[Reader-list] An Iraqi perspective

[Rana Dasgupta]

from Guardian.  the assumed passivity of Iraqis is
obviously an important part of this equation.

R

Iraqis will not be pawns in Bush and Blair's war game 
An American attack on my country would bring disaster,
not liberation 

Kamil Mahdi
Thursday February 20, 2003
The Guardian 

Having failed to convince the British people that war
is justified, Tony Blair is now invoking the suffering
of the Iraqi people to justify bombing them. He tells
us there will be innocent civilian casualties, but
that more will die if he and Bush do not go to war.
Which dossier is he reading from? 

The present Iraqi regime's repressive practices have
long been known, and its worst excesses took place 12
years ago, under the gaze of General Colin Powell's
troops; 15 years ago, when Saddam was an
Anglo-American ally; and almost 30 years ago, when
Henry Kissinger cynically used Kurdish nationalism to
further US power in the region at the expense of both
Kurdish and Iraqi democratic aspirations. 

Killing and torture in Iraq is not random, but has
long been directly linked to politics - and
international politics at that. Some of the gravest
political repression was in 1978-80, at the time of
the Iranian revolution and Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan. But the Iraqi people's greatest suffering
has been during periods of war and under the sanctions
of the 1990s. There are political issues that require
political solutions and a war under any pretext is not
what Iraqis need or want. 

In government comment about Iraq, the Iraqi people are
treated as a collection of hapless victims without
hope or dignity. At best, Iraqis are said to have
parochial allegiances that render them incapable of
political action without tutelage. This is utterly at
variance with the history and reality of Iraq. Iraqis
are proud of their diversity, the intricacies of their
society and its deeply rooted urban culture. 

Their turbulent recent history is not something that
simply happened to Iraqis, but one in which they have
been actors. Iraqis have a rich modern political
tradition borne out of their struggle for independence
from Britain and for political and social
emancipation. A major explanation for the violence of
recent Iraqi political history lies in the
determination of people to challenge tyranny and bring
about political change. Iraqis have not gone like
lambs to the slaughter, but have fought political
battles in which they suffered grievously. To assert
that an American invasion is the only way to bring
about political change in Iraq might suit Blair's
propaganda fightback, but it is ignorant and
disingenuous. 

It is now the vogue to talk down Iraqi politics under
Saddam Hussain as nothing but the whim of a dictator.
The fact is that leaders cannot kill politics in the
minds of people, nor can they crush their aspirations.
The massacres of leftists when the Ba'athists first
came to power in 1963 did not prevent the emergence of
a new mass movement in the mid-1960s. The second
Ba'ath regime attempted to buy time from the Kurdish
movement in 1970 only to trigger a united mobilisation
of Kurdish nationalism. Saddam co-opted the Communist
party in the early 1970s only to see that party's
organisation grow under a very narrow margin of
legality before he moved against it. In the 1970s, the
regime tried to control private economic activity by
extending the state to every corner of the economy,
only to face an explosion of small business activity. 

The regime's strict secularism produced a clerical
opposition with a mass following. When the regime
pressurised Iraqis to join the Ba'ath party,
independent opinion emerged within that party and
Saddam found it necessary to crush it and destroy the
party in the process. In the 1980s, the army was
beginning to emerge as a threat, and the 1991 uprising
showed the extent of discontent. In the 1990s, Saddam
fostered the religious leadership of Ayatollah
Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, only to see the latter emerge
as a focal point for opposition. Even within Saddam's
family and close circle, there has been opposition. 

Of course Saddam Hussain crushed all these challenges,
but in every case the regional and international
environment has supported the dictator against the
people of Iraq. It is cynical and deceitful of Tony
Blair to pretend that he understands Iraqi politics
and has a meaningful programme for the country. Iraq's
history is one of popular struggle and also of
imperial greed, superpower rivalries and regional
conflict. To reduce the whole of Iraqi politics and
social life to the whims of Saddam Hussain is banal
and insulting. 

Over the past 12 years of vicious economic blockade,
the US and Britain have ignored the political
situation inside Iraq and concentrated on weapons as a
justification for their policy of containment. UN
resolution 688 of April 1991, calling for an end to
repression and an open dialogue to ensure Iraqi human
and political rights, was set aside or used only for
propaganda and to justify the no-fly zones. 

Instead of generating a real political dynamic backed
by international strength and moral authority, Iraqis
were prevented from reconstructing their devastated
country. Generations of Iraqis will continue to pay
the price of the policy of sanctions and containment,
designed for an oil glut period in the international
market. 

Now that the US has a new policy, it intends to
implement it rapidly and with all its military might.
Despite what Blair claims, this has nothing to do with
the interests and rights of the Iraqi people. The
regime in Iraq is not invincible, but the objective of
the US is to have regime change without the people of
Iraq. The use of Iraqi auxiliaries is designed to
minimise US and British casualties, and the result may
be higher Iraqi casualties and prolonged conflict with
predictably disastrous humanitarian consequences. 

The Bush administration has enlisted a number of Iraqi
exiles to provide an excuse for invasion and a
political cover for the control of Iraq. People like
Ahmad Chalabi and Kanan Makiya have little credibility
among Iraqis and they have a career interest in a US
invasion. At the same time, the main forces of Kurdish
nationalism, by disengaging from Iraqi politics and
engaging in internecine conflict, have become highly
dependent upon US protection and are not in a position
to object to a US military onslaught. The US may
enlist domestic and regional partners with varying
degrees of pressure. 

This in no way bestows legitimacy on its objectives
and methods, and its policies are rejected by most
Iraqis and others in the region. Indeed, the main
historical opposition to the Ba'ath regime - including
various strands of the left, the Arab nationalist
parties, the Communist party, the Islamic Da'wa party,
the Islamic party (the Muslim Brotherhood) and others
- has rejected war and US patronage over Iraqi
politics. The prevalent Iraqi opinion is that a US
attack on Iraq would be a disaster, not a liberation,
and Blair's belated concern for Iraqis is unwelcome. 

Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi political exile and lecturer
in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter

K.A.Mahdi at exeter.ac.uk 


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