Back to Iraq

Since Iraq was invaded in March 2003, and the US began to crawl towards Baghdad before it collapsed on April 9, the global and regional situation has been getting progressively more complicated by the day. Ten years after the American invasion of Iraq, the Middle East remains in a transitional stage while America, Russia and Europe continue to struggle for influence. The Iraqi earthquake has only just begun. What happened in 2003 was not a regular event. The implications of this event for the region exceed the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the displacement of the Palestinian people who think, naively, that the Arabs will be able to restore Haifa, Jaffa, Tel Aviv and even Jerusalem, which were not occupied at the time. Despite the defeat of 1967 and the losses suffered, the Arab world has the ability to contain Israel and prevent it from growing, despite its survival as an occupying power in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. What happened in Iraq was the complete collapse of an Arab state. The Baath regime established by Saddam Hussein managed to destroy the social fabric through its brutal practices, reckless policies and by waging wars against its neighbours.  The US occupation of Iraq and subsequent ill-informed decisions, such as disbanding the Iraqi army and establishing a new regime based on sectarian quotas, has reflected a desire to eliminate any hope of Iraq remaining a unified state.  A unified state in the modern sense means a country with well-established institutions, able to accommodate religious diversity and national security. Diversity could be a rich source of power for Iraq instead of becoming a source of conflict which once it starts nobody knows how or when it will end.  After what happened in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and is continuing to happen in Syria, we must return to Iraq. What this country has witnessed since the bloody coup that toppled the monarchy in July 1958 is not just the collapse of a major Arab country; it is the unevenness of the delicate regional balance which had lasted for hundreds of years. The unevenness of the balance between the Persian and Arab civilisations, which forged the dividing line of the Iraqi-Iranian borders.  We cannot ignore that the US administration led by Bush Junior offered Iraq on a silver platter to Iran. Today we are witnessing Iraqi attempts to prevent new sectarian wars, which Iran appears to be encouraging. Iran’s policy is based on taking advantage of Iraq’s divisive instincts and encouraging unrest inside it; it would also like to build a subordinate mini-state within the Arab nation as is the case in Lebanon.  There is no doubt that a number of Arab Shiites in Iraq are beginning to understand the gravity of the Iranian expansion under the government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. This government explicitly condemned the Syrian regime and then changed to become a conduit for arms and aid access to Al Assad.  It is an Iraqi government that wants to repeat the experience of Saddam Hussein under a sectarian cover that behaves like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, in light of the actions of Al Maliki’s government, we can say that his party is the Shiite version of the Muslim Brotherhood!  We cannot ignore that the current Syrian civil war has a sectarian Iraqi influence. The humiliation and marginalisation of the Iraqi Sunni and Kurdish communities who live in areas such as Kirkuk and the surrounding areas prove this.  It may be worth monitoring Shiite groups on the Iraqi scene that are trying to deny sectarian actions of Sunnis’ in Anbar, despite the extremist elements operating amongst them. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.