Rural Ruminations

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

The Obama administration’s ongoing demand, originated by the Bush administration, that the Iraqi government permit thousands of American troops to remain in Iraq after the existing departure deadline of the end of this year appears to have run into serious trouble in the Iraqi approval process.

Apparently the Iraqis have not made a final decision, but the real issue here is the precise meaning of the American and Iraqi inability to come expeditiously to agreement on an item of considerable importance to both sides.

The sticking point appears to be that we have demanded that all our troops who remain in Iraq must have immunity from Iraqi courts. It is difficult to think that we would agree to a status of forces agreement with any country, including Iraq, that did not provide such immunity, which has existed in virtually all of such agreements we have concluded around the world since World War II.

The problem for Iraq lies in the inherent composition of the country and government. There is apparently a consensus within Iraqi leadership both that the American troops should stay and that they should be granted the requested immunity.

However, our State Department lawyers have determined that immunity from Iraqi courts, even if granted by the existing Iraqi government, would be guaranteed only if formally approved by the Iraqi Parliament.

Therein lies the rub. Even though the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki seems willing to grant this immunity, the Parliament is not. The 2010 elections produced a government composed of nine different alliances and parties. It is fragmented and so weak that it cannot conceivably support the grant of immunity to American troops that is an absolutely inflexible condition of the Obama administration. Far too many Iraqis see this grant as a continuation of the “American occupation” and do not support it. Parenthetically, al-Maliki has said from the start that approval of the Iraqi Parliament would be impossible.

Of course, this impasse is a reflection on the entire American experience in Iraq. It says a great deal about any chances we might have thought we had for “success” in that country when we invaded in 2003. And it says a lot about our hopes for future influence there.

However, what it says a great deal more subtly is about Iraq itself. Imagine a country whose parliament is made up of nine groups and parties that received, in descending order, 24.7 percent, 24.2 percent, 18.1 percent, 14.5 percent, 4.1 percent, 2.6 percent, 2.5 percent, 2.1 percent and 1.3 percent of the popular national vote, which was made up of 62.4 percent of the total population.

Given our normal level of participation in American national elections, that is a most respectable and representative turnout.

However, what it should tell you is how incredibly fragmented Iraq really is. Iraq has three very different main population groups: the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds, and each of those is politically and at times tribally divided.

Sunnis make up only 15 percent to 20 percent of the Iraqi population, yet during the 20th century they absolutely dominated Iraq’s government and economy. It didn’t help that the last Sunni leader was Saddam Hussein and that he brutally repressed the Shiites (60 percent of the population) and the Kurds (18 percent of the population), making nothing but enemies among them.

Their control and repression were so complete that many Sunnis actually believed they represented a majority in the Iraq population.

And now we have the majority Shiites finally in control — but of what? They are in control of the Sunnis, who deeply resent their loss of control of the country, and the Kurds, who think of themselves primarily as Kurds, not Iraqis, and who are part of a total of about 50 million Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of its own.

Both the Shiites and the Kurds suffered mightily under the Sunnis. Thousands of Kurds were indiscriminately murdered by Saddam’s Sunni regime. The Shiites have no love for the Sunnis who dominated them murderously for decades. The Sunnis are bewildered by their loss of power, wealth and influence.

The Kurds simply want a home of their own. They all want Iraqi oil.

Iraq is an unhappy country that is sharply divided among three groups with different goals and imperatives, with no one group particularly liking the other.

What form Iraq takes after years of war, insurrection and occupation is difficult if not impossible to predict. Logic, which rarely prevails, might have it that Iraq would split quietly into its three component parts — Shiite, Kurd and Sunni. However, it is unlikely that the transition, whatever it is to be, will be smooth.