Recently I made a presentation to the Italian Navy at its
base in the Venice Arsenale, “Iraq in its Geo-Political Context: Iran, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Syria.” The talk offered my
thoughts on recent political developments in Iraq, particularly how they have
been affected by its neighbors. What type of arguments did I offer?
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| Entrance to the Venice Arsenale Naval Base and Museum |
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| Comandante Paolo Gregoretti, base commander |
I began my analysis with the proviso that understanding Iraq
and its political development is only as good as the conceptual framework on
which such understanding is built.
Specifically, framing Iraqi politics in the narrow sense of sectarian
identities – namely using the “unholy trinity” of Shica Sunni and
Kurdish identities – or through an abstract concept known as “Islam,” provides
limited insights into Iraqi politics.
Rather than focusing on the recurring problems generated by
framing Iraq through such well-worn stereotypes, a theme of many prior posts on
The New Middle East (http://new-middle-east.blogspot.com/2009/01/10-conceptual-sins-in-analyzing-middle.html), I was more
interested in examining how Iraq has been influenced by “neighborhood
effects.” Specifically, I sought to
avoid a narrow case study which views Iraq as a “stand alone”
nation-state. Instead, I sought to demonstrate
how the impact of Iraq’s neighbors both constrains domestic policy-making as
well as offer opportunities for new political initiatives.
The verbiage emanating from neighboring regimes in Iran, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia and Syria belies the underlying power struggle within the eastern
MENA region. No longer the military power
it once was under Saddam Husayn, Iraq has become a battlefield for other
regional states. Thus to understand Iraqi
politics, requires a broader purview than focusing on its domestic politics
alone.
Iran and Iraq
It is ironic that the most powerful external actor in Iraq
today is Iran, once characterize by the George W. Bush administration as a
member of the “Axis of Evil.” However, Iran
exercises more of a veto power in Iraq than the ability to control the country’s
politics on a day to day basis.
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| Venice Arsenale Officers Club |
Of course, Iran exercises important political influence as
well. This influence has been magnified
by the role Shica militias or Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs/al-hashad al-shacbi) are
playing in fighting the so-called Islamic State (Dacish). While not all PMUs are under Iran’s control,
those which are have given Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces the opportunity to
send military personnel into Iraq to train and oversee militia activities. Working alongside the PMUs, Iranian forces are
privy to much intelligence information, including US cooperation with the Iraqi
Army.
More disturbing is the integration of PMUs into the Iraqi
Army. This power play is meant to insure the continued political influence of
pro-Iranian PMUs after Dacish is defeated. Having loyal units within
the Iraqi Army gives Iran an ongoing say in military policy.
Although the presence of loyalist PMUs within the Iraqi Army
is viewed by many Iraqis as a dangerous development, an influential political
committee, comprised of powerful Shica as well as Sunni politicians,
has proposed a new law for a comprehensive process of national reconciliation
which would be offered as a national referendum. Part of the proposed new
legislation is the elimination of the PMUs.
One long term aspect of Iraq-Iran relations which has not
been given much attention is the developing commercial ties between the private
sector in Iraq and Iran. Many Iranian
firms operating in Iraq are arms of the Islamic Republic.
However, there are private sector firms which do not support
the massive corruption which plagues the Tehran regime and its Revolutionary
Guard forces. To the extent that the
private sectors in both countries can develop positive economic ties, there is
the possibility of a counter-veiling forces developing to promote moderate political
forces on both sides of the border.
Turkey and Iraq
Turkey poses a serious threat to Iraq’s stability. Much of Turkish foreign policy under the rule
of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reflects his desire to create a “new
Ottomanism.” In this vision, Turkey would shed its secular Kemalist republic and
establish a new Islamist state, a process which is already well underway.
As the Erdoğan regime has assumed an increasingly
authoritarian character, it likewise has become much less predictable in its
behavior, not just in domestic but in international politics as well. The three variables which structure
Iraq-Turkish relations are those related to the Kurds – in Turkey, Iraq and
Syria - the type of regime which will emerge after the Syrian civil war, and
oil resources in northwest Iraq.
After the toppling of Saddam Husayn in 2003, Turkey was most
concerned with the model that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) might
provide for its own rapidly expanding Kurdish population. For a time, it seemed
as if this issue would be tempered by negotiations between the Erdoğan regime and
the Iraqi Kurds, especially after the Turkish energy giant, Genel, began
investing in the KRG and oil began to flow into Turkey.
The formation of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), led by
a partnership between chairwoman, Figen Yüksekdağ, a Turk, and Selahittin Demirtaş,
a Kurd, undermined the negotiations.
This was especially true after the party performed well in Turkey’s 2014
presidential elections and then became Turkey’s third largest party after the
June 2015 national parliamentary elections.
Erdoğan found the idea of a secular, leftist coalition
between Turks and Kurds, one which sought to transcend the ethnic divide
between the two communities, an anathema.
He was angered that the 2015 parliamentary elections did not provide his
AKP with enough votes to emend the Turkish constitution.
The Kurds angered Erdoğan from another perspective as
well. His regime has watched with
increasing concern and trepidation as the Syrian (Rojava or Western) Kurds have
established and institutionalized their own semi-autonomous region in northeast
Syria. The model of the Rojava Kurds has
been more appealing to Turkey’s Kurds, with whom they are closer culturally and
ideologically, than the authoritarian and corrupt model offered by Iraq’s Kurds
and the KRG.
That the Rojava Kurds have established a regime which
promotes gender equality, fights corruption, and treats the many minorities
living within its region with respect and tolerance provides a sharp contrast
to the sectarian and corrupt practices of the Erdoğan regime and the AKP. That
one of the Rojava Kurds’ cantons (administrative units) is ruled by a female
Prime minister, Hevi Ibrahim Mustafa, and that women and men co-direct
administrative and civil society organizations, contravenes the conservative
gender politics of the AKP.
How do these developments affect Iraq? First, Turkey has maintained a very equivocal
relationship to the Dacish in Syria and Iraq. With one of the most powerful armed forces in
the MENA region, it has the capacity to crush the Dacish and eject
from their presumptive capital of Raqqa, less than a 100 miles south of the
Turkish border. Instead, the Erdogan
regime has allowed the Rojava Kurds and, more recently, Iraq’s Kurds, to bear
the brunt of casualties in Iraq’s efforts to defeat the Dacish.
Nevertheless, Turkish troops have been stationed inside Iraq
without the permission of the Iraqi government, despite requests by the Iraqi
government that they be withdrawn. In
another disturbing move, Erdogan is now training KDP Pesh Merga forces to help
it seize territory from the Rojava Kurds, using the excuse of fighting the PKK.
In what appears to be an effort to gain access to oil
resources in northwest Iraq, Turkish forces have also begun training Sunni
militias to offset the power of PMUs loyal to Iran. This is why Turkey stationed its special
forces troops near the village of Bashiqa in northwestern Iraq (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/world/middleeast/turkeys-push-to-join-battle-for-mosul-inflames-tension-with-iraq.html?_r=0).
Thus Turkey, even more than Iran, has been actively involved
in destabilizing Iraq. On the one hand,
it seeks to create a wedge among Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Kurds through
developing an alliance with the KDP to fight the Rojava Kurds and the Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK). On the other, it
promotes Sunni Arab identities in region around Mosul at a time when many Iraqi
politicians are working to supersede the Shica-Sunni divide.
Turkey also seeks to use Iraq’s Turkmen population to
enhance Turkey’s interests in Iraq.
Having a major presence in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Turkmen still
maintain cultural ties to Turkey based on their Turkish heritage. Divided into
Sunni and Shica communities, often based along tribal ties,
opportunities exist for manipulating divisions among the Turkmen based on tribe
and/or sect which can serve the Erdoğan’s interests.
Erdoğan mischief-making in Iraq will be somewhat constrained
by his recently established working relationship with Russia. From a low point
in relations after Turkey downed a Russian jet which had strayed into its
airspace in November 2015, Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin have developed a
rapprochement.
No longer does Erdoğan stridently call for removing Syrian President Bashar
al-Asad from power. Nor does he attack
the Islamic Republic of Iran for its support of al-Asad and for sending
Revolutionary Guard trainers into Syria. Because Russia is allied with both the Asad
regime and Iran, Turkish relations with Russian now trump Erdoğan’s severe distaste
for Bashar al-Asad.
Saudi Arabia and Iraq
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is not as actively
involved in domestic Iraqi politics as Iran or Turkey. Nevertheless, its regional policies impact
Iraq in a negative manner. Ever since the fall of Saddam Husayn, the KSA has
feared that the rise of Shica political parties in Iraq threatens to
make it a surrogate of Iran. The ongoing “Cold War” between the KSA and Iran,
which will only intensify in coming years, means that Iraq will remain a
“battleground state” for the foreseeable future.
Even before the ouster of Saddam and the Bacth,
the KSA sought to undermine Iraq and prevent it from reestablishing a powerful
army which could threaten the kingdom and the Arab Gulf as it did with the
seizure of Kuwait in August 1990 and the January 1991 Gulf War. One of the ways
the KSA sought to subvert Saddam was to fund Sunni Arabs who would be willing
to promote its violence-prone, anti-Shi a, and culturally atavistic Wahhabi
ideology, especially in the Sunni majority provinces of al-Anbar, Ninawa and
Salah al-Din. During the harsh United Nations
sanctions regime of the 1990s, women were paid to wear the hijab and men were
paid to pray.
Saddam’s so-called “Faith Campaign,” begun in 1993 and designed
to coopt Sunnis who had become disenchanted with the Bacthist
regime, especially after the post-Gulf War UN sanctions regime had destroyed
the national economy, made Iraq’s Sunni Arab provinces fertile soil for Wahhabi
recruitment. Funds which poured into
Iraq did not just come from the KSA alone but from private Saudi donors,
including those from other Arab Gulf countries.
KSA hostility to its Shica minority, which
inhabits the important oil producing provinces of the country’s northeast,
makes the Iraq model where Shica rule a largely democratic political
system particularly galling. Indeed,
Iraq’s efforts – often half-hearted and hesitant – to bridge the sectarian and
ethnic divides which developed after the collapse of Saddam frightens the KSA because
of the model it provides not just to Shica Saudis but to Saudi
society as a whole.
Although a comprehensive study has yet to be completed,
there is no doubt that the KSA, Arab Gulf states, and private citizens in these
countries (who have been given free rein to support radical Islamist groups in
Syria and Iraq) have been a major source of promoting sectarian identities in
Iraq. Until the Wahhabi-Sacud
family axis is broken, and the struggle with Iran tempered, KSA interference in
Iraq’s domestic affairs will continue.
Syria and Iraq
Of all Iraq’s neighbors, Syria provides the most serious
political problems. Of course, is
differs from Iran, Turkey and the KSA by not having a strong regime which can
directly interfere in Iraq’s domestic politics.
Nevertheless, the Syrian civil war has greatly harmed Iraq’s efforts to
develop a stable political system following the 2003 US invasion and occupation.
After Saddam was ousted, Syria did little or nothing to
prevent radical Islamists from organizing in eastern Syria and crossing its borders
into Iraq. Damascus became a refuge for
much of the remnants of the Iraqi Bacth Party and a venue for planning
ways to undermine the new post-Saddam Iraqi state.
Of course, Dacish used Syrian territory to plan
its attack on Mosul which it seized in June 2014.
While the policies of former Iraqi prime minister,
Nuri al-Maliki, facilitated the seizure of Mosul, had the city not been seized
by the Dacish, the PMUs would not have had any raison-d-ȇtre to be formed. Further, Iran would not have
subsequently had the opportunity to gain military advantage through developing
its own loyalist militias.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army has suffered huge losses in its
campaign to retake Mosul. Urban fighting
has been extremely difficult as the Dacish have had a long time to prepare
for the assault. With the drop in oil prices, Iraq is ill prepared to spend the
large sum of funds needed to support the campaign to eliminate the Dacish,
US financial and military support notwithstanding.
Finally, the Syrian civil war has opened doors for Turkey to
interfere in Iraqi politics, particularly through is efforts to influence
intra-Kurdish politics and relations. By
supporting the authoritarian and corrupt KDP leadership of the KRG in the
person of President Masoud Barzani, the Erdoğan
regime is hindering efforts at reforms in the KRG and, by extension, efforts to
achieve national reconciliation and a stronger federalism in Iraq.
Iraq, “neighborhood
effects” and the future
While Iraq cannot control the behavior of its neighbors, it
can control its own domestic politics.
Here the recent efforts to achieve national reconciliation, which are
absolutely critical after the defeat of the Dacish and the retaking
of Mosul, are critical. National reconciliation
undermines the ability of external powers to manipulate sectarian and ethnic cleavages
for its own advantages.
Despite its populist and often inflammatory political rhetoric,
the Sadrist Trend, unquestionably the most powerful political movement in Iraq,
is strongly behind a nationalist politics
and hostile to efforts to build political coalitions along sectarian lines. If a new Sunni movement develops – one which
realizes that radical Islamism offers nothing but death and destruction – and can
be brought into a national coalition, then Iraqi politics could emerge much stronger
after the Dacish is militarily defeated.
In addition to building cross-sect and cross-ethnic
coalitions, Iraq needs to tackle its rampant corruption. Sectarian and corruption – with the
concomitant lack of social services – produce a toxic brew which could reignite
support for political extremists. The
military destruction of the Dacish is only the first step in
convincing marginalized groups in Iraq, especially Sunni Arab youth that
extremism offers nothing but a dead end (no pun intended).
Telephone reports from Mosul indicate that the fears which
Moslawis had about the Iraqi Army when it first approached Mosul were
misplaced. Its bravery and caution in
fighting street by street battles, in an effort to reduce civilian casualties, and
the assistance it provided to Moslawis once they were liberated from the Dacish,
has given the army a new and highly favorable status in Iraq.
Including more Sunni Arab forces within the
army will go a long way towards assuaging the fears of residents in Iraq’s
Sunni Arab majority provinces that the post-Da ish period will result in a return
to the status quo ante. Here is an
opportunity for the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Hayder al-cAbadi
to demonstrate that Iraq is entering a new era, one that addresses the needs of
the Sunni Arab population, as well other groups, such as the Yazidis, who were
severely harmed by the Dacish.
Whether the ties which developed between the Iraqi Army and
the Pesh Merga during their joint efforts against the Dacish will
produce any long-term ties still waits to be seen. However, the post-Dacish era is
the time to push forward with strengthening federalism, to incentivize Iraq’s Kurdish
population to remain within the country, and likewise devolve more administrative
and financial power to Iraq’s 18 provinces.
The US should remain actively involved in providing training
to the Iraqi Army which was critical in standing up the elite Counter-Terrorism
Force and other military units. The ties
between the Iraqi and US armies will work to insure that the
professionalism which it demonstrated in the anti-Dacish campaign
continues once the terrorists are finally defeated in Iraq and Syria.
*From the Arabic Dar
al-Sinaca, or industrial area (lit., “abode of building”).
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