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NEWS & LETTERS, MAY 2003
EditorialTasting the bitter fruits of occupationIt took only three weeks for the combined power of the U.S. and British armed forces to destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein. Saddam's Iraq once possessed one of the largest and most well-equipped armies in the world, but defeat in the 1991 Gulf War and more than a decade of economic sanctions since then had significantly diminished the country's military might. More importantly, a generation of repression by the totalitarian Ba'ath Party and its police apparatus resulted in a population filled with so much resentment toward its overlords that despite the cadres of paramilitary fighters dispatched to compel resistance to the invaders, the regime was toppled in short order. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the other hawks of the U.S. executive branch could hardly mask their delight that the reckless plans they laid had paid off, without caring to acknowledge that, as a headline in The New York Times put it, the "number of Iraqis killed may never be determined." Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense and chief architect of the invasion's military strategy, was even moved to force a strange comparison between the scenes of Iraqis pulling down statues of Saddam and the fall of the East European Communist regimes in 1989. Doubtless this veteran Cold Warrior knows that no U.S. troops assisted the masses of Berlin residents who forcibly dismantled the ugly wall that had divided their city for so long, but perhaps it was wishful thinking on his part. The rulers of the U.S. are much more comfortable when their tanks and helicopters are on the scene to see that matters remain well in hand. DIRE CONDITIONS IGNORED Despite the presence of those troops throughout many of Iraq's cities however, they seem little inclined to secure the material well-being of the country's people. There were evidently no orders to discourage the hungry and destitute crowds, who took what they could from government buildings, from targeting even Baghdad's overtaxed and undersupplied hospitals. The U.S. did nothing as the cultural history of Iraq was stolen from its national museum. Nor did the U.S. military seem to be sensitive to calls from humanitarian organizations to make a commitment to assure the security of efforts to deliver food and other supplies to a population heretofore largely dependent on the Iraqi government for sustenance. This ambivalence to the present dire condition of the Iraqi people extends to their future as well. No plan has been released that details just how the U.S. intends to administer Iraq. A retired army general, Jay Garner, has been appointed as chief executive of the occupying forces, but despite his recent entry into the country, his plans have yet to be made public. Most of the U.S. government's diplomatic efforts have instead been directed toward letting the UN and the anti-war faction of its Security Council know that they will have only the most subordinate role in rebuilding the country. The Bush administration's main goal-the eradication of Saddam's rule-was achieved slightly ahead of schedule. This development has starkly revealed that the concrete future of the Iraqi people was only a secondary priority for the U.S. VESTIGES OF HATED REGIME What is clear is that the U.S. would like to maintain as many Ba'athist functionaries in place as possible to eventually reinvigorate the basic functions of state power. It is also clear that this will be unacceptable to much of the Iraqi population, who will tolerate nothing less than a clean break with the institutions of the hated former regime. The British occupiers of Basra found out as much after they appointed a local sheik with ties to the old regime as administrator of the city. They were immediately confronted with a spontaneous demonstration of residents protesting the British embrace of such a compromised figure. The people of Baghdad's poor neighborhoods too have come out into the streets to assert their hostility to an arrangement in which they are locked out of determining their own affairs. So the U.S. now finds itself in an ambiguous position. By its criteria, the invasion was a success. From any other standpoint, however, it has brought death, destruction and a fearsome uncertainty to the Iraqi people. Many civilians have been killed and wounded by the fierce missile campaign, the officers of Iraq's regular army forced countless soldiers into a slaughter, and the country's infrastructure-which never recovered from the 1991 war-has been further debilitated. Politically the U.S. is sponsoring figures from the Iraqi exile opposition while at the same time it is seeking out functionaries of Saddam's regime to employ in the administration of its occupation. It is burdened with the enormous task of rebuilding the country on its terms alone while simultaneously trying to dampen the high expectations of democracy and self-determination it itself raised as ideological justifications for invasion. And as if the plate wasn't full enough for the rulers of the U.S., it seems as if they have no qualms about aggressively warning Iran and especially Iraq's old Ba'athist rival Syria to be extremely careful in their interference in the country. The worst fears of critics of the hawks in the Bush administration seem to have been well founded. POST-WAR STRIVINGS Despite all the rhetoric justifying the war, the future of the Iraqi people is indeed theirs alone to determine. The U.S. and Britain, while claiming that they have acted out of concern for the interests of those people, have instead placed their future at grave risk. The wishes of the Iraqis have already begun to come into conflict with those of the occupying powers. The long-struggling Kurdish people, the oppressed Shia communities in the south of the country, the impoverished residents of Baghdad's Saddam City neighborhood, and the minorities of Iraq deserve a nation in which independent newspapers can publish, wage workers can freely associate among themselves, and women can participate and lead in all activities. It is entirely possible that in such an arrangement, the revolutionary traditions of a country that once had one of the largest Marxist movement of the Middle East will be rediscovered and renewed, bringing an element of democratization most unwelcome to the capitalist rulers of the U.S. and Britain as well as to the authoritarian rulers and religious fundamentalist groupings of the region. The invasion and the start of the occupation have trespassed upon the basic national feelings of most Iraqis and put this future-one that the people of Iraq are more than capable of building for themselves-in jeopardy. Now that Iraq is free of Saddam and his party of jailers and secret police, the country's people deserve our firmest possible solidarity in their efforts to start anew. |
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