The carving up of Iraq
Iman Saleh
Monday, 23 February 2015
News from Iraq these days has become less a blow-by-blow account of events on the ground and more of an exercise in discursive mud-slinging and collective identity politics.
Any sense of a political entity called “Iraq” has long since disappeared, reduced to in- and out-group designations drawn down the hazy lines of ethnicity, sect, and regional allegiance. Hence, there is no longer an Iraqi government, but a “Shia-led coalition” (or a “sectarian state”); equally, there is no longer an Iraqi army but a collection of “Iranian-backed Shia militias” pitted against an extremist “Sunni insurgency”. The battle lines have been drawn, both literally and discursively, and every new development is squeezed and manipulated to fit into the narrow confines of the pre-existing narrative.
Part of this is lazy reporting – it is simply easier to rehash old stereotypes and regurgitate well-known mantras than to engage in serious analytical reporting – yet it also, sadly, is reflective of a growing trend within Iraq itself and the wider Arab region; a trend towards the sectarianisation of political and social life. The recent political fallout following the murder of Sunni tribal leader Sheikh Qasim al-Janabi and eight of his entourage, allegedly by Shia militias, is a case in point. Sheikh Qasim, his son, and seven bodyguards were abducted on 13 February at checkpoint and taken to Sadr city (a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Baghdad), where they were shot dead. In retaliation, 73 Sunni MPs announced a boycott of parliament to protest the killings. As a gesture of reconciliation, earlier last week radical Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr announced the indefinite suspension of militia groups associated with him (including the Mehdi Army).
The incident has drawn attention to the growing profile of Shia militias in the country, many of which receive support and funding from Iran, amid rising concerns of the violent tendencies of such groups (in late 2014, Amnesty International published a report documenting atrocities committed by such militias). While not attempting to diminish the often brutal acts perpetrated by armed groups on all sides of the conflict in Iraq, such attempts to rationalise events on the ground on the grounds of posited deep-seated primordial identities – such as sect, tribe, ethnos, etc. – often serve to mask the underlying logic of political violence that has been seeping through Iraqi society for the past 40 years; a logic for which the US-led invasion of 2003 and subsequent parcelling off of political and social resources along identity lines served as the catalyst.
The rise of the Ba’ath Party in the late 20th century in Iraq, and particularly the rule of Saddam Hussein from 1979-2003, saw the institutionalisation of a vast and ethereal network of political power in which resources and privileges were handed out along lines of partisan loyalty. Saddam Hussein succeeded in maintaining his dominance over the Iraqi population by surrounding himself with a close circle of trusted aides and advisors, many of whose loyalty was assumed on the basis of kin or tribal allegiance and secured through the distribution of rewards and assets (not to mention the often brutal punishment of any whose loyalty was called into question). This network of power and privilege lurking behind Iraqi society is what some analysts and scholars have referred to as the “shadow state”, and resulted in a social and political system that favoured a select group of individuals over others – a select group who, more often than not, shared with Saddam the incidental identity categories of being Sunni Arabs, most hailing from the dictator’s hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, therefore, to be a Sunni Arab was a precursor to being considered loyal to the regime, and therefore often a condition for achieving political or material success in the country. In other words, being Sunni Arab was less of a religious identity than a tool for political and social dominance – a structurally political, not ideological, identity category. By extension, Ba’athist Iraq, although structured in a way to benefit those in possession of this political identity category, was not in itself ideologically sectarian, despite being structurally so. Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein’s persecution of the Kurds or the Shi’a was done purely on sectarian or religious grounds, and instead often stemmed from his ethno-nationalist view of the world in which both the Kurds and the Shia (whom he tended to denigrate as ethnically “Persian”) posed a threat to his plans to integrate Iraq into a wider pan-Arab political project.
Thus, when the US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and proceeded to dismantle the country’s political and civilian structure, they succeeded merely in cutting off the head of the shadow state network while leaving the roots intact. It is this deep-running and shadowy network that has, in the intervening years, spawned Medusa-like to permeate all aspects of Iraqi society and to set the practical and discursive logic through which that society operates.
The long-standing effects of this shadow state have been reflected in the partisan politics of the successive Shia-led governments of Nouri Al-Maliki and now Haider Al-Abadi (which, in a perverse turning of the tables established a structurally sectarian system that favoured the majority Shia Muslims over their Sunni counterparts and succeeded in alienating many of Iraq’s most influential and experienced generals and politicians who had prospered under the Ba’ath). It is this political logic of reward and punishment that set the backdrop to the insurgency that has gripped the country since 2003, and provided a language and repertoire of political violence that pits one group against another in an all-out sectarian war. More than this, such logics of violence and allegiance have also been reflected in the recent exploitation of tribal and local loyalties by ISIS forces – leading some commentators to dub the Islamic state “a distinctively Iraqi organisation”.
What we have now in Iraq, then, is a direct result of these political logics of violence, punishment, necessity, loyalty and reward that have converged around three main discursive positions – the “Sunni” version of events contrasting sharply with that of the “Shia” or even the “Kurdish” version. Iraq has been carved up, both practically and ideologically, into three different political and social camps who are no longer able or willing to recognise their common histories. The only logical outcome of such political fracturing, sadly, seems to be the final carving up of Iraq into its three constituent provinces.
Thus, while it may be true that the increased sectarianisation of public and private discourse in Iraq and abroad is reflective of an increasing trend towards sectarianism within the country itself, it is worth bearing in mind the role such discourse has to play in shaping people’s perceptions on the ground and the way in which public narratives – especially in the media – are often manipulated by groups to serve their own political purposes. This is why we must be wary of reporting on Iraq as the perennial “sectarian conflict”, because the political reality of sectarianism in Iraq – although it does exist – is only a small part of the repertoire of political violence that is sweeping the country, and which cannot be traced to one unitary cause such as that of primordial identity ties. Rather, the reality of sectarianism in Iraq is the result of a complex combination of factors including the legacy of the Ba’athist shadow state, the impact of the 2003 invasion, the vested interest of local and foreign players (the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iran being just three), and the manipulation of discourse by those who have an interest in carving up the country to serve in their own political power games.
Antichrist Calling the Shots in Iraq
Iman Saleh
Monday, 23 February 2015
News from Iraq these days has become less a blow-by-blow account of events on the ground and more of an exercise in discursive mud-slinging and collective identity politics.
Any sense of a political entity called “Iraq” has long since disappeared, reduced to in- and out-group designations drawn down the hazy lines of ethnicity, sect, and regional allegiance. Hence, there is no longer an Iraqi government, but a “Shia-led coalition” (or a “sectarian state”); equally, there is no longer an Iraqi army but a collection of “Iranian-backed Shia militias” pitted against an extremist “Sunni insurgency”. The battle lines have been drawn, both literally and discursively, and every new development is squeezed and manipulated to fit into the narrow confines of the pre-existing narrative.
Part of this is lazy reporting – it is simply easier to rehash old stereotypes and regurgitate well-known mantras than to engage in serious analytical reporting – yet it also, sadly, is reflective of a growing trend within Iraq itself and the wider Arab region; a trend towards the sectarianisation of political and social life. The recent political fallout following the murder of Sunni tribal leader Sheikh Qasim al-Janabi and eight of his entourage, allegedly by Shia militias, is a case in point. Sheikh Qasim, his son, and seven bodyguards were abducted on 13 February at checkpoint and taken to Sadr city (a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Baghdad), where they were shot dead. In retaliation, 73 Sunni MPs announced a boycott of parliament to protest the killings. As a gesture of reconciliation, earlier last week radical Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr announced the indefinite suspension of militia groups associated with him (including the Mehdi Army).
The incident has drawn attention to the growing profile of Shia militias in the country, many of which receive support and funding from Iran, amid rising concerns of the violent tendencies of such groups (in late 2014, Amnesty International published a report documenting atrocities committed by such militias). While not attempting to diminish the often brutal acts perpetrated by armed groups on all sides of the conflict in Iraq, such attempts to rationalise events on the ground on the grounds of posited deep-seated primordial identities – such as sect, tribe, ethnos, etc. – often serve to mask the underlying logic of political violence that has been seeping through Iraqi society for the past 40 years; a logic for which the US-led invasion of 2003 and subsequent parcelling off of political and social resources along identity lines served as the catalyst.
The rise of the Ba’ath Party in the late 20th century in Iraq, and particularly the rule of Saddam Hussein from 1979-2003, saw the institutionalisation of a vast and ethereal network of political power in which resources and privileges were handed out along lines of partisan loyalty. Saddam Hussein succeeded in maintaining his dominance over the Iraqi population by surrounding himself with a close circle of trusted aides and advisors, many of whose loyalty was assumed on the basis of kin or tribal allegiance and secured through the distribution of rewards and assets (not to mention the often brutal punishment of any whose loyalty was called into question). This network of power and privilege lurking behind Iraqi society is what some analysts and scholars have referred to as the “shadow state”, and resulted in a social and political system that favoured a select group of individuals over others – a select group who, more often than not, shared with Saddam the incidental identity categories of being Sunni Arabs, most hailing from the dictator’s hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, therefore, to be a Sunni Arab was a precursor to being considered loyal to the regime, and therefore often a condition for achieving political or material success in the country. In other words, being Sunni Arab was less of a religious identity than a tool for political and social dominance – a structurally political, not ideological, identity category. By extension, Ba’athist Iraq, although structured in a way to benefit those in possession of this political identity category, was not in itself ideologically sectarian, despite being structurally so. Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein’s persecution of the Kurds or the Shi’a was done purely on sectarian or religious grounds, and instead often stemmed from his ethno-nationalist view of the world in which both the Kurds and the Shia (whom he tended to denigrate as ethnically “Persian”) posed a threat to his plans to integrate Iraq into a wider pan-Arab political project.
Thus, when the US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and proceeded to dismantle the country’s political and civilian structure, they succeeded merely in cutting off the head of the shadow state network while leaving the roots intact. It is this deep-running and shadowy network that has, in the intervening years, spawned Medusa-like to permeate all aspects of Iraqi society and to set the practical and discursive logic through which that society operates.
The long-standing effects of this shadow state have been reflected in the partisan politics of the successive Shia-led governments of Nouri Al-Maliki and now Haider Al-Abadi (which, in a perverse turning of the tables established a structurally sectarian system that favoured the majority Shia Muslims over their Sunni counterparts and succeeded in alienating many of Iraq’s most influential and experienced generals and politicians who had prospered under the Ba’ath). It is this political logic of reward and punishment that set the backdrop to the insurgency that has gripped the country since 2003, and provided a language and repertoire of political violence that pits one group against another in an all-out sectarian war. More than this, such logics of violence and allegiance have also been reflected in the recent exploitation of tribal and local loyalties by ISIS forces – leading some commentators to dub the Islamic state “a distinctively Iraqi organisation”.
What we have now in Iraq, then, is a direct result of these political logics of violence, punishment, necessity, loyalty and reward that have converged around three main discursive positions – the “Sunni” version of events contrasting sharply with that of the “Shia” or even the “Kurdish” version. Iraq has been carved up, both practically and ideologically, into three different political and social camps who are no longer able or willing to recognise their common histories. The only logical outcome of such political fracturing, sadly, seems to be the final carving up of Iraq into its three constituent provinces.
Thus, while it may be true that the increased sectarianisation of public and private discourse in Iraq and abroad is reflective of an increasing trend towards sectarianism within the country itself, it is worth bearing in mind the role such discourse has to play in shaping people’s perceptions on the ground and the way in which public narratives – especially in the media – are often manipulated by groups to serve their own political purposes. This is why we must be wary of reporting on Iraq as the perennial “sectarian conflict”, because the political reality of sectarianism in Iraq – although it does exist – is only a small part of the repertoire of political violence that is sweeping the country, and which cannot be traced to one unitary cause such as that of primordial identity ties. Rather, the reality of sectarianism in Iraq is the result of a complex combination of factors including the legacy of the Ba’athist shadow state, the impact of the 2003 invasion, the vested interest of local and foreign players (the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iran being just three), and the manipulation of discourse by those who have an interest in carving up the country to serve in their own political power games.
No comments:
Post a Comment