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Arms for Iraq’s Security, or for International Shia Security? |
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Arms for Iraq’s Security, or for
International Shia Security?
18.10.2012
By Hiwa Osman
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Ekurd.net |
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October 18, 2012
The arms shopping spree that the prime minister is
on will not secure the country.
It will be seen as an attempt to strengthen his
position and use it as an important “component” of
what some call “international Shi'a security.”
Creating a sense of ownership among people for their
country, providing leadership and creating better
services would move things in the right direction.
Only then would the country be in need of the
equipment the prime minister is trying to purchase
today.
Scanning through some of the data available on the
Internet and taking into account the recent money
committed to new deals with
Russia
and the
Czech Republic,
Iraq is at the top of the list for national spending
on the military compared to gross domestic product.
This is in addition to it being in the leading
position for corruption and poor services.
While Iraq has the right to arm itself for
protection, the timing and the manner in which it is
being done will only militarize the country further
and kill any prospects of a safe, secure and stable
place for people to live in.
To start with, the country does not have the proper
institutions that people can identify with. The
Sunnis say that the army is a Shia one, the Shia say
that the Baath are still in control and the Kurds
say that the army is an Arab one. The same goes for
many other security institutions in the country.
This lack of trust is happening while the Iraqi
government is moving from failure to failure in
almost every service sector. Health, education,
services like electricity, water and sewage are all
at their lowest levels.
Apart from services, Kurdistan is not much better
than the rest of the country. This is in terms of
the health and education sectors, and many other
areas that need fixing and immediate attention —
before buying weapons that were the cause of all the
misery Iraq faces today.
The other key requirement for the country to be
armed is to be sane enough to possess them. The
question that everyone has is: are we sane enough,www.ekurd.net
mature enough or ready at all to possess such
weapons?
What guarantees are there for us not to use them
internally? A friend from Baghdad once said, “Our
army is composed of 20,000 checkpoints.” Is this
checkpoint army ready for F16s and Czech fighter
jets?
The other question that many ask is: if the PM wants
to buy weapons to defend the country, shouldn’t he
buy anti-F16 missiles instead of the actual F16s?
In the absence of true national reconciliation and
the end of corruption, real security will never be
achieved internally. The prime minister should not
forget that it would be impossible for him to
convince the average citizen that F16s and fighter
jets will stop car bombs from detonating at a
terrorist’s chosen time and place.
This huge sum of money would have a much stronger
impact if it was committed to a radical approach to
fixing one of the ailing service sectors like
electricity, or providing better hospitals or more
schools.
Unless a radical change takes place, this shopping
spree can only be interpreted as a move by Iraq to
defend the eastern gate of the Arab homeland to
protect the Shia in the world; hence the idea of
“international Shia security.”
Hiwa Osman is IWPR’s country director in Iraq, previously
served as Iraqi president Jalal Talabani’s media
adviser, a regular contributing writer and columnist for
Ekurd.net. Osman's
website is www.hiwaosman.com
Copyright © 2012 Ekurd.net
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