What was a decent interval during the Vietnam War has become a decent outcome in the Iraq War. Naturally, bad things that are preventable could result when the American troops begin to draw back on June 30. There is a difference between avoiding those things or even learning to live with them, and thinking a decent outcome is possible. There will be no decent outcome for America in Iraq. It isn’t possible. There may be something resembling a decent outcome for Iraq, but that depends on the Iraqis. If they can hold their country together, maintain some level of representative government, and attract foreign investment, then they may emerge from this fiasco stronger than they entered it. But, even then, it will take decades to reach a point where the sacrifice and disruption they have endured might look like it was worth it. Too much damage has been done and too many lives have been lost or traumatized for there to be a decent outcome in the short-term.
And, it is quite possible that Iraq will never again have any degree of cohesiveness and economic growth. We stayed in Vietnam for several extra years just hoping to give the South Vietnamese government some small chance of survival. In reality, we just wanted North Vietnam to wait a bit before conquering the South after we withdrew so that we could save some face. Iraq is a bit different. They won’t be conquered after we leave, but they might split apart at the seams. For this reason, some investment in strengthening their internal policing powers has made sense for both them and for us. But they have to ride the bike eventually, and that time is coming soon.
My first thought was, well, Europe actually learned something from their time of death and horror. But their lesson was to accept their own culpability as predators both externally and within their own continent. Iraq doesn’t have that option. Their own history is bloody enough, but the source of their present trauma comes entirely from outside.
Their only path to cohesion would be to unite against “the coalition” that did them so much damage. Which seems like a pretty unlikely way of binding a nation together long-term. And for sure not any kind of win for the US no matter what. You can see the attempts at revisionism already going on in the media, but America’s Iraq Adventure will taint our reputation and credibility for generations to come.
The thing is, Dave, that enough of the European death and horror took place in Europe itself that the European people understood what it did to human beings and their lives. It was having finally experienced enough of the the death and horror they themselves had wrought that finally led them to learn what they learned.
The United States, on the other hand, has never really suffered from its own or anyone else’s death-and-horror-dealing ways, and most of its victims are brown people far away whom they can easily dismiss as not fully human, or even as deserving what they got. So, it is much more difficult for Americans to learn what the Europeans finally learned.
Some would argue that the Civil War taught us something, but I’d be hard put to identify what that might be.
That said, it is rather dismissive to just ignore the US casualties in WWI and II, for example. They didn’t happen on US ground, but still brought extreme pain. I think those did teach a few lessons, but not enough to overcome the arrogance that continues to define much of our debates over world affairs. The image of our wars as just dropping napalm from above the clouds remains very powerful and even seductive to way too many Americans.
For Europe it took repeated, devastating wars over centuries for them to learn the right lessons strongly enough to change. The U.S. has not been through even 1% of what the Europeans put themselves through with their wars on each other.
It was and is not my intention to dismiss the pain brought on when soldiers die and are maimed while fighting wars in distant lands. However, that does not even remotely approach what people go through when the war is brought to their doorstep. Entire populations are traumatized, their lives destroyed or at least changed forever. And look at how long it took Europeans to come to the conclusion that there were better options than war.
Oh – and might have noticed that European states have not stopped sending their armies elsewhere to destroy and slaughter.
Why should Iraq want to remain one nation? If Iraq is a creation of the British from a hundred years ago then why would it be a bad thing if the Iraqis decide that they’re better of as three different countries? National unity didn’t work so well for Yugoslavia once Tito died, the same may be true for Iraq. Belgium’s on the verge of splitting between French and Duch sections, and Quebec came within a point of seceding from Canada. And then there’s the former Soviet Union.
I’m all for self-determination, and if the Iraqis would rather be independent nations of Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds then I say more power to them. Likewise, if they want to remain one nation then again I say more power to them, but I don’t see one or the other option as being morally imperative – it’s their country and their choice.
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God didn’t leave any oil in the Sunni sector, he preferred the Kurds at Kirkuk and the Shia of the marshes.
Oil in Iraq
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Except that Iraq was never neatly divided like that except in the minds of some with certain imperial ambitions. :o}
Who are “the Iraqis”? There’s the rub. It’s not like Yugoslavia and the USSR set an enticing example of what splitting up can accomplish. It’s all about who has the power to keep what they want. “Moral” has nothing to do with it.
Iraqis know the answer to that question, but no one ever bothers to consult them about it.
Oscar, the notion that Iraq is made up of three incompatible groups who were only artificially united, and could never form a cohesive nation is pure myth. Iraqis of all kinds – and there is much, much more there than merely Sunnis, Shi`as, and Kurds – have lived together, mixed together, gone to school together, and intermarried for many centuries.
Iraqis have no history of major, widespread, or prolonged ethno-sectarian conflict. In the last 1400 or so years there have been three fairly brief episodes of serious conflict between Sunnis and Shi`as in Iraq. Each of those episodes coincided, not coincidentally, with a foreign invasion and occupation, and ended after the occupation ended. What does that suggest to you?
Iraqi society has historically always centered on the family, the clan, and the tribe, not sect. All the major Iraqi Arab tribes, and most of the smaller ones too are mixed Sunni and Shi`a. The intermarriage rate between Sunnis and Shi`as has been about 30%, and intermarriage between other groups – Arabs and Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, Muslims and Christians, etc. – is common enough to be unremarkable except in the most extreme families. Most Iraqi extended families have members that belong to at least two of Iraq’s groups, often more. It is not unheard of for a family to have a Sunni mother, a Shi`a father, and some children choose to be Sunni, some Shi`a, some secular. I am personally acquainted with families like this. What does that suggest to you?
The stories that there is no such thing as an Iraqi nationality or Iraqi nationalism are pure rot. Poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of Iraqis do not want to be independent nations of Sunnis, Shi`as and Kurds. And of course no one ever bothers to consider what is supposed to happen to the many mixed families, nevermind those who do not belong to one of those three magical groups. What about the Turkmens, the Christians, the Mandaeans, the Yezidis, and others?
I DO agree with you whole-heartedly that it is up to the Iraqis and only the Iraqis to decide for themselves how they will manage their country and their lives. It’s about time they were allowed to do that after eighty years of destructive interference.
That’s not my point – I’m simply arguing for self-determination; the nature of what is chosen and why are irrelevant as far as I’m concerned (although my understanding is that Iraq was artificially carved out of the Ottoman Empire as a nation by the British). The notion that Iraqis should want a cohesive nation is what I take issue with – only Iraqis can decide what they should want.
I understand that, Oscar, and I am sorry I focused so much on the ethno-sectarian rubbish about Iraq’s creation and demographic and social history, that I de-emphasized your main point, which I agree with completely. It’s just that the whole myth of Iraq as doomed from the start due to inherent geo-ethno-sectarian incompatibility is one of my red flags, so I sometimes chase it first, and only mention the real point as an afterthought.
Of course you are 100% correct that the Iraqis should at long last be left alone by the imperial powers of this world to decide for themselves and to develop whatever form of nationhood or non-nationhood, or government they will. What they should have, and what is best for them is for them to determine, not anyone else. On these we agree completely. Whether they can come out of the catastrophe that has been visited upon them, not just since 2003, and not even just since 2001, but since the ’80’s, is really up to them, and they need to be free of interference in order to manage that at all. The destroyer can never be the rebuilder, and in any case the United States will never act in Iraqis’ interest, but only in their own, which will in most cases be antithetical to that of the Iraqis.
Iraq, like the rest of the former Ottoman empire, was, as yous said, created by the British, and is in that regard an “artificial” nation. It was created by joining together three wilayat, or provinces, that the Ottomans had artificially carved out for the purpose of tax collection, governance, etc. Those three wilayat were created for the benefit and convenience of the Turkish imperial rulers, not because they were in any way distinct regions demographically or otherwise. The borders of those wilayat had less meaning and significance for the people who lived in them than state borders have for Americans, and people did not identify themselves as being from this wilaya or that one as Americans do. They moved, and traded, and married, and associated freely from one artificially-created wilaya to the other. So, the joining of the three wilayat to make Iraq made perfectly decent sense.
So, the beloved rubbish that Iraq was cobbled together out of three demographically distinct parts of the Ottoman empire whose people detested each other and never wanted to live together is just that – invented rubbish.
And bottom line, you are absolutely correct that Iraqis should have, and have the right to have, self-determination in how they run their lives and their nationhood.
there are several major differences between iraq, and what happened in vietnam.
first, technically, we didn’t invade vietnam, it started out as a training/police action, and morphed into a war [ignoring for this purpose, why]. iraq, otoh, we invaded, based on lies and under false pretenses.
second, we really left vietnam. l don’t believe that we have any intention to really leave iraq…at least for the foreseeable future…decades at a minimum.
as far as l can ascertain, we’re still essentially operating under the pretexts contained in BushCo’s™ Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship Between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America, from 2007. it’s highly likely we’ll continue to have a huge military presence there for a very long time. all those enduring bases, along with their substantial numbers of troops and equipment, aren’t going away anytime soon, nor is the citadel of an embassy we’ve got in baghdad. that presence will continue to be a source of anger, frustration, and mistrust far into the future.
really leaving would probably be the best way out for all concerned, certainly, it would allow the iraqis the freedom to choose whatever course they determine is appropriate without the irratant of foreign troops, especially american, on their soil.
they may end up pedaling the bike, but the u.s. is still going to be the training wheels.
“l don’t believe that we have any intention to really leave iraq…at least for the foreseeable future…decades at a minimum.“
I don’t believe so either. I think the only way the U.S. will leave Iraq is if the Iraqis force them out with a combination of resistance and political pressure.
“really leaving would probably be the best way out for all concerned, certainly, it would allow the iraqis the freedom to choose whatever course they determine is appropriate without the irratant of foreign troops, especially american, on their soil.“
It is more than an irritant. The American troops, the mercenaries, and the thousands of “diplomats” and “advisors” and “contractors” living and working in the green zone and the Baghdad Citadel are not there as passive observers, or to keep the peace, or to protect Iraqis. They are the imperial presence, and they are there to make sure that Iraq conducts its business to America’s benefit.
“But they have to ride the bike eventually, and that time is coming soon.“
Very unfortunate Great White Father remark, BooMan. Iraqis do not need to be patronized or spoken of or treated as children.
yeah, I knew you would say that and I left it that way anyway. because that is the debate and the unanswered question. can Iraq avoid coming apart at the seams or not? And can we help prevent it by staying a little longer? don’t beg the question. Make your case.
Don’t make patronizing comments, don’t refer to the Iraqis as if they were incompetent children who need the very people who have spent the last 25 years destroying their country to teach them how to ride a bike, and the accuse me of begging the question.
The rapist is not the correct person to heal his victim. The murderer is not the correct person to give comfort to hist victim’s family. The destroyer is not the correct one to mend what has been destroyed. The longer you stay, the longer it will take for Iraq to get back on its feet.
I understand your anger, but i’ve seen zero to inspire confidence that Iraq can stand on its own two feet without descending back into the nightmare of 2005-2006. I agree America needs to leave, pronto. But I actually care about what happens in Iraq after we leave. If you read carefully, you’ll notice that I’m want our troops out regardless. But it isn’t because I don’t care or because I think it will help Iraq stay together.
Thanks for understanding, BooMan. And thanks for caring what happens in Iraq.
The nightmare of 2005-2006 came about directly as a result of the Americans’ presence and the way they conducted themselves there. The nightmare of 2003-2005 was not any better, nor was the nightmare of 1990-2003. Nor, for that matter, is the nightmare over, despite all the crowing about The Surge<sup>TM</sup> and how wonderful and peaceful it is in Iraq now – that is bull feathers. It is a mistake to believe that the U.S. has ever done anything of significance to protect Iraqis, or to keep the peace. Even the stupid “awakening” thing is in large measure a hoax. Sunni leaders have been fighting against the “foreign fighters/Zarqawi followers/Al Qa`eda/Al Qa’eda in Iraq” since 2004, and had approached the Americans numerous times over the years for assistance and been roundly rebuffed, so it is a mistake to give Petraeus credit for any of that.
It is no coincidence that the descent into that series of nightmares began in the early ’80’s when the United States re-established relations and turned Saddam into their favourite client. Before the U.S. involved itself once more in Iraq that country was the most economically, socially, and educationally advanced country in the Arab world, and was classified as an emerging first-world country based on all the social and economic indicators. It was well ahead of the wealthiest Gulf countries in many respects, including the distribution of oil wealth to the population, its priorities (education, medical care for all, infrastructure, economic development…), and the rights and status of women and girls.
Of course, I am not saying that everything that happened in the ’80’s sits on the head of the U.S. Saddam and his regime certainly played their part. We have a saying that Saddam and the U.S. worked together to destroy Iraq, especially in the ’80’s, though after 1991 the U.S. took over most of the demolition duties. However, until the ’80’s when the U.S. stuck its fingers back in and started stirring Iraq was on a steady upward trajectory, and we do not know what would have happened had the U.S. not inserted itself. It is doubtful, among other things, that the war with Iran would have lasted more than a year or two (if it had begun at all), and it would not have been nearly as devastating as it was. It was in large part, if not entirely, the financial and other cost of that war that led to the invasion of Kuwait and the resulting set of imposed catastrophes.
Iraq is not going to become shangri-la the moment the U.S. leaves (not that I believe the U.S. will ever leave voluntarily), and it might become more violent than it is now for some time. However, Iraqis can never begin to heal themselves and mend their country as long as the occupation continues in any form at all.
As I have pointed out before, for thousands of years Iraqis have gotten along with one another as well as any diverse group of people can. Historically the only episodes of violent sectarian conflict have coincided with a foreign invasion and occupation, and have died down once the occupation has ended. I believe history gives us the best indication of what is likely to happen in the future.
This reading of history is distorted and whitewashed.
I am going to grant your points about Iraq excelling during the 1960’s-1970’s and becoming one of the better places for women to live, to get an education, and for health services in the Arab world. But, beyond that, I have to call b.s.
When Saddam Hussein and Iran went to war, Iraq’s whole military was built by the Soviets and Soviet clients, with a bunch of French hardware thrown in. He had been the USSR’s buffer against the US client in Iran…the Shah, who was our biggest customer.
It’s true that we were no longer allied with Iran and were jubilant to see them attacked considering what we were going through with the hostage crisis. I doubt very much that Saddam Hussein heard a word of discouragement from either the United States or the USSR. But we were not the driving force behind the decision to go to war with Iran. If you listen to Saddam, this decision was provoked by Iran’s provocations and their provocations alone.
It was not until 1982, when Iran began to win the war, that Donald Rumsfeld was dispatched to Baghdad and relations were reopened between Iraq and the U.S.. Meanwhile, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah were holding Americans hostage and extorting replacement parts for their air force from Ollie North. Naturally, the U.S. took an increased interest in seeing Iran punished. It was only after the Beirut embassy and barracks bombings that Iraq began to get satellite intelligence and some dual-use imports and a small bit of military aid from America.
Saddam Hussein was never our favorite client. He remained a Soviet stooge for the entire duration of the war, but he played both sides against each other in a wily manner.
His decision to invade Kuwait was not driven by U.S. prodding, either, but by anger about a lack of debt forgiveness and alleged oil theft (Kuwait was supposedly drinking his milkshake). At worst, the U.S. gave Saddam permission to annex a small portion of Kuwait in the disputed oil fields. We did not tell him he could wipe Kuwait off the map.
When he did wipe Kuwait off the map, we did what we are supposed to do when a member of the United Nations that is in good-standing gets wiped off the map. As the only military capable of rectifying the situation, we took the lead, built a coalition, and expelled Iraq from Kuwait.
We did not attempt to occupy Iraq. We hoped that he would be overthrown in an indigenous coup without our overt assistance. Bush encouraged that coup but then took massive criticism when it was put down brutally.
Those are the real facts leading up to the sanctions and no-fly zones. The effects of the sanctions were unfortunate, as they failed to weaken Saddam’s grip on power and even strengthened him as he game the ration card system to his advantage. But it was a step short of invading and occupying Iraq, as the son would thoughtlessly do.
As we have discussed before, the civil, ecumenical nature of Iraq was real, but also somewhat artificial, in that it was made possible through tremendous coercion from Saddam’s police powers and secular ideology. Hussein’s Iraq was a nightmare that only looks good compared to the complete lack of state power that followed his regime’s collapse.
Huh?! Where is the distortion and the whitewashing, and what has your exposition to do with anything I was talking about?
I was discussing Iraq’s accelerating economic and social upward trajectory through the ’50’s, ’60’s, and ’70’s, and the United States’ role in the reversal of that trajectory and Iraq’s descent, beginning in the ’80’s, into what it has become. Russia, France, Hezbollah, the Shah and all that is not relevant to my topic, therefore I did not bring it into my discussion. How is failure to bring in a bunch of irrelevant stuff distortion or whitewashing or bs?
“When Saddam Hussein and Iran went to war, Iraq’s whole military was built by the Soviets and Soviet clients, with a bunch of French hardware thrown in. He had been the USSR’s buffer against the US client in Iran…the Shah, who was our biggest customer.“
Yes, and…? Did you even read what I wrote before firing this off? This is irrelevant to anything I was talking about, and I don’t know why you are bringing it up in this context. It does nothing to refute anything I have said, and it shows no distortion or whitewashing or bs on my part.
I wrote a few paragraphs about the U.S. role in Iraq’s descent from emerging first world status to the mess it has become, not a complete history of the Iran-Iraq war – that requires an entire book, not a few paragraphs in the comment section of a blog. I guess all you have shown here in the context of what I was talking about is that Iraq’s period of greatest social progress and economic prosperity coincides with the period during which it was closely allied with Russia and had no diplomatic or economic relations with the U.S. How does that show any distortion on my part?
“…we were not the driving force behind the decision to go to war with Iran.“
I never said you WERE the driving force, so why are you even bringing this up? What I said was that it is doubtful that the war would have been as protracted or as devastating as it was had the U.S. not involved itself with Iraq (and at times with Iran as well), and directly with the war, and I stand behind that. In fact, much of what you said, I guess in an effort to show how I distorted, whitewashed, and bs’d, tends to support my assertion.
And OK, I hinted that the U.S. might have played some part in the decision to attack Iran, which is not completely outside the realm of possibility, but I never suggested that the U.S. was the driving force nor have I ever thought it was.
“If you listen to Saddam, this decision was provoked by Iran’s provocations and their provocations alone.“
And if you listen to Bush, he attacked Iraq because Saddam had some of the most dangerous weapons known to mankind, and could use them against the U.S. at any moment, Saddam was bff’s with bin Laden, and besides, Bush had a compelling desire to free the Iraqi people. So, politicians and dictators lie, and one of the biggest things they lie about is why they start wars. In fact, Saddam’s decision to attack Iran, like his decision to attack Kuwait, and like the U.S. decision to attack Iraq, was not driven by one thing and one thing only, but by a number of factors and considerations.
No one with any real knowledge or common sense believes that the U.S. was the driving force behind the decision to attack Iran.
“Saddam Hussein was never our favorite client. He remained a Soviet stooge for the entire duration of the war, but he played both sides against each other in a wily manner.
Yeah, sorry for that bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. I should have known it would be taken seriously. But come on! The U.S. was a lot tighter with Saddam and gave him a lot more support in a lot more ways than you are letting on, and they not only turned a blind eye to his crimes, including some of the most infamous ones against “his own people”, and they continued to supply him with equipment, materiel, and intelligence even after they knew very well how he was using it.
“His decision to invade Kuwait was not driven by U.S. prodding, either…“
Care to show me where I suggested it was?
“but by anger about a lack of debt forgiveness and alleged oil theft (Kuwait was supposedly drinking his milkshake).“
Here is exactly what I said about that: “It was in large part, if not entirely, the financial and other cost of [the Iran] war that led to the invasion of Kuwait…” Care to tell me how that is substantively different from your “correction”, let alone distortion, whitewash, and bs?
“At worst, the U.S. gave Saddam permission to annex a small portion of Kuwait in the disputed oil fields.“
In other words, instead of warning him off, or discouraging him, the U.S. gave him a green light to take some action against Kuwait (as if the U.S. had a right to tell him he could annex the territory of another UN member state!). And then there was that very carefully worded statement April Glaspie was told to deliver to him. Who would not have taken that for a gree light. You didn’t prod him but you sure didn’t give him any real reason to think you would take action against him if he did it.
“We did not tell him he could wipe Kuwait off the map.“
Where did I suggest you did?
“When he did wipe Kuwait off the map, we did what we are supposed to do when a member of the United Nations that is in good-standing gets wiped off the map. As the only military capable of rectifying the situation, we took the lead, built a coalition, and expelled Iraq from Kuwait.“
NOW who is distorting and whitewashing? You did a hell of a lot more than expel Iraq from Kuwait, and you know that. You intentionally and systematically destroyed Iraq’s critical civilian infrastructure, including not only water purification and delivery systems, but sewage plants, for god’s sake, and then for 13 years you used the U.N sanctions, which were imposed only to coerce him to get out of Kuwait, and should have been lifted once he was out, to further devastate the country and its people.
“We did not attempt to occupy Iraq.“
Another whitewash. How was what you DID do to Iraq in any way better than occupying it? Bear in mind that I have close friends and family members who lived through what you did do to Iraq, and I worked with non-Iraqis, including the wonderful Dennis Halliday, who saw it with their own eyes, so don’t try to bullshit ME.
“We hoped that he would be overthrown in an indigenous coup without our overt assistance. Bush encouraged that coup but then took massive criticism when it was put down brutally.“
Another distortion and whitewash from you.
What you hoped was that he would be overthrown by members of the regime, not the people, and in particular not the Shi`as. What the U.S. government had in mind was to keep the regime and get rid of Saddam. And when the people rose up instead of the regime members, and specifically when the insurgency turned out to be largely Shi`a (there WERE Sunnis involved, too), and when it looked like they might be successful, you allowed Saddam’s military to enter the areas you controlled, and brutally slaughter the people while your military aircraft flew overhead and watched it happening. In the meantime your military on the ground blocked insurgents from moving on the roads, confiscated their vehicles and weapons, forced them to turn back on foot, and refused to even give them medical aid or food. And this went on for eight days until the insurgency was crushed.
These things are not in question. We have the testimony of American troops, and of members of the Iraqi insurgency and it is all very consistent. I personally have friends who fought in the insurgency, and what they have told me is completely consistent with the other accounts.
That is what happened, not the distorted, whitewashed version you gave.
And then there was good ole Stormin’ Norman explaining on public television that Saddam had deceived him into giving him permission to send his military into areas controlled by the Americans – for eight days, Saddam deceived him, and poor ole Norman didn’t figure out what was going on until the insurgency had been crushed.
“ The effects of the sanctions were unfortunate…“
“Unfortunate”. What an interesting choice of words to describe the destruction of a society. Yes. I suppose half a million Iraqi children under five killed by the sanctions in the first five years IS “unfortunate”.
“As we have discussed before, the civil, ecumenical nature of Iraq was real, but also somewhat artificial, in that it was made possible through tremendous coercion from Saddam’s police powers and secular ideology.“
BooMan, Iraq was a secular state with an ecumenical nature from the very beginning, which was long before Saddam was in power. Iraqi society had an “ecumenical nature” for centuries before Iraq became a modern-day nation state.
Iraqi tribes did not become mixed Sunni and Shi`a because of Saddam, they had been that way for centuries. Sunni and Shi`a Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Mandaeans, Jews, Christians, and Yezidis did not suddenly start living as neighbors and intermarrying because of Saddam, they had done that for centuries. In 2003 I met a woman who was on a speaking tour in the U.S. who had my family name. She is a Turkmen from Kirkuk (most Turkmen are Shi`as, but we did not discuss sect). We traced the family connection back to well before statehood.
One of my oldest friends is a Kurd from Erbil. He told me about his great-uncle, a very influential sheikh of an Arab tribe who was married to my friend’s great aunt, a Kurd.
Nearly every extended family I know has members of at least two, and sometimes three or more of Iraq’s ethno-sectarian groups, and the original intermarriages sometimes go back centuries.
So no, it was not made possible by Saddam’s tremendous coercion, police powers and secular ideology. Iraqi society had been that way for a very long time before Saddam came along. In fact, the irony is that, contrary to the received version that you keep recounting here, Saddam did more than any previous ruler to cause rifts between Iraq’s ethno-sectarian groups, and tribes.
“Hussein’s Iraq was a nightmare that only looks good compared to the complete lack of state power that followed his regime’s collapse.“
This is a distortion, and a whitewash. No one has said Saddam’s Iraq looks good. Looking better than the absolute horror of Bush’s Iraq does not constitute looking good. And the conditions since 2003 have been a hell of a lot worse than a mere “complete lack of state power”. Nor did Saddam’s regime “collapse”. It was overthrown by foreign invaders.
Iraqis long for the bad old days of Saddam because at least in the worst of those bad old days they knew the rules, they knew how to stay out of trouble, and they could leave their houses with a very high degree of certainty that they would return in one piece, and they could send their kids to school or to the neighbors’ to play, or to the corner store with a very high degree of certainty that they would see them again. It is not the “complete lack of state power”, it is the devastation of hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, of brutal, terrorizing house raids, of arbitrary indefinite detention and the likelihood of torture. It is the complete lack of any sense of security, or knowledge of whom to fear. It is the feeling of danger from every direction at once.
PS “Saddam’s Iraq” spanned a period of more than thirty years, much of which was anything but a nightmare for all but a few Iraqis who openly opposed the regime. For the first time Iraq’s oil was used primarily to benefit Iraqi society and not foreign oil companies. Literacy improved, especially among urban poor and rural women as the government undertook a women’s literacy program throughout the country. Medical care went from competent to first rate, and free, high quality care was made much more available in poor, rural and remote areas as doctors were required to repay the state for their free medical education by serving a certain number of years in those ares.
The middle class grew, life improved for the poor, and the overall level of education increased. Women’s rights and freedoms, which had always been exceptionally good in Iraq, were written into the Constitution. Even more women than before were encouraged and aided by the government in obtaining advanced degrees both in Iraq and abroad. Iraq became known for its excellent, modern infrastructure. Roads, which had always been decent in most of the country, became better, electricity became more widespread, and more reliable, clean drinking water, which had always been available in urban areas, became more widely available. Sewage transportation and treatment improved. Iraq was teetering on the edge of being a first world country, and was classified by the UN as an emerging first world nation.
That, too, was “Saddam’s Iraq”. I have been accused of being a Saddam lover for pointing that out, but it is a part of Iraq’s history that Iraqis remember very well even if Americans don’t want to believe it.
This predictable jumping on analogies and using them to play the “offended” card makes it very difficult to communicate with you. The fact, as you often note, is that Iraq has not had civil peace or anything approaching democratic rule in nearly a century. It is not “patronizing” to suggest that such a history will make building a functional civil society will be very difficult. It has nothing to do with being “children” or “incompetent”. It’s about acknowledging a history, whatever its causes.
I completely agree that the US has no business interfering further in Iraq’s affairs. That’s not the same thing, however, as individuals having no right to make their own predictions and analyses. It might even be said that constantly running to defend every imagined slur like a hovering mother is the very essence of treating Iraqis like children.
In fact I believe the US and its cohorts owe Iraq major reparations and apologies. But it will never happen.
On this we agree – on both points.
First, Dave, I am entirely sincere and am not playing a “card”. I do not “play cards” either of the paper kind or the kind you are accusing me of playing.
Second, if you really knew Iraq’s history you would know that it has had civil peace and a well-functioning civil society for the majority of its history. It was, until 2003, one of the most socially progressive countries in the Middle East, and has had periods of great social and economic progress and prosperity. Not coincidentally the greatest period of protracted civil peace and enormous social and economic progress and prosperity took place from the mid’60’s until the mid-’80’s when the United States was not diplomatically or economically involved with Iraq. I know this is difficult to believe, but Iraq used to be pretty much the best place to live in the Arab world, especially if you were a woman.
“…such a history will make building a functional civil society will be very difficult.“
If Iraq had the history you imagine it had, then you might have a point, but its history is very different than you think. Iraq had, as I said, a very well-functioning civil society. It had, especially starting in the ’70’s, the best and most advanced medical system in the Arab world, it was considered to have the best education system in the Arab world (people used to come from all over the world to study at Iraq’s colleges and universities), the largest number per capita of citizens with graduate degrees, and the best-educated female population in the Arab world. Iraq’s physical infrastructure was one of the priorities during the ’70’s and early ’80’s, and it was excellent. Oh, and Iraq was found to have the best system of distribution of its oil wealth to the population of any oil-producing country.
That civil society began to crumble badly in 1991 after its infrastructure was systematically destroyed by the United States, which then, under the auspices of the UN, denied Iraq the wherewithal to rebuild what it had destroyed, or maintain what was left (still, Iraqis managed to rebuild their electrical, water, and communication infrastructure to acceptable levels within months after they were destroyed, though they were never at the pre-1991 level).
It was largely what was left of Iraq’s civil society that the U.S. targeted and destroyed when they invaded in 2003. They destroyed what was left of the physical infrastructure. They destroyed all the civil ministries, including the records, except the Ministry of Oil. they dismantled the education system, the economic system, the public utilities, and on and on. They stood by and watched as universities were gutted, and we all know what they allowed to happen to the beautiful jewel of the National Museum, which I knew very, very well from many visits there.
So, you are entirely wrong when you say that based on Iraq’s history Iraqis cannot be expected to know how to build a civil society. They have one it, and they actually managed to maintain it better than would be expected under the most crushing of circumstances.
I’m well aware of Iraq’s achievements in many areas of civil society and of the role of foreign forces in destroying it. But you can’t at the same time rail against the assaults the country has suffered at the hands of European and American imperialism and their lingering effects, and at the same time paint a transition to a peaceful civil society as a cakewalk. That was precisely the neocons’ mistake — thinking that just overthrowing a dictator would inevitably lead to a quick and easy “shining beacon” for the region, a just and peaceful society.
I hope your optimism proves well-founded. It seems to me, though, you gloss over the history of rebellion, assassination, coups, and civil strife that have also been part of the country’s history for more than half a century. But the point is not about whose predictions are more credible. The point of the post you responded to is that it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that post-invasion Iraq will have a very hard time building a successful society after all that it has endured, including the Saddam regime. When you pretend otherwise you’re just treating Iran like a chile that can’t be allowed to hear unpleasant opinions.
“I’m well aware of Iraq’s achievements in many areas of civil society…“
Then why do you suggest that Iraqis have no experience or knowledge of how to build and maintain a well functioning civil society?
“you can’t…paint a transition to a peaceful civil society as a cakewalk.“
Dave, why do you persist in doing this despite my repeated requests that you stop? Do you believe that you can win an argument by putting words into the mouth of your interlocutor, or distorting and misrepresenting what they have said into something silly, or extreme, or outlandish? Or is it such a habit that you don’t even realize you are doing it?
I have never at any time suggested, implied, or even hinted that it would be a cakewalk. On the contrary, I have said it would not be easy, painless, or quick. The point I have been trying to make, in any case, is not whether it will be a cakewalk or not, but that it could not take place at all until Iraqis are free of the military, political, and economic control of an imperial occupation. My point, which I guess I have not made very clearly, is that self-determination is not only Iraqis’ right, it is a necessary thing if they are ever to re-establish a working, effective government, functional institutions, and a society that works. Therefore, the sooner the occupation ends the sooner Iraqis will be able to begin to pick up the pieces of their lives and their country.
I have also said that they do not need or want the United States to teach them anything, and for multiple reasons the United States is the last one to assist them with anything. Those reasons include, but are not limited to 1) the United States is the one that systematically and in some cases intentionally destroyed their country and dismantled their civil institutions and their society, and as such is not the correct one to rebuild it any more than the rapist is the correct one to heal his victim, 2) the United States will at all times seek to impose on Iraqis what it sees as serving its own interests, and will ignore the wishes, desires, and interests of Iraqis. That’s what empires do.
“It seems to me, though, you gloss over the history of rebellion, assassination, coups, and civil strife that have also been part of the country’s history for more than half a century.“
Now you are making assumptions on several levels. First, about what I am and am not glossing over, and second what Iraq’s history actually looked like to the Iraqis who experienced it.
I lived through a some of that history, and received direct first-person reports on events that occurred while I was outside. I hope you will agree that first hand experience is a good deal more informative than imagination build on limited and selective information when it comes to knowing what actually happened and how it actually affected the lives of most Iraqis and the functioning of the government and other institutions.
You seem to have a picture of Iraq and Iraqi society as being in near-constant, or at least periodic upheaval and turmoil for most of its history, complete with regular fighting in the streets of some sort, if that is what you mean by civil strife. That is not even remotely the way it was for the overwhelming majority of Iraqis. A coup rarely meant much more than a few days’ inconvenience in the form of a curfew, which generally caused celebration among school kids, since it meant an unexpected vacation. Assassinations generally had even less effect on the general population. As for civil strife, I am not even sure what you are referring to, but I never saw any of that or heard from anyone who saw it until 2003, so it can’t have been as common or widespread as you appear to think it was.
“it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that post-invasion Iraq will have a very hard time building a successful society after all that it has endured, including the Saddam regime.“
I have never said that it is not reasonable to believe that. What I have said is something completely differnt. I have said that only Iraqis, not the United States, can rebuild their country and society, and that they will not be able to begin to do this in any real or meaningful way until the occupation ends and they are able to begin to choose their own direction instead of having it imposed on them by a foreign power.
“?When you pretend otherwise you’re just treating Iran like a chile that can’t be allowed to hear unpleasant opinions.“
Why do you consistently do this? Seriously, why? I have NEVER “pretended otherwise”, nor have I ever claimed otherwise. What I have said is that Iraqis do not need the United States, which destroyed and dismantled its government and civil institutions, demolished its infrastructure, and shredded its society to tatters, to teach it how to or help it rebuild. I have never pretended rebuilding would be “a cakewalk”, I have merely said that only Iraqis can do it, and that they must be given the space to do it in their own way.
Oh, and by the way, contrary to what you keep insisting, Iraq had an increasingly successful society from its independence in 1932 until Saddam came into power in the ’60’s, and after Saddam came into power it achieved so much success that it was rated as an emerging first world country based on all the social and economic criteria used to make that determination. And Iraq was also successfully managing its own oil and using it for the benefit of the whole society. If going from a third world country under imperial mandate to a puppet kingdom to a republic to an emerging first world country in the space of fifty years is not success, I am not sure what is.
So, I guess Iraqis knew once upon a time how to build and maintain a successful society, albeit not without some struggles, and albeit not a perfect one. So, when you suggest that Iraqis have no knowledge about or experience in building a successful society, you are ignoring a significant aspect of their history, and selling them far short.
The biggest problem Iraqis are going to face is not their lack of knowledge and experience of building and maintaining a successful society or their ability to do so. Their biggest challenge is going to be managing the disorder and dissension brought about by the invasion and occupation, and the battles for power by various factions and groups, many of them extremist groups that were empowered and even brought into existence by the occupation. And incidentally, most of those struggles are not sectarian struggles, but are factional struggles mainly among Shi`as and Kurds.
You keep saying I habitually put words in your mouth. (or are you going to deny that, too?) So: point to where I said “Iraqis have no experience or knowledge of how to build and maintain a well functioning civil society”.
Or don’t bother. Frankly, I think in future I’ll refrain from responding to your posts because I have no idea what you’re arguing about. Nobody said Iraq didn’t have the means to rebuild, nobody said it was a child, nobody patronized it. Booman said something to the effect that it would have to learn to ride the bike again. Which mean precisely that after the injury it will have to work hard at regaining its old skills with no guarantee of success. If you don’t understand an idiom, no fault in that. But you might consider not flying into a rage of offendedness every time somebody writes one.
Yes, Dave, you consistently attribute to me statements and positions that I have never expressed or suggested, and the statements and positions you misattribute to me are consistently extreme, outlandish, and completely lacking in nuance. A good example is the “cakewalk” business. I was addressing one of the necessary conditions for Iraq to begin the process, not whether it would be difficult or easy. However, I did acknowledge that violence and other problems could increase once the Americans withdrew, and in the past I have had more to say about this. At no time have I ever suggested there would not be severe challenges.
If I have done the same thing to you, then I apologize. I try not to misread or misinterpret what people write, and sometimes I fail in my effort. In those cases, I appreciate being set right.
I got that impression about your view from some of your statements about what you see as Iraq’s history in that regard, such as this: “Iraq has not had civil peace or anything approaching democratic rule in nearly a century….such a history will make building a functional civil society will be very difficult” from which I understood that you believed that Iraq’s history did not include building a functional civil society, which is very far from reality. And this: “…the history of rebellion, assassination, coups, and civil strife that have also been part of the country’s history for more than half a century. Putting that together with previous statements, it seemed to me that you had a misconception about how those events impacted both society and the functioning of the government and civil institutions, and that you felt it meant Iraqi society was not peaceful (it was), and that these events prevented Iraq from developing functioning civil institutions. If I misunderstood, then I am sorry.
Dave, I thought you might be interested in these three comments by Iraqi poet, author, documentary film maker, and university professor Sinan Antoon. Sinan is a Chaldean, one of Iraq’s ancient peoples who predated Arabs by thousands of years, and were among the earliest converts to Christianity.
July, 2007
“…under Saddam Hussein there was something called the Iraqi state. I want to emphasize that what the US did is not only overthrow Saddam–that’s a by-product–it destroyed the Iraqi state, which is something that took eighty-five years to build, all of its institutions and everything. That was not all the product of Saddam. Saddam was a latecomer. What the United States did is destroy an entire state, entire infrastructure, all of the institutions, so that there, you know–so, of course, life was better when you had a system that was functioning.“
And in the same interview:
“this perspective of Sunni, Shiite and Kurd. It’s been repeated ad nauseum so that now it seems real. The fact is, these categories are not functioning categories, as well. And these are the product of the United States’ imperialist look upon Iraq. Sadly, since the invasion and because of the political system that Bremer put in place, he turned these ethno-religious identities into political identities, because they put the quota system in the governing council. But ten or fifteen years ago, people did not define themselves primarily as Sunni or Shiite and Kurds, you know. There were other kinds of identifications.
“But the destruction of the social fabric of Iraq under the sanctions and the political void that was created by overthrowing a regime and then the political system that Bremer put in place–and the media also were parroting this thing about Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites with, you know, no consideration for class differences, urban and rural differences–let’s take, for example, the Shiites. It’s not that all Shiites want the same thing, you know. You know, middle class Shiites in Najaf want something different from the downtrodden in Sadr City.
“
May, 2004
“…it was very shocking to see the actual destruction, not just of the war, but, to me, the most damaging and that’s what a lot of people in our film also say is to the social fabric of Iraq. Really, the destruction of the structure of Iraqi society which basically had gone on for a long time started by Saddam as he was aided by the U.S. but the crucial, crucial factor is the 13 years of the sanctions which really had, you know, driven Iraq to the edge. So that the war was the final blow. And, to me, it was just really depressing to see how drained and destroyed Iraqis are. I mean, they’re still resilient, at least, when we were there, and wanted to rebuild the country. But, really, people are really drained. And that’s what the man said. I mean, the core of the society that was, was supposed to rebuild Iraq. The intelligencia, the middle class is completely destroyed.“
And yet you keep saying that no one has a right to doubt Iraq’s ability to salvage a workable society from this horror. All you have to do is see what followed from Sept 11 in the US to understand what even a relatively small act of destruction does to a nation’s founding principles.
Here you go again. Will you PLEASE stop this habit of misattribution?
I have never said no one has the right to doubt anything, just as I never said the government of France does not have the right to an opinion about the burqa, and just as I never said rebuilding Iraq from the ground up would be a cakewalk. What I have done is object to the assumption that Iraqis are going to self-destruct without the Americans there to protect them from themselves, or that they are incapable of recovering and rebuilding their society, their civil institutions and their government without the United States to tell them how, or do it for them.
What I have said boils down to this: Self determination is necessary but not sufficient for Iraqis to begin to recover and rebuild. Iraqis will never have self-determination while they are under military, economic, and social occupation by a foreign empire. Therefore, an end to the occupation is necessary, but not sufficient for Iraqis to begin to recover and rebuild.
PS Iraqis do not need the Great White Father United States to teach them how to ride a bike, and they don’t need training wheels. They just need to be left alone without outside interference.