18 October 2002
In 1979, the same year the US lost Iran and its oilfields to the Islamic revolution, Saddam Hussein was sworn in as president of Iraq. Twenty-three years later, the US appears poised to engage in another Mideast adventure designed to topple him. But there are a huge number of unknowns, all or any of which could turn the mission into a debacle.
For Western diplomats, one of the biggest is how the Iraqi population would react to seeing heavily armed US troops scouring streets and alleys in search of concealed weapons after weeks of air bombardment.
Judging by Mideast history, reaction would not be swift. It took Iran 25 years to reverse the CIA-orchestrated coup against Iranian Premier Mohammad Mossadeq by overthrowing the Shah. And after Israeli forces occupied the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in 1982, it was months before the first shots were fired at Israeli soldiers, and years before they were forced out. But what is certain is that American troops wouldn’t be greeted by dancing in the streets, especially if their entry into Baghdad and other cities were preceded by widespread civilian deaths similar to the bombing of the Amiriyah shelter in 1991, inside which hundreds of civilians were crammed.
Another unknown is whether it would be possible to preserve any kind of social cohesion or geographical unity in Iraq, a country where force has always been used to ensure loyalty. Kurdish loyalties undoubtedly lie with the two Kurdish leaders, the Popular Union of Kurdistan’s Jalal Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s Massoud Barzani, who aim to create a Kurdish state in northern Iraq with Kirkuk, the oldest Iraqi oil province, as its capital.
Iraq’s Shia Muslims, the repressed majority, look to Tehran for spiritual leadership, while Iran claims certain rights over the Shia holy sites of Najaf and Karbala, south of Baghdad. In any case, Iraqi Shias have long nurtured ambitions to rule over the minority Sunnis.
Another big challenge would be control of the tribes. In exchange for cooperating with the regime and guaranteeing their tribesmen’s loyalty, tribal sheikhs have been granted land rights and an element of autonomy, especially in solving disputes and regulating tribal affairs. Gulf analysts say that any attempts to disarm the major tribes, the most powerful of which are the Shammar, Anayzah, and Abu Hamdan, could result in deadly confrontation.
Much, of course, depends on who would end up ruling a defeated Iraq: A US general, an Iraqi opposition figurehead, or a defector from within the military?
Sending in US troops to turn Iraq into an American protectorate would likely provoke a bitter reaction in the Arab world, particularly in the Gulf, where anti-US feelings are running high. Parallels would be drawn with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, putting the US in conflict with Arab governments.
Already caught up in infighting, the exiled Iraqi opposition would be unlikely to prove a unifying factor. A ruler parachuted in from abroad — like Hamed Karzai in Afghanistan — would be resented, as would the army of returning exiles. Iraqis who have suffered from the regime’s brutality for more than two decades and labored under 12 years of sanctions would view the returnees not as saviors, but more likely as traitors who allied themselves with the US, Iraq’s enemy.
Moreover, the bureaucracy would probably be hard to replace. Built up by the Baath Party over the years in a highly disciplined fashion, it is made up not of a small clique, but a middle class that constitutes an important part of the population, Gulf experts say. The difficulties inherent in setting up a new bureaucratic nucleus have already been experienced first-hand by the US State Department, as it struggles to establish working groups of exiled Iraqi politicians and intellectuals to develop position papers on the areas where they would be expected to replace loyal Baathists. In energy, for example, possible replacements appear to lack comprehensive technical knowledge, and those who used to know have been away from the country too long.
Arab and Iraqi analysts agree that control over Iraq hinges on control over the army and security apparatus. A military coup — Washington’s hoped-for solution — could be the answer to many of the post-war challenges. But coups in the Mideast have never been temporary, and neither have they ushered in democracy.
But before the US even gets to tackle such “day after” challenges, invasion planners are grappling with another key unknown — what might happen to Saddam, and how long it might take to declare him finished. Afghanistan offers no clues. More than a year after the US started bombing Afghanistan, no one can say with any certainty whether Osama Bin Laden and the head of the Taliban regime, Mullah Mohammad Omar, are dead or alive.
By Ruba Husari, London
(Published in Energy Compass, 18 October 2002)