Although the trial of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad is gripping theatre, attention should not shift from matters of fundamental importance. Basic questions remain about the longer-term prospects for post-Hussein Iraq, and these ought not to remain out of focus.
Insofar as the United States could transfer power in and over Iraq it did so on June 28 — but rather furtively. Technically, Iraq is now an ”independent” country. Its membership of the United Nations had never lapsed and would anyhow continue.
But what is happening in Iraq is a fierce armed struggle, another war in fact, between the US-nominated authority and an ambiguously constituted resistance. A pattern in the latter’s activity is now visible.
On the one hand, it is attacking the symbols of the new government’s authority — police stations, public works and oil industry installations. Included in this is the design to cripple Iraq’s economy so that the US-appointed authority can be perceived to have failed. Hence the persistent attacks on oil export facilities.
On the other hand, the new Iraqi government, anointed by Paul Bremer, the US proconsul, is to come down hard on the resistance. Emergency or martial law is likely to be employed with the help of coalition forces.
Its priority action is to try Hussein, in a relatively open trial. It hopes to gain credibility and acceptance by detailing the ghastly oppression he perpetrated on other Iraqis to strengthen his own personal regime. But trying Hussein may be a double-edged sword.
Hussein was not a tinpot dictator, like those found in many states. He was a political figure, even if he was ruthless and intolerant.
He belonged to the Ba’athist Party that has dominated the Arab mind since the early 1970s, with its two factions ruling Iraq and Syria. The Syrian one is still in power, if also somewhat weaker and more apologetic about its own earlier excesses.
But make no mistake: in the entire Arab world, the idea of Arab nationalism, strongly propagated by Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser, from 1950s onward, still dominates. Ba’athists were, in self-perception, an improvement on Nasser’s rather weak notion of Arab nationalism.
The US accusations about the Iraqi resistance, including some Ba’athist remnants, were not off the mark.
Although the emphasis from now onward is likely to be Hussein’s brutalities and killings, some positive aspects of his rule should not to be ignored. All said and done, Iraq was a secular country, though by no means democratic.
Much has been made of the fact that the Shi’ite majority was oppressed and kept down. But who can forget that in the eight-year war against Iran most of the Iranian army comprised Shi’ites and they fought the Iraqis to the last man? Not many of the Shi’ite soldiers defected to a Shi’ite Iran amidst the exigencies of war. It cannot but be that a Ba’athist legacy survives, even if weakened.
Even a quick look at the dramatis personae reveals much. The nominal Iraqi authority, to which Bremer transferred some of his functions, has no inner unity or a coherent set of ideas and ideals.
Its officials may be said to favour democracy and capitalism — the ruling ideology of the US. But other than that, they are distinguished only for the fact that they were picked by US intelligence as acceptable guys.
But behind them stand a coalition force of 200 000, led by the US army. This is, in terms of firepower, an invincible force.
Meanwhile, the most talked about component of the resistance is the various militant Islam or al-Qaeda-linked fundamentalist groups and forces — an import from outside Iraq.
There is sure to be a floating membership of ordinary Iraqis who are mad at foreigners coming and occupying their country.
The pervasive Arab nationalism provides the overall ideological umbrella for the resistance in which the fiercest would come from the Ba’athists, though perhaps not as fierce as that of al-Qaeda-linked Islamic militants.
The resistance does not have either firepower or staying power. Fundamentally, it is an unequal battle, because no one can conceive that it can drive out the coalition forces.
But the strength of ideas is on the side of the resistance: it stands for the ousting of foreign influence and the resurgence of Arabs. It is a powerful notion, even if it does not have tanks, helicopters and big guns.
The doomsayers about Iraq relied on Iraqi Shi’ites being swept by the ideas emanating from theocratic Iran. They would rise up and wish to form a Shi’ite state in southern Iraq that would notionally link up with Iran and would seek the support of other Shi’ites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s eastern regions.
This is as far as the script went, after which there would be chaos and conflict in Iraq, and perhaps in the countries around it.
The Iraqis appear unwilling to let the doomsayers be proved right. But this is early in the process, and it is too early to say whether the prognostication will prove right in the end.
A fact about which there is no doubt is the fierce conflict raging between the resistance and the coalition-propped Iraqi government. The subject does not admit for a clear-cut, much less a sweeping, judgement. Why? Because of the multiplicity of foreign interests that relentlessly impinge on Iraq.
The US and Britain are the strongest influences, wanting to shape the future of Iraq. Somewhere behind them lurk the Israelis, operating through their undercover agencies or through US officials. However, sight should not be lost of Israel’s main interest: it does not want a strong, united and progressive Iraq, whether secular or Islamic.
Then there are regional powers that have vital interests. Iran and Turkey stand out, while Syria, Egypt and even the Palestinians are not uninterested. Each has some influence in Iraq, and each wants the future Iraq to be according to its own wishes.
All in all, the evolving situation is a witches’ brew. — Inter-Press Service