Iraq is coming apart because it is missing the glue to hold it together. With Saddam Hussein gone, the objective possibilities were the military, the flag, and Islam. The Bush administration dissolved the first, discredited the second, and distrusted the third. With these integrators no longer available, what can be done?
As the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq approached, the White House launched a second round of speeches and press releases about coalition achievements in Iraq. Answering position papers and briefings were fired off in response by critics of the administration, generating in turn new administration briefs supporting its claims. The issues were not new: how much, if any, progress had been made; what still had to be done by Iraqis and by the remaining coalition forces; the “conditions” or status to be met that would permit a substantial drawdown of foreign troops; and the future of Iraq-U.S. and U.S.-Middle East/Persian Gulf relations.
Whatever the strategy particulars, a common theme is the need to integrate political and economic progress with progress in providing physical security to the ordinary Iraqi. Without security, the economic infrastructure will remain dependent on foreign donors and lending institutions. A country that once exported agricultural products as well as oil now imports and subsidizes both. Politically, three months after the election of the Iraqi parliament, the politicians remain closely divided – one vote – over who would become the next prime minister. And, while a number of provinces exhibit placid surfaces, at its root this “peace” is largely the work of the various sectarian-associated militias that still exist in defiance of the U.S. and Iraqi authorities.
The March 5 Sunday talk shows – coming exactly two weeks before the March 19 anniversary – were effectively a window on the lines of the debate to come and who would be involved.
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said that the coalition forces were “making very, very good progress” and the recent violence that followed the February 22 destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra did not portend civil war.
- On another program, Rep. John Murtha (PA), who sits on the House Appropriations Committee and until recently supported the war, gave a decidedly contrary view: “We’ve made no progress at all…we’re caught in a civil war.”
- Sen. Richard Lugar (IN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who followed Murtha, came down in the middle: “We’re not certain yet whether it’s civil war, but it could be.”
A mere eight days and at least 300 dead Iraqis later, General Pace told a Baltimore audience that he had not intended to give a rosy picture of the current situation. He said he had meant to convey that things were “going very well in freeing up the police and freeing up the armed forces, in leaders in the country calling for calm.” (By this date, March 13, even President Bush had been forced by events to scale back his optimism, although remaining much more upbeat than General Pace’s balanced evaluation.) In itself, however, this concession left open the further question of how sustainable any “progress” may prove to be over the long haul.
For their part, Rep. Murtha and Sen. Lugar each made a critical connection that seemed to have eluded the Pentagon’s civilian leadership and the White House. (Actually, “eluded” more properly should read “ignored” or “willfully ignored.”) Near the end of his talk show appearance, during which the interviewer concentrated on what the U.S. could and should do in Iraq, Murtha said: “Iraqis have to settle this themselves. This is not a ‘we’ thing. This is a ‘them’ thing.” Lugar, picking up on the same theme, was more incisive: “The question really is whether Iraqis want to be Iraqis, as opposed to Sunnis and Shi’ites and Kurds. That hasn’t been decided.”
These comments, coming from such prominent, experienced, legislators from both congressional chambers and both political parties, pointed to something that all too often is passed over too glibly by elected officials: the U.S. is hostage to what Iraqis do or don’t do.
Until the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, most pundits and politicians felt that large troop withdrawals would begin this summer – as large as 60,000 to 80,000 over 18 months. The extent of the violence during the three weeks after the mosque was destroyed may well have destroyed the planned withdrawals. Authorities conceded that more than 600 Iraqis were killed in sectarian violence, a toll that undoubtedly would have been higher except that extended curfews were implemented before, on, and after Friday prayers during those weeks.
On the political front, the religious-secular-sectarian divisions resurfaced in the Council of Representatives – the Iraqi parliament – in the contest for prime minister. Moreover, the Council, under the constitution approved just last October, was to have its initial session not later than March 12. Iraqi President Talabani had scheduled the session after finally getting agreement from his two vice-presidents, but then he had to postpone the date to March 16. After 40 minutes, the Council adjourned, leaving a political impasse that threatened to have economic, military, diplomatic, and societal repercussions – all negative for Iraq and the United States.
On March 19, the rhetorical war was renewed. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld touted progress in an opinion piece while Vice-President Dick Cheney blamed the media for unbalanced reporting that ignored much of the progress being made. Instead of General Pace, the top military officer in Iraq, General George Casey Jr., said during an interview that U.S. forces could be reduced later in 2006. Rep. Murtha and Sen. Lugar both appeared again, both essentially maintaining their previous positions.
Even as the war of words was being fought in the U.S., events were moving in Iraq. Stymied in trying to select a prime minister and a cabinet, the Iraqis created an ad hoc, non-constitutional, 19-member “national security council” to move the political process along. But in the end this may provide only an illusion of progress. Unclear at this time is the power relationship between the constitutional cabinet of ministers and the new extra-constitutional and very sectarian-based council of nine religious Shi’ites, four Sunni Arabs, four Kurds, and two secular Shi’ite representatives.
While seizing on the announcement of the formation of the Iraqi national security council as “progress,” the White House remained snagged in a dilemma the horns of which
mirrored the Vietnam conundrum that confronted Lyndon Johnson in 1966: “I know we oughtn’t to be there, but I can’t get out” (Washington Post, March 12, 2006). Ironically, the departure of coalition troops is the one subject which most unites Iraqis who want the foreign forces out – but not so soon as to unleash the chaos of unbridled civil war.
That prospect was highlighted again on March 19 by former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi. In a BBC interview, Allawi said: “We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.” General Casey seemed to directly challenge Allawi by noting that in 12 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, there are two or less violent incidents (not necessarily the number killed) and six or fewer incidents in three more provinces.
What this litany seems to suggest is the continuing existence of mutually exclusive perceptions – and quite probably realities – of conditions in Iraq. The coalition military commanders cast their perceptions quantitatively: number of polling stations, number of voter, number of hospitals refurbished and school buildings built. A persistent reporter can even get a “guesstament” of the number of Iraqis who have been killed.
Iraqis, in contrast, appear to be less concerned with the amounts of basic services and more interested in the qualitative character. For example, while concerned about the number of hours the electricity will be on, Iraqis want to know when they will have power and whether they might have it at the same time each day for the same duration. Or, while General Casey highlights the 12 provinces with two or fewer incidents per day, the Iraqis will know how populated these provinces are and, therefore, the significance of the reported engagements.
So what’s missing? The short answer is an integrator, that something that can subsume both quantitative and qualitative conditions generated by what coalition troops do and don’t do, what Iraqi police and army do and don’t do, and similar considerations for insurgents and Iraqi civilians.
Of all these groups, the primary burden for finding the integrator and implementing it lies with the U.S. as the foremost occupying power. The optimum case and timing for creating this integrator came right after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled – and then was gone with nothing (or very little) done to translate the receptive energy of liberation into support for trans-sectarian and trans-ethnic symbols for the country as a whole. With Saddam gone, the other unifying forces might have been the military, the flag, and Islam.
There is, of course, one other condition that could be employed as a unifying symbol – albeit a very negative one and one the U.S. would not want to actually materialize. This would be an anti-U.S. theme centered on the Iraqis killed by U.S. and coalition forces and those abused in coalition-run prisons. Here again it is less a matter of the numbers involved as it is how people died, how they were abused or tortured, and how well was justice pursued.
What the Bush administration cannot do, anymore than it can “bring democracy to Iraq,” is choose what will serve as the common national symbol around which the Iraqi public can rally. On the other hand even though the U.S. missed the initial window for re-integrating Iraqi society, it still has an obligation to expand – and help Iraqis expand – the provision of basic services and needs – food, clean water, sanitation, electricity, jobs and wages, medical care, and education. And regardless of when U.S. forces finally leave Iraq, should the economic sector falter and the form of governance (democracy, authoritarian) that finally evolves not be able to achieve and maintain national identity, a plausible case could be made that those obligations should revert to the former occupying nations.
As the fourth year of the war and occupation begins, Iraq and the U.S. are locked in a dependency relationship that neither wants but which neither seems able to sunder. Nominally, Iraq has resumed its place as a sovereign state. Yet with 140,000 foreign troops on its soil against the desires of a majority of the public, Iraq hardly meets the qualitative conditions defining sovereignty: the full exercise of external relationships with equal entities and some form of implied or explicit internal relationship or social contract between ultimate authority – either a person or the rule of law – and the ruled.
In the final analysis, the exact timing for the restoration of sovereignty may not be a critical consideration. But what is critical now is a clear statement acknowledging a qualitative change in the conditions on the ground in Iraq. The U.S. House of Representatives has already acted, and it is now up to the Senate. Congress must clearly declare that no permanent military bases will be sought, leased or in any way retained by the U.S. Such a statement, which would be cast in terms of Congress’ power of the purse, could rally the vast majority of Iraqis around a national “achievement” while contributing to achieving reductions in U.S. budget expenditures.
This is the missing dimension – the bridge that can link the qualitative and the quantitative.
