Going It Alone

On 31 August 2010, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched to liberate Iraq from the tyranny of President Saddam Hussein, came to an end. The financial cost of the seven-and-a-half year campaign, estimated at one trillion dollars, seems small change in comparison to the price in human lives. The Allied death toll stands at over 4,700, but the total number of Iraqi dead was far greater, external pageconservatively estimatedcall_made at over 100,000.

Their sacrifice has proffered only limited returns. Saddam Hussein may have been dispatched, freeing Iraqis of 24 years of despotic rule, but the parliamentary elections of March 2010 have so far failed to produce a worthy political successor. After six months of political wrangling, a dangerous political vacuum persists. Iraqis’ embrace of democracy – someexternal pagecall_madeexternal page62.4 percentcall_made of the electorate turned out to vote – risks being undermined by grubby political sqabbling. external pagecall_made

To be sure, the potential the Iraqis now have to build prosperous and secure livelihoods is far greater than any time in the past three decades; similarly Iraq is today a more open and globally integrated country than it has been since Saddam arrived on the scene. Iraqis have open access to global information and news and the means to communicate widely; they can import and export goods with relative ease and can travel reasonably freely. Having been denied such basic rights for so long, these are major developments for ordinary Iraqis.

But they still lack security. The political vacuum has already prompted a resurgence in violence; sectarian militias are showing signs of re-emerging, while al-Qaida, previously weakened, has reared its head once more. Although violence remains well below the levels attained at its height in 2007, when the death rate reached up to 3,000 a month some 500 people external pagewere still killedcall_made in violent incidents in July. In late August, a series of bomb attacks claimed more than 50 lives. As a consequence, Iraqis’ movements are still restricted by curfews, roadblocks and checkpoints.

The Iraqi security forces must now take lead responsibility for the country’s security. On 31 August, according to an agreement negotiated with the Iraqi government in 2008, the US drew down its troop numbers in Iraq to under 50,000, with the remaining servicemen relinquishing their combat roles and acting as advisors and trainers. Under the deal, this residual force will be finally withdrawn by the end of 2011.

When the deal was struck, most Iraqis couldn’t wait to see the back of the Americans, and the August 2010 schedule seemed too far away. In their eyes, the US was no longer a liberator but an occupier, and the longer their presence persisted, the more Iraqis believed that America was simply after their oil.

But attitudes have changed, particularly during the last six months of political drift. Many Iraqis are now less convinced that their security forces are capable of maintaining peace and believe that the US is still needed as a buffer between the various sectarian militias. Articulating the increasing malaise, a senior Iraqi army officer, Lt General Babakir Zebari external pagestatedcall_made recently that the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready, which he claims won’t be until 2020. US officials argue that the Iraqi security forces have improved considerably in recent years and that they have already proved themselves able to take on the task, since US troops have been effectively confined to barracks for the past year.

However, the longer the political impasse persists the more the Iraqi forces will be tested. In the absence of nationwide governance, the various sects and socio-political groupings will attempt to take more control over their own fiefdoms and likely react strongly to other groups encroaching on their turf. Iraq is still riven by sectarian rivalries. Deep hostility toward the ascendant Shia pervades Sunni communities, who grumble that life was better under Saddam, while the Shia are paranoid that Sunni Baathists are plotting to take over the country once again. Both groups dislike and distrust the northern Kurds, whom they accuse of trying to secede and pull the country apart. Mutual trust is virtually non-existent, and hopes for reconciliation remain remote.

Should these rivalries be allowed to fester in the political hiatus, the likelihood of outside interference will also rise. Deeply held suspicions by Iraq’s Sunnis that Iran is supporting the country’s Shia and seeking to marginalize the Sunni community are equally held across the conservative Sunni Gulf states. Indeed, Iraqi Shia are often referred to by their Sunni compatriots as 'Persians', playing on Saudi fears of Iranian regional expansion. Meanwhile, Iraq’s Shia accuse Saudi Arabia of funding insurgents and view them as religious fanatics who persecute the Shia minority in their own country. Turkey and Syria are both treated with caution as they are seen as meddlesome and a cause of instability — Turkey in the Kurdish regions and Syria over its links with Sunni Islamists.

But these geopolitical machinations may become irrelevant if a military leader loses patience with civilian political bickering and orchestrates a coup, as some fear. Iraq has history in this respect; on more than one occasion in the past, army officers have ousted civilian leaders to take control. Reverting to a ‘strong-man’ dictatorship would prove calamitous for Iraq, rendering futile any gains made from Operation Iraqi Freedom and, of course, the resultant loss of life.

More immediately, however, the political drift is immobilizing the economy. No laws have been passed since March, holding up crucial oil and investment-related legislation. For business, the peace dividend has yet to materialize; the lack of political direction means that business regulation remains bewilderingly arcane and bureaucratic. In the World Bank’s latest external pageDoing Business reportcall_made, Iraq ranks 150th out of 183 countries; it comes 175th in ‘starting a business’ and 180th in ‘trading across borders’.

While business would clearly benefit from greater security, it would also profit from more regular power supplies. Towns throughout the country are lucky if they get more than four hours of electricity a day, a factor which incapacitates even the smallest businesses, while deterring the development of vital larger-scale manufacturing.

Even though the stalled political process is evidently detrimental to the security and prosperity of the country, there is no clear indication that a resolution is in the offing. The result of the election in March gave external page91 seatscall_made to the Iraqi National Movement (INM, or al Iraqiya), a secular, non-sectarian coalition, consisting of the Iraqi National List, the Renewal List and the Iraqi National Dialogue Front. The leader of the Iraqi National List, as well as the wider al Iraqiya coalition, is Iyad Allawi, a Shia nationalist. His deputies and leaders of the other two constituent groups are both Sunnis, and his alliance claims wide cross-sectarian support.

The incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is a Shia Islamist and heads up the State of Law coalition (SoL), which garnered external page89 seatscall_made. The SoL is dominated by Maliki’s Islamic Da’awa Party, which was historically a militant Shia group. The SoL has much broader representation than al Iraqiya, but mainly from minority ethnic or religious organizations – including some splinter Sunni groups – undermining to a degree Maliki's attempt at rebranding himself as a secular nationalist.

The National Iraqi Alliance (NIA), which won external page70 seatscall_made has strong Shia Islamist credentials and is made up chiefly of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), the Badr Organization and the Sadrist Trend. The main Kurdish group, the Kurdish Alliance, gained external page43 seatscall_made.

A new government needs at least 163 seats in the 325-member national assembly, therefore requiring the leading coalitions to create larger alliances with other groups in order to gain a majority. It is this process that had caused the deadlock. Even though the Shia constitute the demographic majority in Iraq, they appear unable to broker a deal amongst themselves to bring the SoL and the NIA together. Maliki himself is the problem; he insists on remaining as leader of any coalition (and therefore prime minister), yet this is a deal-breaker for many Shia, especially the Sadrists, who view him as a divisive and controlling figure.

On the other hand, al Iraqiya would be unable to form a strong or even viable government without some sort of deal with one or other of the Shia groups, even if it managed to co-opt the Kurds. Yet Allawi and Maliki are barely on speaking terms and many see it as inconceivable that the two could actually work together. Furthermore, the Shia majority revile Allawi for his historic links with Saddam's Ba’ath party, which makes the call for a grand coalition, bringing all the four main alliances together, a long shot.

Certainly the US is pushing for such an outcome, believing that an all-inclusive government is the only way forward. Long-term stability can only be really achieved by a leader who can appeal to all ethnic or sectarian groups; a leader tainted by close association with one or other of the various communities is unlikely to build popular consensus. This may mean finding a compromise candidate.

At the moment, however, this looks unlikely; anecdotal reports from behind-the-scenes horse-trading seems to indicate that a coalition between the Shia groups and the Kurds will likely emerge. What this will entail for Maliki’s position is as yet unclear. Furthermore, it will require considerable concessions to the Kurds, who have demanded a referendum on independence as the price of entering any coalition.

Were such an eventuality to transpire, the Shia-Kurdish alliance would have to offer a substantial role to Allawi and members of his coalition. Completely sidelining the main Sunni groups from the center of power would be catastrophic for Iraq, and the country would likely very swiftly revert to sectarian violence and even all-out civil war. Yet, having been politically marginalized by the Sunnis for so long, many Shia feel disinclined to include them, whatever the cost.

This brings Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani into the picture. The supreme Shia leader in Iraq, he is one figure who has retained widespread credibility in recent years. As a voice of moderation, he exercised considerable influence over the US government in the drafting of a constitution for Iraq and in an early timetable for elections. He urged the Shia not to retaliate to Sunni violence and has consistently advocated nationalist ideals. As such, he is arguably the most influential religious and political figure in the country. Indeed, such is his authority, that US President Barack Obama sent him a message in recent weeks, urging him to cajole the Iraqi leaders into forming a government as soon as possible.

The fact that the US must rely on a reclusive Shia cleric in Najaf to ensure that Operation Iraqi Freedom is ultimately successful is not without a hint of irony.