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President
Bush during his address to the nation Sunday, September
7, 2003 |
“So,
who do you think is behind this attack?” I asked a
depressed-looking Thargham Allawi in Montreal.
Three
Muslim worshippers were wounded in an attack on a Sunni Mosque
after Friday dawn prayers in Baghdad last week. I wanted to pick
Thargham’s brain – his views would help me in understanding
whether sectarian conflict would engulf an already debilitated
Iraq.
He
didn’t look up from his meal of chicken shawerma, but did seem
to think his answer through. After a short pause, “The
Americans, Israelis, somewhere there,” he mumbled, and went
back to finishing his Middle-Eastern dish.
“Did
you watch President Bush’s speech on Iraq tonight?” I asked
him.
Thargham
didn’t bother to answer. And that pretty much explains
Iraqis’ reaction to the much-hyped Presidential address on
Iraq and “the war on terror.” Bush did not recite anything
the Iraqis wanted to hear. Nor, for that matter, what the
Europeans (and US military) wanted to hear – a timetable.
“We
are transforming a place of torture chambers and mass graves
into a nation of laws and free institutions,” he said in his
20-minute address. I wonder what the Iraqis who cannot leave
their homes after 7 pm have to say about that. Or the women that
are raped and accosted, kidnapped, killed every day in Iraq.
Human rights organizations as well as some journalists claim
that 20 Iraqis are killed every day in Iraq.
No,
this speech was as convoluted and as fictitious as the Private
Lynch rescue which the media touted as spectacular. Bush started
and ended his speech with inferences and allusions to Iraq’s
involvement in the tragic September 11th terrorist attacks. I
found it to be deplorable and shameful that the leader of the
most industrialized, most weaponized and most prosperous nation
on earth would continue to regurgitate every speech since
September 11th and leading up to the Iraq invasion. I heard
absolutely nothing new, and worse, nothing to allay Iraqis’
fears and tribulations.
And
that got me thinking about Thargham.
Two
things struck me about my conversation with him. The first is
that Thargham seemed almost defeated in his demeanor; almost
resigned to what he would later confess as hopelessness about
Iraq’s future.
The
second, and perhaps, far more alarming, is that he so
matter-of-factly accused the US administration of undermining
stability in Iraq. What happened to the liberated Iraqi spirit
that I had read so much about in the New York Times and
Washington Post, or the cheering, flower-dousing Iraqis that
would greet the great liberators? Isn’t that what every Iraq
expert on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBC, NBC and countless others had
predicted would happen? What about the Iraqi opposition groups
who had painted a rosy picture? Where were they now?
The
questions troubled me, so I decided to check into Thargham’s
sincere, yet unfair allegation. After all, he had no proof to
back up his speculation (and that’s all it really was), but
followed the cultural and historical norm of the Arab rumor
mill.
I
thought of trying something different for a change. I decided to
stop being an Arab, a Muslim, or someone affiliated with the
region. I wanted to be reborn in my ignorance of Iraqi topics
and instead be informed of them by my peers and the very people
of the region. In essence, I wanted to see if my position on the
matter, which I reflected in hundred-plus articles, television
and radio interviews, was biased. Or, even worse; whether I was
misinformed.
A
few days before Bush’s address, I met up with an Arab
journalist friend of mine and we discussed the Middle East and
Iraq at length. I discussed the future of Iraq with a few Iraqi
professionals; one, a nuclear scientist, another, a biomedical
engineer, another, a medical doctor. I talked to a few Iraqi
friends from Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, in Canada; New York,
and Los Angeles, in the US, friends in London, England, and in
Holland, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. (The Iraqis ran the
gamut: from Shiites to Sunnis and Christians, students to career
professionals, men, women, and teens.)
The
responses I got from various Arabs differed from those of the
Iraqis. Most of the Arabs quickly blamed an Israeli-US alliance
bent on destroying Iraq’s potential and reaping all the oil
wealth benefits.
Nearly
all of the Iraqis I spoke with had a dislike for Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein – some professed neutrality, while others
cursed the man. However, when it came to whether a war should
have been initiated in the first place, the opinions were split
down the middle; those for the war claimed it was the only way
to end Saddam’s reign. Those against the war feared not for
Saddam, but for the plight of the Iraqi people.
The
Iraqis were united, however, in voicing their resentment of US
bungling in managing Iraq and handing it back to the Iraqi
people. Those who had initially been for the war admitted that
they were somewhat optimistic back in April and May, but as the
summer months wore on and news from families in Iraq turned ever
grim, their hopes turned to frustration, their dreams to a
broken egg sizzling on a Baghdad pavement in July. They cited
security concerns, rampant crime, drug trafficking, lack of
food, water and services. One woman I spoke with cried because
her brother was now a jobless pauper, forced out of his rented
home by an irate landlord and the mercenaries he hired. Her
brother always pleaded for money to be sent to him.
But
Iraq is showing progress, I said, following the official Bush
administration statement du jour. The Bush administration,
including US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, recently
claimed that much progress was being made. The progress was
personified in the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), which had just
named 25 ministers to various ministries.
What
did normal Iraqis, who had no political affiliation with either
the Baath or exiled opposition parties, have to say about the
IGC?
“I
don’t know anyone of them. Maybe Chalabi,
I know him and the two Kurds because they fought Saddam for
years, but the others, I have no idea,” said one Iraqi
Vancouverite studying at the University of British Columbia.
Many
other young Iraqis shared similar sentiments. When it came to
the older generation of Iraqis, however, many found the IGC to
be a continuing insult to Iraqis.
“This
is all rubbish,” said an Iraqi historian residing in Sussex,
England. “Why do we have a rollover presidency for each
ethnicity? And why are all the ministries divided so evenly
between ethnicities? What about the Turkomen and the Christians,
and the Sabeans, and the Yazidis? Shouldn’t they be
represented?”
The
question of ethnicity is a scary one to most Iraqis. On a
popular Canadian live television talk show I recently appeared
on, a Canadian Kurd called the show and criticized me for saying
that most Iraqis consider themselves Iraqis first, ethnicity
second. However, a few days later, another Kurd wrote me an
email saying that all Iraqis must come together in realizing
that they are Iraqis and as such can look forward to building a
future together, united.
But
that was nothing. On that same Canadian show, an Assyrian man
said that Iraq belonged to the Assyrians and that all Arabs and
Kurds should get out.
Come
on. Seriously? Are we to now to begin dividing ourselves up
among Phoenicians, Babylonians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Persians,
and God knows what else? Iraq will forevermore remain at a
standstill.
Despite
the above detour, all Iraqis I spoke with want so desperately to
ensure that Iraq remains cohesive and united.
The
murder of Ayatollah Baqer Al-Hakim last week and the various
assassination attempts on other Shiite clerics since then have
pushed Iraqis to the edge of the precipice. The specter of
sectarian conflict is now a feared reality to contend with; I
understand that there is much dialogue behind the scenes in Iraq
to ensure that it does not erupt into open civil war. In such a
case, Lebanon circa 1970-1990 would seem like a Sunday Church
picnic.
Is
the US behind the recent attacks in Iraq?
Most
think there is a likelihood that either the US or some other
power is secretly working to undermine Iraqi stability. Recent
Arab press reports accuse Israel and its secret service, the
Mossad, of operating freely in Iraq. They claim that Israel has
the most to gain from Iraqi instability. They cite recent
reports by Israeli officials of Iraqi oil flowing to the Israeli
port of Haifa and the covert relationship between Iraqi
opposition figures and Israeli interest groups in the US
“Iraq
has always been Israel’s nemesis,” a former Iraqi diplomat
to the United Nations tells me. “They love every minute of
this; of course, they couldn’t wait to get their hands on it
[Iraq and its wealth].”
After
a few days of talking to Iraqis, I feel drenched in Iraqi
paralysis. Iraq, or what it meant as a nation to the many people
I spoke with, is lost. Many have no idea of what the future
holds for them, but are beginning to grow restless, frustrated
and angry.
Personally,
I was against this war from the beginning because I saw no
strategy, no planning, and honestly, no evidence that there was
any effort put into a post-war stage. I argued incessantly that
the Bush and Blair governments had exhausted their energies into
convincing the world (the world remains unconvinced, eh!) of the
merits of invading Iraq.
However,
in April, I decided to give the US administration the benefit of
the doubt. This angered many people in the anti-war camp, but I
held steadfast in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, the
Americans could really swing a little miracle in Iraq.
The
killing of Hakim all but buried my hopes… I was visiting with
some Iraqi friends, former international civil servants in
various organizations around the world, the day Hakim was
assassinated. I could see in their glum, angst-ridden faces the
fear they now had. One of them kept exclaiming that the
“American’s can’t be that stupid” for underestimating
the challenges in Iraq.
I
don’t want the US forces to leave Iraq. Yep, that’s right,
they have to stay, loathe as I am to admit it, and they do
actually have a job to do – to ensure Iraq doesn’t fragment
into Balkanized cantons continuously at war with one another.
This is the responsibility any foreign occupier has in Iraq –
it comes with the territory, as they say. I never wanted them
there in the first place because I knew the dangers a “free”
Iraq would pose to its own people and the region. But that’s
in the past as there is a new reality in Iraq now. One that is
being forged in the pit of sectarian distrust.
The
US is obliged to provide security, not the Iraqi people as Bush
administration officials remind us again and again. They are
seriously beginning to sound like playground ruffians who are
trying to pass the buck.
What
is the solution, a South African radio broadcaster asked me, to
the quagmire shaping in Iraq? I personally believe that former
Baathists must be reinstated into the mainstream of Iraqi
politics. Most Iraqis were Baathists at one time or another
(they had to be to get anywhere in vocational life), although
most did not support Saddam or his numerous bungled adventures.
To distance them from a political future will only alienate and
anger a large segment of Iraqi civil society that owes its
allegiance to Iraq, not Saddam.
Dissolve
the IGC, because they are an insult to the Iraqis that suffered
for years under Saddam. The appointment of these
“foreigners,” as one Iraqi put it, effectively tells an
Iraqi population of 25 million that there is none among them
competent enough to partake in leading Iraq. Hold municipal
elections in three months and watch grassroots democracy take
hold. Then take that to the next level of parliamentary
representation in six months. When Iraqis feel they have a stake
in plotting their own future, the dynamic in Iraq will change
for the better.
Did
the French install a new government in 1776 America? Did
Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin spend 40 years in Austria or
France before taking hold of the reins in the former British
colonies? No. So why is Iraq any different?
Ask
former Iraqi generals to take command again and reduce the
number of US patrols in Iraqi streets. Several factions in Iraq
have already started to defy US orders and set up their own,
heavily-armed militias. That is to be expected as there is a
military vacuum in Iraq, which needs to be filled by and with
Iraqis. To Iraqis, a US presence is not a legitimate military
power.
Come
clean with the world – present the challenges that face Iraq
and discard the empty rhetoric of “Iraq is making progress.”
Tell us how much it will cost the Iraqi people, because it is
they, and only they, that sacrifice their lives every day. It is
they that suffer; it is they that are without jobs and proper
medical facilities. It is they that face a still-born future.
Tell them, and us, what awaits. Sugar coating a dilemma leaves
the dilemma intact.
Hand
reconstruction efforts completely over to the United Nations and
international agencies once municipal elections have been
completed. The wrangling we see in the Security Council right
now isn’t over who serves under what flag. It is all about
which companies get to rebuild Iraq. US companies want to hog
everything. They have appointed themselves the de facto
rebuilders of Iraq. They have ensured that a corrupt oil
minister will award all oil contracts to American companies. A
UN effort will remain an elusive dream as long as the Bush
administration, and its superiors Bechtel, Halliburton, Texaco
(among many others), consider Iraq a goldmine of opportunity.
These
are just some steps that can ensure a brighter future for Iraq.
But they won’t happen despite the urging of many in the
region.
As
for Thargham’s assertion at the beginning of this article, I
am inclined to suspect foreign powers at work in Iraq. I am
reminded of Caesar’s campaigns against the Helvetii and other
Gaulish tribes. Something about divide and conquer…
That
fate waits Iraq, I’m afraid…
Firas
Al-Atraqchi is a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage.
Holding an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication, he has
eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and
gas markets, and the telecom industry. You can reach him at firascape@hotmail.com
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