II. THE REBIRTH OF IRAQ
On September 11, 2001 the United States was the target of attacks when terrorist flew airplanes into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. In his January 2002 State of the Union address George Bush accused the "axis of evil", Iran, Iraq and North Korea, of instigating global terrorism. Two years later, on March 19, 2003, US troops invaded Iraq, routing the Iraqi army and occupying Baghdad in three weeks.
There have been many questions about why Bush and his advisors launched an operation that quickly turned into a bloody quagmire. Several motives have been suggested: showing the world that US power remained intact after the humiliating tragedy of September 11, 2001; erroneous American intelligence on the existence and production of weapons of mass destruction; and the prospect of a swift, relatively painless victory over Saddam Hussein's dictatorial, unpopular regime.
Those reasons would not have been enough if the invasion had not had a more ambitious, presumptuous goal hatched by American neo-conservatives: turning Iraq into the Arab world's first democracy and a role model for the whole region.
A. THE INVASION OF IRAQ: A TRAGIC MISTAKE
The utopian dream, for that is what it was, fell apart a few months after coming into contact with Iraqi realities. The relief after the dictator and his regime fell was short-lived. Iraqis quickly perceived the US army not as liberators but as occupiers. Resistance was organized. On August 19, six months after the American invasion, a truck bomb destroyed the UN's offices in Baghdad, killing one of the organization's most highly respected civil servants, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Paul Bremer, the first US administrator appointed by the Pentagon, made some disastrous blunders. He dismissed all the Iraqi army's officers and non-commissioned officers without pay and excluded Baath Party officials from exercising any form of responsibility, thrusting a pool of experienced, seasoned, determined men into the arms of an insurrection that the United States took nearly five years to quell. Several factors account for why the uprising spread so quickly and became so violent.
The rebellion was basically anti-American during the occupation's earliest months but quickly took on an interconfessional character, pitting the Sunni minority (20% of the population) against the Shiite majority (60%).
After the First World War Great Britain created Iraq by relying on the Sunni elite. It respected the Bedouin hierarchy, where farmers' communities are subject to the law and protection of the lords of the desert, the great Sunni camel-drivers.
When democratic institutions were set up power was in the hands of those who had been excluded from it, the Shiites, who comprise 60% of the population. The Sunnis, who are mainly concentrated in the center of Iraq, whereas most of the oilfields are in the southern Shiite region or the north's Kurdish area, considered they had nothing to lose and tacitly backed the Sunni insurgents. They saw themselves as politically and economically marginalized overnight.
In late 2001 the US army drove bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. Later, bin Laden and Al Qaeda believed that the situation in Iraq offered a good opportunity to take a bloody revenge. Under the leadership of Jordanian maverick Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" (AQM) committed many suicide attacks against US forces, Shiite shrines and the civilian population, targeting markets, mosques, religious festivals, weddings, funerals, etc. Al-Zarqawi's goal was to spark a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis.
Private confessional militias appeared. The biggest was the Mahdi Army, which was formed at the urging of a young imam, Muqtada al-Sadr, the son and grandson of famous ayatollahs killed by Saddam Hussein. It had up to 90,000 men and ruthlessly controlled a sprawling Baghdad quarter called Sadr City.
Baghdad became the scene of daily bloodshed. Car bombs, roadside explosive devices, suicide attacks, summary executions and kidnappings followed by beheadings turned Iraq into an hellish quagmire where the US army lost over 100 soldiers a month. Public opinion in the United States, which backed the invasion at first, gradually turned against the war. By 2006 many voices were calling for the troops to come home.
The Iraq invasion not only severely damaged the United States' image in the Middle East and the Third World; it also caused a serious trans-Atlantic crisis. France and Germany opposed the invasion. Paris argued that an intervention would be justified only if International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors found weapons of mass destruction and the UN Security Council approved the operation.
Neither condition had been met when Bush ordered the troops he had massed on Iraq's borders to invade the country.
Despite long, intense searches, no weapons of mass destruction or production sites were found. The invasion, whose only goal was to topple Saddam Hussein and change the regime, could only aggravate the Arab world's hostility and fuel anti-Western extremism.
That is exactly what France and Germany feared. A new danger joined the overall insecurity: the breaking up of the country into three ethnic-confessional communities pitted against each other --Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south. In Baghdad, "cleansing" gradually made mixed neighborhoods ethnically homogenous.
B. STABILIZATION: 2007-2009
By early 2007 the steadily deteriorating situation appeared to be heading towards an inter-confessional civil war but started changing course late in the year, when a security, political and national stabilization process began to emerge.
1. Stabilization of the security situation
Iraqi officials and the US commander-in-chief, General Raymond T. Odierno, whom the mission met in his office in Camp Victory in one of the lavish palaces Saddam Hussein built and where the American general staff had set up its headquarters, gave converging information. Fourteen of Iraq's 18 provinces were considered secure and the other four, in the north, including Mosul and its region and Diyala province on the border with Iran, were in the process of becoming so. The death toll in Baghdad plummeted from 100 to 10 a day.
Two main reasons account for the spectacular, unexpected improvement.
First, the United States sent 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in the surge ordered by George Bush. They occupied and remained in areas out of which the insurgents had been driven, preventing them from coming back as they usually did. The surge also enabled them to take back and pacify Baghdad. US forces defeated the Mahdi Army and Muqtada al-Sadr had to leave the capital city.
The second, and probably most important, factor is the "Sunni awakening", when the Americans rallied the main Sunni tribes to their side. Disgusted by Al-Zarqawi's blind attacks on the civilian population, they switched sides, forcing Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, to leave the areas where it had become established. The tribes that rallied to the United States were paid the sum of $300 a man per month. That means the Americans could rely on additional forces.
Part of the credit goes to the US commander in chief at the time, General Petraeus. It was his idea for the Sunni tribes to set up "awakening councils", or Sahwas, which today have approximately 100,000 men armed and paid by the United States.
2. Political stabilization
Iraq had never had democratic elections, but the January 2009 provincial elections were the fifth since 2003. Despite insecurity, all of them took place in uncontested conditions. Average voter turnout was always around 50%.
The parliament (the People's Assembly) is a lively, sometimes passionate arena. Some of the clashes that bloodied Baghdad's streets now take place in parliament, where the post-electoral alliances necessary to form a government majority are forged. The Shiite community, which had created a united front, quickly split up into three factions: the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI), a religious alliance close to Iran led by the head of a great Shiite family, Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim; the Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which won the January 2009 elections; and the Sadrists, led by Muqtada al-Sadr. The Shiite's divisions have required and enabled the formation of majorities bringing together Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
3. National stabilization
Since mid-2008 a resurgence of national consciousness has reduced, although not completely supplanted, ethnic-confessional loyalties. Prime Minister Maliki, who has gradually acquired a national aura, is largely responsible for that positive development. His January 2009 campaign themes were based on the rule of law and Iraqi identity; his success attests to the positive echo they found in public opinion.
Maliki was born in a small Kerbala province town in 1950. His grandfather was education minister under the monarchy in 1925. He studied Arabic and Shiite theology. Saddam Hussein's regime arrested and hanged several members of his family and tribe. In 1979 Maliki fled to Iran, where he lived for five years before residing in Damascus until Saddam Hussein's fall. Maliki joined the Shiite majority, Dawa. He comes from a tribal culture, is a poor public speaker and does not seem to have much charisma but presents himself with increasing success as the prime minister of all Iraqis, not hesitating to attack the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and Basra, showing that he can transcend his confessional allegiance in the interests of national unity--which does not prevent him from remaining dependent on his often burdensome Shiite political allies and falling under Sunni suspicion of being a Shiite leader in disguise. The authority, courage and self-confidence he demonstrated during the long, hard negotiations over the US forces' withdrawal also helped make him the national leader, the defender of Iraq's sovereignty and independence its people had been waiting for. At first Maliki was chosen because of his self-effacing demeanor and the weak support his Dawa Party, a minority in the Shiite community, could give him. After taking office he became such a strong leader that some people now accuse him of authoritarianism.
C. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL
Despite progress since summer 2007, it would be wrong to take Iraq's stability for granted. A major test awaits the country: the withdrawal of US troops, whose presence alongside Iraqi forces in quelling the insurrection explains most of the successes.
On November 27, 2008 the Iraqi parliament adopted the agreement between the United States and Iraq on the pullout of American forces, which will take place in three stages.
Stage one is already over: the US Army pulled out of Iraq's cities in June 2009, meeting the accord's deadline. Mosul is the only place the United States, because of the extreme tension in the city and its province, still has forces, with Baghdad's consent.
Stage two: most US troops will have left Iraq by August 2010, when only 35,000 to 50,000 support troops will remain.
Stage three: with the exception of units assigned to training and logistics tasks, the US Army will have completely pulled out by the end of 2011. The United States will not keep a permanent base in Iraq.
General Odierno told us that the United States would strictly respect the timetable, although the two countries can agree on changing it at any time. The ambassador of Great Britain, who met with the mission, said such an eventuality is probable.
Can Iraq's army and national police force prevent a resurgence of violence? Each has 300,000 men, which should suffice as long as ethnic and confessional loyalties do not take precedence over the duty to obey the government. When asked about that point, General Odierno said that 75% of the army and national police were loyal to the central government and 20% were in the process of becoming so. Nothing can be expected from the remaining 5%.
In the past few months a resurgence of violence has followed the US pullback from cities. Truck bombs have exploded in crowded markets, killing many people. Suicide attacks, kidnappings and summary executions are still a fact of everyday life. However, the violence must be put into perspective. Most of the terrorism is limited to Baghdad and the four unsecured provinces in the north and northeast and the number of attacks and causalities is steadily decreasing. The death toll has dropped from 26,000 in 2006 to 23,000 in 2007, 7,000 in 2008 and 3,000 in the first half of 2009. The figures nevertheless underscore the fragility of the progress made.
The "awakening councils" and "support councils" led by the Sunni tribes that went over to the United States now depend on a Shiite-led government. Maliki has pledged to maintain the Americans' financial aid and to integrate the Sahwas into Iraq's security forces, but has not followed through on those promises yet. Several incidents demonstrate that the government must show a great deal of skill and understanding if it wants to preserve a relationship essential to pacifying the country.
Let there be no illusions. Iraq is convalescing but not yet well. Setbacks are possible. Nobody is more aware of that than General Petraeus, who told the United States Congress that it would take a long time for the country to wipe out all the remaining extremist elements. It is clear, for example, that although Al Qaeda has suffered decisive setbacks its active or sleeper cells have committed several recent violent acts, in particular suicide attacks. Some information indicates that hostile elements have infiltrated the security forces.
Other threats are taking shape on the horizon: political instability is one. The January 2010 elections will probably continue the prime minister's winning streak that started in January 2009 but it is almost certain that no party will obtain an absolute majority allowing it to govern alone. A coalition will have to be formed and it is not certain that the talks between political parties will have a favorable outcome for Maliki and allow him to remain prime minister. He is popular abroad and in public opinion but not with political parties, which criticize him for being authoritarian. The Kurdistan government accuses him of turning a deaf ear to its territorial claims, especially with regard to Kirkuk, and of failing to apply article 140 of the Constitution, which calls for a referendum that the Kurds think they will win.
The mission heard the slogan "anybody but Maliki" on several occasions. If his opponents win the January 2010 elections, the political stability Iraq needs so much to overcome the many challenges it faces could be jeopardized.
The main challenge involves rebuilding the major infrastructure--roads, water, power and health--necessary for the indispensable improvement of living conditions. Iraqis have nothing. In the best of cases they might have access to a few hours of electricity and safe drinking water a day. The estimated cost of upgrading networks to the point where they can function properly is put at a minimum of $60 billion. Infrastructure deterioration actually dates back to the sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq after the Gulf War. The air raids that accompanied the invasion and the ensuing insecurity made matters worse. American officials signed many reconstruction contracts with Iraqi and foreign companies but no positive effects can be seen on the ground.
The staggering amounts of money swallowed up in a bottomless pit of corruption largely explains why progress has been so slow. The NGO Transparency International ranks Iraq 178 th out of 180 countries, tied with Burma and Somalia. Officials have become aware of how serious the problem is. In March 2008 Iraq ratified the United Nations convention against corruption and set up a National Council on the Fight Against Corruption. The trade minister has just been forced to resign for misappropriation of funds. The amount of fraud connected to his ministry alone reportedly stands at $5.3 billion. The plane in which he attempted to flee to Dubai was forced to turn back and the minister was arrested. The episode was spectacular but remains an isolated case. Until now fraud suspects have either met with impunity or successfully fled the country. Corruption is one of the major challenges the government emerging from the next elections will have to tackle.
Fortunately, Iraq is potentially rich because of its vast oil resources. Current output is 2.3 million barrels a day but likely to reach 2.5 million by late 2009. The government has set the goal of six million barrels a day in the coming years. Production might even surpass that level if existing facilities are upgraded and new ones built and put into service. Approximately $50 billion to $60 billion in investments are necessary, which requires the involvement of major international companies. A first contract has just been signed with a consortium formed around British Petroleum. Total, which is closely following the situation, has announced it is ready to become a special partner of Iraq's. Experts say that when Iraq's reserves are completely explored, which is far from being the case, it will rank as the world's second-leading oil producer after Saudi Arabia. Obviously Iraq has aroused great interest among the big companies.
Oil, which accounts for over 90% of Iraq's trade and budget revenues, does not only pose technical and financial problems but also has a major political dimension because of its uneven distribution. Northern Iraq around Kirkuk and Mosul, an area claimed by Kurdistan, accounts for 13% of output. The reserves and the rest of production are located in the southern Shiite province of Basra. Central Iraq, where Sunni tribes are concentrated, has no oil, which is why the Sunnis demand that it be considered a national resource whose exploitation and distribution is subject to the central government's authority rather than the provinces. The oil bill intended to settle the matter has made no headway in parliament and will not be taken up again until after the January 2010 elections. The law is an essential element of the national pact; the country's unity will not be preserved without it.
D. WILL IRAQ REMAIN UNITED?
Rebuilding infrastructure, fighting corruption and distributing oil revenues are difficult challenges but Iraq's biggest problem will involve integrating Kurdistan into the nation as a whole. The country's two and a half million Kurds have enjoyed de facto autonomy under the West's protection since the end of the Gulf War. They have a lightly-armed but loyal and disciplined 90,000-man military force, the Peshmergas. Iraq's constitution has made plenty of room for Kurdistan in the country's institutions: the president, Talabani, is Kurdish. Kurdistan's three provinces can freely set the dates of their provincial elections. Kurdistan has an international airport, draws substantial foreign investments and is free of insecurity. There would be no reason to dwell on the Kurds' situation were it not for one issue: they make large territorial claims that the Baghdad government and the rest of Iraq's Arabs reject.
Their demands involve the regions adjacent to Kurdistan, in particular the city of Kirkuk and its province. The president of Kurdistan's government, Massoud Barzani, who met with the mission a long time, repeatedly stated that Kirkuk is the historic capital of the Kurdish people, who are entitled to it no matter what. Kirkuk is more or less to the Kurds what Jerusalem is to the Israelis and Palestinians.
The Kurds will pose an intractable problem as long as they voice their demands in such radical terms. The rest of the population considers the disputed areas, starting with Kirkuk, as Arab. Maliki's government looks as though it is in no hurry to apply article 140 of the constitution calling for a referendum to settle the issue of Kirkuk, which, the Kurdish government says, should not happen until after the Arab inhabitants that Saddam Hussein settled in the city to Arabize it have gone back to the provinces from which they came.
President Barzani loathes Prime Minister Maliki, who obviously has no intention of budging before the next legislative elections. Meanwhile, Turkey is keeping a close eye on the situation. Iraq's northern neighbor has made it clear that it would not accept Kurdistan's independence under any circumstances and that Ankara would enforce full respect for the rights of the Turkmen, who are numerous in Kirkuk.
It is reasonable to think that the international community will pressure Kurdistan's authorities into toning down their demands and agree to a compromise on Kirkuk whose main lines were proposed to Baghdad by the United Nations secretary-general's special representative for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura in April 2009 on behalf of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).
Iraq is important not only for its oil reserves but also because it straddles the boundary between the Arab world and Iran. Relations between Baghdad and Teheran have always been strained and contentious, the low point being the eight-year war Saddam Hussein unleashed in 1981. By eliminating him the United States did a tremendous favor for Iran, whose regional strategy focuses on Iraq for several reasons.
The first has a religious character. The greatest Shiite holy sites are not in Iran but in Iraq, where nine of the 11 Shiite imams are buried.
The second is political: in the nuclear standoff between Teheran and Washington, Iran has a strong hand in Iraq. The Islamic Republic clearly intends to preserve its influence there, especially since it has suffered some stinging setbacks, including the signature of the agreement to withdraw US forces, which Teheran tried to prevent; the division of the Shiite coalition, which it relied on for influence; the electoral defeat of the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI) led by Abdelaziz al Hakim, a stand-in for Iran; and the decline in the influence of the Sadrists, Iran's allies, in Baghdad.
Iraqi officials made it abundantly clear to the Senate mission that although they want close, friendly ties with their powerful neighbor and fellow Shiites, they have no intention of letting Teheran dictate to Baghdad.
As the United States and Iraq have normalized their relations, Iraq has returned to the Arab fold. In the past 18 months many of the region's countries have opened embassies in Baghdad and several heads of State and ministers have made official visits. Syria's prime minister traveled to Baghdad with approximately 10 ministers and senior civil servants. Damascus wants to lay the groundwork for close economic cooperation with Iraq, hoping that the rehabilitation of the Kirkuk-Banias pipeline will enable it to become Iraqi oil's natural outlet to the Mediterranean. When the Arab League president visited Baghdad, Maliki proposed that Iraq host and chair the next Arab summit.
Since summer 2008 the Iraqi government has done its utmost to forge closer ties with the Arabs. It has succeeded, with one important exception: Saudi Arabia's King Abdallah, who is waiting to see if Maliki really puts his country's interests above his Shiite loyalties before normalizing relations with Iraq.
The outlook for Iraq has become miraculously brighter in most areas in the past two and a half years, but the country is still on shaky ground and it remains to be seen if its three main groups--Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds--will be able to move forward together instead of falling into the trap of communitarianism.