Mid-East Meets Midwest

Violence interrupted the celebrations of National Sovereignty Day (photo courtesy of Iraq Solidarity Campaign)

One month ago today, celebrations filled the streets of Baghdad as Iraqis marked “National Sovereignty Day,” commemorating the official withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi cities.  But in Kirkuk, just 150 miles north of Baghdad, the cheers and high spirits were replaced with screams and panic when a car bomb exploded in a crowded market, killing at least 34 people.

This incident caused me to take a step back and ask, ‘Is Iraq ready to stand on its own two feet?’

Over the last six years American troops, advisers and diplomats have been working to establish a stable Iraq, combating violence, training Iraqi soldiers and police, and planting the seeds of democracy for the first time in Iraq’s history.  What more can the United States do to help this war torn nation?

Perhaps the answer is to stop helping.

Raed Jarrar was just an average 25 year old in Baghdad, studying to become an architect when the U.S. invasion began in 2003.  He saw American bombs exploding just beyond his Baghdad neighborhood.  Now Jarrar is in Washington, D.C. working as the Iraqi consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, and is fighting to bring peace and healing to his homeland.

Despite recent upticks in violence, Jarrar sees American troop withdrawal as the beginning of stabilization.  However, he is not naïve about the state of readiness in Iraq.

“From my point of view and the point of view of the majority of Iraqis, the current Iraqi armed forces and political forces are not ready to run the country,” Jarrar said. “But the U.S. forces must withdraw because the Iraqi forces are not strong enough, because they are not legitimate enough.”

While it may seem like twisted logic, Jarrar firmly believes the only way to stabilize the situation in Iraq is for the U.S. to leave and allow the Iraqi government and security forces to gain legitimacy on their own so that Iraqis can fix their problems for themselves.

And Jarrar is not alone in this thinking.

University of Louisville Political Science Professor Rodger Payne says allowing Iraq’s fledgling democracy to establish its legitimacy with its people is critical to its long-term success.

Payne said, “A new democracy, like Iraq, that’s not fully democratic, those are among the most vulnerable government types in the world.”

As such, it is important that the United States take a step back politically, as well as militarily, for a democratic Iraq to become legitimate enough to survive domestically and internationally.

“I think the worst thing that can happen from the U.S. point of view is for Iraq to be perceived as essentially a client state for the U.S., with a government that’s basically approved by the U.S., and that would essentially let the U.S. do whatever it wants,” Payne said, warning that this scenario could turn into a reality if the U.S. didn’t scale back its interference in Iraq.

And for many Iraqis, Jarrar pointed out, the current relationship between Iraq and America is hauntingly familiar.

Throughout its history Baghdad has been invaded and occupied by the Greeks, Persians, Mongols, British and seemingly everyone in between.  John Warren, an associate at the University of York’s Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit, draws attention to Iraq’s history of foreign occupation in his article “War and the cultural heritage of Iraq.”

And this history of invasion has had a significant impact on the Iraqi people, Jarrar said.

“Resisting foreign occupations and rejecting foreign occupations is a part of the Iraqi culture and a part of the Iraqi collective memory,” Jarrar said. As a result, he said, “The vast majority of Iraqis have a huge sensitivity against any type of foreign intervention, whether it’s a foreign occupation or intervention into Iraq’s politics.”

Rend Al-Rahim, a former Iraqi ambassador to the United States and the executive director of the Iraq Foundation, a non-profit organization promoting democracy and human rights in Iraq, blames American intervention in Iraqi politics for a large part of the current instability.

She says the sectarian-ethnic paradigm that is crippling Iraq’s parliament, pinning one group against another and making it impossible to reach across party lines to achieve national goals, is rooted in poor decisions by Americans back in 2003 and 2004.

“The parliamentary system that was set up in Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority was really based on the wrong assumption that Iraq is neatly divided into Shies, Sunnis and Kurds,” she explained. “This was entirely wrong and has brought enormous problems for Iraq, and part of the bloodshed that occurred over the years has its roots in that dreadful model.”

By creating parties driven by sect and ethnic lines, Rahim explained, it becomes impossible to reach out to new and different voters to promote pan-ethnic and pan-sect agendas.

In fact, many scholars, like Daniel Byman, an assistant professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University, believe Saddam Hussein consolidated his power by exacerbating tensions between diverse sectarian, ethnic and tribal communities.

Therefore, to achieve democratic harmony Iraq’s current political system must evolve.

To right these mistakes and achieve a sustainable democracy, Rahim says Americans must shift away from meddling directly in Iraqi politics and join the ranks of the international community, helping from the outside.

She described meaningful change toward stability coming from “not only American pressure, but international pressure on Iraq, saying, ‘look, you really need to work on relationships between the political entities and the social groups, between sectarian and ethnic groups.’”

Looking at the bigger picture, she continued, saying, “This is something that is required by the international community of Iraq because a broken Iraq is not of interest to Iraqis nor the international community.”

Professor Payne agrees with Rahim that stepping back from the role of the hovering mother and returning to the ranks of a peer in the international community is one way America can actually help strengthen Iraq now as American troops withdraw.

He explained that keeping Iraq at arms length can be beneficial for Iraq and America, saying, “Part of the problem the U.S. has been facing for the last five years or so is, because much of the world did see this as basically a U.S. war and there was a reluctance for others to jump in and want to contribute finances, security forces, just about anything.”

By disengaging politically and militarily Payne predicts the international community would move away from thinking of Iraq as America’s responsibility, and would be more willing to provide the recovering nation with financial, humanitarian and political assistance.

But Iraq is in no way in the clear.  While academics and politicians in the United States try to predict the trajectory of Iraq’s future, the looming reality consists of continuing pockets of violence and instability.

Describing a recent trip back to Iraq, Rahim said, “The Iraqi forces have improved dramatically,” tentatively adding, “but not enough for my taste.”

She said she felt the training and discipline of Iraqi police and military forces was entirely uneven and worried whether these forces have achieved the necessary national cohesion to act in the interest of state and not in the interest of a particular political party, sect or ethnicity.

Rahim’s concerns are similar to those voiced by Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with the Washington Post.  He said, “Only if broad-based sectarian violence reignites in Iraq are we likely to have a major problem,” continuing on to say, “admittedly, that could still happen.”

Should a civil war break out, as it very nearly did in 2006, there is little the diminishing numbers of American forces could do if Iraqi national forces defect to join in.

However, there are still plenty of American troops to deal with any violence and strife that could arise in the next few weeks and months.  According to the think tank Foreign Policy in Focus, 134,000 American soldiers are still in Iraq, only slightly less than the number of troops positioned there in 2003.

Despite this fact, Payne emphasized the importance of the United States sticking to the agreed upon terms of the Status of Forces Agreement.

He said, “If the U.S. gets out on terms agreed with Iraq and Iraq is genuinely independent and sovereign, if then sectarian violence increases, or in the worst case civil war [breaks out] or a coup or some unforeseen catastrophe takes place, not only would the U.S. have an interest in stepping in, but lots of other countries would arguably have an interest.”

Despite the turmoil in his home country, Jarrar is looking forward to continued progress toward peace and democracy, independent of American involvement.  Ready to returning home to help rebuild, he described the drawdown in troops saying, “It’s not the last step in stabilizing Iraq, but it is the first step in stabilizing Iraq.”