For some reason I've started receiving Newsweek in the mail. No wonder the industry is facing tough times if this is how they handle their subscription base, because I'm sure I'm not paying for it. Nonetheless, I was shocked at the cover this week which proclaims Victory at Last: the Emergence of a Democratic Iraq with a photo of Bush and his infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background.
I just returned from my sixth trip to Iraq where I expected to film a preview of Sunday's elections for an episode of my show Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English, but instead I found a civil war in the making. If democracy means getting to vote then, yes, that is happening in Iraq.
But the results of this process may be far from what the US wants or what's best for the people of Iraq even.
I spent most of my time this trip in the Kirkuk region. Every time I asked a Turkman, Sunni Arab or Kurd who he or she was planning to vote for, the answer--100% of the time--was the party that represented his or her ethnic or religious affiliation. And every time a tone forgiving my naivety for even asking such a question accompanied the answer.
In Iraq minorities seemingly have no protection, so a vote for any party other than his or her ethnic or sectarian group is seen as a vote for his or her respective future oppressor.
As the election in 2005 proved, these kinds of votes only serve to deepen ethnic and sectarian divides. Mosul is a perfect example. The majority Sunnis boycotted their first election in protest of the US occupation, essentially falling prey to pride over prudence, and giving the polls--along with Iraq's second largest city--to the Kurdish minority. For the next four years Sunnis claim they fell victim to vengeful policies. Unwilling to be outvoted again, Sunnis ran and won on a strong anti-Kurd platform in last year's provincial elections. In response the Kurds have refused to participate in a coalition government. No wonder Mosul continues to compete with Baghdad as the most violent city in Iraq.
Maxim in Iraq: One group rules, the others suffer.
In Kirkuk, Saddam forced the Kurds out and replaced them with Sunni Arabs in an attempt to cinch the oil-rich territory to Baghdad. As US forces rushed to Baghdad in 2003, Kurds flooded back into Kirkuk. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been paying--and even in some cases coercing--Kurds to move back to the city ever since. Not too different than with the settlements in Israel, the Kurds intend to regain Kirkuk (and it's oil) by demographic takeover.
All this sounds more like a path to civil war than to civil democracy. One Sunni father -- whose son remains missing after allegedly being kidnapped by Kurdish intelligence forces -- predicted what would happen when the US military withdraws from Kirkuk, "Within one hour there will be a fight and the Kurds will be expelled."
The US desperately wants next week's elections to be accepted as legitimate, so it can move forward with it's plans to leave Iraq. A repeat of the laughable Afghan elections earlier this year won't do. But with the shenanigans in Baghdad and the foregone acceptance by the Iraqis I met of voter fraud, it's easy to see why even CentCom commander Gen. David Petraeus jokes about the process calling it "Iraqracy" rather than democracy.
And in a flashback to 2003, as the Newsweek cover story indicates, it seems that some US media are willing accomplices to the US government for the story it needs. Indeed, it does feel like Mission Accomplished, all over again.
I just love your work. It's informative, real, thought provoking and YOU make sense if sometimes the events don't. Well done!
Kay
What they should really be striving for, what we should be working to help them create is a republic, one with democratic processes. It works here in the U.S.... more or less.
What they need is a document, sort of like the constitution, only tailored to their specific needs. But they need this document to protect the minority groups among them as well as to protect their rights, liberties and whatnot.
I am a political science major, but my speciality is in Europe, mainly Russia, so I'm not entirely sure as to the policies and processes currently in motion in Iraq and the Middle east.
So I wasn't entirely sure if Iraq had it's own independent constitution. You've answered a lot of my own questions while answering the actual question I posed to you, so thank you.
"In Kirkuk, Saddam forced the Kurds out and replaced them with Sunni Arabs...Not too different than with the settlements in Israel, the Kurds intend to regain Kirkuk (and it's oil) by demographic takeover.."
Although the reference to a demographic takeover is definitely correct, the two points (Saddam forcing out the Kurds combined with the Kurds returning) in the same paragraph gives me the impression that illegal settlers in the West Bank originated from this region who were forced out (like the Kurds were in Iraq) and are now encouraged "to return". Although this is certainly the case in Kirkuk with the Kurds, the more hardcore militant Zionist settlers are Ashkenazi Jews who are European converts to Judaism and thus they have no 'ethnic connection' to the semitic (Arabs or Sephardic Jews) peoples. Thus, the Kurds may stake a claim to Kirkuk due to their historical connection, the settlers cannot.
Or, am I just reading into this too much?
Democracy in this day and age is a total farce, irrespective of what country you're in. As the late George Carlin (a superb political satirist) once said (in "Life is Worth Losing"), "Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice."
It will be interesting to compare the proportion of eligible voters who actually vote in the Iraqi elections against the numbers who vote in developed western democracies. Our collective amnesia about the conditions of pre-democratic europe perhaps clouds our judgement of democracy; I still cling to Churchills famous quote that democracy is the worst form of governance....except for all the rest.
As for the "fantasy" of democracy in the eye's of our leaders, I think we should cast our own eyes back to the British Mandate of Mesopotamia in 1920 where, in a less politically correct and media saturated time, the issue of democracy and self determination wasn't even brought up. The main points of concern of the treaties such as the Long-Berenger Agreement with France was oil and power. The Ottoman empire was not divided in order to deliver democracy but to statisfy the balances of power between the european powers of the time.I would also suggest that a visit to the British graves from 1923 would attest to the locals being less than "non-hostile" to their oppression. I think we can draw a few points of reference from the past and apply them to the present.
Thank you for a well written article!