Iraq, originally cobbled together by acts of the British Empire after centuries of Ottoman rule as three, ethnically-separated governates, is experiencing the severe pangs of nationalism in the form of a bloody civil war. The Kurds, Shi’a, and Sunni are re-enforcing their regional boundaries as sectarian violence continues throughout the country, forcing even those who had once ethnically co-mingled during the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein to flee to the relative safety of ethnically-defined enclaves. In the middle of this civil strife are the American armed forces, whose initial military victory – the deposing of Sadam Hussein – seems distant and ineffectual in hindsight’s prevailing clarity.
The status quo consisting of the continued American occupation of Iraq punctuated by increased periods of military activity has not and will continue to not produce lasting results. While periods of increased scrutiny on insurgent and milita-aligned elements may create some immediate changes, those have always been and will continue to be shallow and short-lived victories. The complexities of the Iraqi situation makes it so that military force alone cannot win the day; violence begets violence and will continue to fail in creating a tenable political situation acceptable to all vested parties. A new strategy grounded in the realities of the current situation and in bold diplomatic maneuvers offers the only hope of returning peace to a beleaguered and war-weary Iraqi people.
The administration’s initial goal in Iraq was the easy establishment of a liberal democracy comprised of former Iraqi refugees, secular in nature and pliable to American interests. While the interim government’s make-up more or less mirrored this configuration, it was not exactly a democracy, let alone an acceptable outcome for Iraq’s teeming majority Shi’a population. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shi’a cleric in Iraq, called for full elections and true democracy, leading thousands of Shi’a to take to the streets and demand the vote. Over two and a half years later, Iraq is led, in a loose sense, by its second democratically-elected government — the first under the new consitution — and one that is representative of the country’s demographic situation. The majority Shi’a along with the Kurds, who have enjoyed de facto independence in Iraq’s north since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, dominate parliament to the detriment of the minority Sunni, once the favored faction under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime. The Sunni’s marginalized situation, coupled with the ill-conducted post-war policies undertaken by the administration including de-Ba’athification, have led to the current situation consisting of rampant insurgent violence perpetrated by disgruntled former Ba’athists and Sunni extremists, punctuated by reprisal killings by Shi’a militias. In essence, the administration’s desire to implement democracy in Iraq has created an untenable situation that has exposed the deeply-seeded fissures in Iraqi society, suggesting that true liberal democracy will be an impossibility in the near term.
If liberal democracy is no longer an attainable goal, then what must the new goal become? Stabilization in the region is the only remaining option. The unfolding chaos in Iraq has sent shockwaves throughout the entire region that could have further reverberations the world over. Terrorism related to the instability in Iraq has already emerged, as in Amman, Jordan, and elsewhere – the British-born bombers of London’s Tube system claimed the Iraq war as the catalyst for their heinous actions. Guaranteeing stability in Iraq will be an incredible undertaking that will force the administration into positions it has refused to take in the past. It will mean making military action a backup measure to undergird new, intensive diplomatic maneuvering that will require both a soft touch and Nixonian ambition. Direct negotiations with all vested parties, including Syria and Iran, especially, are an unavoidable necessity in this endeavor, just as the Iraqi Study Group pronounced. Hard choices have to be made, and the first deals with giving up on military action as the primary instrument of political persuasion in Iraq.
Next: Military withdrawal and regrouping for the next phase
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