The following is a review which will appear in the International Journal of Contemporary Iraq Studies
Juan Romero,
The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: A
Revolutionary Quest for Unity and Security, Lanham,
MD:
University Presses of America,
2011, pp. 241. Bibliography 221-223.
Hamid
al-Bayati, From Dictatorship to
Democracy: An Insider’s Account of the Iraqi Opposition to Saddam, Philadelphia:
University
of Pennsylvania Press,
2011, pp. 347. Notes, pp. 315-321.
Ali Paya and
John Esposito, eds., Iraq,
Democracy and the Future of the Arab World, New York:
Routledge, 2011, pp. 220.
While
preparing for my first research visit to Iraq in May and June of 1980, I was
taken aback by the few studies of Iraqi politics and society that could guide
my work. Hanna Batatu’s massive study, The Old Social Classes and Revolutionary
Movements of Iraq, has just been published by Princeton University Press in
1978, and there were the 3 volumes by Iraqi expatriate scholar Majid Khadduri, Independent Iraq, Republican Iraq, and Socialist
Iraq.
Beyond a few essays by Elie
Kedouri, likewise an Iraq
expatriate, and works by former British colonial officials, such as Gertrude
Bell and Philip Ireland, there was little to help the non-Iraqi researcher
unlock the complexities of Iraqi politics .
Iraq’s 1980
invasion of Iran, the seizure of Kuwait in 1990, two wars which resulted from
these attacks, the massive uprising (Intifada) which followed the Gulf War of January
1991, the severe UN sanctions regime imposed on Iraq between 1991 and 2003, and
the US toppling of Saddam Husayn’s Ba’thist regime in 2003 has produced a
deluge of writings on Iraq. The key
question is what have we learned from this outpouring of studies?
Three recently
published studies offer insights into our understanding of Iraq. Treating them chronologically, Juan Romero’s
study, The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: A
Revolutionary Quest for Unity and Security, is one of the first works to
focus specifically on the Revolution,
especially the causal factors leading up to it.
Hamid al-Bayati’s From
Dictatorship to Democracy: An Insider’s Account of the Iraqi Opposition to
Saddam, is exactly what the title implies, a detailed account of an
important political actor who exercised significant influence in Iraqi politics
both before and after the overthrow of Saddam Husayn’s regime.
Finally, we have Ali Paya and John Esposito’s
edited volume, Iraq,
Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, which includes a number of
important essays on the democratization process in Iraq after 2003.
Professor
Romero’s study, which is based on a rich database of Arabic and archival
resources, begins with an excellent theoretical discussion which poses the
following question. Did the overthrow of
the Hashimite monarchy in July 1958 constitute a true revolution? The author’s answer is an emphatic yes. He uses six criteria to make his argument,
including popular participation in the Revolution, its extensive impact on
Iraqi society, the subsequent expanded role of the state in the economy, a
dramatic transformation of Iraq’s
foreign policy, important changes in the form of government, and, finally, a
fundamental shift in the social psychology of Iraqi society.
Despite the
conceptual and theoretical sophistication of the author’s introduction, the
study fails to consider a number of counter-arguments which belie his
arguments, Unlike the Bolshevik or
Chinese revolutions, for example, the large landowning class and its political influence was not affected in any significant fashion by
the Qasim regime’s policies, as Professor Romero himself notes (208). Further, the author fails to acknowledge that many of the Revolution‘s
accomplishments were undone by the brutal Ba’thist regime which overthrew ‘Abd
al-Karim Qasim in February 1963,
a period which Hanna Batatu refers to as “the bitterest of years.”
One of the
volume’s most serious shortcomings is the author’s failure to address the
argument that the Revolution actually paved the way for dictatorship as seen in
the Ba’thist regime which came to power in 1968. The 1958 Revolution was part of a political
struggle which extends back to the early years of the 20th century
and which continues until today, namely the ideological struggle over Iraqi identity. This struggle pitted al-wataniya al-mahaliya or “local nationalism” (or what I have
referred to elsewhere as Iraqist nationalism), which viewed Iraq as a multi-ethnic and confessional society,
against a much smaller group of Pan-Arabists who wanted to make Iraq part of a larger Pan-Arab
nation-state.
This tension, I would
argue, was the main driver of the political and social cleavages which
developed after the Revolution. These
cleavages pitted Qasim and his allies in the powerful Iraqi Community Party
(ICP) against Colonel ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Arif and the Pan-Arabists in the officer
corps, namely those who either supported the Ba’th Party or Egypt’s Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir.
Qasim was
never, as the author asserts, a Pan-Arabist.
While it is true that he was chosen to lead the Revolution due to his
outstanding military performance in Palestine
during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he was of the opinion that Iraq faced too many domestic problems to add to
them by becoming involved in Pan-Arab politics. Qasim also feared Iraq’s
becoming subordinated to al-Nasir if it chose to join the United Arab Republic.
Instead,
Qasim’s promoted of a new inclusive political identity which referenced ancient
Mesopotamia, the Kurds and Pan-Arabism. These themes can be seen is his creation of a
new national flag centered on the star of Ishtar, which referenced the Kurds
through its yellow sun, and included the black, white, green and red colors of
Pan-Arabism. The many parades in Baghdad
during Qasim’s rule, which included floats portraying themes from ancient Iraq,
as well as his emphasis on the shared folklore of all Iraq’s ethnoconfessional
groups which he saw as a means of overcoming Iraq’s political and social
cleavages, demonstrated a new and sophisticated way of addressing Iraq’s
complex identity politics.
Professor
Romero fails to address in a meaningful way the negative side of the
Revolution. Despite his commitment to
the interests of the Iraqi people, especially the less fortunate members of
society by whom he was much beloved, Qasim was a dictator. He systematically dismantled civil society,
including Iraq’s powerful
labor movement, banned political, parties, and largely muzzled the press. These actions facilitated the rise of
Ba’thist dictatorship and one party rule a decade after Qasim and the Free
Officers seized power. In this sense,
the Revolution left a very negative legacy, one which the author fails to
recognize.
Despite some
of these shortcomings, Professor Romero’s study provides a detailed analysis of
the politics that led up to the Revolution.
One of the most important themes is the extensive discussion of the
impact of the international politics on the Hashimite monarchy and on the
mobilizing the Iraqi populace against the Iraqi strongman of the period, Nuri
al-Sa’id.
Dr. Hamid
al-Bayati, currently Iraq’s
Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has written an important memoir
about his experiences while in opposition to Saddam Husayn’s regime. Dr. al-Bayati, who has already published a
number of important studies in Arabic on modern Iraq,
was closely associated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (SCIRI), which later changed its name to the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council
(SCCI). This factor influenced
opposition politics as the US
felt uncomfortable with SCIRI which had been formed in Iran in 1982 and led by Iranian Revolutionary
Guards for the first two years of its existence.
This is a
very different study from much of what has been published on Iraq since 2003.
Rather than dwell on the negative, the author emphasizes the strides
which the Iraqi people have made since the Ba’thist regime’s downfall. Rightfully, he cites the positive outcomes of
the elections in 2005, 2009 and 2010 and the enthusiasm with which Iraqis have
generally embraced democratic politics.
As a central
figure in the Iraqi opposition movement that developed during the 1990s, the
author had meetings with many important American officials and other Iraqi opposition
figures. We learn about the inner
dynamics of the Clinton administration’s policies towards Iraq. For example, unlike the Bush administration,
it was loathe to support Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Conference (INC) over
other opposition groups, preferring to engage the opposition movement as a
whole (90). Although he does not go into
detail, it is also clear that Iraq’s neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia, played
a critical role in fashioning US policy towards Iraq during the 1990s (93).
While the
Iraqi opposition could do little to influence Saddam’s regime militarily, it
did influence international public opinion, often making it difficult for
regime officials to travel outside the country.
‘Izzat al-Duri, Barzan al-Tikriti and Tariq ‘Aziz all found their
ability to travel hampered the effective INDICT Internet campaign which
highlighted the regime’s human rights abuses and filed charges against Ba’thist
officials once they travelled abroad (110).
The
Clinton’s administration cautious approach to toppling Saddam – too timid in
the view of many – contrasts sharply with that of the Bush administration. Here the author holds no punches in
criticizing the Bush administration for ineffective planning and not taking
advantage of assistance by the Iraqis who would have helped the US after Saddam
was toppled. Dr. al-Bayati asked why the
US forces only secured the Ministry of Oil and the Ministry of Defense in
Saddam’s Republican Palace once they arrived ion Baghdad. He never could find an answer (189).
It is odd
that Dr. al-Bayati fails to analyze in any detail the sectarian dimensions of
Iraqi politics in any comprehensive manner both prior to and following the
overthrow of Saddam’s regime. He
discusses the anger of the Shi’a towards Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) leader,
Masoud Barzani, for accepting military assistance from Saddam’s army in 1996
when his forces were about to be defeated by those of the rival Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK). Because they
defended the KDP, Barzani allowed Saddam’s forces to seize Shi’a opposition
figures in Arbil.
While the
author remarks that the Kurds and Shi’a have historically had good relations,
despite the anger that the killings caused, he fails to note that the KDP and
Saddam cooperated extensively to smuggle oil out of Iraq under the UN sanctions
regime (137). This cooperation is all
the more remarkable given the notorious Anfal Campaign that Saddam directed
against the Kurds during the late 1980s, including the bombing with chemical
weapons of the Kurdish city of Halabja in 1988 with massive deaths and injuries
to the populace.
These
shortcomings notwithstanding, From
Dictatorship to Democracy is must reading for anyone interested in the
inner workings of the Iraqi opposition prior to the US invasion of Iraq. How
that opposition interacted with the American occupation, especially during the
period between 2003 and 2004, and the highly flawed US policy towards Iraq,
tells us much about why Iraq developed such political and social instability
following the American invasion.
Ali Paya and
John Esposito’s Iraq, Democracy and the
Future of the Muslim World, suffers from the problem of many edited
volumes, namely thematic coherence. The
chapters in the volume do not fit entirely comfortably under the three rubrics
which divide the book: “Iraq,” “Democracy,” and “the Muslim World,” nor do the
three rubrics themselves provide a coherent structure to the volume.
Nevertheless,
the volume contains a number of excellent essays. In reviewing them, I will focus on those
which deal explicitly with Iraq.
Abbas
Kadhim’s elegantly titled essay, “Forging a Third Way: Sistani’s marja’iyya between quietism and wilayat al-faqih,” draws attention to
one of the greatest ongoing threats to the development of Iraqi democracy. If the Iranian regime, which recently
appointed Iraqi born Ayatollah Mahmud Hashimi al-Shahroudi ostensibly to
oversee the interests of Iranian pilgrims, is able to influence the successor
to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, then the efforts of the Iraqi marja’iyya to
prevent the politicization of Shiism – a process that is already evident among
the so-called Sadrist Trend – could introduce a serious “fifth column” into
Iraqi politics.
Dr. Kadhim’s
essay offers many insights into Ayatollah Sistani’s socialization. More importantly, it examines the origins of
the so-called “quietism” of the marja’iyya, a process which began when the
British arrested and deported Shi’i clerics who participated in the 1920
Revolution. However, it was the
brutality of Saddam’s dictatorship which cemented the “extreme measures of
self-restraint” followed by the Shi’i clergy between 1974 and 2003 (68).
The chapter
ends with a discussion of Ali al-Sistani’s role in promoting tolerance,
non-violence and democracy in Iraq, a topic which has still not been adequately
analyzed. al-Sistani has been
instrumental in expanding suffrage for women, reducing violence, and forcing
the Iraqi government to follow the Constitution, as he did in cooperation with
Grand Mufti Ahmad ‘Abd al-Ghaffur al-Samara’i, during the March 2010 elections.
The role of
the Kurds in democratization has likewise not been given enough attention,
particularly the positive impact of the Gorran (Change) Movement which made its
appearance on the political stage in the 2009 Kurdish Regional Parliament
elections. Salah Aziz’s essay,
“Kurdistan: democracy and the future,” covers a broad range of issues which
treat the Kurds response to the development of democracy in the Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG), both before and after 2003.
Human rights
issues, violence against women, civil society organizations, federalism,
the
conflict over oil, and accountability and transparency in governance provide a
comprehensive overview of Kurdish politics in the first decade of this century.
It is also helpful to have voting data for the Kurdish region drawn from the
2005 parliamentary elections.
Laith
Kubba’s “Lessons from Iraq” offers an excellent thumbnail sketch of the problems
which plagued the American occupation of Iraq after 2003. He details the lack of knowledge possessed by
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and makes
clear that a more planned and hence more effective US occupation policy could
have prevented many of the problems Iraq subsequently experienced. The marginalization of the Sunni community
and reliance on “carpetbaggers” (to use a phrase of Tariq and Jacqueline
Ismael) argues that many of the key players in the post-Saddam period were
expatriates who used their ties to the US to promote selfish and narrowly
construed agendas, rather than help rebuild Iraqi society.
The author
spares no criticism of the so-called Islamist movements which sprang up with
the insurgency that developed in late 2003 and 2004. al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) and Ba’thist
supported militias which adopted Islamic names made little headway among the
largely pragmatic Iraqi people. Indeed,
they eventually provoked tribesmen in al-Anbar to develop the “Awakening
Movement (al-Sahwa) which quickly
marginalized these insurgent groups.
Faleh A.
Jabar’s excellent chapter, “Religion, sect, ethnicity and tribe: the
uncertainties of identity politics in the new society,” presents a nuanced and
analytically sophisticated overview of the dynamics of change in Iraqi communal
identity politics, especially after 2003.
Dr. Jabar sums up the dynamics succinctly when he states “The Kurdish
catchword was federalism, that of the Shi’is was demography was democracy (the
Shi’is being a majority of the nation), and that of the Sunnis was
restoration.” (21)
The author’s
analysis is crisp and to the point. His
commentary on the impact on the middle classes of the post-Saddam era is one
missing from most discussions of post-Ba’thist politics. The general tenor of Dr. Jabar is that
efforts to subsume Iraqis politics under rigid social and political categories
grounded in religion, sect, ethnicity and tribe – especially after the damage
wrought on Iraqi society by the 1990s sanctions regime which upended much of
the social order, is doomed to analytic failure. As such, the author calls for a new
conceptual framework for Iraqi politics based in political sociology. In this sense, this chapter is analytically
very provocative.
All three of these studies teach us much about the dynamics
of pre- and post-Ba’thist Iraq. They
point to the failure and the potential of Iraqi politics since 1958. If nothing else, they offer a cautionary
tale. Politically, Iraq is still very
unsettled, and making hard and fast assertions about the nature of its
political life should be done with a concern for the dynamics of change, one
that avoids a focus on the statics of sectarianism and communal identities.
