A soldier from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division carries his bag to begin his trip back to the United States at Camp Virginia, Kuwait 20 December 2011. (Photo: REUTERS - Lucas Jackson)
The manner in which the US military withdrawal from Iraq was concluded was a clear embarrassment for two political groupings in the country, as it disproved the claims they have been making for years.
The first, which includes some factions that opposed or resisted the occupation, had insisted that US troops would never leave Iraq. They have now witnessed with their own eyes the departure of the occupation forces, along with their heavy equipment and weapons.
While it may be argued that they have merely redeployed to Kuwait, or to secret bases in other neighboring countries such as Jordan, the fact remains that a genuine military evacuation took place on the ground.
The second grouping includes the dominant sectarian parties in government. They maintain that with the withdrawal proceeding on schedule, Iraq has regained its national sovereignty and independence in full.
Yet Iraqis and outsiders alike remain unconvinced of this. The occupation may have withdrawn the bulk of its military forces, but it retains a considerable degree of political, economic, and security control. This is reflected in the ‘Strategic Framework’ agreement and other unpublicized accords, and in the gigantic US embassy, the world’s biggest, whose military contingent will not be limited to the declared 15,000 personnel.
There are also reports that the US will retain secret military bases. Sadrist leader Muqtada al-Sadr revealed there was one located near the Kurdish village of Sipran-Saro north of Erbil.
A third group of Iraqis hold a view that more closely reflects reality. While there has been a real pullout, it has not led to the genuine restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty and independence — and Iraqis now face the urgent task of preventing a resumption of sectarian civil war.
According to this viewpoint, the Americans are not and will not be standing idly by, but will attempt to stir things up from behind the scenes. And while the incomplete withdrawal of US forces may have resolved — or at least made it easier to find solutions to — some of Iraq’s accumulated problems, it has also created many new new ones.
For example, some analysts point out that the US military withdrawal deprives the groups that engaged in armed resistance against the occupation of their political raison d’etre and legitimacy.
Logically, this would greatly facilitate the launching of a deep and genuine process of national and social reconciliation. But internal Iraqi political factors — above all the dogged adherence of all players to their demands and slogans — prevent this unique and unrepeatable opportunity from being exploited.
It could be countered that the Iraqi resistance, despite its impressive performance in its early years, has been reduced to no more than a symbolic role today. But the fact remains that it is impossible to be hopeful about national reconciliation under a political order based on sectarian power-sharing.
The system encourages social segregation, and means that each sectarian or ethnic political faction is forever trying to defend or advance its sectional interests or gains at the expense of the others.
For many analysts, this also explains the turbulence, fluidity and inconsistency that characterize today’s Iraqi political scene. Most of the big political parties that claim to represent the interests of ethnic or confessional groups have performed major political u-turns over the past year. These reflect a more fundamental strategic and political transformation that the country as a whole has been going through.
For example, during the early years of the US occupation, the self-proclaimed leaders of the Shia community wanted it to remain in place for as long as possible, while the self-proclaimed leaders of the Sunnis rejected the occupation and demanded its immediate end.
The third force, the traditional Kurdish leaders, were, and remain, in favour of US forces staying in Iraq for as long as possible (or at least some of them staying in the part of the country the Kurds rule directly, completely independently of the federal center).
After the tables turned, the Kurds did not change their position. They simply adjusted to the new circumstances, in which the upper hand was gained by those demanding that the occupation forces leave — except that the latter were no longer the leaders of the Sunni Arabs, but those of their Shia Arab cousins.
For some observers of the Iraqi scene, this dramatic turnaround reflected the influence of regional powers — particularly Iran as it tries to face up to the Western onslaught against it, and Saudi Arabia as it seeks to beat back the flames of the Arab Spring.
Others, however, attributed it chiefly to domestic factors, and two in particular:
First, the shattering of illusions and hopes harbored by Arab Sunni sectarian parties. They had banked on being able to regain power, whether by means of elections, a military coup, or as a result of the collapse of the governing coalition of their sectarian foes the Arab Shia.
These groups claiming to represent the Arab Sunnis have failed to come to terms with the fundamental transformation that has taken place in the balance of power on the ground in Iraq. It is with this attitude that they are approaching the post-withdrawal period.
Secondly, and on the other side of the divide, is the increasingly sectarian mindset of the Shia Islamist parties. Here too, as close observers have noted, dangerous sectarian illusions have taken hold. These include the idea that it would be possible to monopolize power, or make exclusive use of all or most of the country’s resources, leaving the scraps for the others.
The climate of sharp sectarian polarization — and the accompanying Saudi, Iranian, and other regional meddling — meanwhile assists in maintaining a de facto, if unofficial, policy of marginalization and exclusion.
But what is it that helped create and perpetuate this Shia-Sunni sectarian polarization? On the surface, their discourse may be couched in patriotic language, but in fact it only serves to tear society apart, and to drive Iraq toward the calamity of infighting and open-ended civil war.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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