Iraq Under New Management

The United States has moved to the next phase in its remodeling of Iraq. It has "removed" the Iraq Governing Council and "replaced" it. The "Interim Government," effectively the old Council under a new name, is supposed to somehow legitimize the 2003 invasion and give Iraq peace, order, and western-style Democracy. It is hard to see, however, how this is going to bring decent government to that country. Can a US appointed organization, in spite of its UN fig leaf, with members linked to the CIA and the British MI5-as well as former Baathist-represent the wishes and aspirations of the people in Iraq?

US-approved Prime Minister Iyad Allawi once was an enforcer for the Ba'ath Party before becoming a CIA-backed opposition leader. As soon as he took office, he called a news conference and presented a plan to resurrect domestic-intelligence services to combat the country's persistent lawlessness and violence. He promised that the new service, uncannily resembling Saddam's old Mukhabarat but named the General Security Directorate, "will annihilate those terrorists groups, God willing." His tone resembled all too well that of former dictator Saddam Hussein, but his acts said much more, when 500 of the most "notorious thugs" were rounded up to show The Interim Government's strength.

If the prospect of a new mukhabarat in Iraq is not bad enough, then consider the Interim Government's complacent agreement to grant US soldiers complete immunity for any crimes they commit in Iraq. This means, that US soldiers who rape an Iraqi have nothing to fear from local authorities; they are free to go, leaving it up to the Americans to prosecute their own. This agreement is more befitting a servant serving its master, than a free government reestablishing law and order.

Of course, a close look at the reconstruction efforts in Iraq should remind everyone who the true beneficiary of the new Iraqi management is likely to be-and it won't be the people. Contracts to rebuild Iraq are being awarded to American companies in the billions of dollars. The Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) unit of Halliburton, where Vice President Cheney was CEO from 1995 to 2000, got a deal with the US Army Corps of Engineers to put out oil fires and make emergency repairs to Iraq's oil infrastructure.

The only aspirations and wishes likely to be represented in the Interim Government are those of the occupiers and its agents. Even before the war began, it was clear that the United States had its eye on Iraq as a gun platform for American interests in the Middle East. Domination of Iraq will grant the United States strategic, economic, political, and cultural influence over the region. Such an ambition can only be achieved by making sure you have agents on the ground to protect and even give legitimacy to the new colonization in the name of protecting and securing the interests of the Iraqi people.

The new regime in essence promises to be little different from Saddam's regime of the past. Only the actors and their master have changed. One thing remains painfully clear: even though many ulema are appearing in photo-ops with members of the US appointed governing council, Islam as a political force has still been brushed aside. In Iraq, the Deen is meant to remain just a religion, while the new regime plans to build jails and train its "interrogators." These are matters all too familiar to the people of Iraq. (Submitted 9/16/04)

(The Editor: The above is bad news for the Muslims who have long hoped that Washington might be coaxed or convinced that it would be in its best interests to rebuild and reform the Middle East in the same way that America remade West Germany and Japan after World War II. At the height of the Cold War, it was a standing joke that the smartest thing a poor, weak country could do would be starting a war with the USA, then lose and allow America to do a complete makeover. A popular Brit satirical novel of the time, The Mouse That Roared, was based on that very idea. Many of us Muslims, who sometimes mistake the Path of Least Resistance for Sirat ul-Mustaqim, seriously hope that Washington would be nice and build a modern Islamic world just for us.

It is barely possible to imagine the US government under a Kerry or a Bush doing it all in Iraq. They might just rebuild all the roads and hospitals, restring the power lines, and help the locals get their oil to market for sale at a fair price, without stealing too much for themselves. They might restore public order in time and work out a deal where each of the Sunni, Shi'i and Kurd elites won't feel excessively ripped-off. And, wonder of wonders, it is even possible to imagine Washington restoring a political culture that Saddam ground to dust ages ago. Ordinary Iraqis in power might actually stop using their offices to enrich themselves, their families, or their tribe, and work instead to serve the public and establish concepts of duty and decency. If Washington could do that in Iraq, like they supposedly did in Europe, then they might make their case that they should run the world.

But a number of factors make this unlikely to happen. After World War II, for example, America needed a revived and relatively strong West Germany and Japan as firewalls at each end of the newly threatening Soviet Union. It wanted those former enemies to shine as consumer societies to show the world that life under American hegemony was much better than life under Communism. To achieve this, the USA was willing to spend billions, and even help Germany rebuild a welfare state with social safety nets that Washington would never dream of allowing for itself.

But today, the USA has no particular need to do this. The Soviet Union no longer exists, and for now, there is no widely-shared and attractive alternative vision of society borne by a rival superpower to compete against. There is really nothing to prevent a Bush or a Kerry from using the quickest and cheapest methods to force their "vision" {that after all, in spite of their talk, has much more with advancing the global interests of their "base" than it does with building a better world}. Traditionally, in the Middle East, that has meant keeping order by selecting one local mafia from among the rest, then creating a puppet regime from it. The only transformation we should expect from this is a slow grinding-up of our Muslim societies, with little hope that they will be replaced by anything better.)