Discussion Papers
Iraqi
Perspective on Regime Change: Keep
the Inspections, Lift the Sanctions
By
Mundher Adhami
February 21, 2003
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Iraqi
Mundher Adhami, from the Education and Professional
Studies department at Kings College London, offers a
personal opinion on the current situation. The impact
of inspectors upon the ability of the regime to
execute human rights abuses has until now been
underestimated. So too has the potential of the
professional and middle classes to challenge the
regime, not necessarily head on, but in providing an
alternative power base. Regime change may be achieved
without a recourse to all-out war.
Introduction
It
may yet not be too late to achieve peaceful change in
Iraq, one that both neutralises its threats to
neighbours, and guarantees democratic rights for its
citizens. Efforts to terminate Saddam Hussain’s
regime must avoid civil strife and the fragmentation
of the country, and any return to colonialism.
In addition, the United Nations must not be
allowed to slide into the role of a club for big power
bargaining over other countries’ resources. UN
inspections, in tandem with other initiatives, could
help revive Iraqi civil society and decisively tilt
the balance of power in the country against tyranny.
This
paper describes Iraqi civil society and its survival
so far under the dual burden of sanctions and
dictatorship; this has shaped Iraqi politics and
values, and affected perceptions of the future. Iraqis
are not sitting in their homes awaiting the
liberators. Their perceptions are a great deal more
complex. This
paper considers the potential for mobilisation of the
Iraqi people and assesses their loyalty to the regime
and their support for US plans. It is dangerous to
assume that any attack on Iraq will end swiftly in
victory for the invaders. Nor should one assume that
any new regime would either be open to US influence or
command the respect of the Iraqi people.
No-one
should doubt that most Iraqis, most Arabs, and indeed
most third world nations, do not believe that the US
is interested in democracy in their countries. They
have detailed knowledge of their history and can
provide a convincing account of how US policy –
usually applied by the CIA - has repeatedly thwarted
any moves towards democracy. They have no reason to
believe a new leaf has been turned by the Bush
administration; they see the carnage in Palestine
daily, sanctioned by the US. They perceive that the US
is waging a campaign against anything Muslim under the
pretext of fighting terrorism. They also believe that
for decades it was the US itself that created many of
those terrorists, primarily for use against democratic
and popular movements.
Many
Iraqis are equally sceptical about the US attitude
towards Saddam Hussein’s regime, however incredible
that may seem to outside observers. They remember the
time in March 1991, after the regime had all but
collapsed and large uprisings occurred around the
country, the US stood back and enabled Iraqi
helicopter airpower and elite units to crush the
revolt They continue to suffer under the most
comprehensive sanctions regime in history. This has
debilitated Iraqi society and handed significant
domestic control over to the regime, through the
people’s dependence on monthly handout of rations
and the blocking of medical and educational
opportunities. Iraqis are convinced that the US sees
Iraq as the enemy rather than Saddam. They fear either
a last minute bargain deal that leaves Saddam
entrenched in power and just as able to repress his
people, or that the US will replace the regime with
one just as bad (and more clearly compliant).
Civil
society
The
disintegration of Iraqi civil society continued
throughout the Iran-Iraqi war of the 1980s and the
sanction of the 1990s. Lawlessness, bribery and
corruption, family breakdown, prostitution and decline
of civil behaviour all contributed to a climate of
despair and paralysis. But in the late-1990s there was
a visible revival.
The
extended family system has re-established itself as a
form of social security, peer solidarity and safety.
This trend has been reinforced by the
regime’s security-based policy of reviving the
clans, (blood-related communities of extended families
normally of three or four generations, with
self-appointed headmen and economic and legal powers).
This has suffocated initiative and alternative
viewpoints. In elections, for example, individual
ballot papers are frequently collected by the head of
the household and given blank to the local regime’s
officers so as to prove themselves as no threat even
to the local balances within the regime.
The
ration system has also been a useful mechanism for
keeping track and control over the population, though
it has also encouraged cooperation and exchange of
food and medicine.
Strengthened networks of large families have
short-circuited official controls.
Neighbourhoods
have developed self-help vigilante watches, mutual
support, and even crude municipal services. Over the
last decade Iraqis have developed roots, and mobility
has reduced dramatically. As wages have plummeted,
women in particular have abandoned their public-sector
employment in favour of cottage industry or other
local employment.
Historically,
Iraqi society is largely secular. Islam is taken more
as heritage, culture and even as high literature, than
a detailed code of conduct; and all faiths are
accepted through a liberal interpretation of Islam. At
times of trouble, however, faith serves as a personal
refuge, a social common denominator, and a code for
modesty and civil behaviour. Such a religiosity is
apolitical, more an affirmation of identity that
defies imposition of alien values, whether by the
regime or by foreign control. The regime has
recognised the value in adapting religious symbols,
and by using harsh measures (such as the reported
beheading of prostitutes) to demonstrate their
credentials. While this may not be convincing to the
Iraqi public that is fully aware of the regime’s
secular nature, and even of the debauchery of some of
its leaders, it can placate people’s sensibilities.
There is no doubt that the revival of religiosity has
reduced petty crime and unruly behaviour as well as
dissent.
Pitiful
government wages have allowed corruption to spread in
all official dealing - something the regime has
acknowledged. Saddam
has even experimented with some quotas and fees
explicitly to augment civil servants’ salaries. But
officers’ reliance on bribery or largess risks
public contempt.
In
the meantime, the controlled collapse of the imposing
state apparatus has highlighted the importance of
civil servants and scientists, a group of largely
apolitical appointees (although formally members of
the Ba’ath Party). This group of people are running
banks, organising the timely purchase, storage and
distribution of foodstuffs to about 20 million people,
solving transport problems, maintaining the education
and health services under appalling shortages.
Prominent
in this respect are the thousands of scientists
formerly employed in defence industries, including in
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes,
which were disbanded and destroyed during the UNSCOM
inspections between 1991 and 1998. Many turned their
attention to the reconstruction of energy and utility
infrastructure, much of which was achieved in a matter
of months. This cadre largely lives in poverty but has
a great symbolic capital of goodwill, and has a sense
of pride in intellectual achievement, honesty and
civil responsibility. They are largely western
educated, speak European languages, and could bridge
the gap between international civil society and the
communities within which they live. They are also capable
of leadership in any post-Saddam Iraq, in the context
of positive and honest engagement by the international
community centred on a sensitive and robust programme
of UN and IAEA inspections.
The
Inspectors: a check on tyranny
The
very fact of the presence of inspectors provides a
check on the tyranny of the regime and on the general
accumulation of arms stocks and the movement of
weapons (conventional as well as unconventional). This
could be even more effective if UN and IAEA
inspections were applied universally across the whole
region of the Middle East, preventing diversion and
addressing concerns that the international community
has been partial in its dealings.
Inspectors have also humiliated the regime,
demonstrated its weakness, and exposed petty pilfering
and inefficiencies.
Although
the inspectors’ remit does
not include human rights, the regime is also
less able to indulge in torture, mass deportation and
other atrocities upon which it built its power base
originally. Any information by an NGO or individual
human rights workers in Iraq about an unlawful arrest,
torture or disappearance can be readily followed by an
inspection team visiting the prison, the police
station or the family house to check, since they can
claim there are leads to possible weapons-related
information with those people. The regime’s minders
will be there but real evidence cannot easily be
covered up with unannounced inspections. Similarly,
any hot spot of dissent where atrocities or threats of
mass repression are expected can also be made an
indirect site for inspection through uninvited visits
to local security establishments.
The
fact that the US and UK government and the Iraqi
opposition groups they support have not provided any
current information on such abuses while their claims
on proscribed weapons’ production sites proved
unreliable so far indicates that they are out of touch
with the situation on the ground. They are recycling
old information. And even with the old information,
the hyperbole may be damaging the fight against
Saddam’s tyranny. For example claims of the
existence of mass-graves are yet to be checked by the
inspectors by probing near their suspected sites. If
atrocities have been judicially legitimised, then the
judiciary itself should be the target of attack by
human rights campaigners rather than repeating
unsubstantiated claims and thereby playing into the
hands of a devious regime feigning and disproving
claims.
Of
course there are limitation on this proposed use of
the inspectors in support of civil rights. In the
current climate of the threat of war genuine popular
opposition to Saddam’s regime may well be unwilling
to play into the hands of invaders. Cooperation from
Iraqis without close associations with the regime is
far more likely if the sanctions and the threat of
destruction and invasion were lifted. The continued
presence of inspectors in Iraq could play an important
role in rebuilding a long-term healthy political
solution.
If
the general economy were allowed to flourish by the
removal of general sanctions it would weaken the grip
of the regime and empower the population to protest
and force reforms. In the past Iraqi peoples’
struggle for reform have always been undermined by
regime’s use of oil revenues as much as the
big-power support for the regime whether in arms
sales, security apparatus training, or overlooking of
human rights abuses. (Remember the ‘but he is our
son-of-a-bitch’ quip)
Now the non-oil economy has to carry a greater
weight while the state’s income from oil pays the
compensations, debt and rebuilding of the
infrastructure, a new scene is set. If the
international community focused its efforts on
empowering without prejudice the educated civil
servants to provide leadership, there is a chance that
a new beginning could be built for Iraq, with positive
consequences in neighbouring states. Iraqis would
likely view overt intervention by foreign powers that
involved force and imposition as suspect, undermining
any positive impacts.
The
apparatus of tyranny must be dealt with internally by
a blend of the rule of law and truth and
reconciliation processes.
Crimes against humanity will require particular
attention. The death penalty should be abolished as
soon as possible to reduce the likelihood of cycles of
thoughtless revenge and despotism. Rehabilitation of
victims and exiles would also need to assured, based
on legal processes.
The
origins of the regime
Opposition
rhetoric portrays the present regime as a
semi-literate clannish ruling elite narrowly based on
Tikrit (on the upper Tigris) and to make a link
between strong clan loyalties and small-town bigotry.
This gives the impression of a Bedouin roughness, lack
of culture and faith, and of Sunni sectarianism.
The regime has indeed built up its political
base on a semi-rural population across the country to
counter what it saw as decadent urban elites with
suspect loyalties and ideologies. This is not
dissimilar to many other populist movements elsewhere.
But
this image underestimates the sophisticated background
of the regime. Tikrit itself is an ancient trading
post with links both to Arabia and to the lands to the
East and North. Like many historic towns it has always
had a mixed ethnic and faith population with mosques,
Sufi, Christian, and Jewish temples standing within
sight of each other. The legendary Saladin Ayubi
dynasty, of Kurdish origin, ruled the Muslim Middle
East in the 13th and 14th
centuries, and arose from Tikrit. During the Ottoman
rule, Tikrit’s position between Baghdad and Musul on
the route to the capital Istanbul made for extensive
trading and cultural links.
After the establishment of modern Iraq many
from Tikrit joined the army, a highly regarded
profession at the time, and later the main route to
power in 1968. The
military values of discipline, loyalty, toughness,
national consciousness and technical skills remain an
important influence upon social policy.
Some
of those now in opposition and who label the regime
tribal and primitive in nature were often all too
ready to ally themselves with it in the early 1970s.
At that time they hailed the regime’s openness,
patriotism and socialism, while simultaneously using
its support and working hard to recruit its own
independent layer of functionaries. Only later, when
these groups were squeezed out, murdered and exiled,
did they portray the regime as a revival of tribalism
and Arab chauvinism. The loyalty to today’s regime
is actually not so clearly based upon political
alliance as rooted in more basic affiliations.
The
ruling group is frequently portrayed as a criminal
clique that is incoherently corrupt and exceptionally
cruel, often by former members of the regime. In
reality the regime is simply a more extreme, Iraqi
variant of other Arab regimes: patriarchal and reliant
on largesse and brutal punishment. Its policies and
functionaries appeal
to simple drives and emotions, and are prone to
bravado and bombast. These features, however, are far
from unique!
The
regime promotes simple ideals based on loyalty and
solidarity, valuing strong independence from foreign
control above progress or material gain. This is,
however, tempered with pragmatism and diplomacy,
although the regime has frequently accepted
compromises for survival that it later reneged upon,
both in its dealings with foreign powers or internal
forces. Sometimes, and particularly so at present, it
appears to be prepared to await its fate; whilst still
looking to exploit big power rivalries. It attempts
simultaneously to stand firm for its Arab and internal
opinion, while quietly acquiescing sufficiently to
prevent overt conflict.
The
regime generally specialises in deception and secret
dealing. Saddam’s many aphorisms, one of which found
as a banner in each Iraqi newspaper, hail a defiant
and victorious spirit, promoted as a value in its own
right. Simultaneously, he promotes the values of
pragmatism and the long view to his population, saying
“we cannot trust a historical pattern to continue,
neither could we assume it no longer applies”.
His ironic recent proclamation, “we are not
facing a vastly superior enemy directly, rather biding
our time.” is often repeated.
The
regime’s misinformation campaign is particularly
intriguing in its story on historical links with the
United States. There
is a widespread suspicion within Iraq that the Saddam
and Bush families were partners throughout the 1980s,
and that the Iraqi regime was a US client state in a
complicated game in the Gulf .The United States is
thought to have prolonged the Iran-Iraq war, and
encouraged other Arab Gulf states to finance Iraq
(with a huge proportion siphoned off into private
accounts).
While not denying these links, the regime
rationalises them as “working the ways of the
world” and that the wealth they gained was held in
trust. The belief held by many in Iraq is that the
United States betrayed any such arrangements and is an
unreliable partner for anyone contemplating regime
change.
Opposition
proposals for a post-Saddam Iraq have frequently
promoted an abstract notion of Iraqi patriotism in
place of an Arab identity. This lacks historical or
emotional content, and denies the reality on the
ground. The
four-fifth Arab majority in Iraq includes cross-ethnic
citizens within extended Arab families with great
pride in ancient genealogies straddling Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.
Arabs are very conscious of their genealogy,
with a customary family knowledge going back
centuries. Aligning regime change in Iraq with a
denial of its Arab nature risks pitching these social
strata against any emerging regime, with a likelihood
that it is regarded as composed of urbanites with
suspect loyalties and external influences. Many
Arab-nationalists will thereby suspect the United
States of acting primarily in Israel’s interests by
squashing such Arab identities. Despite Colin
Powell’s commitment to put Iraqi oil revenues in
trust for the people in a post-war situation, there is
a strong suspicion that taking control of Iraqi oil (whether directly or indirectly) is a
key objective of US policy. Iraqi patriotism without
an Arab role is seen as surrender.
Many
Kurds also view non-Arab Iraqi patriotism with
suspicion. Several Kurds defended the Arab character
of Iraq at their latest opposition conference. They
regard the claims of other minorities, such as the
Turks and Assyrians, as a Trojan horse for foreign
intervention by Turkey and other countries. Many are content with the existing constitutional settlement
that gives them educational and cultural rights,
including in the central government, in addition to
their de facto
self-rule areas.
The
demands by the Iran-based Council of Islamic
Revolution for a sectarian divide between Shi’as
and Sunnis in Iraq are an embarrassment to US plans.
On the one hand they mobilise communitarian Sunni
fears, driving them into the arms of the regime they
otherwise loathe.
On the other hand, for a number of reasons,
they fail to appeal to the Shi’ Arab majority.
Religious authorities in Iraq have traditionally
avoided affairs of state (the Palestinian issue
being a notable exception).
Even
in the height of the March 1991 uprising against
Saddam Hussein clerics from the Council issued
fatwas on avoiding bloodshed, and abiding by the
law. They are especially wary of linkage with
historical enemies like the United States, and
wanted to distance themselves from Iran. Hence, the
existing categorical fatwas against any such
collaboration. In any case, the majority of Shi’a
urban middle-class loath religious authority, having
either a secular or a ‘personal faith’ view of
Islam, similar to those of Sunni background.
This may outweigh any sense of injustice
derived from their low participation within the
formal state apparatus, especially as such
involvement carries dubious kudos or economic
advantage under sanctions.
Tribal
alliances have been strengthened by the regime since
the end of the 1991 Gulf War through provision of
privileges and control over the allocation of
resources. In any case, many Sunni and Shi’a share
the same familial heritage, their identity today
depending on whether their families settled in the
north or the south of the country. There are
frequent inter-marriages and economic links. There
is no great support for foreign intervention in such
communities.
Outside
the religious groups, the middle class and the
tribal alliances, any sectarian Shi’a mobilisation
against the regime is likely to be confined to
disenfranchised groups with grievances that the
regime has not managed to control or press into
exile. The regime has already evicted over two
million people it has seen as a potential threat,
removing them from active internal opposition. The
regime will be able to use its propaganda to portray
such disenfranchised groups, in some urban centres
(such as the Al-Thawra townships in East Baghdad),
as a threat to other groups.
Significant
internal opposition is more likely to arise from
Iraqis’ economic plight than their tribal
loyalties. One influential group would be the 3,000
or so families of the entrepreneurs and
millionaires, who first emerged in the 1970s oil
boom. These businessmen, farmers,
importers/exporters and manufacturers have
maintained relationships with the authorities, and
are interwoven in tribal alliances and across ethnic
and sectarian divides. They have demonstrated loyalty to the regime, as well as
being wise to its caprice and opportunities for
mutual benefit. This group, more likely than not,
would see US occupation as threatening its position.
However, if it were clear that a new regime were in
the offing, their loyalty would likely be unreliable
to Saddam.
Managerial
and technical elites in the country have strong
influence upon the opinions of the once-affluent
middle class in the cities, comprising about half of
the population and now totally impoverished and
reliant on rations.
There is no quick fix for Iraq’s astronomic
debts, compensation claims, and the hangovers from
the 1991 $200 plus billon destruction of
infrastructure and economic assets. Any forthcoming
war will further damage the country and reduce its
ability to recover.
For
most Iraqis, regime change will in effect mean a
dangerous interruption of their current mainstay of
rations. However loathsome the regime, its
non-means-tested discharge of welfare
responsibilities to nearly 20 million people has
been recognised as largely fair by international
agencies such as UNICEF. Even in the autonomous
Kurdish zone there is an unprecedented dependency on
central government food stores in Kirkut and Musul.
Any significant shock to the system would lead to a
humanitarian disaster. Iraqis blame both the regime
and the United States for their plight. The regime
has miscalculated and mismanaged, but this has been
tempered by its functionaries’ involvement within
the social fabric. On the other hand, the United
States has acted in its own strategic interests,
with no thought for the social and human
consequences.
The
economy, and particularly the standard of living
within the middle classes, has recently been slowly
improving. UN statistics show a decline in acute
malnutrition since the start of the oil-for-food
programme, while infrastructure and manufacturing
capacities have been repaired. The regime has
retrenched, and has slimmed down its government and
military apparatus. This, along with a gradual
relaxing of sanctions and the development of a
sophisticated regional black economy, seems to have
turned morale within the country around. Some Iraqis
suspect this is another reason for the US threats
today: successful defiance is not acceptable to the
imperial power.
In
reacting to the prospect of regime change through US
attack, Iraqis will try to exercise fine judgement
between their patriotism and pragmatic immediate
interests, based upon the odds of rapid regime
change. Some
will reason that the United States may not be as
barbaric as last time, that they will try to avoid
pushing a fragile society into disaster in order to
use Iraq as a show-case for benevolent imperialism.
Many, however, recognise that outcomes depend
upon the ferocity with which the regime will try to
hold its ground.
The
US threat is perceived to be directed against the
ruling elite as a whole. There is a collective sense
of fate within the large core of tribal alliances,
the army, bureaucracy, security organs, the party,
and business class. The belated offers to give
sanctuary outside the country to Saddam and his
immediate family seem phoney and irrelevant, and
ignore the
importance of the dominant kinship group of Albu
Nasser and the wider network. These groups have no
traditions of living abroad; they fear Israeli and
other assassins, lending some weight to their
declared intentions of fighting to the death in
Iraq. While there may be some doubt as to how loyal
many army units are to the regime, there must also
be a great deal of doubt that many will side with an
external invading force, or even one threatening
invasion.
It
is difficult to predict the regime’s military
strategy in its defence of Iraq, but it will avoid
conflict in exposed countryside. They are likely to use the concentration of global media
within the cities to ensure that civilian casualties
receive maximum coverage. Civilian losses, both
urban and rural, would mobilise domestic opinion
against the invading forces more than any Shi’a
religious fatwas and patriotic exhortations. The
Iraqi military has been developing a decentralised
command structure with units operating largely
autonomously to harass an invading army. If Iraqi
forces can hold up a US invasion significantly and
force the conflict to last several months this would
immensely complicate US plans, and could prove
disastrous both for Iraq and for the international
community. A protracted conflict would lead to the
daily broadcast of images of casualties within Iraq
and around the Arab world and entrench opposition to
any US-based regime. It would also deepen the
fall-out from the conflict, in terms of political
repercussions, oil prices, and terrorist responses.
Desperate, hot-headed revolutionaries and religious
fundamentalists would sidestep secular nationalist
and democratic elites and civil society.
There
appear to be no obvious political forces currently
within Iraq that could replace the Ba’th regime
and provide stability within Iraq.
The US-supported opposition in exile has no
social base in the country apart from the two
Kurdish groups, (whose politics are relevant largely
to the Kurdish areas) and have historically led to
revenge, fragmentation and surrender of sovereignty.
In the absence of well-functioning secular parties
like the Communist, national democratic, liberal and
Arab nationalist parties inside the country, this
leaves the professions as the hope for change. This
option may be realistic if UN inspectors remained in
Iraq along with humanitarian organisations,
particularly if they encouraged such moves in their
dealings with these professionals
Some
creative thinking will be required either to widen
the scope of the inspections or to induce the regime
to engage with Security Council Resolution 688
concerning wider political participation. There are
a number of recent positive trends. One is the de-facto
continuous erosion of the power of the regime while
it continues to rely on the professionals in dealing
with the inspectors and with rest of the world.
Second, international threats to press
charges against some functionaries of the regime if
they venture abroad keeps up the pressure.
Third, without significant purchases of arms
and security products (upon which sanctions ought to
be more clearly focused), civil society’s hand is
strengthened vis-ŕ-vis the regime.
A
more proactive role for the inspectors may involve
the lifting of blocks (‘holds’ that can be for
an indefinite period) on so-called ‘dual use’
products, by directly engaging with the civilian
economy and the local and administrative structures.
Some of ‘holds’ enforced by the sanction
committee (almost always after pressure from the US
alone) have been blatantly vindictive and inhumane;
examples are legion, but one glaring case was the
banning of imports of blood-transfusion bags up to
2001, on the basis that their linings contain
material that can be extracted and used in
biological weapons. Several other holds have
undermined basic repairs to infrastructure; whole
replacement electrical or mechanical systems are
approved with the exception of minor but vital
components that again contain some materials that
theoretically could be extracted and used for
weapons. By mid 2002 the accumulated holds reached
over $5 billion worth of desperately-needed
materials and equipment.
If inspectors were to coordinate directly
with the users of such materials, such as
electricity or oil industry engineers, on the means
to ensure that the equipment will not be diverted,
many sanctions could be relaxed in such a way that
the regime would be weakened domestically. The remit
of inspections would thereby be legitimately widened
(still focused on WMD control) to include permanent
liaison with the civil service and engineers. The
regime is no position to reject this proposition as
a route for lifting the sanctions..
Whether
by the regime itself, by the US occupying force, or
by any international efforts that forestall war,
there may lie an option of temporarily ceding power
to the functionaries in the country, largely de-politicising
the government of Iraq while keeping the country
intact. Swift moves are also needed to abolish the
death penalty, offer amnesty to those convicted
specifically of political crimes, and establish
legal guarantees using the truth and reconciliation
model. The focus must be on developing indigenous
civil norms and undercutting the current ruling
elites, much as those of Franco and Pinochet were
dealt with. Such measures may not appease opponents
bent on retribution, but satisfying such emotions by
force will only lead to further civil strife that
would threaten to engulf the whole of the Middle
East.
Mundher
Adhami is an Iraqi, based at the School of Education in
Kings College, London.
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