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Do Iraq's politicians believe in Iraq?
30.7.2010
By Ranj Alaaldin |
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Five
months on from the elections, Iraq's factions seem
unable to unite under a common banner of statehood
July 30, 2010
Nearly five months after parliamentary elections
were held, Iraq is still without a government.
Unfortunate as this may be, it is not entirely
surprising because Iraq, seven years on from the
2003 war, is still a country in transition.
Post-2003 Iraq is somewhat akin to post-1958 Iraq
when Abdul Karim Qassim and other military
conspirators overthrew a discredited (and
British-backed) monarchic regime. As with Qassim's
overthrow, the removal of the equally discredited
but more brutal Saddam Hussein paved the way for
various competing forces to move into the political
vacuum.
In post-1958 Iraq, these groups were principally the
Arab nationalists and socialists, the Kurds and the
communists.
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File photo: Gulf News |
Qassim himself cunningly played
them off against each other as he sought to maintain
his grip on power. In post-2003 Iraq, the principal
actors – the Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs – are
looking, as ever, to expand or protect their
interests.
Today's Iraq is much more democratic and accountable
to its people than at any other point in its
history, but, despite all that, no one quite knows
what today's Iraq actually stands for.
For all of Saddam's atrocities and the failures of
previous governments, Iraq has historically had some
kind of identity based, at the very least, on Sunni-Arabist
characteristics, even if this was forcibly imposed
on the population by governments in Baghdad and
their western backers. Today, however, there is no
longer any meaningful construct to the term "Iraq".
The Iraq of today is federalist, centralist, Shia,
Sunni and Kurd, though with other minority
ethnicities and religions too. It is also influenced
from outside by Saudi, Iranian, Turkish, Syrian, US,
UK and Jordanian interests. While all these might be
components in some future vision for a pluralistic
Iraqi state, the reality,www.ekurd.netat
present, is that they are symptoms of
dysfunctionality. The failure to form a government
and the failure to form any serious cross-sectarian
coalition for the elections are just two among many
examples of the inability to amalgamate under a
common banner of statehood, much to the detriment of
the Iraqi people.
Despite the less-than-convincing and age-old
rhetoric used by the main players – in particular
the often-used line about "working in Iraq's
interest" – it is doubtful whether any political
force sincerely believes in the construct of an
Iraqi state. So far as the Kurds are concerned, for
example, post-2003 Iraq has been a country of
convenience rather than substance, historically
forced upon them without much choice.
Across the political spectrum, "working in Iraq's
interest" seems to mean engaging with and appeasing
almost anybody and everybody that could provide the
keys to power. For example, Ayad Allawi and Moqtada
al-Sadr, who have previously gone head-to-head in
violent clashes and by all accounts were once deemed
fierce enemies, recently met to discuss the
possibility of forming a coalition.
Whether a coalition does materialise will, of
course, come down to what was offered and conceded;
individual ministries are offered and conceded on a
whim and have essentially become fiefdoms of the
various groupings. All this, of course, is
irrespective of whether Allawi – who also met with
Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition – or Sadr's
supporters actually want the two to form a
coalition.
While it is important to ensure the rights of Iraq's
various ethnic and sectarian groupings are
protected, this does not mean that every political
player has an unconditional right to be part of the
government.
There is no legal requirement for the Iraqi cabinet
and other positions like the premiership and
presidency to be proportionally allocated to each
ethnic and sectarian group. But a "national unity"
government is the more convenient option because the
sad reality is that no group will step aside quietly
– and the result is political paralysis.
If Iraqi decision makers and their regional partners
fail to get their act together in the coming years,
Iraq's existence as a single country will be
increasingly questioned as its people continue
paying with their lives for a state that was
created, essentially, to protect British interests
in the region.
Ranj Alaaldin is a
Middle East political and security risk analyst
based at the London School of Economics and
Political Science.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
guardian co.uk
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