Iraq at the Gates of Hell--Atimes

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Aug 20, 2005



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH20Ak01.html



IRAQ AT THE GATES OF HELL

By Ashraf Fahim
(Ashraf Fahim is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern affairs based in New York and London. His writing can be found at www.storminateacup.org.uk)


(SNIP)

Iraqi nationalism now appears to be dissolving as fearful Iraqis seek safety in confessional bonds. Patrick Cockburn has written vividly in the London Review of Books of Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad living in terror of Shi'ite death squads that operate with apparent government sanction, and of Shi'ite neighborhoods traumatized by the unending wave of suicide bombers. "The bodies of Sunnis are being found in rubbish dumps across Baghdad," wrote Cockburn, "... the commandos rarely try to conceal their responsibility for killings. They arrive in full uniform, a garish green and yellow camouflage, at the homes of former Sunni officials and arrest them. A few days later the bodies - sometimes savagely tortured, with eyes gouged out and legs broken - turn up in the morgue."



(SNIP)



Given all this grist, how might the dark mill of civil war begin turning in Iraq? It might simply develop out of a continuing, steady rise in the vicious cycle of revenge killings. Alternatively, a sudden breakdown of the political process could lead each sect to quickly assert its interests by force: the Kurds attempting to seize Kirkuk, for example, or Arab Sunnis and Shi'ites fighting for control of the mixed Sunni-Shi'ite towns south of Baghdad - all of which would entail ethnic cleansing. Further ideological and interdenominational divisions would also arise. Inter-Shi'ite rivalries were recently on display in the southern town of Samawa, where supporters of SCIRI and influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr clashed. Muqtada espouses a brand of Iraqi and Islamic nationalism that could lead his Mehdi Army to side with those opposed to federalism if civil war did erupt.

And then there are the neighbors. As professor Juan Cole, an expert in Iraq and Shi'ism, recently wrote in the Nation: "If Iraq fell into civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites, the Saudis and Jordanians would certainly take the side of the Sunnis, while Iran would support the Shi'ites." In essence, a civil war would see the eight-year Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s replayed on Iraqi territory. To complicate matters, any Kurdish success would draw in Turkey. Beyond Iraq, a civil war could destabilize the Gulf, and thereby the world economy. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions could be kindled in states like Bahrain, Kuwait and most importantly, Saudi Arabia , where an occasionally restive Shi'ite population forms a majority in the eastern part of the country (where all the oil is).

This situation presents the US with an unenviable quandary. If civil war does break out it will be blamed regardless - either because of the provocation of its enduring presence or the vacuum left if it withdraws precipitously. To an extent, the Bush administration has only itself to blame for Iraq's simmering sectarian tensions. Iraq was hardly a model of communal harmony under Saddam Hussein. But US support for sectarian political parties and the creation of a political system centered around confessional quotas has significantly elevated identity politics. If the administration intended to divide Iraq's communities in order to make them more malleable, its success could come at a very high price.

The joke in Iraq before the invasion was that Iraqis actually wanted the gates of hell to be opened so they could get out. But even Iraqis' stubborn gallows humor is fading as the prospects for a better future after Saddam diminish. Every hour the violence continues there are countless new scores to be settled, new hatreds born and old ones reinforced, and a greater likelihood that Iraq will disintegrate.

Yet there are slivers of light amid all this darkness. Reports out of Ramadi tell of Sunni Arab tribesmen bravely fighting off insurgents who had come to drive away their Shi'ite neighbors. In the testing days ahead, that kind of unity will have to be the rule rather than the exception if Iraq is to survive.

[babylonsister]

1. What has the US wrought? nt

:cry:

[Old and In the Way]

2. Many here predicted this would be the outcome.

We were Saddam lovers, of course....but any cursory look into the geopolitics of Iraq underscored what a fragile society it really was. Saddam was a ruthless authoritarian, but who gave us the moral authority to bring "democracy" to Iraq? I wonder how the peopleof Iraq would really vote in an election today?

[Mnemosyne]

3. What can be said?

:grr: :nuke: :cry: :grouphug:

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[Pepper32]

4. My sentiments exactly

:cry: