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April 10,
2003
The Perils of
Occupation
The Easier the Victory,
the Harder the Peace
By ZOLTAN GROSSMAN
As U.S. and British forces occupy Iraq's major
cities, it seems that most Americans and Iraqis are relieved
that the invasion of Iraq is drawing a close. Whatever their
opinions about the war, most wanted it to end quickly, in order
to prevent further casualties on both sides. It is an understandable
human reaction to want the carnage and suffering to end as quickly
as possible, and to begin the process of reconstructing a country
ravaged by Saddam, sanctions and "surgical" strikes.
Yet a different and ironic reality is
fast emerging. Although the relatively easy U.S.-British conquest
may result in less armed conflict over the short term, it may
actually increase conflict and pain over the long term. The quicker
the victory, the harder the peace.
As Saddam and his Ba'ath Party are quickly
eliminated, the new occupying powers will also be dismantling
their main rationale for occupation. They will not only be erasing
their main propaganda points from the media's blackboard, but
with the invaders' main job done, Iraqi civilians and neighboring
Muslim states may quickly start asking them to leave Iraq. By
gloating in an easy victory, and humiliating Iraqis with a blatant
foreign occupation, the U.S. and U.K. will also be enhancing
the risk of global terrorism.
Thumbs-up to Thumbs-down
First, most Iraqis (particularly the
Shi'ites and Kurds) are joyously welcoming the elimination of
Saddam and his regime. And that's precisely the problem for the
Coalition occupation forces. Iraqis will see that the invasion's
central goal has been met, and assume that the invaders can leave.
Thank you for tearing down the portraits and statues of our hated
dictator; you can go home now. Here's your helmet, there's the
door; we can rule ourselves. If Saddam had stayed alive and free
as long as Osama bin Laden, some Iraqis would tolerate a foreign
presence. But absent the dictator, they will assume the job is
finished.
And it is amazing how quickly "thumbs-up"
can be switched to "thumbs-down." Iraqis held angry
demonstrations when U.S. troops raised the Stars-and-Stripes
in a temporary show of force over Umm Qasr and Baghdad, before
their officers took the flags down. After the fall of the Shi'ite
holy city of Najaf, U.S. troops freely advanced through the streets,
until they got too close to the Imam Ali Shrine. The Shi'ite
residents suddenly turned hostile, and a crowd blocked the soldiers
until they backed off. Iraqis have a long tradition of dancing
in the streets one day, and fighting in the streets the following
day. Only a few days after dancing crowds greeted British troops
liberating Baghdad from the Ottoman Turks in 1917, they started
turning on the British, who eventually had to leave in 1932 after
a dozen frustrating years of battling Arab and Kurdish rebels.
Propaganda Shifts
Second, without Saddam Hussein to kick
around anymore, the Coalition has lost its most effective propaganda
touchstone. It can no longer point to Saddam's atrocities as
a rationale to stay in the country, particularly if it comes
up empty-handed of biochemical weapons. The enthusiasm that U.S.
and U.K. troops showed when toppling Saddam statues will not
be as evident when they are pulling police duty to keep ethnic
and religious groups apart. The claim that foreign troops need
to prevent instability and civil war will ring hollow when their
provocative presence becomes a reason for instability.
Did any Americans argue in 1861 that
British troops should reoccupy us to prevent our own Civil War?
Iraq is not an economic basket case like
Afghanistan, but an educated, technically trained society. Professional
and independent Iraqi civil servants, who were never ideologically
selected by the Ba'ath Party, are perfectly capable of running
the country without foreign guidance. They will resent interference
by foreign "administrators" who know little or nothing
about Iraq's rich history and cultures. If it is difficult to
imagine Texans and Virginians in charge of ancient Mesopotamian
cities, try to imagine an administrator from Baghdad or Mosul
running an American city as complex as New York or even Milwaukee.
We have never experienced the humiliation of foreign occupation,
and do not understand that even the most virulently anti-Saddam
Iraqi will not appreciate being patronized.
Shi'ite rumblings
Third, the poor Shi'ite majority in southern
Iraq and Baghdad is clearly jubilant about the fall of Saddam,
and is expecting that its second-class economic status should
soon end. The Bush Administration, however, has different ideas,
by enhancing the role of unpopular exiles from Iraq's elite,
who dominated the country before the 1958 revolution toppled
the monarchy. U.S. planes flew the Iraqi
National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi back into Iraq after a
47-year exile. Shi'ite clerics and other dissidents were furious
that the elite Shi'ite banker was being groomed for a major role
in the occupation, and threatened to lead a revolt. A Shi'ite
cleric opposing Saddam in Basra similarly told the New York Times,
"We regard nationalists in the army as defending Iraqi land
against invasion and the exploitation of Iraqi wealth. They are
defending Iraq, not the regime." But a young Shi'ite man
put it most eloquently to an ABC News reporter covering the chaotic
distribution of food aid in Umm Qasr: "You have humiliated
us more than our enemies."
In the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, the
Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa (religious ruling) when the
war began that Iraqis should resist the Coalition. As U.S. forces
moved into Najaf, they claimed that the Ayatollah had reversed
the fatwa. The American media gushed with praise for the Ayatollah--who
is based in the same city where Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini had
lived in exile in 1965-78. Al Jazeera later reported that Sistani
denied the reversal, but the incident was perhaps the central
political turning point in the Iraq War.
It is apparent that the "Coalition"
occupiers eventually plan to form an Iraqi coalition government
including exiles such as Chalabi, but also Sunni royalists, selected
Shi'ite clerics, and Kurdish peshmerga fighters. By hand-picking
the elites of each ethnic-religious group, the U.S. will be trying
to solidify its influence, but it will also not be disappointed
if they fall into bickering or violent strife. By setting up
the postwar government to fail, or by highlighting tensions within
such a government, the U.S. can justify a permanent military
bases presence to "safeguard stability." Withdrawal
will not be an option.
Neighbors' fears
Fourth, the relatively easy victory in
Iraq is going to heighten fears and resentment of the U.S. in
neighboring Middle Eastern states, particularly Syria, Iran and
Lebanon. Iraqis lost at least ten times as many civilians as
the Coalition lost in the war--not even counting Iraqi military
deaths. Even strongly anti-Saddam Arabs had been hoping the U.S.
would have a tougher time conquering Iraq, if only to prevent
further American overconfidence and recklessness. They fear a
new version of the domino theory, in which the U.S. attacks nuclear
sites in Iran, camps in Syria and Lebanon, and then on to topple
governments in North Korea, Venezuela, and points in between.
The Pentagon is already overextending
its reach to countries such as Colombia and the Philippines,
where it will eventually run into tough rebel resistance (as
it surprisingly did for a few days in southern Iraq) in mixed
guerrilla-civilian zones where there is no clear military to
bomb. Recent U.S. wars have been directed against countries with
identifiable and nasty dictators. Without Saddam and Bin Laden
as its main foes, Washington will have to search for another
enemy to justify the bloated military budget and civil liberties
crackdowns.
Terrorism more likely
Finally, the relatively easy U.S. victory
in Iraq increases, rather than decreases, the threat of 9/11-style
terrorist attacks. We should not have a faslse sense of security
that the "threat" would pass with the war's end. As
Fedayeen irregular forces were unexpectedly tying down Coalition
troops around Nasiriyah and Basra, the threat of terrorism may
have actually diminished. Islamist radicals, though they strongly
opposed the "infidel" Saddam's secular rule, were glad
to see the U.S. and British get a small dose of humiliation.
Many Arab nationalists and even pro-Western officials felt much
the same. Had the war lasted longer, and the fighting grown tougher,
they may have been satisfied that Arab pride had remained intact.
But with the hubris of the Coalition victory, certain groups
such as Al Qaeda may conclude that America needs a new humiliation
to match Iraq's humiliation.
This threat will only grow with the U.S.-U.K.
occupation. The new American civil governor of Iraq, retired
General Jay Garner, has been a strong advocate of the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian lands, so is precisely the wrong guy
for the job. As the U.S. military presence becomes more permanent,
and the military bases and airfields it recently seized are reinforced
and expanded, the threat will also increase. It was not the 1991
Gulf War that led Osama bin Laden to launch Al Qaeda's first
attacks five years later, but the fact that U.S. forces stayed
behind his Saudi holy land despite promises to leave after the
conflict. Today, the Coalition similarly claims that its "forces
will not stay in Iraq a day longer than is necessary." Finally
getting wise, the Saudis are asking the Americans to leave after
the conquest of Iraq is completed. How long will it take Iraqi
nationalists to ask Americans to leave the Shi'ite holy land?
And what will they do when Washington ignores them?
Let Iraqis Rule Themselves
It is obviously desirable from a human
perspective that the war is drawing to a close and fewer people
are expected to die in the next few weeks than died in the past
few weeks. But the gloating of victors and the humiliation of
the losers is the best way to guarantee future instability and
war in Iraq. And history shows that the best guarantee of a U.S.
military intervention is a previous history of U.S. military
interventions.
Both pro-war and anti-war Americans tend
to view civilians as passive victims of the violence in Iraq--
victims of either Saddam or smart bombs, or both. But Iraqi civilians,
particularly from oppressed ethnic and religious groups, have
always been independent agents in shaping their own destinies.
We have tended to look at Iraq (as we
have previously viewed Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Central America
or Vietnam) as an arena where our different visions of America
and its foreign policy are played out. But geographers understand
that Iraq is a place, with a deep history and immense complexities.
Iraq is not an empty slate on which Americans can etch their
messages of war or peace, but a treasured home to the people
who live there.
We can now defend the sovereignty of
the Iraqi people without being accused of defending Saddam's
regime. True Iraqi self-determination could even lead to the
ejection of foreign troops and bases, and the nationalization
of the country's oil wealth for the benefit of its people. The
goal of the peace movement needs to shift from "War is Not
the Answer" to "Let Iraqis Rule Themselves."
Zoltan Grossman is
an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-
Eau Claire. His peace writings can be seen at http://www.uwec.edu/grossmzc/peace.html
and he can be reached at zoltan@igc.org
Today's
Features
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
David Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
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