It was a sick and tawdry story and I didn’t want to tell it anymore. I walked into a bad situation one year ago and actually watched it get worse, with the fairly certain belief that it will continue to do so.
One year ago, I left Cairo as the Arab League was holding a reconciliation conference to bring together Iraq’s disparate factions, to get them to talk to each other, to resolve the ever growing crisis.
The day before I left, my last journalistic endeavor in the country, I attended a reconciliation conference in the Green Zone between… I guess it must have been Iraq’s disparate factions again. But the stakes were higher this time, the number of corpses even greater on the streets, because in between those two conferences what was once a disgruntled Sunni-fueled insurgency had turned into a full blown sectarian civil war.
For months the Sunni insurgency, Al Qaeda, whoever, blew up Shiites, until they finally nailed that shrine and that was just a little bit too much and what had until then been some occasional sectarian skirmishing, a bit of police brutality taken to extremes, turned into a concerted effort to drive the Sunnis out of mixed areas, with the inevitable violent reaction.
It wasn’t just the Americans fault, though I almost don’t want to read all the books coming out detailing just how badly the US forces screwed up in those extremely sensitive early days after the invasion when so much was possible and so little was done right.
The Iraqi political class does have to take its responsibility for the situation as well. These are politicians who could only see everything in a zero sum game. For the Shiites it was just a matter of settling scores, of killing off old Baathists, and humiliating the once dominant Sunnis. And for the Sunnis? They were convinced that they would soon be back in power – hadn’t they always run the place? Those idiot, Mahdi-mad Shiites would eventually screw up and they would take power back, so why cooperate now? Why work together when you can have it all one day?
So everyone’s taking it all, and not getting anything.
Even the Kurds, for the most part happy in the northern provinces, were playing a zero sum game in Kirkuk, which, stunningly, hasn’t totally burst into flame, but when the time comes, they will probably just as vicious there as all the others.
This country has become a graveyard for so much, including the US neo-con ambitions for the Middle East, which would almost be cause for smugness and celebration if it hadn’t come at such a high price.
I sympathize with fellow journalists who covered this conflict from the beginning and truly wanted the whole Bush project in Iraq to work because it would have meant peace and prosperity for the people there. I mean really, who is against democracy, free market, prosperity and social justice for a country? Instead, the utterly flawed nature of the whole enterprise has become starkly obvious in the body counts, corruption and total dysfunctional nature of the whole country.
Instead of becoming the beacon for democracy in the Middle East that the Bushie neo-cons envisioned to pressure the autocratic regimes of the region, it has become the warning to all. It justifies every warning given by every dictator in the region — would you rather have autocracy and order or democracy and chaos?
So what if Iraq has had two elections and a referendum, it is also the most dangerous place on earth. People are fleeing en masse to Syria, of all places, a country with a terrible economy and a stupid dictatorial regime, that nevertheless looks good from Iraq.
It’s almost like a case study of medieval Muslim political philosophy which recommended supporting the ruler, no matter how perfidious, because order was always better than chaos. As the guy at the Cairo airport said as I was haggling over my ride home, said, “here in Egypt… it is safe.”
Way to go George.
The thing is, I know I will be back. As long as US troops are there, this will be one of the biggest stories in the world, and as soon as they leave, which they will over the next year because suddenly cut and run doesn’t seem so bad, it is going to turn into the Middle East’s version of the Congo, an ugly conflict that everyone meddles in but doesn’t really attract many headlines.
It is so much easier to let them work their own problems out when no one’s paying all that much attention.
I don’t know how many people died in Iraq while I was there, probably thirty or forty thousand. I knew three, the office manager at our news agency, a cameraman for CBS who lived downstairs, and a US captain out in Ramadi.
There will be more.
Thank you for your job Paul, I will miss reading your posts from Iraq on this blog.
Just a remark: I’m surprised by the shortcut you make between the horrible mess in Iraq and your interrogation about the virtue of democratization with regard to its possible effects on (dis)order. In my mind it seems obvious that the former must rather be attributed to the method on the one hand (and then the question remains whether there is an intrinsic incompatibility between foreign/military intervention and democratization or the failure is rather due to specific mistakes and circumstances) and to the peculiar nature of Saddam Husayn’s regime on the other (noticeably its impact on Shia/Sunni relations), let alone the various “foreign” influences (Iran-Al-Qaïda-et al).
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t for a second not believe in the importance of democratization. I was more presenting a point of view common in the Middle East that sees autocracy as an automatic guarantor of order, and the alternative, say a pluralistic system and the rotation of power is the gateway to chaos. It is this fear of disorder that has kept Middle East dictators in power with the backing of surprsingly large segments of the population. And the irony is that the mess Iraq appears to substantiate this view. I don’t believe it does, as you pointed out, the disorder there is due to a whole host of other factors, but the leaders in the region can now use it as a warning to their own democracy activists.
Alright, I may have read too quickly. So I entirely agree.
Fantastic reporting, Paul. Thank you so much for your contributions.
I agree with you that internal factors and factions need to accept their responsibility for what has happened, but I believe, for the moment, you let off the Americans too lightly for their role. The journalists, who may be forgiven for this, who believed that role was to bring democracy and stability to the region were naive at best. Working on the US side in a US-based news station and putting a few pieces together, I think it was very clear that all this talk of “democracy, etc” was a lovely whitewash on a miscalculated financial/political venture. The travesty of the embeds ( am thinking of Tony Perry of the LA Times- whom I am sure you know), the woeful ignorance of Arab culture and politics on the part of a green press corps, the rah-rah-rah atmosphere in the newsrooms at home, have made a clearer accounting nearly impossible. Anyone who has any background in post-colonial structures could see that the manner of entry in Iraq was clearly wrong. The Pentagon may have screened Battle of Algiers but missed many of the main points. They should have pondered Gertrude Bell and Freya Starck, studied the literature of resistance, learned Arabic or at least engaged people who really did.
The shock and awe campaign is a case in point of “mismanagement” in service of contracts. Before the US went in, the contracts for the electrical grid and several other grids were signed. Several San Diego companies were involved. You cannot, cannot repair something with that kind of money if it is still functioning. You have to break it first. This is very similar to Haile Mingitsu Miriam starving Eritrea so he could save it and buy its loyalty.
These kind of dots to be connected were all over at the time.
Another case in point: Abbas Kareem Naama, about whom there are still unanswered questions. You may be aware of him- the general and pharmacist who participated in the 1991 revolt against Saddam and whose daughter and wife made the rounds of the international media pleading for assistance in toppling Saddam and recounting their trek across the desert. The Int’l media ate it up, but no one, as far as I know, asked General, what were you planning to do after the coup? The assumption seems to be he would establish a democracy- but, rarely does the military stage a coup in favor of democracy (consider the case of Oukfir in Morocco- his family suffered unforgivable, but Oukfir was a monster), Well, in 2003, up pops Naama, running a province, Americanized daughter in tow- who would have seen that coming? The local San Diego based media missed that one completely (including my station whom I told to keep an eye on this family)-Who would have seen it coming? Anyone who did a quick internet search on Naama would have found his name among a group of Iraqi patriots who accompanied Chalabi to Washington to work out the invasion of Iraq in April 2002- that’s who.
Yes, the Iraqis must take responsibility for secretarian killings, but the Americans muct be held accountable for their mendacity, cultivated ignorance and vison of a new “American century,” which apparently includes the twin horror shows- Iraq and the Bush presidency.
Thanks much, Paul. I will miss your reporting from Baghdad and the rest of Iraq. Great work this past year.
Zazou,
You’re absolutely right. The truth of what really went on is staggering, but, for me, that story has been told so much better by others. The research coming out now showcases the horrific combination of US arrogance and incompetence that has done so much to create the current situation. I guess what I was trying say was, “given that’, now what…
Paul, you are being much too modest. Your reporting has been a profound contribution.