Still no lessons learnt

by Michael Jansen

The Bush administration remains determined to hold elections on schedule in Iraq, although rising levels of violence make this project physically risky for both candidates and voters and politically risky for Iraq and the region.

Appeals from Sunni parties and clerics, former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and other quarters to postpone the poll, set for Jan. 30, have fallen on deaf ears. On Tuesday, The New York Times published an article saying that two authoritative Central Intelligence Agency operatives, one the head of station concluding a year's stay in Iraq, warned that the situation is deteriorating at all levels and is not likely to be turned round any time soon.

Last weekend, more than 70 Iraqis and half a dozen US soldiers were killed in resistance attacks in the north and centre of Iraq. It appears that the US conquest of the rebel stronghold of Fallujah has not only scattered rebel fighters but also compelled them to reform units and reorganise, making the resistance all the more effective and formidable.

Furthermore, recent targeting by the resistance of Kurdish peshmerga, Shiite National Guard recruits, and a Shiite mosque in Baghdad reveals that the anti-occupation campaign is taking on a communal tinge which bodes ill for the unity and stability of the country. Attacks by Sunni insurgents on Shiite pilgrims travelling south from the capital to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala have also led Shiites to form "Anger Brigades" to exact revenge for such assaults.

The resistance clearly believes it has no option but to target units of the US-trained National Guard, police and security forces because they are being used to sustain the occupation. Unfortunately, the majority of guard units are made up of recruits from the Kurdish and Shiite communities which are prepared to work with the US in the hope that once Iraq's own security forces are strong enough to assert control, Washington will withdraw its troops. This is unlikely, given the amount of blood and treasure the Bush administration has invested in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It is hardly surprising that the situation in Iraq should turn into an intercommunal struggle. From the outset of the occupation, Washington has followed the traditional strategy of divide and rule. The US has done this in two ways. First, it has set "outsiders", exiles, the majority of them Shiites, who returned on the backs of US tanks, against "insiders", Iraqis who remained at home during the decades of Baathist rule. Parties contributing to the unified Shiite list of candidates have been divided by insider resentments over precedence given to two groups of outsiders, the Dawa party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, both closely tied to Iran and sponsoring Iraqis of Iranian origin who returned to Iraq from exile there.

Second, on the one hand, the US has sought to punish the Sunnis for allegedly backing former president Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, Washington has courted the Kurds, who waged an 80-year struggle to break free of the Iraqi state, and the Shiites, who tried to overthrow the secular government in favour of a Shiite regime with religious colouration. Washington has pursued this policy by marginalising the Sunnis and promising the Shiites majority democratic governance and the Kurds a large degree of autonomy, thereby making it impossible for the Sunnis to assume a role in the so-called "new Iraq". The Sunnis expect to be completely out of the picture after the election when largely Shiite pro-US exiles and Shiite Islamists favouring a strong role for clerics in government are certain to dominate the new parliament--constituent assembly.

Thus, the task of drafting Iraq's new constitution could fall to individuals and parties determined to impose on Iraq a polity similar to that of the cleric-run Islamic Republic of Iran or, at least, incorporate in the constitution elements of Islamic law in line with Shiite interpretation. Iran was accused of meddling in the election to achieve this result. Whether Iran intervenes or not, the rise of the Shiites in Iraq always posed the risk of an Islamic state because the majority of Shiites follow the dictates of the clerical establishment. While Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani does not favour direct rule by the theologians, vilayet-i-faqih, according to the Iranian model, he does see the possibility of clerical guidance for the government which emerges during the process of democratisation laid down by the US.

Marginalisation and the prospect of a Shiite clerical domination are not the only factors motivating the largely Sunni resistance. The US assault on Fallujah deepened the sense of doom amongst Sunnis. The heavy bombardment of the city of 300,000 depopulated it. The frontal attack that followed destroyed homes, shops, mosques and infrastructure. Sunnis were furious with both the US and its Iraqi allies, particularly the Kurds who deployed militiamen alongside US troops in the offensive. The post-campaign period could prove even more upsetting for Sunnis.

On Dec. 5, the Boston Globe carried a very important report from Fallujah by its correspondent Anne Barnard. She described the US military's plan for the staged return of the citizens of Fallujah to their devastated city. This plan is certain to exacerbate Sunni anger and strengthen the resistance. On the ground, Fallujah would remain surrounded - perhaps even sealed off by razor wire - and cut off from its neighbourhood by US troops and Iraqi guardsmen. The US military would require Fallujah inhabitants who want to return to apply at processing centres located on the outskirts of the city.

They would be subjected to DNA testing and retina scans and would receive identification badges bearing their names and addresses, which they would be obliged to wear at all times. (Shades of George Orwell's 1984). They would enter and move round the city in buses.

Cars, which can be used as mobile bombs, would be banned. It is not clear so far whether or not men of military age would be excluded, but there is a proposal for all able-bodied men to work in "military-style" civil reconstruction battalions and be assigned to the tasks of clearing up debris, repairing the water distribution system and reconditioning other infrastructure for which they would be paid a wage - almost certainly minimal.

While the US would like to return the Fallujah refugees to their city ahead of the elections, it is not certain this can happen, since screening all the returnees will take time. According to Barnard, one of the few reporters to gain access to Fallujah, it would be turned into a "model city".

Other analysts argue that the plan is based on the strategic hamlet model imposed in South Vietnam during the war there. In Vietnam, peasants were taken from their villages and forced to build stockaded hamlets patrolled by US soldiers. The aim of this programme was to prevent the North Vietnamese from infecting these peasants with anti-US feeling and from joining the Viet Cong forces battling the US and its local surrogates. Although the programme was a failure, it appears that Washington has learnt nothing from its harsh Vietnam experience. Instead, it has invaded and occupied Iraq where it is attempting to create some sort of "friendly" regime, Washington once had in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.

This article appeared in the Thursday, December 9, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.