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Last year U.S.
Ambassador (ret.) Peter W. Galbraith wrote a
brilliant essay analyzing the current political
situation in Iraq, entitled "Iraq: Bush's Islamic
Republic". The ironic truth of his title
encapsulates the sad fact that American foreign
policy makers ventured into an area of which they
had little if any comprehension, and now some 40
months later still show little evidence of having
learned "on the job" as it were. Having failed to
understand that Iraq has never had a unified
national identity, the foreign policy "experts"
continued to be under the delusion that Iraqis were
united in their desire to forge a national union. In
truth, nothing could be further from reality.
Because of an arrogant attitude that everyone must
want to live lives that mimic America's western
values, we traded one brutal secular tyrant for the
danger of a theocratic state that flirts with
aligning itself with our arch enemy, the state that
gives rise to the phrase "Islamofascism"-the Islamic
Republic of Iran.
As long as we fail to understand that "Iraq" is made
up of an artificial construct of three major groups
(Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds) and many
additional minorities, none of which has any love
for the others, we will fail in creating any degree
of stability. The bloody events of the month of July
have demonstrated all too graphically that a
peaceful union is a chimera-a pipe dream-a fantasy.
Having given Iraqis the chance to vote without
having laid the proper framework for establishing a
western style democracy, we have given the Shiite
majority a chance to install an Islamic state
similar to that of Iran. Far from creating a new
democracy, we have allowed religious obscurantism to
triumph and thereby hurl Iraqi women back to the
seventh century C. E. The Iranian mullah theocrats
must absolutely love our "brilliant" policy makers;
Iran "conquered" Iraq without having to fire a
single shot!
If we are to salvage anything from our much faulted
attempt at democratizing an oriental culture, we
quickly must come to comprehend that not all unions
were made in heaven; some should be allowed to fade
away, or at least metamorphose for the time-being
into a federal union with local autonomy but a
shared national economy, defense, and foreign
policy.
Iraq would seem to be a country ripe for such a
process. The Kurds want to maintain their autonomy,
and both Sunnis and Shiites want to keep themselves
independent of the other. Those Shiites who have
called for the establishment of an Islamic republic
akin to that in neighboring Iran possibly may be the
majority within that faith community. However, not
all Iraqi Shiites back the Islamic policies of the
Islamic Dawa Party or the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
Even Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most
revered cleric, while favoring a shari'a-based legal
system, appears to oppose a clerical state.
Similarly, Sunni Iraqis are united in opposing the
imposition of a Shiite religious state, but bitterly
divide among themselves over the direction of their
insurgency. Some want a Sunni Islamic state--these
are the supporters of al-Qaeda in Iraq; but most
oppose an Islamic state and thus oppose al-Qaeda.
Even the Kurds, who are united in their own ethnic
identity and desire to remain independent of both
the Sunni and the Shiite Arabs, are themselves
divided between various political factions (PUK, KDP,
PKK, etc.) as well as interpretations of Islam.
The above is only a broad-stroke portrait; it does
not account for the many minorities that exist in
Iraq. What we Westerners seem to fail to comprehend
is that the Iraqis operate at tribal identity levels
and not at national identity levels. Even the faith
and ethnic identity groups are not united. The
elections were won by a Shiite religious coalition,
not by a single group.
If we really want to bring a democratic revolution
to Iraq, which is something that will become
increasingly difficult - given Teheran's rising
influence in Baghdad-we will have to work with all
those different groups that oppose a Shiite
religious state. Some of our potential allies are
those Sunni insurgents that we are fighting now.
Another potential ally are the Sunni Kurds of
Massoud Barzani, leader of the Pesh Merga, that are
united in their opposition to Teheran and an Islamic
religious state, as opposed to Iraq's new president,
Jalal Talebani, who is close to the mullahs' regime
and receives its support. One should note that
support for Kurdish autonomy could ruffle the
feathers of our Turkish allies as Ankara opposes
anything that gives her Kurdish citizens hope for
unification with an independent Kurdistan. Iran and
Syria will also be displeased by the same phenomena
in their Kurdish populations. However, speaking
frankly, the latter should cause us no insomnia.
There is one other thing that we should be doing,
given the overwhelming evidence of Iranian
interference and influence in Iraqi politics. It is
time to empower the Iranian resistance to aid the
long-suffering Iranian people to rise up in revolt
to overthrow the tyrannical Teheran theocracy.
Specifically, this means removing the Mojahedin-e
Khalq (MeK) and the National Council of Resistance
of Iran (NCRI) from the State Department's list of
foreign terrorist organizations, a status they
acquired at the behest of the Teheran mullahs
because of political deals in 1997, 1999 and 2003
made by State with the Iranian regime, and not
because of any actual involvement in terrorism. If
the egalitarian NCRI and MeK can once again become
active in the field, Iran could soon become a
secular democracy, exactly of the type that we've
been trying to establish in Iraq. Now wouldn't that
be novel-allowing a Middle-East nation to set new
regional standards in the development and
establishment of secular democracy.
Imagine that, we could correct all (or most) of our
problems in Iraq and end our problems with Iran and
its pursuit of nuclear weaponry - a goal the NCRI
and MeK have already renounced - all with one simple
policy change. Do you think Washington can get it
right this time? I do hope so, because my Arabic and
Farsi are still in the infancy stage, and I sure
hate to glow in the dark!
Professor Daniel M. Zucker is a Chairman of
Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East.
globalpolitician com
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