Unrealistic hopes in a lost war

Unrealistic hopes in
a game that is lost

SADDAM Hussein met a violent end on Saturday at hands of his arch enemies backed by the United States in what could be easily perceived as the enactment of a Washington-scripted drama.
Saddam, who ruled Iraq with an iron hand for three decades before meeting his Nemesis in US President George Bush, who ordered the invasion and occupation of his country in March 2003, appeared to have sought the image of a martyr for his people in his final days. Indeed, for many he was a hero despite his oppression of his people. His admirers were willing to overlook his mismanagement of his country and the disasters he invited for his people through his military misadventures against Iran in 1980 and against Kuwait in 1990.
Now that Saddam has been executed after being convicted of crimes against humanity, the world is left pondering what impact his death would have on the future of Iraq and the region.
The easiest answer to that is: The Saddam era ended with the ouster of the Iraqi strongman in April 2003, and he lost his political relevance when he was captured in a humiliating fashion by US forces in December 2003.
Saddam's execution could lead to a surge in the guerrilla war that is being waged in Iraq, but the overall crisis in the country since the US invasion was never Saddam-specific.
Today, his execution is seen to have given a political boost to Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, mainly because he is seen to have had the courage and initiative to sign papers ordering Saddam's hanging early Saturday. A political boost for Maliki is deemed as improving prospects for stabilising the strife-torn country, particularly that the prime minister has reached out to Baathist loyalists of the executed president.
The ideal solution, of course, is for the sectarian leaders of the country to sit down and negotiate a formula for co-existence in light of the new realities that they face in post-Saddam Iraq where sectarianism is fuelling a raging civil war.
However, it might not be as easy as that. Maliki might indeed be successful in bringing in some of the Sunni groups waging the insurgency that has wreaked havoc on the people of Iraq, but that would not root out the real problem.
The ethnic crises in the country has crossed the point of no return. The sectarian bloodshed has pushed beyond redemption all hopes of keeping the country and its people as a single entity as the case was since the early 1900s, when colonial powers imposed their will on the main communities and bound them together. Those bindings disappeared with the US invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and it is an impossible task for any power on earth to rebind them since it would demand unacceptable and impossible compromises from the three main sects — the majority Shiites and the minority Sunnis and Kurds. The Kurds and Shiites want the country's natural resources for themselves and they reject any power- or wealth-sharing with the Sunnis. The Kurds want their own independent entity in the oil-rich north, and the Shiites want the same thing in the south. Thrown into the bargain is a brutal and vengeful campaign of death led by the Shiites against the Sunnis, who also seem have to organised themselves and hitting back wherever they could in the ongoing "ethnic cleansing" in the country.
The Arabs, Muslims and the international community at large want national reconciliation in Iraq so that the suffering of the Iraqis would end, and the sectarian crisis does not spill over the borders of the country.
However, it would remain wishful thinking as long as the US maintains its military presence in Iraq as a colonial power. And it is in the interest of some countries which feel targeted by the US to keep the flames of civil war burning in Iraq so that Washington would remain bogged down and rendered unable to implement what they see as its grand designs for a "new Middle East."
And then there are the "international jihadists" who do not have an Iraq-specific cause but pursue an anti-US agenda around the globe. The US presence in Iraq offers them the reason to continue their version of a "holy war" at the expense of Iraqi lives.
Finally, the biggest challenge the US and the Shiite-led government in Iraq face is yet to materialise itself: The marauding Shiite militiamen whose leader is politically aligned with Maliki but opposes the US presence in the country. Sooner or later, the US forces and government soldiers would have to take on groups like the Mahdi Army and others and this would mean pitting US-backed Shiites against Shiites. Once that happens many other elements would come into play that would totally do away with any hope of salvation and rescue of the country and its people.
This is a reality that Washington strategists would be better off to keep in mind while mapping any plans for Iraq. As it is reported, Bush is determined to pursue the military option to fight off the insurgency in Iraq, but he would find that he has no option whatsoever in Iraq that would help him achieve the neoconservative-drafted strategic and geopolitical objectives in the country.
Bush on Saturday described Saddam's execution as a milestone for democracy in Iraq. Well, the US president is not being realistic, to say the least. The minimum requirements for democracy in any country are stability and security and both elements are not simply elusive in Iraq but are beyond reach. It is a lost game for the US in Iraq, and it was already so with or without Saddam's execution.