Iraq: Where We Are Today
May 2006 Hans Arthur Black
Three years after the beginning of the US-led occupation of Iraq, it is worth discussing the current political and security situation of the country. As has been true since the beginning, the progress and development of Iraq today remains primarily limited by the continuing security problems across large swaths of the country. Yet as the nature of the security threats have morphed across the last three years, they have increasingly become tied to the country’s internal political process and its stability. Therefore, the ultimate success of the American venture in Iraq is increasingly out of the hands of Washington and tied instead to Iraq’s internal political process and its leaders.
In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the security concerns faced by the occupation were generally a result of the messiness of regime change and the war’s own success, which contributed to a lack of planning for the subsequent transition and to having too few troops on the ground to manage the situation. Within a couple weeks of beginning the campaign, the US military had become the effective government of a country of 27 million people, as the Iraqi government of what had been a highly centralized bureaucratic country completely disappeared. The result was widespread lawlessness. Furthermore, many hard-line elements of the defeated regime were still present and undefeated in the absence of a longer war and more cataclysmic battles and they continued the fight with the beginning of the insurgency.
Within a couple of months, certain early decisions of the occupation authority — such as the disbanding of the Iraqi military and the extensive de-Baathification of the Iraqi government — compounded these problems. Foreign jihadists (holy warriors) also began infiltrating the country and joining the larger insurgency. Thus, there never was just one security threat in Iraq and that continues to be true today. Although foreign fighters, led by Mr. Zarqawi, continue to be a problem, the real threat to the future of the country currently comes from growing religious and ethnic conflict that has surpassed the insurgency.
The violence today in Iraq is not directed as much at Americans as it is at Iraqi civilians. The February 22nd bombing of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra and the destruction of its golden dome is a perfect example. The Shrine is a pilgrimage site for Shiite Muslims and is the tomb of two of Shiite Islam’s most important Imams. The attack against it was therefore a blatant act of intimidation and incitement towards all Shiite Muslims and has accelerated and brought greater publicity to an increasingly deadly internal fight.
Sectarian violence in Iraq is predominantly between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Within Islam, believers in the Prophet Muhammad are divided between those (Shiites) who recognized his son-in-law as his rightful heir and those (Sunnis) who do not. In Iraq, this religious antagonism is exceptionally intense because the schism between Sunni and Shiite Islam occurred there. It was in Karbala that the son of Muhammad’s son-in-law was killed by Sunnis. Shiites also believe in a “12th Iman” that Sunnis do not recognize and it is his Shrine that was destroyed in Samarra. Thus even in the best of times, relations between these two branches of Islam have not been great.
Complicating this further is the existence of Salafists who are extremist Sunnis who seek to recreate a pure version of Islam and view all Shiites as heretics. Al-Qaeda and many of the foreign fighters in Iraq are Salafists and have been making war not only against the Americans but also the Shiites. Beyond all of this, there is of course also infighting within sectarian and ethnic groups that flares up from time to time.
The current atmosphere of political instability and general insecurity has allowed these rivalries to intensify. The Sunni insurgency or the Sunni Al-Qaeda in Iraq attack Shiite masses with suicide bombers while Shiite gangs of armed men abduct Sunnis and kill them, primarily in Baghdad. The difference is that
while the US military and the Iraqi government are working hard to fight the insurgency, the Iraqi government has done little to combat Shiite death squads. Many regular Sunnis are now appealing to the US to help protect them, but it is unclear how much American forces can really do, especially within the chaos of Baghdad.
Over the last couple months, killings in Baghdad have occurred largely with impunity; men are abducted by gunpoint in broad daylight, often in very public places in front of large crowds. (These are not simply killings either, the victim’s bodies almost always show signs of the most horrible torture when they are found.) It is impossible to deny that the killings are sectarian in nature. The result of all of this is that the Shiite/Sunni divide is growing larger and the hand of extremists is being strengthened. While it is difficult to differentiate cause and effect, it is clear that lack of security in parts of the country has pushed people to rely on tribal and religious loyalties in place of the state. The differing religious and ethnic groups all have their own militias, which in turn help to fire up old rivalries.
There are approximately nine major militias in Iraq across all the ethnic and sectarian divisions. Together they have tens of thousands of armed men who largely have no training, uniforms or, for that matter, particularly good weapons. Of these, the two that have become most closely tied to the current spiral of sectarian killings and the government and the Interior Ministry in particular are the Shiite Mahdi Army and the Shiite Badr Brigades (both of which are also closely tied to Iran).
As the Sunni insurgency has actually declined over the last year, it now appears that Shiite Muslim militias, which in fact killed more people in recent months, pose the greatest threat to security in many parts of Iraq. For example, in the south of the country that had largely been free of violence over the last three years, rival Shiite militias have recently taken to fighting openly in Basra’s streets, doubling the city’s homicide rate.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that the Shiite government that won the Iraqi election in January 2005 and again in December 2005 has been unwilling to reign in these militias that are closely linked to them. The situation has degenerated to the point where the Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces across the country, has been captured by hard-line Shiite elements of the government that do not believe in representing the interests of all Iraqis going forward but have instead decided to settle old scores and seek to consolidate Shiite power.
The State Department has recently acknowledged that Iraqi police units have been linked to the arbitrary arrest, torture, rape and killing of innocent Iraqi civilians and that many of the worst human rights abuses within the country are being carried out by the government’s own Interior Ministry. The Interior Ministry has characterized these incidents as isolated and has failed to take further action.
Ultimately the Shiite government’s tacit approval of the militias’ actions is horribly short-sighted as it is likely to lead to the breakup of the country and only bring more violence, robbing the Shiite masses of their unique opportunity to capitalize on their power for longer-term benefit.
This violence has been reshaping the country; there are signs of increasing internal migration, dividing the country along sectarian and ethnic lines. It is estimated by both the Iraqi government and Western organizations that over 35,000 Iraqis have migrated within Iraq since the bombing of the Askariya Shrine in late February. Partitioning the country is not in its citizen’s best interests but it might be inescapable as they have limited trust in the central government and are thus returning to sectarian allegiances.
Until the Iraqi state — and by that I mean the military and the police — can be trusted by the people, the population will continue to feel safer with their own militias. In all of this, the bright spot is the Iraqi Army. It’s size is expanding and as its training is being managed directly by the American military, its loyalties are to the state rather than to specific communities. The Iraqi Army is currently probably the most integrated institution in Iraq.
In the meantime, the real problem for the United States is figuring out a way to weaken and eventually disarm the militias. Militias, as we see throughout the world, are often the root of civil wars. The problem is that there are no obvious ways of going about this. Any solution will need to employ both carrots and sticks. These militias are part of the current fabric of Iraqi life and cannot just be disarmed; they must be integrated into the political system somehow and neutralized. (The Iraqi Constitution in fact calls for them to be integrated into the security forces.) This will only happen if their leaders are convinced it is in their interests, which will take leadership from the top.
The US has already taken the first step in successfully pushing for the replacement of Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the Shiite Parties’ choice for prime minister, which has resulted in the appointment of Jawad al-Maliki. It is a sign of how seriously the US is worried about the threat of sectarian violence and al-Jaafari’s unwillingness to take on the radical elements of his own Shiite base that the US government so vocally lobbied against him, a blatant interference in Iraqi politics that Washington is normally loath to do.
Al-Maliki is one of the leading Shiite’s in Iraqi politics who has the respect of all sides as a tough leader. His first task will be to form a national unity government that represents all of Iraq’s major political parties. This will be difficult to do as the prime minister will need to convince his fellow Shiites to share power. It is also imperative that he impose discipline and order on the diverse Shiite political factions, which have at times fought as much between themselves as with the Sunnis. However, the real test of Mr. al-Maliki will be whether he is able and willing to reign in the various militias while making the Interior Ministry and police forces neutral.
While the US can and has been pushing the Iraqi politicians hard, it is ultimately only the Iraqis that can stop the current spate of sectarian violence from tearing the country apart.