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What's Happening in Iraq After the U.S. Withdrawal?
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Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi is an Anglo-Iraqi
political analyst and adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum who has
published widely on Iraqi politics and other contemporary Middle East issues.
He is interviewed by PJ Media Middle East Editor Barry Rubin.
Barry Rubin: Nine years after a
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has that country achieved stability and democracy?
How many American soldiers are still in Iraq and what are they doing?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: Iraq has
achieved a degree of stability in that the sectarian civil war that centred
on Baghdad in the period 2006-8 ended decisively in favour of the Shi'a
factions. In light of the U.S. withdrawal of troops in December last year (with
only a couple hundred or so Marines serving to guard the large U.S. Embassy
complex in Baghdad), Shi'a militant groups have decided to lay down arms and
join the political process- having lost all casus belli.
The Sunni Arab population generally accepts
that it must learn to adapt to the fact that the Shi'a lead the political
process in the country. The Sunni insurgency that remains- consisting of
Islamist and Ba'athist militants- is ideological in nature, and will continue
to carry out attacks. There is a serious terrorist threat in the country but
the prospect of another sectarian civil war is very, very remote, even though
the media constantly raise this point whenever there is an upsurge in
attacks, which if analysed can be shown to be part of cyclical trends (e.g.
an upsurge in casualties can always be expected around the time of the Shi'a
festival of Arba'een).
So, a degree of stability has been achieved,
but there is a long way to go before the country can really be called a
democracy: absence of rule of law, widespread corruption, increasing
autocracy on the part of the prime minister, and suppression of protests by
both Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government all point to absence of
real electoral democracy.
Barry Rubin: What is the status of
U.S.-Iraq relations and does the United States have any real influence in
what goes on in the country?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: The status of
U.S.-Iraq relations at present fits in with the general decline of American
influence in the country over the years. The fact is that Washington does not
really have any say in the workings of Iraqi politics. For example, the
Americans had no role in the devising of the current unconstitutional
compromise that allowed Maliki to have a second term in office (even though
his bloc did not win the single largest number of seats in the 2010
elections- Allawi's al-Iraqiya did- and according to the constitution it
should have been Allawi who had the right to form a government). Similarly,
amid the current talk of a no-confidence vote against Maliki, Joe Biden was
reportedly supposed to come to Baghdad. He has not done so.
I would say I agree with Reidar Visser that
the U.S. approach towards Iraq does not help counter Iranian influence. It
has often been noted that after the 2003 invasion, sectarianism became
institutionalised with the award of positions in the interim government
determined on a rigid sectarian basis. I do not think that the U.S. has quite
moved on from such thinking. An approach that stresses Iraqi national unity
and does not view everything through the sectarian paradigm of Sunnis, Shi'a
and Kurds might help to revive U.S. influence and counter Iran.
Barry Rubin: Explain the quarrel
between President Maliki and Vice-President Hashemi. Is this an example of
wider, continuing Sunni-Shia conflict?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: The quarrel
between Maliki and Hashemi has often been portrayed as a sectarian
Shi'a-Sunni issue but in fact the arrest warrant came in the context of a political
attack on al-Iraqiya, whose leading members were in December expressing
growing frustration with the premier's authoritarian tendencies. For example,
Saleh Mutlaq, the deputy PM, accused Maliki of being the worst dictator in
the country's history (an obvious exaggeration).
In turn, al-Iraqiya's frustration came in the
context of a crackdown on alleged Ba'athists, and this crackdown was rooted
in an internal power struggle in Maliki's State of Law bloc between the
premier himself and the Higher Education Minister Ali al-Adeeb, a well-known
rival of Maliki in State of Law who initiated the contest with Maliki to
prove himself more anti-Ba'athist by having 140 members of Tikrit University
in Salaheddin Governorate dismissed from their positions. What is also of
note is that this internal rivalry between Adeeb and Maliki behind the crisis
was missed in most news reports: the only outlet of note I can think of that
picked up on it is the blog Musings on Iraq, run by Joel Wing.
Barry Rubin: Does the Kurdish-ruled
region in the north function as virtually an independent country?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: The Kurdish
region clearly enjoys a considerable degree of autonomy but I would not call
it de facto independence. It has its own parliament and ruling coalition led
by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK). This has effectively been the status-quo since the region gained
autonomy in 1991. What should not be taken as indicative of the autonomy is
the recent affair regarding Exxon Mobil, which signed a deal with the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for exploration and production of oil and
natural gas. Now, the central government in Baghdad, which considers all the
KRG's agreements with oil and gas firms illegal, did ban Exxon Mobil from the
fourth round of bidding, but in practice, Exxon Mobil is being allowed to
have its pretzels and eat them, not because of any threats on the part of the
KRG against the central government; rather, Baghdad still needs companies
like Exxon Mobil to boost output from the major oilfields in the south.
Recall that only last year did production levels return to pre-2003 figures.
Coming back to autonomy, I think a limit is
to be demonstrated in the discussions the KRG has had with Turkey on building
a pipeline route that the KRG can use to export oil to the international
market. The evidence, in my view, suggests that the proposal is unlikely to
come to fruition. The pipeline would allow the KRG to break free from the
fact that 95% of its budget is provided by the central government, but it
would embolden Kurdish aspirations for independence not only in Iraq but also
Turkey. Would Ankara be able to tolerate that? I don't think so. Of course,
Turkey can talk about the prospect of a pipeline, but it just seems to be a
way of annoying Maliki, who has been repeatedly accused by the Turkish
government of pursuing a Shi'i sectarian agenda, and trying to persuade him
to reach a truce with Hashemi. Indeed, it should be noted that Turkey is also
providing a safe haven for Hashemi.
Barry Rubin: How much influence does
Iran have in Iraq? Could Tehran capture control over its neighbour? Is Iraq
cooperating or having friction with Turkey and Saudi Arabia?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: That Iran has
influence in Iraq cannot be denied. There are extensive economic ties between
the two countries, as I documented in a recent article for the Jerusalem
Post. However, I do not believe the situation is like Lebanon where
Hezbollah's power amounts to the existence of a client state for Tehran in
the south of the country. Hezbollah, after all, was founded in the 1980s and
openly declares its devotion to Khomeini's ideology. As we also know,
Hezbollah's status heavily depends on the survival of the Assad regime.
In Iraq, the situation is not like that. The
Shi'a political factions in Iraq are diverse. For example, the largest
faction- the Dawa party- was founded well before the revolution in Iran and
is generally opposed to the concept of velayat-e-faqih, even as many Dawa members
spent years in exile in Iran after Saddam Hussein came to power.
Unlike Lebanon, the internal rivalries among
the Shi'a factions are much more apparent: thus, Iran's primary aim is to act
as a mediator, advisor and kingmaker among these factions, and so it supports
groups like the League of the Righteous- led by Qais Khazali who is at odds
with Muqtada al-Sadr- in an attempt to exacerbate these tensions to a degree.
At the same time, Iran does not want the current government coalition to
break up, and Iranian officials have held talks with certain members of the
Sadrists- including Muqtada al-Sadr who have joined Barzani and members of
Iraqiya in calling for a no-confidence vote against the premier. The goal
appears to be to persuade these Sadrists to desist from their declared stance
against Maliki.
Two uncertainties remain: first, we don't
know yet precisely how much influence the likes of Khazali will wield among
the Shi'a. It will certainly be a task for them to develop the level of
influence factions like Dawa wield that goes back decades: in contrast the
League of the Righteous et al. are 'Special Groups' that arose as militia
proxies for Tehran to use against the U.S. troop presence but have since the
withdrawal joined the political process. Second, it is debatable whether the
Sadrists who speak of a no-confidence vote to unseat Maliki are merely
engaging in rhetorical posturing. On other occasions, Sadrists have proven
themselves to be critics of Maliki λογῳ while supporting him ἐργῳ, because by
joining Maliki in a coalition, the Sadrists got hold of several government
ministries pertaining to housing and public construction planning, allowing
for the development of a patron-client network not dissimilar to those held
by prominent patricians in the late Roman Republic. Thus the Sadrists may
well have lamented the crisis that arose from the arrest warrant against
Hashemi and implicitly criticised Maliki's actions, but in practice I agree
with Kirk Sowell that they are backing the premier on this matter.
As for the claims that Iraq is a client state
of Iran, I think they are inaccurate, despite the Iranian influence in the
country, and I don't think Iran can contemplate an invasion, for there is a
substantial U.S. military presence in the Gulf area that can easily be called
up to deal with such an event. In any case, Iraq is still a leading customer
for U.S. arms, made it clear to Iran under U.S. pressure that it would not
permit arms exports to Syria through its territory (noted above), and the
signing of the Status-of-Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the Bush
administration and Baghdad was always opposed by Iran. Ultimately, what
matters for the Iraqi government as a whole is to assert what it sees as its
own national interests and not play a subservient role to any country.
As for relations with Saudi Arabia, these
appear to remain quite tense. For example, the Saudis are against the idea of
having Iraq take the position of Secretary General of OPEC, and like Turkey,
Saudi Arabia wanted Ayad Allawi to become the premier after the 2010
elections. Saudi Arabia also naturally views Iraq as a rival in oil
production. Yet the Saudis have also attempted to expand economic ties with
Iraq, particularly in the realm of export of foodstuffs via Kuwait and
Jordan. One other thing: while ties with Saudi Arabia are not so good, Iraq
is cultivating economic ties with Jordan. For example, AK News reports that
an agreement has been signed to construct a pipeline to transport Iraqi oil
and gas through Jordanian territory.
Barry Rubin: Can Iraq be said to be
progressing in economic terms? Are people's lives getting better?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: Iraq is
progressing in economic terms in that oil output is steadily increasing,
which translates to more revenues for the central government. The Kurdish
region is doing well economically with a construction boom reported in cities
like Arbil and Sulaymaniyah. But the increase in oil revenues for Baghdad is
problematic because it effectively triggers a vicious cycle in which the government
compensates for the fact that the oil industry is not labour-intensive simply
by creating more jobs in bureaucracy. This not only hinders reconstruction
efforts but also makes it harder for Baghdad to liberalise its economy. It is
still stuck with the centralised command system inherited from the days of
Saddam Hussein. This means that many of the benefits for the population we
associate with oil revenues in a country like the United Arab Emirates are
unlikely to be realised (the much larger population of Iraq compared to the
Emirates aside). As for quality of life outside Kurdistan, I think there has
been a slow but steady improvement since the days of the sectarian civil war,
which I would regard as the low point and even worse than life under Saddam.
With sanctions gone, infant mortality has decreased and there is greater
access to consumer goods.
Often on Youtube one can find videos by Iraqi
expatriates idealising life in the country in decades past. I am generally
not fond of such videos because they completely overlook things like the
massacre of 3000 Assyrians in 1933, the Farhud in 1941 and the mass exodus of
the Jewish population from 1948 onwards, the political violence that came
with the overthrow of the monarchy, among other things. But I think it's fair
to say that living standards were at their best in the early to mid 1970s and
the country has not since returned to those levels.
Barry Rubin: How would you analyze
Iraq's likely future course in regional affairs and domestic governance?
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: At present, I
do not see Iraq as a major active player in regional affairs. Rather like
Roman Imperial administration, I see its role as primarily passive. The
country is simply too occupied with domestic problems, and I think that will
remain the case over the coming years: certainly at least up to the next
elections in 2014. I do not foresee a break-up of the country or major civil
unrest. The population has generally been exhausted through years of
sanction, warfare and militant violence.
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