeping US troops in Iraq was that "at least they prevent
civil war", but they are failing to do so. It might be useful
to have foreign forces acceptable to both sides, but the US and
British occupiers do not, in the eyes of Iraqis, have the legitimacy
to act as mediators.
There is one sign of hope for
Iraq, which appeared after the mid-term elections. Previously,
US political and military actions in the country were geared
primarily to making political gains in the US. Whatever the disasters
in Iraq, President Bush was able win re-election in 2004 and
keep control of both Houses of Congress--no mean achievement.
Even sensible decisions were
tainted by the US political agenda.
It was reasonable to hold parliamentary elections in 2005, but
unwise to do so before all three Iraqi communities had agreed
the rules of the political game. Even in the last hours before
the US mid-terms, Iraq was being milked for political advantage
by the White House. The guilty verdict on Saddam had been due
on 16 October, but was mysteriously postponed to 5 November,
the last full news cycle before election day.
With the White House now facing a hostile Congress, this type
of manipulation of Iraqi politics will come under far greater
scrutiny.
The coming year is likely to
see the battle for Baghdad intensify. Iraq will probably continue
to exist, but as a loose federal state. The Kurds always wanted
this; indeed, they would like independence if they dared to take
it, but they fear the reaction of Turkey, Iran and Syria.
After the horrors of this year,
Sunni and Shia will hardly be able to co-operate closely in future.
The sense of Iraqi identity may have been damaged beyond repair.
But, more than most states, Iraq is dominated by its capital
and Shia and Sunni will continue to fight to rule Baghdad until
they either win or know there is no hope of victory.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
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