Assyrian Democratic Organization ADO
Like so many problems in the re-birth of states wounded by dictatorship — Eastern Europe is a good example — Iraq’s difficulties have deep historical roots. To blame everything on the heavy-handedness of the Americans is too simplistic and shallow, even if their mistakes have, indeed, been legion.
Iraq was established in the 1920s by the British, who occupied the region after the Ottoman Empire disintegrated at the end of World War I. Their policies were dictated by British imperial interests, and gave no consideration to the wishes, interests, or characteristics of the local population.
What British imperial planners did was to stitch together three disparate provinces of the old Ottoman Empire and put at their head a prince from Hedjaz (now a part of Saudi Arabia). The three provinces — Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra — each had very distinct characters and very different population structures.
Mosul had a Kurdish majority, with significant Assyrian-Christian and Turkoman minorities; Baghdad was mainly Sunni; and Basra was predominantly Shia. Throwing such disparate groups into one body politic doomed the newly invented country to decades of strife and repression.
The old Ottoman Empire ruled these three provinces — as it ruled all of its imperial possessions — through its historically autocratic means. The challenge facing the new Iraqi state was to try to create a non-despotic, relatively representative form of government in which all sectors of the population would find an expression of their political will. This turned out to be an impossible mission. For this reason Iraq — even before former president Saddam Hussein — always suffered the most repressive regime of any Arab state.
In a country where Shia form the majority, the Sunnis — traditionally the hegemonic group in all Arab countries — were totally unwilling to allow any democratic process to jeopardize their rule. A Shia insurrection was brutally put down in the 1920s (with the help of the British Royal Air Force).
Similarly, Kurdish attempts at autonomy before World War II were drowned in bloody massacres of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, and even the Assyrian Christian minority — a relatively small group, with no political ambitions — was exposed to murderous assaults in the 1930s.
Under these conditions, with the Sunni ruling minority constantly feeling threatened, it was no accident that the only attempt in any Arab country to establish something like a pro-Nazi fascist regime occurred in Iraq in the early 1940s under Rashid Ali al-Khailani. The British suppressed this misadventure, but not before hundreds of Jews in Baghdad were murdered in a wild farhood (pogrom) instigated by the short-lived pro-Nazi government.
Saddam’s regime was merely the most extreme manifestation of the harsh underlying fact that Iraq’s geography and demography condemned it to rule by the iron fist. Nor has Saddam’s fall changed this fact: anti-US violence is not only an expression of anger at foreign occupation; it is also a Sunni attempt to abort the establishment of a democratic order that would put them — the historical masters — in a subordinate position.
Similarly, one cannot see the Kurds in the north submitting willingly to a Baghdad-dominated Arab regime, let alone a Shia one (most Kurds are Sunnis). There is little understanding in the West of how deep the Sunni/Shia divide runs. Put yourself in pre-1648 Europe, a time when Protestants and Catholics slaughtered each other with abandon, and you’ll understand the enmity immediately.
So what can be done? Yugoslavia’s example shows that in multi-ethnic and multi-religious countries deeply riven by conflict, partition and separation may be the only way to ensure stability and democratization. There is no doubt today that Croatia and Serbia — despite their difficulties — stand a better chance of becoming more or less stable democracies than if they were still fighting for mastery among themselves within the Procrustean bed of the former Yugoslavia.
Nor is federation an alternative — as the terms of the federation itself become the bones of contention (see Bosnia or Cyprus). Even the pacific Czechs and Slovaks found it easier to develop their respective democratic structures through a velvet divorce rather than be joined in an unworkable marriage.
The time has come to think the unthinkable, about creating a Kurdish state in the north, an Arab Sunni one in the center around Baghdad, and an Arab Shia state in the south around Basra. Repeating mantras about territorial integrity — the conventional wisdom of international relations — is productive only as long as it ensures stability and averts chaos. Again, as Yugoslavia — and the Soviet Union — showed, once strife replaces stability, territorial integrity loses its strategic meaning and legitimacy.
This is not a universal prescription for ethnically homogenous states. The point is simply that there are moments in history when democratization and nation building coincide, and that in deeply divided societies the minimum consensus needed for both to succeed simultaneously is difficult to achieve. All this may run contrary to conventional wisdom, but who thought that the USSR would disintegrate? Creative and innovative thinking is needed about Iraq; otherwise today’s mayhem will continue — and worsen.
Shlomo Avineri is professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
