Middle East Focus: Iraq’s Wild Wild West, Iraq’s Fearful Heartland………..

Arabia Deserta

Iraq’s Wild Wild West, Iraq’s Fearful Heartland………..

Walking on water

“Earlier this week, just as Iraq seemed to be finally settling on a new prime minister -- the incumbent, Nouri al-Maliki -- the Washington Post reported a largely overlooked but telling development: the Ministry of Interior had stripped hundreds of police officers in Anbar province of their rank. The problem is that these weren't just any cops: they are Sunnis and former members of the Awakening Councils, paramilitary forces once backed by the United States that had helped turn the tide of the insurgency in 2007 when they turned their guns on al Qaeda…….”

No doubt Iraq’s Shi’a majority are fearful. Fearful of losing it all again. This has been part of their history for many centuries, it is in their genes by now.
The Shi’as of Iraq (and Persia) helped their Abbasid cousins overthrow the chauvinist and tribal regime of the Umayyad clan in the 8th century (AD), only to be crushed by the new order. Later the long-ruling Ottoman Turks favored the Sunnis who tended to be more ‘accommodating’ and discriminated against them. The British who ruled Iraq after 1918 also liked the more accommodating Sunnis and gave them all the power, over the majority that was too independent to be trusted. The Sunni monarchy regime that was imposed by the British after 1920 was no different. The Ba’ath regime since 1963 (and 1968) proclaimed a universal pan-Arab message but was essentially as tribal and clan-based as the others.

Only briefly was the center of power in Iraq genuinely non-sectarian, and that was during the period 1958-1963, when General Abdel Karim Qassim (Kasim) ruled the first Republic. He was overthrown and killed by an alliance of Ba’athist officers and the treacherous Aref brothers whom he had pardoned earlier. Soon after, the Aref brothers turned on the Ba’ath and expelled them from the government, but the Ba’ath staged its on coup in 1968 and started a long bloodbath.

There is some nagging fear within the Shi’as of Iraq, perhaps not eloquently expressed, that the powers that be, America instead of Britain, will try to take it all away from them. That some machination of Western strategic interests coupled with neighboring Arab petro-money will try to install another Sunni despot in Baghdad. They already know that the Arab absolute oligarchs would like a regime change in Baghdad, their body language screams it. There have been overt hints of that outcome even in some right wing Arab media in the Persian-American Gulf states. Most likely wishful thinking, but worrisome to the new ruling classes in Baghdad.

As for Mr. Allawi’s allies from al-Anbar and points west, they are no more believers in democracy than their old pal and leader Saddam Hussein was. The Shi’a parties and militias, no matter what their own ideas about democracy, know all this. That is why they will never hand the command of the powerful security forces or the military to someone from among Allawi’s allies (they know how Saddam and the Tikritis rose to power). That is why the American idea of a National Security Super-Body that takes control of security from the prime minister was a non-starter. Besides, it was a stupid unconstitutional idea. All this does not well for reconciliation in Iraq.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com