Has anybody suggested that Iraq carve itself up into enclaves so everybody can have their own space? I mean, carving that area up isn't exactly a new idea
Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in the Iraq area have lived together for centuries under the rule of various despots. They intermarry and do business together. That their three provinces of the Ottoman empire were put together by the British to form Iraq is often cited as the history of an "artificial" country ready to spin apart at any time.
But all three groups, especially Shiites, fought very hard in Saddam's war with Iran. Baghdad is a city of millions which all three groups inhabit and is the business and cultural core of the region rivalled only by Tehran. Who is going to give up Baghdad?
There is a general feeling of Iraqi patriotism. It's not clear how strong it is, but it exists.
For the last hundred years the struggle throughout the area has been between modernity, which requires application of reason and democracy, and antiquity, which requires application of faith and authority. One requires meritocracy and the other requires patronage: rule of law or corruption; negotiation or coercion; property rights or extortion.
The side the Iraq government and US are fighting against is for patronage, corruption, coercion and extortion. They are mostly members of various Sunni tribes and, of course, the joker in the Iraq political deck is tribalism.
The tyranny of the previous centuries - which Saddam only embellished, (he was not modern) - has made people very dependent on family and tribe for security and this has reinforced a culture of patronage and corruption because there was no alternative to vast nepotism and striving for any advantage.
This has made tribal leaders a very powerful force in Iraq society. Their families are often prosperous and well educated. (Alawi, for instance, is a member of a prominent Sunni tribal family). These are the people who will make or break Iraqi modernity. The idea that Iraq is fragmented by Sunni-Shiite conflict is mistaken - the terrorists there have tried mightily to foment sectarian violence and have not been successful.
Through historical accident some -not all- Sunni tribes have been the ones who ran Iraq for it's various tax farm owners and after the Ottomans left didn't run it much differently, even under Saddam, who captured the Baath party for his tribe and family. As his position became more precarious under US pressure and some Sunni tribes were trying to keep a distance from his caprice, he attempted to co-opt "religious" leaders of Islamist persuasion who are fascist like him. His remnants have made alliance with them against the new government.
None of these circumstances actually suggest partitioning the country along Sunni-Shiite-Kurd lines. Rather, it suggests defeating those totalitarian folk terrorizing the country and then see if it's possible for the citizens to sort themselves out in a modern fashion.
The "realists" tend to say that's not possible due to the sort of history outlined above. They tend to be more "nuanced" than me but generally they think now the Shiite tribes will take over the country and run it same-old, same-old. That's a possiblity if it's allowed to happen but it need not be.
The life of a tribal leader under a centralized tyranny, as all of them know from experience with Hussein, is stressful. Not only does he have to administer patronage, adjudicate disputes of commerce and honour, sometimes dispense summary justice, and avoid being backstabbed by his cousins and rivals, but he also has to deal with the caprice of the central tyranny which carries great risk of lost honour, wealth and life.
The fundamental reason he has his position and is subject to these risks is that there is no rule of law weighing equally on everyone in the country.
What's in modernity for a tribal leader? Quite a bit, I think. He doesn't have to deal in honour disputes and blood feuds because there are relatively uncorrupt police, courts and country wide law to deal with these things. He doesn't have to deal with a capricious, corrupt and dangerous government on his and his people's behalf because the same rules apply to everyone. He starts into modernity with advantages of social position, relative wealth and education and can devote himself to running his business or profession. If he has feelings of social responsibility he can run for office in fair confidence the incumbent won't try to kill him.
The biggest disadvantage is that he'll have to give up nepotism and bribery. The state is no longer something to be looted for family and tribe. Nonetheless, if he is sure of enforcement, he can agree to a rule set if it gives everyone equal disadvantage and has significant penalties for breakage. (After security, this is probably the single most popular idea in the country: not paying mordita. Doing away with nepotism is not quite as popular, I'm sure, but after the excesses of Hussein is generally recognized as necessary.)
Throughout history, where tribal leaders are, in terms of their collective power, reasonably even up with the ruler, they demand laws be codified and their local meets be recognized. So it's not surprising to me that a meeting of nearly all Shiite tribal leaders unanimously demanded Sadr give himself up to trial in the matter of Kuoni's murder because, they said, "everyone in Iraq must be subject to the law." This is exactly what a group of pre-feudal Saxon or Viking tribal leaders would have demanded of their local kinglet.
Some folk are concerned Iraq will fall into tribal corruption and civil war like some African countries or Yugoslavia but, in deed, that's what it had under Hussein right down to the insurrections, mass murder, and huge exile population. There's no natural law requiring they go there again.
|
