What is worrying the global community is that the saga of mass demonstrations in Iraq is leaderless. The protesters are not backed by any organisational structures and ideological narratives. The only common chord among them is a strong sentiment of anti-Government agenda
Iraq has once again descended into an abyss. Since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the country has not witnessed peace for almost two decades now. Modern Iraq was established in 1932 from the amalgamation of three provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul that formed Mesopotamia. This new country was primarily centred around tribes purely external to the main city centres. Thus from the very beginning, Mesopotamia was vulnerable to both security and unity.
The Ottomans overestimated their ability to control Iraq and did not emphasise on domestic development and the existing tribal structures. Like many other ancient empires, the Ottomans were forging ahead with the concept of “the strong do what they want, they have the power to do” and thus committed remarkable errors in their handling of the West Asian sojourn. What historians say is that the Ottomans failed to understand the existing cultural, ideological and ethnic divisions existing in the Mesopotamian region. From 1299 to 1921, the mighty Ottomans ruled this region and lost it during the First World War. And henceforth, the British and the French established the political boundaries of Iraq, bordering the Persian Gulf between Iran and Kuwait.
In 1920, the UK was awarded a League of Nations mandate over Iraq. This heralded a western style governance structure in Iraq. In 2014, Tim Marshall described the geographical division of this region in his book, Prisoners of Geography this way: “When the Ottoman Empire began to collapse, the British and the French had a different idea. In 1916, British diplomat Colonel Sir Mark Sykes took a grease pencil and drew a crude line across a map of West Asia. It ran from Haifa on the Mediterranean, what is now Israel, to Kirkuk now in Iraq in the northeast. It became the basis of his secret agreement with his French counterpart Francois Georges Picot to divide the region into two spheres of influence. North of the line was to be under French control, south of it under British hegemony.”
This grease pencil drawn boundary lacked the acknowledgement of all the existing demographic arrangement of the region, which later came to be known as the historic Sykes-Picot Agreement. This arbitrary demarcation of boundaries of states in West Asia brought complete anarchy to the entire region. Clearly, all the states that were created by the Sykes-Picot were not based on the logic of socio-economically driven conditions but purely out of the ruins of the empires. Thus the competing aspirations of different communities and ethnic groups could not be fused into a melting pot and, hence, schism has been remained as a potent anomaly in Iraq and the rest of West Asia.
The current crisis in Iraq has emerged due to entrenched corruption in public offices and the rising gap between the elites and the ordinary citizens. The demonstrations which started since October 1 have already taken more than 400 lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens. Probably the international community is too used to hear Iraqis being killed in huge numbers, whether it was under the horrific Saddam regime, the US-occupied Iraq or under their own leadership in the post-Baathist era. Today the young protesters highlight the way the Adel Abdul Mahdi Government made appointments to Government services on ethnic lines or sectarian quotas which is popularly known as “Muhassasa” in Iraq.
The aggrieved citizens air their anguish that this spoils system is sharpening the divides among the Shias, Sunnis, the Kurds and the rest of the ethnic minorities across Iraq and bringing no benefit to the ordinary folks. But definitely a small section of the party sympathisers, supporters and cronies extract rich benefits from the Government.
Since the departure of the US forces, the youth of the country has been utterly frustrated with the façade of reforms and with the political class who promised but failed to deliver the basics and introduce much-needed reforms in public offices.
However, what is worrying the global community is that this saga of mass demonstrations is purely leaderless. The protesters are not backed by any organisational structures and ideological narratives. Only common chord among them is a strong sentiment of anti-Government agenda. Therefore, the guardians of the system have got enough courage and stamina to quell them down with very brute force. It may so happen that the protests may lead to a quick political transformation but the political establishment may consolidate further and rely more on authoritarian methods than engaging the aggrieved ones with dialogues.
For now, Mahdi has resigned as Iraq Prime Minister. But his resignation will not bring an end to the raging protests across the country. In fact, he was forced to leave only after grand Iraqi Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a call for changing the Government leadership.
Around the same time, powerful Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the largest political faction in the Parliament, Sairoon, called for Mahdi’s resignation. He also warned that if the Mahdi Government does not do so, it would be “the beginning of the end of Iraq”.
We need to enquire into the recent political history of Iraq to find out the malaise that is killing the country today. It all started with the deposition of the Saddam rule and the American invasion of Iraq. Besides, subsequent political upheavals accompanied by regime changes in the West Asia and fast-changing global political scenario had a strong impact on the future course of action in Iraq. Saddam was no more a nincompoop, as the western leaders thought, as he was able to maintain a stable political rule for more than two decades. Of course his authoritarian streak spearheaded the systematic persecution of the minorities and fast marginalisation of the majority Shias.
In addition to Sunni-Shia divide, the third major political player in Iraq is the Kurds, mainly concentrated in the north and north-eastern provinces of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Dahuk and their surrounding areas. The Kurdish people inhabit a swath of land through northern Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey. They are primarily a people without their own homeland, a major victim of the Sykes-Picot deal.
The way the global liberal order is crumbling under the leadership of Donald Trump, the world could hardly look for any respite from the volatile political atmosphere raging in West Asia. With the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq in 2011, gradually the country has fallen into a complete anarchy. And this has happened because Washington wanted to dislodge the erstwhile political regime, secret forces and security forces of the Saddam era. The coming of a Shia regime, after the fall of Saddam, has completely changed the power structure of almost three decades of Sunni political establishment, its entitlements and its beneficiaries. Thus many of the elite guards, officers and former army commanders have quietly joined the Islamic State, an affiliate of the al-Qaeda.
The US Army in Iraq knew very well that these officers joined various insurgent groups and offered tactical support to the al-Qaeda.
What could be seen from the ruins of Saddam empire is a pure chaos. And in this anomie has brought more differences and violence back to the Iraqi society. Much beyond these, Iraq has become a playground for many big powers, such as Iran and the US.
Iran’s influence in Iraq is of great importance. But in the last few months, this Iranian led Shia coalition has been largely fractious as the Government forces killed Shias who were demanding better social services, mainly basic needs. It is coming out in public space that Iran is seriously trying to repress the civil rebellion in Iraq. Its elite Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, view these protests as masterminded by foreign hands. The outcome of the counterproductive attempts by the Iranian backed forces to repress the protesters may trigger a new Arab Spring to the entire West Asia in the days to come.
The impending departure of Mahdi is symbolic victory of the protesters. But unfortunately too many people were killed and it could be regarded as a mass uprising of the Shia community against their own leadership. Mahdi has proved himself to be an ineffectual leader.
It seems the ruling elite of Iraq are simply interested in sticking to power at any cost. Therefore, it is truly doubtful whether the demands of the protesters for sweeping changes in the Iraqi political system could be agreed upon by the opportunist leadership.
(The writer is an expert on international affairs)
