By Steve Hynd
If Iraq is such a success, why don't Iraqis want to return there?
Almost seven years later, the most catastrophic legacy of the Iraq war is shaping up to be the more than 2 million refugees who are locked in limbo on its borders with no hope of moving on...since the Iraq war began in March 2003, roughly 4.5 million people have fled. A little over half are IDPs, internally displaced people who were forced from their communities and sought haven elsewhere in Iraq. The rest are refugees, primarily in Syria (which hosts up to 1 million Iraqis), but also in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon. Taken together, they represent one of the largest forced migrations in the world.
...Last year, 32,550 Iraqis (or less than 2 percent of refugees) went home, and some turned around and left again upon finding that conditions there remained unsafe. According to the UNHCR, there are no large-scale returns, and the situation in Iraq remains bad enough that the international community is holding to a policy of non-refoulement -- refraining from encouraging (let alone forcing) Iraqi refugees to return home.
That danger was underlined again today, when a gun and bomb attack killed four in Baghdad but the big news from America's twin occupations was the similar attack in Kabul, that killed only one more. But the media have been convinced that The Surge worked even if it and other factors (Sadrist ceasefire, Anbar Awakening) only reduced violence to a level which in any other nation would be shocking and newsworthy. Secure in their narrative, the media have moved on.
Which means they haven't been paying enough attention as the cracks that The Surge papered over have gradually widened and become more obvious. Gregg Carlstrom posts on the news that the Iraqi electoral commission have made a (possibly illegal) decision to bar nearly 500 candidates from the March 7 election, the vast majority being Sunnis. He notes that the kneejerk reaction of the Villagers is to call for an extension of the US occupation there -something General Odierno will love - but:
Rewind the debate a few years; recall that the original purpose of the Iraq surge was to create "breathing space" for political reconciliation in Iraq. That reconciliation hasn't really happened, as evidenced by the de-Ba'athification decision, and the fact that Iraqi politics remain dominated by a constellation of sectarian parties.
The solution to that problem is not to once again extend the deadline for withdrawal -- in the hope that Iraqi factions will magically reconcile. It hasn't happened during the last seven years of U.S. occupation. There's no reason to believe another 12 or 24 months will change that.
Following the commission's decision, local Shiite powerbrokers have jumped on the bandwagon in a very worrying way.
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) � Local government officials warned Saddam Hussein loyalists on Monday to move out of the Shiite province of Najaf in central Iraq within 24 hours or face an "iron fist."
They demanded the exodus after a meeting to discuss security in the wake of a triple bomb attack last week in Najaf, about 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of Baghdad, that left up to 15 people dead.
"The Baath gang of Saddam has one day to leave the province or we will use an iron fist against those who have failed to distance themselves from the Baath and Al-Qaeda," the officials said in a statement.
The leader of the provincial council, which is dominated by the party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, blamed the bomb attack on Baathists, referring to Saddam's outlawed Sunni-dominated Baath party.
"The council's next measure will be to purge local government institutions of Baathists," said the statement, which also asked Baghdad to use its intelligence services to identify wrongdoers.
The demand could further inflame Sunni-Shiite tensions after many Sunnis were among 500 candidates barred last week from the conflict-wracked country's March 7 general election, purportedly because of Baathist links.
And while we're not yet at the stage of civil war,
An Iraqi source said the aim of the ban is to restrict the field to parties rooted in religion.
The key Shia sectarian factions, Maliki's Dawa, SIIC, and the movement loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr, are prepared to permit the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party to function because �it is a religious party, has no credibility and will lose votes�.
He said the ban is a �pre-emptive strike� designed to �finish off� secular nationalists. The sectarian parties, secessionist Kurds and Iran �fear their resurgence�, particularly in Mosul, Iraq�s third largest city, and the north and west where nationalists defeated Kurdish and Shia candidates in last year�s provincial polls....Joost Hilterman, an Iraq specialist at the International Crisis Group, observed that the ban �is a terrible move... The elections are for Sunnis the make-or-break event for their participation in the state of Iraq�.
Raed Jarrar, a political analyst, said the ban �will have catastrophic results� because it will force those excluded from politics to fight �outside the system�. He warned that the election has the �potential to ignite a new civil conflict.� This would be disastrous, he said, because Iraq does not have the institutions capable of surviving fresh civil warfare. He pointed out that its security forces are divided by sectarian and ethnic loyalties.
What we might see is a de facto breakup of Iraq into tripartite states, accompanied by increased violence but not enough to trigger the world's attention or warrant the name "civil war". If that occurs, we might have to all go apologise to Joe Biden.
No comments:
Post a Comment