Iraqis will not be pawns in Bush and Blair's
war game
An American attack on my country would bring disaster, not
liberation
Kamil Mahdi
Thursday February 20, 2003
The Guardian
Having failed to convince the British people that war is justified, Tony Blair
is now invoking the suffering of the Iraqi people to justify bombing them. He
tells us there will be innocent civilian casualties, but that more will die if
he and Bush do not go to war. Which dossier is he reading from?
The present Iraqi regime's repressive practices have long been known, and
its worst excesses took place 12 years ago, under the gaze of General Colin
Powell's troops; 15 years ago, when Saddam was an Anglo-American ally;
and almost 30 years ago, when Henry Kissinger cynically used Kurdish
nationalism to further US power in the region at the expense of both Kurdish
and Iraqi democratic aspirations.
Killing and torture in Iraq is not random, but has long been directly linked
to politics - and international politics at that. Some of the gravest political
repression was in 1978-80, at the time of the Iranian revolution and
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. But the Iraqi people's greatest suffering
has been during periods of war and under the sanctions of the 1990s. There
are political issues that require political solutions and a war under any
pretext is not what Iraqis need or want.
In government comment about Iraq, the Iraqi people are treated as a
collection of hapless victims without hope or dignity. At best, Iraqis are said
to have parochial allegiances that render them incapable of political action
without tutelage. This is utterly at variance with the history and reality of
Iraq. Iraqis are proud of their diversity, the intricacies of their society and
its deeply rooted urban culture.
Their turbulent recent history is not something that simply happened to
Iraqis, but one in which they have been actors. Iraqis have a rich modern
political tradition borne out of their struggle for independence from Britain
and for political and social emancipation. A major explanation for the
violence of recent Iraqi political history lies in the determination of people
to challenge tyranny and bring about political change. Iraqis have not gone
like lambs to the slaughter, but have fought political battles in which they
suffered grievously. To assert that an American invasion is the only way to
bring about political change in Iraq might suit Blair's propaganda fightback,
but it is ignorant and disingenuous.
It is now the vogue to talk down Iraqi politics under Saddam Hussain as
nothing but the whim of a dictator. The fact is that leaders cannot kill
politics in the minds of people, nor can they crush their aspirations. The
massacres of leftists when the Ba'athists first came to power in 1963 did
not prevent the emergence of a new mass movement in the mid-1960s. The
second Ba'ath regime attempted to buy time from the Kurdish movement in
1970 only to trigger a united mobilisation of Kurdish nationalism. Saddam
co-opted the Communist party in the early 1970s only to see that party's
organisation grow under a very narrow margin of legality before he moved
against it. In the 1970s, the regime tried to control private economic
activity by extending the state to every corner of the economy, only to face
an explosion of small business activity.
The regime's strict secularism produced a clerical opposition with a mass
following. When the regime pressurised Iraqis to join the Ba'ath party,
independent opinion emerged within that party and Saddam found it
necessary to crush it and destroy the party in the process. In the 1980s, the
army was beginning to emerge as a threat, and the 1991 uprising showed
the extent of discontent. In the 1990s, Saddam fostered the religious
leadership of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, only to see the latter
emerge as a focal point for opposition. Even within Saddam's family and close
circle, there has been opposition.
Of course Saddam Hussain crushed all these challenges, but in every case the
regional and international environment has supported the dictator against
the people of Iraq. It is cynical and deceitful of Tony Blair to pretend that he
understands Iraqi politics and has a meaningful programme for the country.
Iraq's history is one of popular struggle and also of imperial greed,
superpower rivalries and regional conflict. To reduce the whole of Iraqi
politics and social life to the whims of Saddam Hussain is banal and
insulting.
Over the past 12 years of vicious economic blockade, the US and Britain
have ignored the political situation inside Iraq and concentrated on weapons
as a justification for their policy of containment. UN resolution 688 of
April 1991, calling for an end to repression and an open dialogue to ensure
Iraqi human and political rights, was set aside or used only for propaganda
and to justify the no-fly zones.
Instead of generating a real political dynamic backed by international
strength and moral authority, Iraqis were prevented from reconstructing
their devastated country. Generations of Iraqis will continue to pay the price
of the policy of sanctions and containment, designed for an oil glut period in
the international market.
Now that the US has a new policy, it intends to implement it rapidly and with
all its military might. Despite what Blair claims, this has nothing to do with
the interests and rights of the Iraqi people. The regime in Iraq is not
invincible, but the objective of the US is to have regime change without the
people of Iraq. The use of Iraqi auxiliaries is designed to minimise US and
British casualties, and the result may be higher Iraqi casualties and
prolonged conflict with predictably disastrous humanitarian consequences.
The Bush administration has enlisted a number of Iraqi exiles to provide an
excuse for invasion and a political cover for the control of Iraq. People like
Ahmad Chalabi and Kanan Makiya have little credibility among Iraqis and
they have a career interest in a US invasion. At the same time, the main
forces of Kurdish nationalism, by disengaging from Iraqi politics and
engaging in internecine conflict, have become highly dependent upon US
protection and are not in a position to object to a US military onslaught. The
US may enlist domestic and regional partners with varying degrees of
pressure.
This in no way bestows legitimacy on its objectives and methods, and its
policies are rejected by most Iraqis and others in the region. Indeed, the
main historical opposition to the Ba'ath regime - including various strands
of the left, the Arab nationalist parties, the Communist party, the Islamic
Da'wa party, the Islamic party (the Muslim Brotherhood) and others - has
rejected war and US patronage over Iraqi politics. The prevalent Iraqi
opinion is that a US attack on Iraq would be a disaster, not a liberation, and
Blair's belated concern for Iraqis is unwelcome.
· Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi political exile and lecturer in Middle East
economics at the University of Exeter |
