Iraq: neither 'civil war' nor 'chaos'. posted by Richard Seymour

In what is curiously described as a shift from "a socialist to a free market economy", the Iraqi 'government' has decided to slash food rations for the poor. As part of the same move, the oil-for-food programme will be eliminated by the end of 2006, because it is part of a "socialist" legacy. It's such a bad state of affairs for some children that they are reduced to searching through piles of rubbish to find something to eat or wear. This is not the only way the occupiers have brought Palestine to Iraq.

The infrastructure, destroyed by years of war and sanctions, perpetually blitzed by the occupation, and barely rebuilt before the occupiers turned off the funding tap (which was at any rate being delivered into the pockets of embezzlers and Bush-friendly companies), is a ruin. The ongoing violence of the occupation, coupled with the sectarian violence that has been dramatically escalated since the bombing of the Samarrah shrine has led to tens of thousands of displaced, doctors fleeing the country. And, according to the UN, "Iraq used to have one of the finest school systems in the Middle East ... Today millions of children in Iraq are attending schools that lack even basic water or sanitation facilities, have crumbling walls, broken windows and leaking roofs. The system is overwhelmed." It gets worse and worse.

Attending the talk of civil war, there's a curious ideological reversal now happening in some of the Western press. The Sunnis, once the official bad guys, are now defending themselves against sectarian violence (whose origins in US policy we are supposed to forget). Meanwhile, following the US massacre at a Shi'ite mosque (designed to show Sadr who's boss), the latter are swiftly uniting against the occupiers, and so the US finds itself at odds with the preferred leader of Shi'ite forces. The latter is certainly a big shift since as recently as last year, Jafaari was doing everything the coalition way, insisting that there would be no timetable for withdrawal, negotiating extraordinary contracts with Western oil companies and so on. Part of what is happening is a break-down of the Shi'ite-Kurdish alliance. This is partially because of Jafaari's visit to Turkey which was perceived as a signal that Kurdish independence is unimportant to Jafaari. But it is also because Kurdish peshmerga have been accused of targeting Sadrists, (whereas previously they just targeted Sunni civilians). The Kurdish leaders are pissed off about Sadr's agitation against the sectarian constitution, I suspect, and they have been forming an alliance with Iyad Allawi. They appear to hope they can split the Shi'ite bloc, some of whom are increasingly luke-warm about Jafaari. Much of the criticism has been that he isn't tough enough with the resistance - which appears to mean that they want a return to Allawi's hard man tactics.

Still, if we can avoid once more dividing Iraqis into 'good' and 'bad' ethnic groups, that would be helpful. The civil war scenario hawked by many - both opponents and supporters of the occupation - misses something important: the sectarian violence is being directed by competing political elites under the rubric of occupation. It is not a symptom of widespread sectarianism. The day after the attack on the Samarra shrine, which seems to me to have been carefully designed to cause sectarian rifts, there were unity demonstrations across Iraq. Sunnis defended Shi'ite mosques, and members of the Mahdi Army were ordered to defend Sunni mosques (albeit there are stories, denied by the leadership, that Mahdi Army soldiers participated in some of the sectarian outrages that ensued). Students in Basra have recently been mounting a fight against sectarian violence. But because of the extraordinary amount of violence by Shi'ite and Kurdish sectarians, more and more Iraqis are carrying guns, while neighbourhoods form militias in self-defence. Meanwhile, with the bodies piling up, the Iraqi Ministry of Health has been instructed to stop reporting how many Iraqis are being killed and by whom, while the director of the Baghdad morgue who revealed the scale of killings by government backed death squads has had to flee.

This situation is so dangerous, and so bizarre. Take a look at this:

I was trying to decide between a report on bird flu on one channel, a montage of bits and pieces from various latmiyas on another channel and an Egyptian soap opera on a third channel. I paused on the Sharqiya channel which many Iraqis consider to be a reasonably toned channel (and which during the elections showed its support for Allawi in particular). I was reading the little scrolling news headlines on the bottom of the page. The usual- mortar fire on an area in Baghdad, an American soldier killed here, another one wounded there… 12 Iraqi corpses found in an area in Baghdad, etc. Suddenly, one of them caught my attention and I sat up straight on the sofa, wondering if I had read it correctly.

E. was sitting at the other end of the living room, taking apart a radio he later wouldn’t be able to put back together. I called him over with the words, “Come here and read this- I’m sure I misunderstood…” He stood in front of the television and watched the words about corpses and Americans and puppets scroll by and when the news item I was watching for appeared, I jumped up and pointed. E. and I read it in silence and E. looked as confused as I was feeling.

The line said:

وزارة الدفاع تدعو المواطنين الى عدم الانصياع لاوامر دوريات الجيش والشرطة الليلية اذا لم تكن برفقة قوات التحالف العاملة في تلك المنطقة
The translation:

“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”

That’s how messed up the country is at this point.

We switched to another channel, the “Baghdad” channel (allied with Muhsin Abdul Hameed and his group) and they had the same news item, but instead of the general “coalition forces” they had “American coalition forces”. We checked two other channels. Iraqiya (pro-Da’awa) didn’t mention it and Forat (pro-SCIRI) also didn’t have it on their news ticker.

We discussed it today as it was repeated on another channel.

“So what does it mean?” My cousin’s wife asked as we sat gathered at lunch.

“It means if they come at night and want to raid the house, we don’t have to let them in.” I answered.

“They’re not exactly asking your permission,” E. pointed out. “They break the door down and take people away- or have you forgotten?”

“Well according to the Ministry of Defense, we can shoot at them, right? It’s trespassing-they can be considered burglars or abductors…” I replied.

The cousin shook his head, “If your family is inside the house- you’re not going to shoot at them. They come in groups, remember? They come armed and in large groups- shooting at them or resisting them would endanger people inside of the house.”

“Besides that, when they first attack, how can you be sure they DON’T have Americans with them?” E. asked.

We sat drinking tea, mulling over the possibilities. It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties.

But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forces”.

It really is difficult to understand what is happening lately. We hear about talks between Americans and Iran over security in Iraq, and then American ambassador in Iraq accuses Iran of funding militias inside of the country. Today there are claims that Americans killed between 20 to 30 men from Sadr’s militia in an attack on a husseiniya yesterday. The Americans are claiming that responsibility for the attack should be placed on Iraqi security forces (the same security forces they are constantly commending).

All of this directly contradicts claims by Bush and other American politicians that Iraqi troops and security forces are in control of the situation. Or maybe they are in control- just not in a good way.

They’ve been finding corpses all over Baghdad for weeks now- and it’s always the same: holes drilled in the head, multiple shots or strangulation, like the victims were hung. Execution, militia style. Many of the people were taken from their homes by security forces- police or special army brigades… Some of them were rounded up from mosques.

The emergent client-state in Iraq is pathetically weak and divided, both hopelessly dependent on the US, and brutally reliant on sectarian militias. And surely this is what the US intends.

The latest revelations about US plans for permanent bases in Iraq has compounded the already very obvious fact that the US doesn't intend on ending its occupation either as the result of a timetable, or Iraqi political pressure or US domestic pressure. They intend to draw down forces and leave tens of thousands of troops stationed in permanent bases, thereby providing them with crucial leverage both in Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole. This would, so the US government hopes, provide a base for a potential attack on Iran or Syria. It would also keep the US-vetted Iraqi political class under thumb. Not only was this entirely predictable, but it was predicted, repeatedly. The US has been depositing bases across the planet like a so many cowpats for decades, and this escalated sharply in the post-Cold War era. Why would it be different with Iraq?

What is happening in Iraq is not 'civil war' (yet), or simply some incomprehensible kind of randomly violent chaos. What is happening is occupation: the US has brutally played off one ethnic group against another, made use of sectarian death squads, built a state apparatus that was imbricated from the start with Badr Corps and peshmerga - and have no doubt engaged in various psyops that we won't hear about for another thirty years. In this situation, various groups are struggling for power and patronage, others are struggling for equity, and some are struggling for their very existence. It is the occupation which has to be overcome in the immediate term, and fighting the occupation also means fighting the germinal indigenous ruling class which is allied to it. Resisting sectarianism means resisting the splitting tactics of the new political elites, particularly those most allied with the occupation.

By the way - John Reid, the Defence Secretary, has called for a "review" of the Geneva Conventions, because the new breed of Evil Doer is unlike any previously experienced: "The legal constraints upon us have to be set against an enemy that adheres no constraints whatsoever, but an enemy so swift to insist that we do in every particular, and that makes life very difficult for the forces of democracy". You heard the man - human rights law "makes life very difficult". I bet it does.