Iraq's metamorphosis

Some say that Baghdad means "Gift of the Garden" in the Persian tongue. For what it’s worth, the place used to resemble a thriving metropolis known for its cultural fusions, religious tolerance, and the affluence of its residents. Though the city now is almost always addressed as a capital of Arabism, ironically, the designers who were hired by the Abbasid Caliph to create Baghdad's blueprint were a Persian Zoroastrian and a Jew from the Khorasan province in Eastern Iran [1].

Apart from the Islamic architecture that is ubiquitous in most Middle Eastern cities, there is really no religious significance to the place. It certainly does not evoke the lunatic zealotry that places like Jerusalem, Karbala, or Mecca are known for. To this end, it was free from this anathema.

Its importance and relevance was simply its location. For the majority of its existence, Baghdad represented one of the few authentic syntheses of Kurds, Jews, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Persians, and Turks. The blend of each of these cultures' nuances made early 20th century Baghdad a city primarily known for its aesthetic pleasantries, grand bazaars, and thriving nightlife. It was a city that one escaped to on holiday.

Although this capital of the Islamic Renaissance survived the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mongol prowling, and the constant revanchism of the Ottomans and Persians, what it finally succumbed to, like most of the Middle East, was simply a failure to modernize. After the demise of the Ottoman Empire and European attempts to install imaginary boundaries in hopes of financial gains, the eclectic nature of Baghdad and what later became Iraq rapidly diminished.

The subsequent rise of pan-Arabism, a philosophy that espouses more Sunni absolutism than Arabian hubris, finally raped the eclectic nature that defined the city for centuries. A Neo-Stalinist approach to governance fused with Sunni puritanical elements of pragmatism from the reign of Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Umayyad Caliph, produced the foundational tenets of what later evolved into Hussein's Baath Party.

Through this lens, those who were not Sunni Arabs eventually became targets of overt governmental discrimination and ultimately victims of pogroms, thus putting an end to Baghdad's historical role as a multi-ethnic haven. The large Jewish presence that had once played an integral part of Baghdad's achievements in the arts and sciences, dwindled from thousands to roughly a few dozen by the time the Baathist consolidated power. This policy rapidly spread to all the provinces of Iraq.

Until European colonialism and the later rise of the Baathists, the city of Karbala, the de-facto Shia Vatican, had an overt Persian presence. Yet in the 1970s, as part of his Arabization campaign, Saddam not only remade Iraqi Kurdistan by displacing thousands of defenseless Kurds and replacing them with the Sunni Arab minority but also expelled tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi’ites of Iranian origin, who until that time had great influence in the clerical, political, and cultural fields [2]. The present Kurdish claims on Kirkuk and the Shia's territorial claims to the East part of Anbar province stems primarily from Saddam's reshuffling the unwanted segments of his population.

The increasing support Saddam garnered from the West augured well for his machinations. Having forged economic, political, and social policies based upon explicit racist overtones, Saddam successfully purged the Iraqi state with most of its Persian and Jewish influences while greatly encroaching upon Shi’ite and Kurdish economic potency, political self-determination, and religious and cultural expression.

As a result, near the end of the Hussein era, Baghdad had become an unrepentant Sunni bureaucracy that had, for years, forced the Shia and the remnant of the city's Kurds into impoverished enclaves, making them slaves and pariahs in their own country, although they collectively made up the majority of Iraq's population.

It is the nominal understanding of Iraq's background that appears to have never permeated the minds of those who called for regime change in Baghdad. After Saddam's removal, neo-conservatives could not reconcile why Iraq was dividing by factional elements leading to the current civil war. When Baghdad fell, Washington policy makers made a slew of comparisons to post-WWII Germany or Japan in order to justify the military action. However, these proved to be irrelevant and baseless assertions spawned primarily by the willful ignorance about the circumstances that compelled modern Iraq to function the way it did. American obliviousness towards Baathist proclivities and the trauma that it had caused to greater Iraqi society only added to the confusion and chaos that immediately ensued. It took months to realize that what was happening in Iraq was simply natural human reaction to years of economic marginalization, forced displacement, and genocide that was propagated from one particular minority.

The perception of a Shi’ite-Sunni conflict within Iraq is simplistic and misleading. The Kurds, who are a majority Sunni group, are not engaged in any violent struggle against the Shia. Both were equally oppressed and understand the history of each other's grievances. The current conflict is solely between Sunni Arabs and Shi’ite Arabs and one that stems back to an archaic rivalry between the larger Arab world and Iran. To many Arabs, Shiism is oddly viewed as Persianized Islam or what is referred to as Islam-e-Ajami. The Sunni faith, especially the Wahhabism or Salafiism espoused in much of the Arab world, is primarily based upon a puritanical version of Islam propagated by the Umayyad dynasty, the first Caliphate. Shiism is more or less the amalgamation of Mohammadian doctrine, devotion to his progeny, and in Iran's cases, a fusion with certain elements of Persian Zoroastrianism.

Comparisons to the ideological rift between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland do not properly explain the Shia-Sunni dynamic. Not only is there an ethnic element tied to the Shia-Sunni rift (i.e. Persian vs. Arab) but juxtaposed to the schism between Catholicism and Protestantism, both the Shia and the Sunni persuasions are as old as "Islam" itself and, unlike the dynamics within Christianity, one did not spawn from the other. In essence, Islam's dichotomy is more that of two different religions rather than a struggle within a faith.

However convoluted, the chasm within Islam still has an inordinate amount of relevancy in the Middle East, and for now, Iraq has clearly become the battleground. In a debate this past January on Al-Jazeera between an Iraqi Shia journalist, Sadeq Al- Musawi, and an Iraqi Sunni MP, Misha'an Al-Jabouri, about the recent execution of Saddam Hussein, the latent ethnic undertones of the Shia-Sunni split were made manifest once again. The following excerpt of the debate is self-evident:

Mish'an Al-Jabouri: With your permission... I would like to begin this show by calling upon the viewers to recite the Al-Fatiha verse for the soul of the martyred president Saddam Hussein...

Sadeq Al-Musawi: We are not going to recite the Al-Fatiha for anybody. We are here to condemn a man who killed thousands and millions of Iraqis. We are not here to recite the Al-Fatiha for anybody. He was an oppressive tyrant who spilled the blood of the Iraqis. [...] Saddam Hussein was not an Arab leader. Saddam Hussein came to power by stealth, in the dark of night. He killed his friends and his comrades in order to attain power. Saddam Hussein has gone to the garbage bin of history. [...]

Mish'an Al-Jabouri: You should have some self-respect, and choose your words carefully, or else, I will do to you things you cannot even imagine, you Persian liar... Behave yourself, you liar...

Sadeq Al-Musawi: You are a thief... You are a thief. You've been convicted for theft.

Mish'an Al-Jabouri: Get out. Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of your parents...

Mish'an Al-Jabouri: These are your documents. You are an Iranian citizen. You are Persian...You are an Iranian citizen... Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of people like you... (throwing the pages at Al-Musawi) These are your documents...

Although it is lambasted in the West as being some terrorist mouthpiece, the fact of the matter is that Al-Jazeera is widely viewed throughout the Arab world and its English Channel has some degree of importance in Europe and broader Asia. Many viewed this broadcast live and it is still watched on outlets such as YouTube. The debate eventually sparked a blogging war that is still ubiquitous on many Middle Eastern and Arab Internet forums.

Clearly the anomaly of Iraq has become the Kurdish success in the northern provinces. As Sunni and Shia militias battle for control in the streets of Baghdad, the Kurds have been engaged in massive campaigns to attract foreign investment, internal development, and reconciliation between the various factions that make up the inter-political struggle within the Kurdish Regional Government. Kurdish concerns are solely tied to their quest for self-determination. After suffering years of forced displacement, cultural and linguistic repression, and assuming the unwanted role of second-class citizen, the Kurds have seized upon an opportunity that has seldom manifested itself.

Yet Kurdish success and the growing nationalism that has accompanied it has alarmed many of Iraq's neighbors, specifically Turkey. Although Iran and Syria have significant Kurdish populations, the nightmare of Kurdish separatism will most likely have the greatest impact upon the Turkish Republic, which is home to half of the world's Kurdish population. Kurdish success has brought a newfound stability to Iraq's North, yet it has also germinated a safe haven for radicalized Kurdish terrorists, most notably, the PKK, the Marxist terrorist organization that has been at War with Ankara for more than twenty years and has been responsible for deaths of thousands of Turkish citizens. For its part, the Kurdish Regional Government has been silent and indirectly complicit to the PKK activities that emanate from within their sovereignty.

Policy makers in Washington must understand that the "liberation" of Iraq from the Baathist dungeon it had become and the subsequent lack of a viable policy in the aftermath has, in essence, created an existential threat to Turkish sovereignty. Every nation, when faced with a menace against its own interests, will take the necessary actions to protect its people and territory. Turkey, unlike the US, is Iraq's neighbor and regardless of how American policy makers approach this growing crisis, the fact is that long after the US departs from Iraq, the Turkish government will have to deal with what remains in whatever way they deem necessary.

This is where Kurdish ideology and pragmatism converge. For all the pro-Western manifestations shown by Kurds in their appreciation of American willingness to coalesce their fragmented population, there is still wide suspicion of US intentions. The Kurds, like the Shia of Iraq, have had many promises of solidarity pledged to them yet often been abandoned for sake of US expediency.

For now, it is unclear if the Kurds will sacrifice their monumental achievements for some fantastic illusion of a greater Kurdistan. The possibility of their newly built airports, universities, and remade cities turning to rubble from a Turco-Iranian blitzkrieg is a reality that none of them can fathom, yet continued acquiescence to rogue Kurdish elements operating with impunity from their territory may very well bring about this reality.

The inability of the Bush administration to understand Iraq's sectarian dynamics, the overt show of support made by the Islamic Republic of Iran towards Iraq's fledgling government, and the wider Sunni Arab boycott of Al-Maliki are primarily the reasons why Iraqi political reconciliation is at an impasse. What has added more confusion to the Iraqi condition is that the American administration has adopted a policy that is rife with contradictions. They outwardly support Al-Maliki's Shiite-led government while arming Sunni insurgents that are currently at war with it.

They have openly chided the Iranian regime for the shipment of IED's into Iraq yet have been awkwardly mute about the fact that half of the Saudi fighters in Iraq come with the intention of becoming suicide bombers, costing death and injury to approximately 4,000 Iraqis from January to July of this year [4]. In the Kurdish North, the US has utterly failed in convincing the Kurdish Regional Government to expel the growing elements of the PKK. The American government has made unremitting appeals to Moderate Muslim nations, like Turkey, to be an active member in the fight against global terrorism yet have a turned a blind eye to the terrorist activities that has killed or maimed thousands of innocent Turkish civilians. Turkish anxieties and frustrations about the terrorist haven that Iraqi Kurdistan has become have severally strained Washington's once amicable ties with Ankara. In addition, the US has repeatedly asked the Iranian government for help in reigning in Shia militias and radical clerics yet have stood fast to a policy of regime change in Iran. How can one expect assistance from an entity that they have pledged to destroy?

All of these factors have made the possibility of Iraqi stability and any productive influence from regional countries unlikely.

Eventually, the US government must come to terms with the reality that Iraq will not become an American satellite or Israel II. It must realize that overt Iranian influence, Turkish anxiety, Kurdish goals of autonomy, and Sunni animus towards the region's new realities are legitimate.

As for Iraq's internal politics, the division of the oil wealth and addressing the long-held territorial disputes among the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds are essential in bringing about a modicum of peace. This also is another stark reminder that full-fledged partition of Iraq would not only bring about foreign intervention from the regional actors, but could probably escalate the civil war. Regarding the militias, if the disbandment of the Iraqi army taught policy makers anything it was the fact that these former soldiers would not simply relinquish their arms and go home. Many members of the Sunni insurgency are Iraqi born ex-Baathists who, until recently, were allying themselves with elements of al Qaida.

Therefore, there must be a concerted effort to infuse the members of the various Shia militias and radical clerics into Iraq's mainstream. Attempts at marginalization, targeted assassinations, or siding with one particular armed group over another would yield no result and would be eventually self-defeating.

In a region that has too much history, too many diverse groups of people, too much nationalism, and not enough space, ethno-sectarian tensions will always exist. No matter how one views the ethnic and religious struggles in Iraq, the fact is that this is an issue that not only eclipses one particular country, but the broader Middle East and probably most of Asia. The dilemma is not that Iraq consists of different ethnicities. The problem is that one particular minority that denied the very existence of their respective compatriots governed the nation as a whole by intimidation, subjugation, and brute force.

Dividing countries upon ethnic or religious lines is unrealistic. Instead of focusing upon the creation of homogenous entities that rarely if ever have existed in human history, policy makers should focus on propagating democratic institutions that tend to the basic economic, social, and political rights of their citizenry, regardless of ethnicity or religious persuasions. This can only be done by robust diplomatic efforts that are not grounded in fantasy but sincerely address the grievances of all parties involved, both internally and regionally.

For Baghdad, the late 20th century was an aberration in its once great legacy. Incorporating a system of governance based upon pluralism and multi-ethnic respect is not introducing a new invention into this society, but reviving a concept that, for centuries, had legitimacy amongst its disparate population.

[1] Hill, Donald R. (1994). Islamic Science and Engineering, 10. ISBN 0-7486-0457-X.

[2] Nasr, Vali ( July/ August 2006). "The Shiites Rise", Foreign Affairs. www.foreignaffairs.com

[4] http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudi15jul15,0,3132262.story?coll=la-home-cente

The guy is well-versed in history.

He's apparently an Iranian living in Europe or the U.S.

One of his themes is that the Saudi regime is more culturally inimical to Western culture than is Iran:

"When on any given Monday, a sharply dressed official from the US State Department conducts a one hour harangue on the evils of Iran for supplying Shia militias in Southern Iraq with roadside bombs and then, that same official, only a few hours later, attends a “working lunch” with his Saudi counterpart, the utter stupidity of American foreign policy manifests itself to the world.

How can the American government expect to be taken seriously when it applies different standards to two parties, who in essence, commit the same offence? Why is Shia radicalism viewed as somehow more pernicious than Wahabbi fundamentalism when both parties engage in similar activities? In fact, Hanson himself clearly points out that “Saudi terrorists have killed more Americans than all those murdered by Iranians, Syrians, Libyans, and Iraqis put together.”

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