The Guardian (UK)
February 20, 2003
Comment
Iraqis will not be pawns in
Bush and Blair's war game
An American attack on my country would bring
disaster, not liberation
By Kamil Mahdi
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.
ú Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi political exile and lecturer
in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter
K.A.Mahdi@exeter.ac.uk