- While American television audiences watch the gleeful
destruction of Saddam Hussein statues and the willful looting of anything
that is not nailed down in government, academic and leadership buildings
and residences, war continues to rage in many pockets of Baghdad. Officially
Baghdad has fallen, because no one appears to be in charge, but Coalition
troops do not dare turn their backs on buildings, side streets and byways
that are not under their immediate control. According to observers on the
scene, uncertainty and risk prevail in much of Baghdad and Iraq outside
the areas under Coalition control, and outside those areas the Iraqi people
remain fearful.
-
- Iraqis have several worries that so far do not appear
to have penetrated Coalition armor: What will happen to us, many may be
asking, when the lid Saddam imposed, to be sure by brute force at times,
is lifted from traditional patterns of conflict among major groups, e.g.,
Shi,a, Sunni, and Kurdish clans and families? Saddam was brutal, but he
did not invent any of the extremes that some Iraqis had visited on others
for generations. Keeping that lid on by reserving the uses of violence
mainly to himself was one of Saddam's legacies, but there are other regressions
Iraqis may fear.
-
- The US media picture of life under Saddam has been narrowly
focused on issues related to Bush team justifications for war. That picture
displays an Iraq that is cowed by Saddam's brutality, victimized by his
large and small tyrannies, limited by his egocentric behavior, rendered
threatening by possible weapons of mass destruction, and destabilized by
the desire of many people to get out from under his rule. Like any other
black and white picture, much is left out, including, of course, all of
the color. Just what did Saddam do to Iraq, and what, therefore, is he
leaving behind?
-
- While we focused on Saddam's dictatorial and repressive
actions, in his two decades plus of power he almost brought Iraq into the
21st century. He was a secular leader who lived well himself, moving as
he wished among palatial homes around the country, but he also used oil
money to develop the only really secular society in Islam and he fostered
creation of the largest middle class in the region. He provided free education,
clean water, an advanced medical services system, and a food distribution
system that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization called
"a model of efficiency" that saved Iraq from famine. In the
shadow of repressive and largely male sexist practices toward women elsewhere
in the region, the Iraqi women were liberated, many holding prized and
important jobs in government.
-
- The flaw in all those achievements, except possibly the
public administration ones, is that Saddam achieved his social advances
not by modernizing Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish habits and attitudes but by
suppressing opposition to those steps. Shi'a and Sunni clerics and followers
could object at their peril to the liberation of women, the adoption of
secular government, the almost gleeful import of advanced technologies,
and such other Islamic anathemas as imbibing alcoholic beverages. Saddam
also suppressed vocal and/or violent expressions of the differences among
Sunnis, Shi'as and Kurds, as well as other clan differences in Iraq. He
came as close as any leader in the region to achieving a modern state,
but the final flaw may have been that it was uniquely his toy.
-
- Coalition forces, for whatever reasons, did not understand
and plan for the kinds of situations that would exist when Saddam's authority
collapsed. Similar failures occurred in Serbia and Kosovo when US and other
peacekeeping forces failed to see the need for immediate transition from
military roles to civil law enforcement ones. The irony of that failure
in Iraq during the past ten days is that since Baghdad and other Iraqi
cities were occupied by Coalition forces the infrastructure of those cities
has been vandalized and looted. A largely modern system of government
operations and public services has been dismantled.
-
- Only now do Coalition forces seem to have grasped the
fact that an immediate switch to law enforcement was essential. That realization
may be too late, because the damage to public services already has been
done, and those systems must now be rebuilt at large costs of time, money,
inconvenience, and delay in restoring the viability of Iraq's economy.
The Saddam legacies that could have been a boon to postwar administrators
must be recreated mainly because of a hiatus of good sense and good planning
on the part of Coalition leadership. Because of those failures, there are
simply not enough experienced Iraqi and other experts in law enforcement,
public administration, utilities management and other key areas of governance
in place. Until those gaps are filled, conditions in Iraq can be expected
further to deteriorate.
-
- The promised transition to a democratic Iraq will be
rendered infinitely more difficult by the patterns of chaos that have prevailed
for several days in much of the country. But the technical problems are
not likely to be as serious as the human ones. Herein lies Saddam's final
legacy. To the extent that peace existed under Saddam among the contending
Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish factions, as well as throughout Iraq, that peace
was enforced by Saddam's police, not by mutual consent. How much rancor,
suspicion, anger, grievance, and, yes, hatred, may now emerge remains to
be seen. It could be, miracle of miracles, that everybody learned something
from the Saddam era experience. However, it is most likely that given choice,
the essence of a democratic system, each group will revert to its historic
habits. Assassination of two leading Shi'a clerics at An Najaf in the past
few days may be the bellwether of some very bad times.
-
- Any occupying power could expect difficult times with
the Iraqi situation. However, for the United States, with an announced
plan to impose if not inspire democracy, the hurdle can be even higher.
In any democratic model each power group will expect considerable autonomy
in selection of leadership and in pursuing basically self-interested goals.
If granted fully, such autonomy could turn Iraq into at least three countries,
as many experts have already noted. However, to avoid conflict, certain
categories of religious, ethnic and cultural conflict may have to be ruled
out from the beginning, if necessary forcibly. Saddam, behaving at times
like an occupying power, recognized this from the beginning and obviously
did not flinch. In the end, an American or Coalition administrator may
have little choice but to be about equally forceful.
-
- The solution here is to give the chief peacekeeping mission
to the United Nations and to create a genuine United Nations command. With
the onus of its actions over the past several months, including actual
conduct of the Iraq war, already on the table, a bad Iraqi occupation experience
can turn the United States into a total pariah, literally making a US administrator
the successor to Saddam. Despite the obvious temptation of the oil barons
in and around the Bush team, a bad occupation experience is not in the
United States interest.
-
- Given the visible facts of the situation, the United
States should distance itself as quickly as possible, and so should Britain,
from any long-term occupation or Iraqi recovery management role. Despite
the harm the United States and Britain have done to the credibility of
the UN system, the United Nations is still the only organization with enough
integrity, detachment and patience to carry out what will need to be done
in Iraq to retain the good and erase the bad features of Saddam's legacy.
-
- The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the US Department of State. He will welcome your comments at wecanstopit@hotmail.com
|
