june 28, 2014

The Responsibility for Iraq

The wages of the US invasion, occupation and meddling are now being paid by the people of Iraq.

he spiral into a civil war in Iraq is an outcome that should

not surprise anyone. Events in the country since the US
invasion more than a decade ago were always leading in
that direction. Yet, that it would take such a turn where a radical
extremist force like the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)
would come to acquire control over so many cities and towns in
northern and central Iraq and so quickly could not have been
anticipated by many. The coming together of the ISIS with remnants of the Baathist forces and other Sunni groups is what has
given a formidable edge to the new insurgents in a country that
has been torn asunder by sectarian violence over the past decade.
The government in Baghdad led by Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki has sought the help of its original backers, the Americans,
to help restrain the ISIS. The Americans have not yet made up
their mind though they know fully well how irresponsible they
were in invading the country in the first place. But even if they did
provide help, the proposed use of air power and shock and awe
against the ISIS in its areas of strength only promises more civilian
casualties and deaths without affecting the ground forces of the
ISIS and its allies. The job of taking on the radical Sunnis is something that the radical Shia forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq
seem rather willing to do on their own. The re-mobilisation of the
various Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army led by cleric
Moqtada Al Sadr is further exacerbating sectarian tensions in
post-Saddam, post-war Iraq. Iran, which feels directly threatened
by the growing strength of the ISIS, is reported to have sent in its
Quds (Revolutionary Guards) forces to help the Shia majority
government regain parts of the embattled city of Tikrit, a stronghold of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The roots of the present civil war, though, can be traced to
the sectarianism which was institutionalised by the US invaders
after they had conquered the country in 2003. The US occupiers
encouraged the sectarian opposition to Saddam Hussein the
Kurds, as well as the Shia and Sunni fundamentalist groups to
politically consolidate themselves and embed their sectarianism
into State institutions. The rapid dismantling of the Iraqi army
and its civil service after the occupation of Iraq set the stage for
paramilitary forces to take over security and welfare activities.
The setting up of a governing council in 2003 on sectarian lines
resulted in the emergence of political parties with clear Shia,
Sunni and Kurd denominations. This led to communal violence

Economic & Political Weekly

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june 28, 2014

vol xlix nos 26 & 27

being perpetrated by the Shia militias that dominated security

forces and invited reactions by radical Sunni outfits in the north.
The rise to prominence of the Al Qaeda under the leadership of
the Jordanian terrorist Abu Zarqawi in Iraq was a consequence
of the sectarian war that had been unleashed in Iraq. Sunni
extremism, which resulted in brutal civilian attacks featuring
car bombings and urban violence between 2006 and 2008, was
put down by Iraqi security and US occupation forces, but the
underlying communal tensions were never addressed, rather
they were often encouraged to simmer.
The Al Qaeda in Iraq metamorphosed itself into sleeper cells yet
again, recruiting radical Sunni militants from the northern
towns and included jihadists from across the world. Meanwhile,
the civil war in neighbouring Syria helped the reorganisation of
a new Al Qaeda affiliate, the ISIS, which, in turn, created a separate Syrian entity of its own, the Jubahat al Nasra, that
engaged in combat initially with the Baath Party-led Syrian
government and later in internecine warfare against other Syrian
opposition forces, such as the Free Syrian Army.
The elected Iraqi governments, largely led by Shia forces,
showed no inclination to transcend narrow sectarianism after the
end of the 2006-08 spell of strife. In fact Nouri al-Maliki has
overseen growing majoritarianism, discrimination and a vendetta
against Iraqi Sunni political forces in his second term since
2010. These acts increased discontent among the Sunni population and paved the way for a working military alliance between
Baathist forces, various Sunni militias such as the Sufi Islamist
Naqshbandiya and the ISIS, fomenting a Sunni rebellion against
Shia rule. The ISIS control of border towns and routes between
Syria and Iraq, and oil refineries, and its reliance on funding from
shadowy Arab financiers presumably including the Saudi
monarchy helped it turn into a formidable military outfit. The
Americans, through their role as instigators of the opposition in
Syria, have also been directly responsible for the ISISS growing
strength, even as it seems to have broken away from the internationalist Al Qaeda leadership. The Kurdish militias from the
autonomous Kurd provinces in the north have in the meantime
implicitly formed an alliance against the ISIS.
In some sense, the division of Iraq into splinter, resource-rich
territories dominated by sectarian groups that are dependent upon
regional geopolitical forces for their survival perhaps benefits
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the US as well as other regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and

Turkey. But added to the likelihood of a Balkanised Iraq divided
on sectarian lines is the threat of rule by an extremist ISIS whose
brutal actions in their areas of control make those by the
extremist Taliban in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and early

2000s pale in comparison. Only the unlikely revival of a nonsectarian, new Arab nationalist current that seeks to preserve
the Iraqi nation-state and subsumes the various sects and identities within the country under a civic-minded authority would
hold any hope for the Iraqi people.

june 28, 2014

vol xlix nos 26 & 27

EPW

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