[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus]
A nation-state is by definition a political, geopolitical, cultural and/or ethnic entity which derives its internal legitimacy through national consensus.
Since today’s Iraq was first established after the First World War by western imperial interests and modeled on the concept of a nation-state, relative stability has been maintained there through repressive governance.
That has been necessary because there has never been enough common interest among the diverse religious, sectarian and ethnic groups in the geographic area called “Iraq” to find government by consensus. The concept of nation-state has existed only geographically, never politically, culturally or ethnically.
As a “country” characterized by centuries-old, deep, sectarian and ethnic divisions, Iraq does not have the kind of citizenry that is suited by belief, culture, experience or history to make consensus government prosper. One hundred years of repressive internal indigenous governance, plus almost 400 years of previous Ottoman rule, have not created an electorate that is prepared for anything remotely resembling self-governance, let alone democracy.
Iraq, as now configured, is a poor bet for successful self-determination. Its people hold little in common.
According to the existing Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between America and Iraq, all remaining US forces will have to exit Iraq by December 31, 2011.
Room for negotiation on our final departure date is contained within the SOFA, but it seems unlikely that there will be political will in Iraq to make any changes.
The powerful Shia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr is currently studying religion in Iran. He continues to command the Mahdi Army which fought very effectively against our troops, particularly in 2004. Al-Sadr has just replied to Secdef Gates’ recent suggestion that the SOFA might be extended.
He first organized a massive march by tens of thousands of his followers in Baghdad. He then indicated very clearly that any SOFA extension is unacceptable, saying that if it were changed, “The first thing we will do is escalate the military resistance activity and reactivate the Mahdi Army …… Second is to escalate the peaceful and public resistance through sit-ins”.
This statement has already had a major impact on the sitting Maliki coalition government. The Sadrists are part of that Maliki coalition. Their only apparently inflexible condition, one that has brought them in and out and back into that coalition, has been strict adherance to the SOFA. If U.S. troops are not totally out of Iraq by December 31, 2011, not only will he gin up the old Mahdi army with all its fractious implications, he will also withdraw support from the Maliki Government and thus precipitate its fall.
This will leave Iraq without a government and at the mercy of the Mahdi army which would probably turn out to be the dominant military organization in Iraq and which is not particularly friendly to the concept of Iraqi democracy or even statehood, except on its own terms. There is so little appetite in Iraq for this scenario that change in the SOFA and the continued presence of US troops in Iraq is short of zero.
Implosion is certainly a nightmare scenario for Iraq and only slightly less so for the US. Without sufficient ability to keep law and order, as Saddam and the US have done over the past 30+ years, present day Iraq is more than likely to fracture into its component parts – Sunni, Shia, Kurd. That process will attract all kinds of attention from the region. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, and particularly Iran all have major stakes in any Iraqi outcome.
The only real issue is whether or not the neighbors are prepared to initiate and support hostilities against their rivals. This seems unlikely, but no one really knows.
What is clear is that, without some sort of effective power center, which has historically been repressive, Iraq will be unlikely to be able to maintain internal stability and is likely to fracture into its component parts.
More importantly, given the sub rosa reality of a deeply divided Iraq, that is precisely what is likely to happen whenever we leave, whether in nine months, nine years or nine decades! With or without Al-Sadr in the government, Iraq will face the future with inadequate internal control.
At the end of this year we will leave because we have no leverage to change the situation. Rather than fruitlessly pursuing SOFA changes, we should spend the rest of the year working to make our departure as minimally threatening to regional stability as possible.
Rural Ruminations 