The fourth anniversary of the American-led war on Iraq this week has generated considerable analysis of the prospects for Iraqi stability, security and well-being. Most of what we read and hear is unsatisfying, because it examines the last four years in Iraq, and sees the country mainly through the lens of America’s presence and priorities. We should be exploring a much longer time frame by acknowledging the combined suffocating burden of local tyranny and Western imperial and military adventurism. When the British and French a century ago configured the Middle East to suit their imperial needs and sensibilities, they left behind an embarrassing mess that continues to erupt into chronic violence in many lands. Arab tyrants took the baton of their own distorted statehoods from their European colonial craftsmen and between the 1950s and 1970s turned their young, often novel, countries into ugly police states. When our disturbed and violent region sent waves of bombers to attack foreign targets, the Americans led the new charge into the Middle East after September 11, 2001, once again pledging to transform sick societies into healthy democracies. Like the original Euro-manufactured modern Arab state system, today’s revised American version in President George W. Bush’s vision of an Arab constitutional cornucopia was flawed. It was a Western vision, designed first to respond to Anglo-American needs. It was imposed primarily by Western armies, and comprised a series of dictates from London and Washington about the rules, values, and alliances by which we would live in the future. It was almost totally devoid of input by the Arab natives. So, Anglo-American armies today cannot stay and cannot leave Iraq, though their presence is widely resented by most Iraqis, and is now the single biggest instigator, and target, for terror in the world. Iraq has over 4,000 years of history. Four years of Anglo-American militarism and romantic notions of instant democratization seem like an innocently naive timeframe within which to analyze the prospects for an ancient country. The Middle East will never shed the burdens of its own inception and fractious history, unless the natives and Western armies move toward a more complete and honest analysis of what ails them both. Five cumulative problems seem pertinent, in Iraq and much of the Middle East. Iraq’s birth at the hands of British colonial officials was the first problem. It brought together several different ethnicities, nationalisms and religions into a single state, without the principals expressing a clear desire or ability to become co-citizens of a single country. Tribal, national, ethnic and religious identities that had developed over thousands of years in some cases, were suddenly herded into a new world and a novel collective identity – unilaterally and whimsically decreed by fair-skinned men and women from London who were concerned mainly about Britain’s interests. Iraq’s foundational structural flaw could have been overcome over time, had the country slowly developed an equitable governance system that allowed its citizens to feel they were protected by a system of laws that was applied equally to all. That did not happen, though, because the second problem of modern Iraq was its own autocracy and despotism, starting with the first military moves to take power in the mid-1930s. The same land that gave glorious civilization to the world also gave ugly military rule to the Arabs. The third flaw in Iraq resulted from years of indigenous tyranny which saw the predominantly religious Sunni and tribal Tikriti ruling elite systematically brutalizing other groups, creating tremendous forces of resentment and revenge. The fourth problem was the Anglo-American invasion in 2003, which instantly shattered and removed the structures of statehood, and triggered a serious resistance movement. This also opened the door for long-simmering anti-Sunni, anti-Tikriti, anti-Baathist anger to manifest itself, while making Iraq’s cities a haven for criminals and political militias who filled the vacuum left behind by the vanished state. The fifth problem was the deliberate provocation of inter-communal killing and strife by forces linked to Al-Qaeda-type terror groups, who targeted Shias in particular, unleashing brutal inter-communal warfare anchored solely in indigenous brutality. It is difficult to separate these five elements from each other, or view them in historical or political isolation. They include three shameful episodes of Western political abuse – creating often illogical Arab states, supporting Arab tyrants for many decades, and then invading to remove those tyrants and unleash forces of chaos and death; and three home-grown legacies of barbarism – military-induced police states, elite-based repressive governance, and terror-based inter-communal strife. Both of these ugly traditions must be ended for stable, satisfying Arab statehood to ensue. Rami G. Khouriwrites a twice-weekly commentary for THE DAILY STAR
Iraq's curse: homegrown brutality and foreign abuse
