The Hindu : Have they got more than they bargained for?

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Sunday, Dec 21, 2003

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Have they got more than they bargained for?

Now that Saddam Hussein is in American hands what happens in Iraq? Kesava Menon on the unfolding situation.

THE AMERICANS believe they are on a roll. They have captured Saddam Hussein, they have found the tracks of the insurgent cells that are attacking their soldiers, and they have the freedom to distribute reconstruction contracts to whom they like. However, as they have been since the inception of their misbegotten operation in Iraq, the Americans appear to be intoxicated by their own delusions.

American triumphalism suffused the narrative of Saddam's capture that was initially put out. The reports spoke of young intelligence operatives scanning through Saddam's clan genealogy to track down those who might be hiding him; of a suspect being whisked to the Sunni triangle as soon as he was caught in Baghdad; of tanks and humvees and armoured cars racing through the night to cordon of the palm grove that was the suspected hide-out; and, finally, of the troops of a special task force stumbling on the corner of a carpet, pulling it away and finding the trapdoor to Saddam's eight foot by five foot underground cell. The ultimate expression of America's pride in its achievement was found in the words drawled out by its proconsul in Iraq Paul Bremer: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him".

Iraq's ousted President appeared to have lost his iconic status in the Arab world when he was dragged out, unkempt and bewildered, from his hiding hole. Much was made of the fact that he had not fired a shot although he was armed with a pistol and two Kalashnikovs. His humiliation was complete when his televised image was displayed in Mr. Bremer's conference hall. Saddam was the very image of meek submission as a doctor probed his beard and teeth. As best described by a senior Vatican official, the Americans treated Saddam as if he were a cow. It appeared to be a calculated move to establish firmly in the Arab mind that the man who for a decade had symbolised defiance of the West and once threatened it with the Mother of all Battles, was in fact a coward.

The impact of this narrative dissipated within days due to several reasons. It was not just the news that Saddam had met his captors with the words, "I am the President of Iraq and I am ready to negotiate". Nor was it the news that he had greeted four members of the quisling Governing Council of Iraq with a stream of invective when they arrived to confirm the detenu's identity. What corroded the American narrative was the alternative account that whistled through the Arab Street and found its way to the Internet.

In this version Saddam had been betrayed by men he had trusted. They were said to have drugged Saddam and kept him confined in the hole as they negotiated for the $ 25 million ransom. The debate over which of the versions is true is likely to drag on but it is irrelevant. What will ultimately matter is which of the versions is taken as the more credible by the Arabs. While discordant voices will continue to be heard, the salient feature of the second narrative is likely to resonate more clearly in the Arab mind. This tale of a strong and proud leader being betrayed to his enemies who then proceed to humiliate him echoes the legends of the past.

The Americans were badly mistaken if they thought that the pictures of Saddam in captivity would defuse the insurgency raging against them. Sunni Muslims, in the area north and west of Baghdad who made up Saddam's main base of support, packed the streets days after his capture holding aloft his portrait and shouting the old slogan that they were prepared to sacrifice their blood and their lives. The world has turned upside down for the Sunni tribes, whose members were entrenched in all echelons of the Ba'ath regime. With Mr. Bremer having disbanded the Iraqi army and other security services and with Ba'ath party officials above medium rank banned from the public services, these men have been deprived of income and status.

However, the insurgency is not kept alive by Ba'athists alone. There are believed to be over a dozen separate insurgent groups in the field of which a couple at best fight for the restoration of the deposed regime. At least some of the others are made of religious zealots who are not necessarily, contrary to American propaganda, drawn from the rest of the Muslim world. From the interviews that the members of these groups have given to the press it would appear that they are inspired by an ideology of resistance that predates the Ba'ath or any other "ism". The most vivid image that the insurgents appear to keep in their minds is that of Arab warriors, inspired by the religion that united them when nothing else had, fighting Western Christendom.

The Americans appear to have overlooked the inspirational impact of this imagery when they derive satisfaction from the scene of jubilation in the Kurd and Shia dominated parts of Iraq. These ethnic and sectarian groups too consider themselves soldiers of Islam. It need not mean that they are fundamentalists in the sense the term has acquired in world politics. All members of these groups might not seek to impose the Shariah as the sole source of law. But they do know the source of inspiration to which they owe ultimate loyalty and they do not consider as an ideal the model of American liberal democracy that is currently being thrust in their faces.

The Kurds might remain loyal to the Americans because they currently enjoy a degree of autonomy and safety that they have seldom experienced in their history. It could be a very different story with the Shias. They are quiescent for the moment probably because they are waiting to assess the effect that America's current intervention in Iraqi affairs can have on their long-term status. Suppressed as they were under the Ba'ath regime, the Shias know that they have the numerical strength to dominate Iraq once the Americans leave. However, they have yet to work out the answers to two fundamental questions. The Shias need to know whether the Americans will allow them, as the majority community in Iraq, to become the dominant political force. They also need to work out how they will keep the Sunnis, Kurds and other communities loyal to a united Iraq once they are in control.

Saddam's removal from the scene facilitates unity between the Shias and the Sunnis. With the fear that he will return having been dispelled, the Shias can begin to treat the Sunnis as comrades in arms rather than as their one-time oppressors. The fact that a few Shia leaders have been killed by a resistance that is still largely Sunni-dominated has not destroyed the prospects for unity.

In the common perception these leaders were not killed because of their sectarian persuasion but because they were seen to be collaborating with the occupiers. The Shias will not treat the resistance as abhorrent unless it becomes a vehicle for Sunni sectarianism. However, they are not likely to join in large numbers till they have a clear idea about the role that the United States envisages for them in Iraq's political future.

The need to keep the Shias quiet has forced the Americans to make a rare compromise. Mr. Bremer and his officials had initially thought that they could transfer power in the middle of next year, as they have promised, to a body elected on a narrow franchise. Leading Shia clerics expressed their opposition to a plan whereby the members of a governing authority would be chosen at town hall meetings in different parts of the country. They wanted this transitory governing authority, which will draft a constitution and hold elections within a year, to be directly elected.

The Americans have redrawn their plans so that a part of the transitory authority will be directly elected and the rest by caucuses. That they have a majority in the Governing Council, set up soon after the collapse of the Ba'ath regime, provides the Shias with hope that they will dominate both the transitory authority and the government to be formed after the election.

If this hope is dashed the insurgency could intensify to such a degree that all that has happened till now would look like a picnic to the Americans. However, what Shias and other Iraqis are concerned about it is not just the schedule of the power transfer and the methods by which it will be accomplished. They are also agitated about the manner in which the United States is wielding power in the interregnum, especially the monopolistic hold it has over the Iraqi economy. Other world powers — such as Russia, France and Germany — are piqued at the fact that they are being kept out of the contracts for reconstruction in Iraq. But that is of less relevance than the fact that Iraqis too are being kept out of a major economic enterprise when they need jobs very badly.

Iraq is not a backward country. Its vast pool of manpower trained in modern science and technology built the edifices of modern Iraq. Distinct from the other petroleum-rich countries of the Persian Gulf littoral, Iraq did not build or operate its industry by importing labour from elsewhere. But, according to the reports, Iraqis find it difficult to get their hands on sub-contracts for even the simplest of tasks. After expressing his annoyance at the grant of a contract to string electric cable to a Gulf-based firm, a member of the Governing Council was reported to have remarked that no one should be surprised if Iraqis began shooting down Indians from the pylons.

The greed of its corporate supporters appears to have made the U.S. administration blind to these undercurrents. At present, a consumer-item import boom in Iraq appears to have created a false sense of prosperity. However, it would be foolish for anyone to think that the Iraqis will continue to be complacent as foreigners loot their national resources. The long-term implications of this economic exploitation will keep the insurgency alive even if nothing else does.

As the attrition rate intensifies, the demoralisation among American troops that was temporarily lifted when Saddam was captured will return in full force. There might soon come a time when the Bush administration has to choose between the interests of its corporate backers and the concerns of the troops and the masses they are drawn from.

America's plan to bring Saddam to trial before a hand-picked court could have a catalytic effect. If Saddam is provided the opportunity he would surely delineate the extent to which successive U.S. administrations were complicit in the crimes of the Ba'ath regime. As it is, many Iraqis appear to have gone beyond the cathartic effect produced by his capture and have begun to dwell on the humiliation that was heaped on him by his captors.

All that is needed to ignite them into a white rage is the reminder that at the time when he committed the worst of his atrocities — the use of non-conventional weapons against Kurds and Iranian Shias — he was the local enforcer for the super-power.

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