Setback in Iraq

The sectarian nightmare the US occupation created in Iraq will haunt the country for years, writes Ayman El-Amir

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US President Barack Obama took a few hours off after his recent visit to Turkey to go to Baghdad with a message for the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki: You are now responsible for your own country. The message comes two months before the deadline for the withdrawal of US combat troops from major Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Mosul and Baquba, and nearly one year before the end of all military operations in August 2010. However, to some Iraqi analysts the recent rise in violence in some cities, including Mosul, Baghdad and Kirkuk, raises a question as to whether the June deadline is set in stone or should be more flexible, depending on the situation on the ground. To them, the resurgence of violence is a syndrome of political infighting between Prime Minister Al-Maliki, whose policies since 2008 have been credited with the abatement in bloodshed, and his political partners.

Mosul is still a hotbed of conflict. More than 25,000 Iraqi military, supported by US combat troops, have been fighting Shia and Sunni resistance fighters since 2008. For the first time in 12 months, five US soldiers in addition to two Iraqi policemen were killed in a truck bomb explosion, with 12 others injured. In Kirkuk, 13 people were killed and 22 injured in an explosion at an oil installation they were guarding. In Baghdad, 60 people were killed in various explosions in a matter of two weeks. The resurgence of violence on such scale is an indication that Al-Maliki is still at odds with the Kurds in the North, who have their differences with their Arab and Turkomen co-inhabitants in Kirkuk, the Baathist Sunnis around Baghdad and some radical Shia in Mosul. Disenchanted elements of the 94,000-strong fighters of the Sunni Awakening Councils that were key in containing the attacks of Al-Qaeda members and ensuring the success of Al-Maliki's policy of stabilising the security situation are becoming a growing part of Al-Maliki's problems. They are outraged at the detention of some of their prominent leaders, in what they fear is a crackdown on their movement that was originally initiated by the US command to fight Al-Qaeda forces and then handed over the responsibility to the Iraqi government. Al-Sahwa (Awakening) fighting members and their commanders are disgruntled over back pay and the government's failure to make good on its promise to place them in higher-paying governmental jobs.

The Kurdistan Regional Government led by Massoud Barzani is incensed at Al-Maliki's failure to increase its budget, to allow the return of what it deems evacuee Kurds to Kirkuk and to block the Kurdistan government's attempts to independently negotiate oil contracts with foreign companies. The Kurds are pushing for a semi-independent status and Al-Maliki does not appear to be cooperating. Above all, Maliki is resisting the pressure of the Iraqi Kurdistan Government's attempt to annex oil-rich Kirkuk to the province, a move that both Arabs and Turkomen of Kirkuk are opposing and could presage a new round of violence. Tension has increased between Al-Maliki and Sunni leaders, particularly Vice-President Tarek Al-Hashimi, because of the continued detention of Sunni militants, including those who have been released by US forces. The arrest of 15 leaders of Al-Sahwa brigades is proving to be an irritant to the US command that is watching the situation closely. It is worried that the deal under which they created the Councils to crush Al-Qaeda fighters may become unglued, with militants from both parties joining hands against the government and the US troops. Al-Maliki, and the US, are worried about the Sunni-Shia power-sharing struggle, the Kurdistan-Maliki government's oil lust, the implications of militia resurgence and the concern that renewed violence may upset the US withdrawal schedule.

Above all, the concern over sectarian and ethnic polarisation that has been triggered by six years of US occupation and Iraqi resistance is the worst nightmare for the future of Iraq. "The genie is out of the bottle," says Iraqi political analyst Ghassan Al-Atiya. Iraqis are not only divided by their tribal and sectarian affiliations, but also their political attitudes are shaped by such allegiances. When Iraq was a secular, non-sectarian state, the enforced Baathist ideology kept all extraneous ideologies, whether political or sectarian, at bay. The new political culture introduced by the US invasion will reside with the Iraqis for years to come. It is more than political loyalty; it is protection, survival and cultural affinity. When sectarian identity becomes the medium of political struggle and self-defence it usually spews violence. No amount of force by the central government will be able to contain it, much less tame it. The US invasion and six years of occupation, and the unspeakable atrocities both unleashed, have shattered any sense of identity of interest among the Iraqis. The problem is made worse with the militarisation of all Iraqi factions; each one possesses a lethal array of weapons and everyone is ready and willing to use them against other factions, or against the government, on the right signal.

The legacy of George W Bush and L Paul Bremer III is that they replaced a totalitarian regime headed by a ruthless dictator with a democracy of sorts based on sectarian majority, which happened to be Shia. Iran watched quietly in the sure knowledge that the ripe fruit would eventually fall into its lap. And theocratic Iran is unlikely to use its influence to turn Iraq into a secular democracy. Arab neighbours are too much in a hopeless state of disarray to muster a concerted effort that could help rebuild Iraq into a consensus democracy, especially when they themselves lack it.

Should Iraq be engulfed by violence after the US military withdrawal is completed by 2011, it may try to copy the Lebanese model -- a government based on sectarian checks and balances enshrined in a constitution. It is a wobbly system but it works whenever a consensus is maintained and respected. Iraq's main problem then will be how to block regional and international interference that may be invited by the conflicting interests of local partners, as is the case in Lebanon. Iraq is endowed with a wealth of natural resources that it needs to develop in order to rebuild everything the US invasion destroyed. The so-called international community, led by the US and other partners that are responsible for the invasion and destruction of Iraq, should fulfil its obligation of rebuilding the country. For that to happen an environment of security and stability will have to prevail, which brings everything back to square one.

It would seem that the US is primarily interested in a safe and orderly exit from Iraq and, secondly, that no new dictator will stomp onto the scene and follow in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein. For this and other reasons the US will be leaving behind an estimated 50,000 troops to help train Iraqi forces and stabilise the situation. However, this foreign military presence may prove to be the antithesis of stability. It will be a casus belli for Al-Qaeda and other organisations with anti-American sentiments; a reincarnation of the nationalist agitation of the 1950s and 1960s, of the anti-colonial, anti-foreign military presence struggle. All that the costly Anglo-American invasion, eight years of military occupation and tens of thousands of casualties would have achieved would be to rewind the newsreel back to the Baathist coup of 1969.