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Iraq: Its Demography and Geography as
Impediments to Peace and Stability
9.7.2007
By Rauf Naqishbendi |
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July
9, 2007
Insurgents in Iraq have become a major headache for
the Bush administration, and an impediment to the
peace and democracy so dear to many Iraqis.
Nonetheless, the true question is not what to do
with insurgents but what to do with Iraq itself -
with the demography and geography that have been
Iraq's defects since its birth as a country.
Geographically, Iraq is surrounded by its
neighboring countries including Syria, Iran and
Turkey. Tyranny under the Ba'th party has ruled
Syria for almost half a century, and the Syrian
government has been notorious for sponsoring
terrorists against Lebanon, Israel and now Iraq. For
decades the Syrian and Iraqi governments have not
been friends but rather rivals. Iran, for its part,
has been ruled by Moslem Shiite fundamentalists
since the ousting of the former Shah of Iran. Iran,
like Syria, has been behind the Hezbollah in Lebanon
and other extreme Moslem groups such as Jihad, and
has been known for state-sponsored terrorism for
decades. Like Syrians, Iranians are free only to
cherish their leaders and glorify their rule.
Turkey, on the other hand, is a weird and a shaky
democracy with its government dominated by those who
claim to be of a sectarian Moslem religious group,
but the recent rise in anti-Semitic sentiments among
Turks, and their refusal to aid coalition forces in
the war against Saddam has proven otherwise.
Furthermore, Turkish authorities have been
practicing barbaric ruling against the Kurds, who
make up one-third of their population, for years,
depriving them of the most basic human rights
including speaking in their mother tongue. Notably,
the human rights violations of all three of these
neighbors of Iraq have been documented by
respectable human rights organization such as
Amnesty International for having some of the
dirtiest records for many years.
The problem doesn't end with negative influence
alone. Iran and Iraq have been quarreling over their
territorial integrity since the end of British
colonialism in Iraq. During the 1980's, Iraq and
Iran fought one of the bloodiest wars in the history
of the Middle East, and thus millions of lives were
claimed on both sides. Since the breakup of the
Ottoman Empire, Turks have been looking to intrude
into Iraq to satisfy their false and unrealistic
territorial claims on northern Iraqi provinces near
their border. Also, Turks oppose the fair share
representation of Iraqi Kurds in the Iraqi
government fearing that their counterparts in Turkey
will demand the same.
Common sense dictates that tyrants are interested in
seeing their counterparts around as opposed to
something different. These regimes realize their
illegitimacy as they have been maintaining their
power through force and torture rather than a
democratic process where the people are responsible
for electing their political officials. As one can
imagine, a democratic Iraq will not be in the best
interests of these regimes, and they well know that
a democratic Iraq will entice their people to demand
the same, shake off the yoke of their repression,
and end their illegitimate power. Since in a sense a
democratic Iraq with peace and prosperity will mark
the end of these shaky governments, they are
therefore maximizing their efforts to entice more
chaos and fuel instability in Iraq as they fear for
their own fate more than the fate of the Iraqi
people.
Demographically, the threads that make up the fabric
of the Iraqi population are a very powerful force
working against unity in Iraq, making Iraq's
territorial integrity questionable and
unjustifiable. Iraq's population is made up mainly
of Arabs and Kurds, two different nationalities each
with their own distinct and unique national
attributes. Iraq has been ruled by Arabs since its
formation as a republic. Kurds as a distinct nation
have fought their subjugation to the Arabs, and
rightly demanded their statehood since the inception
of Iraq. Kurds have been tortured and genocide has
been committed against them by Iraqi Arabs,
resulting in the Kurds' resentment of any forced
union as a nation with the Arabs.
Arabs themselves are divided; the majority in Iraq
are Shiites and they feel closer to their fellow
Shiites in Iran than the Sunni Arabs in Iraq. They
too have suffered under Saddam and never had their
fair share of political power. The Sunni Arabs have
been dominant in Iraq, and now, as their last man,
Saddam, has been ousted they are not willing to
share power with the rest of the Iraqis. Therefore,
they are behind the insurgencies and thus the
progress of peace and stability in Iraq is not only
barred by the differences of its people groups
alone, but also by the outright actions of some of
its own people to sabotage it.
Iraq's own geography and demography are its fatal
enemies. Geographically, the only way to deal with
this paramount dilemma is to encourage regime
changes in Iraq's neighbors from hostile anarchy to
democratic regimes. However, given our gloomy
success in winning peace in Iraq this endeavor could
be suicidal and regrettable. As far as Iraq's
demography is concerned, imposing a merger nation on
Iraq's different ethnic and religious groups will
blow up in the face of its organizers, prolonging
the Iraqi people's suffering and bringing all out
civil war closer with every minute that passes. So
far neither of these two problems has been dealt
with effectively, therefore causing the Iraqi people
to prepare themselves for more suffering, and
America to consider staying even longer in Iraq,
incurring greater war expenditures and casualties.
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