Post-election terror in Iraq
My "democracy denied in Iraq" counter now stands at 44 days since the Iraqi elections with no elected government in place there yet. (Yes, I just learned that the elected Assembly is supposed to have its inaugural meeting on Wednesday. That may or may not happen; but even if it does it's not the same as having a working transitional government sworn in. Addendum Wed. a.m.-- the Assembly did convene.)
Not having an Iraqi transitional government in place 44 days after the election is a scandal. Yes, perhaps a small portion of responsibility for that might lie in the hands of the political leaders (UIA list heads and Kurdish parties) who've been unable to reach agreement yet on the very tough issues of Kirkuk and sharia. But much more responsibility, surely, lies in the hands of the occupying power which arrogantly and virtually unilaterally decreed the "rules" for this whole transitional process on its own, with minimal consultation; which prior then delayed the voting quite unnecessarily for more than 6 months; and which has apparently done little or nothing since January 30 to help the different Iraqi list heads come to a working agreement.
So between the results of the election not having been translated into any degree at all of self-governance, and the security and service-provision aspects of daily life in most of the country still being quite horrendous, is it any surprise that popular frustration with the whole process of "transition" is building up fast?
In much of Iraq, the "security" situation since the elections has been one long nightmare. Nearly all of the victims of recent violence seem to have been Shiites, most of them civilians but also some members of the ever-"rebuilding" security forces...
I've been writing a lot about Lebanon recently. So since I need to write something on deadline about Iraq today, I thought I'd go back quickly through Today in Iraq and Juan Cole's blog to collate a general picture for myself of the incidence of atrocities there in recent weeks.
Scrolling ultra-fast back through those two wonderful resources was a shocking experience. Most of the following comes from TII. A big "chapeau" to Yankeedoodle and his collaborators Friendly Fire and Matt for the work they
do there!
I thought that here I'd list only those recent incidents that involve more than 12 Iraqis killed. Of course, there were many, many more incidents that involved fewer than 12 Iraqis killed-- and it's quite likely that the total number killed in those attacks would be even greater than the numbers killed in the "big", multi-casualty attacks. (Plus I'm sure I missed some of the big ones, too.)
Anyway, friends, please join in remembering the victims of these incidents from recent weeks:
- March 14, Babel: 12 corpses found
March 13, north & south of Baghdad: 16 killed
March 11, Mosul: >50 killed at funeral
March 10, Mosul: >50 killed
March 9, Rumana: 26 corpses found
March 9, Latifiya: 15 headless corpses found
March 8, Balad: >15 killed
March 8, Baquba: 15 killed (in a number of incidents)
March 7, Baquba: 12 Iraqi police killed
March 7, Balad: 15 killed
February 28, Hillah: 125 killed in attack on medical clinic
February 19, Latifiya, etc: >80 killed in a number of incidents on the occasion of Ashoura rites
... I see two possible political effects of all this suffering:
(1) At some point the Shiite anger against the attackers-- most of whom are presumed to be Sunni militants-- may well become transformed into generalized anti-Sunni feelings and vendettas in Iraq; a far deeper Shiite-Sunni split may cleave its way throughout much of the rest of the Mashreq (the Arab east).
(2) The whole idea of "democracy" might look like a sick, sick joke to most Iraqis. If it doesn't already?
I would love to see some expressions of real shock and anger at all this mayhem caused to Iraqis, the vast majority of them civilians being voiced by political leaders and opinion leaders from the Sunni world. Having "brave" Sunnis from other countries signing up to go to Iraq to fight US occupation forces is one thing. But how on earth can anyone at all, from any faith, become mobilized to go to Mosul and commit a suicide bomb attack inside a mosque, during a funeral?
But under the law of military occupation--which is what governs the US presence in Iraq-- it is the occupying power which has the full responsibility to ensure public security. Where are the expressions of shame in the US that this has so notably not happened? Or even, any public acknowledgement from US leaders that the aftermath of the election has thus far been a long tale of suffering for so many thousands of Iraqi families?
(As opposed to President Bush's frothy little fairy-story to the effect that the Iraqi people are on some great, US-sponsored march of democracy... )
And if the US occupation forces can't (or won't) do the job of assuring the basic physical security of Iraqi families-- who can?
Helena,
According to Juan Cole:
"The Association of Muslim Scholars and the Iraqi Islamic Party, both fundamentalist Sunni groups, condemned the bombing of a Shiite funeral last week as the work of a foreign hand." Somewhat of a condemnation, but not an expression of "real shock and condemnation."
I think the Bush administration doesn't feel shame at the loss of life because their soldiers are also targets. Flourishing the success of the elections is one way to try to get the insurgents to see the futility of their violence. Killing the insurgents is another way.
Gee, Warren, why do you suppose the U.S. soldiers are targets?
WarrenW, I find your take on the situation very
odd, to say the least. Shirin is more to my way of thinking: who invited the U.S. politicians and military forces to stop by on a social visit to Iraq to hand out U.S. sweetness and light anyway?
If the Kurds are opportunistically, cynically holding up the process of forming a government, for instance to get more concessions on Kirkuk, they may ultimately find they have grossly overplayed their hand. Kurdistan might need Baghdad very much in the future to ensure that Syria, Turkey and Iran don't meddle. And if the Iraqi Arabs become too frustrated, they might just decide to join in with the neighbors and cause problems from the fourth side.
Helena,
Can you clarify something? Is the U.S. status in Iraq still officially that of an occupying power, and will it remain so until the new government "invites" our forces to remain there to continue its operations? Or have we, with the appointment of the new ambassador, re-classified ourselves already?
Mind you, I'm just asking about official parlance!
I think the Kurds benefit in some ways from the U.S. occupation and I wonder how much they want it to end. It seems to me the classic scenario is playing out where a colonial power uses a minority group to support its rule.
I attended a talk by some Kurds several years ago and was left with the impression they could care less what happens to non-Kurdish Iraq and did not consider themselves Iraqis.
The Kurds of Iraq, so to speak, have sold their souls to the U.S. This has turned out to be their fate, it might become their downfall. The two-thirds clause which is giving them such prominence in the formation of the Iraq government is a U.S. imposed device meant to work in their favor. Now it is, maybe later it won't. The U.S. imposed it to keep Iraq weak. The ruse will probably work, but it won't necessarily keep Kurdistan strong. The U.S. intentions in Iraq are dubious, obviusly, very sneaky, not good.
The Kurds of Iraq, so to speak, have sold their souls to the U.S. This has turned out to be their fate, it might become their downfall. The two-thirds clause which is giving them such prominence in the formation of the Iraq government is a U.S. imposed device meant to work in their favor. Now it is, maybe later it won't. The U.S. imposed it to keep Iraq weak. The ruse will probably work, but it won't necessarily keep Kurdistan strong. The U.S. intentions in Iraq are dubious, obviously, very sneaky, not good.
Quentin, the Kurds have sold their souls over and over again, and every single time ended up paying for it dearly when those to whom they had sold their souls lost their use for them and abandoned them to their fate. This time will be no different.
What will it take to end this relentless violence? Occasionally an insider tells us the truth.
Consider the words of Larry Diamond, an expert in democratic development and formerly a senior advisor to Paul Bremer in Baghdad. In a speech given at UCLA after the Iraq election he said “One of the things that is necessary to wind down the insurgency ... is for Iraqis, and particularly those Iraqis who are involved with or sympathizing with the insurgency, to become convinced that we really are going to leave.”
Then he added: “I urged the administration to declare when I left Iraq in April of 2004, that we have no permanent military designs on Iraq and we will not seek permanent military bases in Iraq. This one statement would do an enormous amount to undermine the suspicion that we have permanent imperial intentions in Iraq. We aren't going to do that. And the reason we're not going to do that is because we are building permanent military bases in Iraq.”
So there you have it. There are simple measures Bush could take to significantly reduce much (but not all) of the violence if he wanted to. This is not happening because it would require sacrificing his strategic agenda which calls stationing a force in Iraq permanently. It all adds up to a criminal policy that is destroying Iraq.
(Incidentally, Anthony Cordesman of CSIS in Washington has urged the administration to make a similar statement on US intentions as the one Larry Diamond mentioned in order to quell the insurgency.)
“Nearly all of the victims of recent violence seem to have been Shiites, most of them civilians...”
Oh, all this time I thought that Fallujah was a Sunni City and that triangle that US forces have been attack constantly since Sistani made peace with them was called the “Sunni Triangle.” I guess it’s really the Shia Triangle.
I’m sure glad you clarified this for me. And what is the ethnicity of those Iraqi forces that are always with the Americans when they attack a Shia city like Fallujah? I guess they must be Sunni’s – no?
Thank you for clarifying this for me. I sure wish I could read Arabic so I could have this kind of knowledge first hand.
Hi all,
Umkahlil-- thanks for reminding us of that. I'm glad the AMS has done that. I was actually thinking more of the Sunni Arab leaders outside Iraq, as in Saudi Arabia or Jordan, quite a number of whose citizens have been supporting or even joining the insurgency in Iraq even while it has been taking on an increasingly sectarian (anti-Shiite) focus rather than an anti-occupation one.
Vivion, yes, under international law the US remains the occupying power unti there is an authenticly Iraqi government that signs a "final peace agreement" with it.
Quentin, oops, I'll delete a couple of your excess posts there. I'm sorry that it often takes comments many seconds to post successfully. That's because of our heavy anti-spam defenses (which seem to have been working, thank G-d).
Quentin and Shirin, I urge you to be more specific rather than just saying "the Kurds" this or that which does seem to condemn all of them and thus looks like stereotyping? Maybe, "the present two leading Iraqi-Kurdish leaderships" or something like that?
Patrick, do you have a URL for Larry Diamond's speech? If so, do post it for us!
Tom, I think you're trying to use heavy irony and sarcasm there... But you should know that those devices generally do not work well with people you don't know well-- and especially in a multicultural setting where many of those who read your words may already be struggling with English as a fourth or fifth language. So please, if you're using irony, take care to signal it as such.
Also, I think you may be a little behind the times. The US assault on Fallujah was last November. What I was writing about here was the series of massive anti-personnel attacks mounted since mid-February. Yes, it's invidious to get into comparative victimology. But also important, I think, to try to keep a clear eye on what's going on. Also, of course being Shiite or Sunni has zero to do with "ethnicity".
Dear Helena,
The full text of Diamond's UCLA talk is available here:
http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=20485
Regards, Patrick
Helena,
In the context of Iraq, of course, I mean the Iraqi Kurds and, by extenison, their leadership. I'll try to be more specific in the future.
Helena or someone else,
Please answer a simple question for me. I'm unclear about the application of the two-thirds majority rule put in place by the U.S.
I understand two-thirds of the Iraq parliament need to confirm the president put forward by both the UIA and the Kurdish faction. Right? Then, I suppose, the new president is empowered to name someone who can (try to) form a government. What I want to know is does the proposed prime minster and his cabinet also need to get the approval of a two-thirds majority or only a simple majority of parliamentarians to take office? What is exactly holding up the the formation of a government? Or does the problem come down to intransigence on the part of the Iraqi Kurdish leadership.
Shirin
The US soldiers are targets because they brought down the Saddam regime and they are preventing the takover of Iraq by the Sunni insurgency. Everybody knows that.
By and large Americans seem to feel very proud of their effort in Iraq, although they also feel very sad at the human cost. I realize you feel quite differently.
Warren, You can also say, I think more logically, that U.S. and other coalition personnel wouldn't be targets if they weren't occupying and operating in a foreign country. What are they doing there anyway? Especially the national guard which, as the name says, is meant to guard the nation.