In some ways Vietnam and Iraq cannot be more different. The Vietnamese had a 2,000 year history of resistance to foreign powers. They had a strong sense of national identity, cultural pride and unity. Iraq, or Mesopotamia, has a longer history than any other civilization. But their recent history has been one of subjugation, humiliation, and divisiveness. Under Ottoman rule the territory was divided into three provinces. Following World War One the country was created as a British mandate and occupied under the leadership of Lawrence of Arabia. After oil was discovered near Kirkuk in 1927 the British continued to dominate Iraq’s internal affairs until 1958 when the Hashemite monarchy was overthrown and a republic was declared.
From 1958 until 1979, when Saddam Hussein was officially recognized as the leader of the country, Iraq was convulsed with coups, assassinations, internal revolts (particularly from the Kurds), and border disputes with Iran and Kuwait. In spite of this, the period saw some excellent economic growth and modernization.
For many observers, Iraq in the seventies represented a model for a secular Arab state. In 1970, the Iraqi Provisional Constitution was drafted. The Constitution provided for equal rights for women. Women’s rights to vote, attend school, run for political office, and own property were all enshrined in law.
Such rights were in sharp contrast to the experiences of Arab women in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iranian women would see their rights eroded dramatically.
But, if Iraq in the seventies seemed to be an enlightened and economically vibrant country, this covered up some intractable fissures in their society.
While we tend to associate the Shi’a branch of Islam with Ayotollah Khomeini and Iran, the majority of the Iraqi population is Shi’a and the holiest cities of Shi’ism are all in Iraq. The traditional center of Shi’a religious study is Najaf.
Najaf, Kufa, and Kerbala are the all major pilgrimage destinations for Shi’a muslims. This has been both a blessing and a curse. The holy cities are a tremendous tourism draw, but Iraq has been ruled for centuries by adherents of the dominant Sunni branch of Islam.
Saddam Hussein and the Sunni dominated Ba’athists never trusted the religious leadership in the holy cities, and restrictions were periodically placed on the Shi’as freedom of religious observation.
You may remember that at the outset of the Iranian revolution Ayotollah Khomeini returned to Iran from France. What you might not remember is that Khomeini was only in France because Saddam Hussein had expelled him from Najaf at the Shah’s request.
The combination of a rebellious Kurdish population in the north, a religiously oppressed majority population in the south, and a heavy-handed secular Sunni minority holding the reins of power, prevented Iraq from coalescing into a unified country with a common sense of national identity, culture, and pride.
And things only got more complicated in 1979-1980. The Iranian Revolution was an inspiration to all Muslims, Sunnis included. Seeing Iran stand up to the United States and successfully throw us out of the country threatened to lead to uprisings in other Muslim countries. This was of particular concern to the Sunni elites in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia because each country had a large population of Shi’a. A decision was made to wage war on the Iranians using the Iraqi army and Saudi and Kuwaiti funding.
From the beginning the loyalty of the Iraqi Shi’a and the Iraqi Kurds was considered suspect. And there were examples of treachery during the conflict. Even so, the nine-year war probably did more to create a sense of national feeling and unity than anything before it. This unity would be damaged at the end of the war when Saddam used gas on the Kurds, and it would be shattered in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War when Saddam resorted to genocide on the Shi’a to put down a widespread rebellion and maintain his grip on power.
If we miscalculated in Vietnam by underestimating the cohesion and national pride of the Vietnamese society, we miscalculated in Iraq by underestimating the lack of cohesion and national feeling in Iraqi society.
Most of all, we failed to anticipate the resistance we would face from an effort to undo centuries of Sunni rule. We failed to understand that the secular nature of Iraqi society was only possible as long as the seminarians in Najaf were kept in subjugation, and that the Kurdish problem could not be easily solved through negotiation.
Just as we had no excuse for failing to sufficiently study and understand the history of Vietnam, we failed to study and understand the history of Iraq.
It’s not as if there weren’t people warning this administration about the fractious nature of Iraqi society. But those voices were overwhelmed by the pollyannish proclamations of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
The great mystery is just how deluded the neo-cons were. Did they really think they could create a democratic government (thereby bringing the Shi’a to power) that would not bring an end to the secular nature of Iraq?
Did they think that they could take away the Sunni’s control of the second biggest oil fields in the world without creating a virulent radical fundamentalist murderous backlash?
Can they really have been so stupid? Or were they so evil as to not care? No matter the answer, removal from office seems to be the minimal remedy for their colossal error.
