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	Iraq: The Divided Nation by Borzou Daragahi & Louise Roug, Noam Chomsky Los Angeles Times / Khaleej Times   January 4, 2006   Iraq: The Divided Nation, by Borzou Daragahi & Louise Roug. (LA Times)   The myth of a unified Iraqi identity may have finally been laid to rest. More clearly than any other measurement since the United States-led invasion in 2003, preliminary results from last month"s parliamentary elections show Iraq as three lands with three distinct identities, divided by faith, goals, region, history and symbols.   Iraqis of all stripes say they are the descendants of Mesopotamia, the glorious great-grandchildren of the cradle of civilisation. Iraq, they point out, gave birth to law and the written word. And asked their faith, Iraqis often testily answer with the refrain: "There is no Sunni. There is no Shiite. We are all Iraqi."   But the preliminary election results, which have trickled out through a series of haphazard leaks and news conferences and remain disputed by all parties, show a nation starkly fragmented into ethnic and religious cantons with different aims and visions.   Nine out of 10 Iraqis in the Shiite Muslim provinces of the south voted for religious Shiite parties, according to the early results from the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. Nine out of 10 Iraqis in Sunni Muslim Arab areas of central and western Iraq voted for Sunni parties. Nine out of 10 Iraqis in the Kurdish provinces of the north voted for Kurdish candidates. Nationwide, only about 9 per cent voted for tickets that purported to represent all Iraqis.   The results were like a bracing splash of ice water for US officials, who had predicted that a secular, centrist Iraqi government would emerge after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Many longtime observers of Iraq had hoped the vote would foster national unity by bringing to power moderate politicians who might help draw down a minority Sunni Arab-led insurgency against a Government now controlled by the country"s majority Shiites, and stanch Kurds" secessionist tendencies.   Instead, more than 240 of the 275 legislators, who will decide the composition of the future government, will probably be Shiite Islamists, Sunni Arab sectarians or autonomy-minded Kurds. The Shiites, who make up about 60 per cent of the nation"s population, will hold by far the largest share.   Though Iraqis often speak lovingly of golden ages when they were one big happy family, Iraq has been a shaky proposition since its 1920s founding. Rather than sharing a history, the paths of Iraq"s Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds diverged from the beginning of the nation"s inception as a product of British colonialism.   Sunnis collaborated with the British, who supported the Sunni Arab monarchists. Shiite insurrectionists heeded the calls of their clergy and fought a jihad, or holy war, against the British, who crushed them and reaffirmed their second-class status. Kurdish nationalists unsuccessfully sought independence, first by diplomatic channels, later by the gun.   Iraq"s post-World War II order was no less divisive. Sunni Arab nationalists forced their pan-Arab ideology on the diverse country following Britain"s departure. Saddam"s Sunni-run government magnified discrimination to the point of mass killings, with Shiites and Kurds punished not so much for who they were but for refusing to accept the Baath Party"s version of Iraqi identity. Nonetheless, Saddam"s authoritarianism was the glue that held Iraq together for decades. Now that he is out of power, the nation"s troubled identity has again been cast into flux.   Does the nation continue to bow before the philosophy of Arab nationalism, or that of Shiite mysticism? Is Iraq"s national hero Saddam or the 7th century Shiite caliph Imam Ali? Or, for that matter, is it the late Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani?   A further erosion of Iraqi identity could pave the way for a partitioning of the country, with unpredictable results.   Kurds, already soured on the idea of Iraq, could bolt the union, taking the oil-rich city of Kirkuk with them and realising the worst fears of Turkey and Iran, each with sizeable and restless Kurdish minorities.   Shiites, too, unified by their religious iconography, have begun seriously talking about setting up a nine-province, oil-rich southern region. That would leave an angry and resentful Sunni Arab centre and west of the country determined to continue staging an insurgency that could inflame passions throughout the Middle East.   Many Sunni Arab nationalists and former Baath Party adherents blame Iran and the United States for interfering in Iraq"s internal affairs and whipping up sectarian and ethnic passions. The US, they say, started the troubles by doling out seats on the initial post-invasion Iraqi Governing Council according to ethnicity and sect rather than who was best qualified. Iran, they say, has flooded the country with religious imagery and propaganda, bolstering the fierce sectarianism of the country"s Shiite majority to achieve its own ends.   Regardless of the cause, the very idea of Iraq may be slowly fading, politicians and common Iraqis acknowledge, often sadly.   Even the Iraqi flag seems to appear only in the posters of politicians bankrolled by US-funded aid organisations. Government buildings such as the ministries of education and health are often festooned with posters of bearded and turbaned Shiite clerics instead of the red, white and black flag of Iraq.   In the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Dahuk, the Iraqi flag is nowhere in evidence, replaced by the red, white and green flag of the ill-fated Mahabad republic, the Kurdish state briefly established in northern Iran by rebellious Kurds aided by the Soviet army in the chaotic aftermath of World War II.   Many also blame politicians and clerics who have courted supporters with symbols of faith and ethnicity. Iraq remains a religious and tribal society where codes of honour and loyalty are deeply ingrained.   Some Iraq experts compare the situation with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. In times of crisis, they say, people tend to seek out their own kind and stick close to them, just as citizens of former communist countries sought refuge in religion and ethnicity, catalysts for wars in Chechnya, Yugoslavia and Tajikistan.   But Iraq"s situation is by no means hopeless. In some quarters, Iraqi national identity remains strong, said Juan Cole, a professor of history and a leading authority on Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan. He argues that with the collapse of Baathist-imposed Arab nationalism, Iraqis need to work out a new identity that includes all Iraqis, just as Canada managed to accommodate the Quebecois and Britain the Scots.   In the worst-case scenario, questions of Iraqi identity will be resolved on the streets by the AK-47s each Iraqi household seems to have stashed away. In the best-case scenario, Iraqi identity will be renegotiated passionately yet peacefully in courts, classrooms and legislative chambers..   January 6, 2006   "Beyond the Ballot", by Noam Chomsky. (Khaleej Times)   The US President Bush called last month’s Iraqi elections a "major milestone in the march to democracy." They are indeed a milestone — just not the kind that Washington would welcome. Disregarding the standard declarations of benign intent on the part of leaders, let’s review the history. When Bush and Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, invaded Iraq, the pretext, insistently repeated, was a "single question": Will Iraq eliminate its weapons of mass destruction?   Within a few months this "single question" was answered the wrong way. Then, very quickly, the real reason for the invasion became Bush’s "messianic mission" to bring democracy to Iraq and the Middle East. Even apart from the timing, the democratisation bandwagon runs up against the fact that the United States has tried, in every possible way, to prevent elections in Iraq.   Last January’s elections came about because of mass nonviolent resistance, for which the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani became a symbol. (The violent insurgency is another creature altogether from this popular movement.) Few competent observers would disagree with the editors of the Financial Times, who wrote last March that "the reason (the elections) took place was the insistence of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who vetoed three schemes by the US-led occupation authorities to shelve or dilute them."   Elections, if taken seriously, mean you pay some attention to the will of the population. The crucial question for an invading army is: "Do they want us to be here?"   There is no lack of information about the answer. One important source is a poll for the British Ministry of Defence this past August, carried out by Iraqi university researchers and leaked to the British Press. It found that 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops and less than 1 per cent believe they are responsible for any improvement in security.   Analysts of the Brookings Institution in Washington report that in November, 80 per cent of Iraqis favoured "near-term US troop withdrawal." Other sources generally concur. So the coalition forces should withdraw, as the population wants them to, instead of trying desperately to set up a client regime with military forces that they can control. But Bush and Blair still refuse to set a timetable for withdrawal, limiting themselves to token withdrawals as their goals are achieved.   There’s a good reason why the United States cannot tolerate a sovereign, more or less democratic Iraq. The issue can scarcely be raised because it conflicts with firmly established doctrine: We’re supposed to believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq if it was an island in the Indian Ocean and its main export was pickles, not petroleum.   As is obvious to anyone not committed to the party line, taking control of Iraq will enormously strengthen US power over global energy resources, a crucial lever of world control. Suppose that Iraq were to become sovereign and democratic. Imagine the policies it would be likely to pursue. The Shia population in the South, where much of Iraq’s oil is, would have a predominant influence. They would prefer friendly relations with Shia Iran.   The relations are already close. The Badr brigade, the militia that mostly controls the south, was trained in Iran. The highly influential clerics also have long-standing relations with Iran, including Sistani, who grew up there. And the Shia-dominant interim government has already begun to establish economic and possibly military relations with Iran.   Furthermore, right across the border in Saudi Arabia is a substantial, bitter Shia population. Any move toward independence in Iraq is likely to increase efforts to gain a degree of autonomy and justice there, too. This also happens to be the region where most of Saudi Arabia’s oil is. The outcome could be a loose Shia alliance comprising Iraq, Iran and the major oil regions of Saudi Arabia, independent of Washington and controlling large portions of the world’s oil reserves. It’s not unlikely that an independent bloc of this kind might follow Iran’s lead in developing major energy projects jointly with China and India.   Iran may give up on Western Europe, assuming that it will be unwilling to act independently of the United States. China, however, can’t be intimidated. That’s why the United States is so frightened by China.   China is already establishing relations with Iran - and even with Saudi Arabia, both military and economic. There is an Asian energy security grid, based on China and Russia, but probably bringing in India, Korea and others. If Iran moves in that direction, it can become the lynchpin of that power grid.   Such developments, including a sovereign Iraq and possibly even major Saudi energy resources, would be the ultimate nightmare for Washington. Also, a labour movement is forming in Iraq, a very important one. Washington insists on keeping Saddam Hussein’s bitter anti-labour laws, but the labour movement continues its organising work despite them.   Their activists are being killed. Nobody knows by whom, maybe by insurgents, maybe by former Baathists, maybe by somebody else. But they’re persisting. They constitute one of the major democratising forces that have deep roots in Iraqi history, and that might revitalise, also much to the horror of the occupying forces. One critical question is how Westerners will react. Will we be on the side of the occupying forces trying to prevent democracy and sovereignty? Or will we be on the side of the Iraqi people?   (Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Khaleej Times, is the No.1 English language daily newspaper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates).
	A mixed Year for the Arab People by Rami G. Khouri The Daily Star Lebanon   Beirut , 01 January 2005   A look back at eventful 2005 in the Middle East shows three broad and significant developments in historical terms, related to the citizen, the state and the foreign powers that intervened in the region. Important changes are underway at all three of these levels of identity discernable today, though we need not predict where they will lead.   The most positive development has seen the citizen in many Arab countries start to rebel against the many indignities and inequities that he or she has endured in silence for decades - mostly variations of abuse of power by unelected, unaccountable elites from their own country or abroad. In Lebanon and Palestine, large-scale popular resistance and opposition were expressed, respectively, to Syrian domination and Israeli occupation.The citizenry"s rebellion in other Arab lands primarily took the form of small vanguard groups of democratic activists who openly but peacefully challenged the state"s monopoly on power (in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Morocco), or mainstream Islamist parties that challenged the ruling elite through democratic elections to Parliament or to local councils (in Palestine, Egypt, or Lebanon).   Changes at the level of states were largely negative this year, the most troubling one being the continued fragmentation of 20th-century sovereign Arab states into much more brittle collections of ethnic, religious and tribal groups. The most common new trend I encountered throughout the 12 different Arab countries I visited this year - without exception - was the tendency to analyze each country in tribal rather than national terms. Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most other Arab lands are now routinely seen through the prism of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Alawites, Druze, Palestinians, Darfurians, Turkmen, and assorted Christian groups such as Maronites, Copts or Greek Orthodox.   The Arab state is in the midst of being fractured, retribalized and redefined into much smaller configurations. Three principal causes of this process would seem to be: the largely incompetent, often brutal rule practiced by the reining Sunni Arab-dominated power elites during the past half century, a clear Israeli penchant for weakening Arab states and promoting the emergence of smaller, weaker minorities with whom it can engage to its advantage (as it has done for years with Kurds in Iraq and some right-wing groups in Lebanon), and, the current American formalization of ethnic politics in Iraq as a possible model for the entire region.   This leads to the third important trend that has defined the Middle East this year, but without clear indications of whether the end results will be positive or negative for the people of the region. This is the stepped up international direct engagement in the internal affairs of countries, including Arab states, Iran and Turkey. (Sorry, a small but necessary aside; if freedom and democracy are universal values, and should be spread around the world, does the same apply to the rule of law, and the state of Israel?).   The enduring exception of Israel aside, the international community"s intervention inside the Middle East this year has been striking for its audacity, but imprecise in its legitimacy and consequences. I would identify four dominant patterns of such intervention.   The first was the essentially unilateral American brute use of force, with window-dressing hangers-on, as happened in Iraq. We will need more time to discover if this epic intervention proves to be valiant or catastrophic for the people of Iraq and the region. The second was the multilateral, diplomatic, patient, focused, consensus-driven UN Security Council-based approach used in Lebanon to pressure Syria after the murder of Rafik Hariri last February. A variation on this deliberate approach is also being used to engage Iran on its nuclear plans.   The third form of foreign intervention was the painstaking, step-by-step prodding of domestic institutional and legal reforms of Arab societies championed by the European Union since 1995, and more recently in a slightly more inept form by the U.S.-dominated G-8 group of industrial nations. Gains have been thin to date. The fourth, and most intriguing, intervention technique, also dominated by the U.S., was the pressure exerted on individual countries over specific issues, using a combination of public statements by American senior officials and private warnings and cajoling. The best examples of this were the quests to push forward electoral reform and expanded voting in Egypt and Kuwait. Activists in both countries say privately that Washington"s pressure played an important role in pushing these two Arab systems to evolve somewhat.   The cumulative lesson from this year"s three political trends, it seems, is that under certain conditions there is indeed a middle ground where Arabs and Westerners can meet and work together for common political goals. Indigenous Arab activists and those behind external diplomatic efforts can fortify each other if they jointly define a common set of goals that respond to reasonable demands on both sides; and if they anchor the entire process of change in legal and political legitimacy, whether in the UN, in international law, or in negotiated accords.   My hunch is that the good trends of the past year, including citizen activism and small steps to democracy, tend to result from sensible cooperation between Arabs and Westerners; conversely, the bad news from Iraq, Palestine, Sudan and aspects of the Lebanese situation usually reflects the consequences of unilateralism, gangsterism, and militarism. Why Israel consistently gets a free ride from all this remains more than intriguing; it often also drives some of the resentment that translates into extremism and violence throughout this region.   Happy New Year to all, especially to my fellow average Arab citizens, whose stoicism, heroism and impregnable humanity remain the defining characteristic of these troubled but valiant lands.
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