Opinion, May 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info
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Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
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Filling the power vacuum in Iraq, Ferris K Nesheiwat
Jordan Times, 5/30/03
APRIL 9 marks the day Baghdad fell to the advancing American forces. Six weeks later, the city still has no dependable electricity, water supply or security.
In case nobody in the American administration noticed yet, the most important figures in southern Iraq are two Shiite clerics, one of whom, 30-year-old Moqtada Al Sadr, is technically a theology student.
In central Iraq, the interim American administration appoints a health minister who shortly thereafter resigns. The Americans allege the resignation was based on his refusal to denounce the Baath Party, the Iraqi doctors say it is because they made it clear they will not cooperate with him. On a lighter note, I believe this is probably the first instant in modern Arab political history where a minister quits his post because his constituency is dissatisfied with him.
At the University of Baghdad, The New York Times reports, a group of professors, after waiting for hours in the sun, could not meet with Barbara K. Bodine, the then American administrator of Baghdad. Eventually, Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, lent them his ear and his militiamen to help bring down Saddam Hussein's statue on the university premises. He also promised to work with them against reinstating an ex-Baathist as head of the university.
Something is fundamentally wrong.
It is quite obvious that the American administration is ignoring, at its peril, a basic and fundamental rule of physics: nature abhors any vacuum. Those on the ground rapidly fill the resulting political vacuum created by the destruction of the Baath Party's chain of command. More often than not, they are not members of the American administrative team. The valuable time the interim administration had to take charge of events is slipping away very quickly. The goodwill it had among Iraqis who welcomed the demise of Saddam's corrupt regime is being swiftly squandered. The sad part is that all this could have been easily avoided.
The American administration has no one but itself to blame for its blatant inefficiency and complacency in planning for the postwar Iraq. While it might have been understandable that European and international aid organisations avoided full swing preparation for the war lest they seem to condone Washington's war plans. The US administration knew fully well what was ahead. Yet, looting persists, drinking water is polluted and Iraqis are clamouring for authority figures. An Iraqi businessman ran Baghdad as mayor for weeks before the Americans moved in to oust him. He might still have been the self-proclaimed mayor had he not made plans to send his own delegation to represent Iraq at the OPEC meeting. Mention oil and you are sure to get attention.
And while there might be some logistical explanation for the failures on the administrative and aid levels, one is hard-pressed to find any explanation for the current security situation. While looting continues, certain parts of Iraq, like Al Sadr city (formerly Saddam City), a run-down part of Baghdad with a Shiite population, and Al Najaf, in south Iraq, are off-limits for American forces, The New York Times reports. The American administration will not be pleasantly surprised when the local religious leaders, already vocally opposing the American presence, become the de-facto governors of their respective provinces.
The world was promised a unified and prosperous Iraq. That promise is proving hard to satisfy when different locales pledge allegiance to different leaders, and when Iraq has to import car fuel from its oil-less neighbours.
The American interim administration must also confront its inability to grasp and manoeuvre within the social and cultural framework of its existence in Iraq. It gains nothing by shunning direct communication with the Iraqi academic and social leaders, while wealthy expatriates, who are not hiding behind an impenetrable wall of security, welcome them.
Its irrational moves to install ex-Baathists in positions of power are alienating the population and confirming their worse fear, that instruments of the ousted tyrant are here to stay. The Baath Party came to power through a bloody take-over of the government, and its systematic, indiscriminate repression of the Iraqi population is evident in the mass graves popping up all over Iraq. It is folly to think that the anger and anguish the Iraqis feel towards the instrument of their past repression would be washed away ever so easily.
The attempt to rebuild the Iraqi legal system provides another instructive example. The Bush administration chose to ignore the work of a team of Iraqi legal scholars who worked over a year to provide a blueprint for a reformed legal system. Instead, it dispatched six federal judges to make an assessment of the reform process. This is not the way progress is made. One of the judges dispatched is an ex-federal judge from the district of New Jersey who resigned from the federal bench because he found the caseload intellectually unstimulating. One would hope that the legal equivalent of reinventing the wheel in Iraq is stimulating enough.
The Bush administration scored a spectacular military victory. After winning the war, it must now win the peace, otherwise it risks losing everything. The reshuffling of the top members of the American interim administration in Iraq, which brought in a diplomat to replace the retired general, Jay Garner, and removed Bodine, can be a hopeful new beginning and a precious second chance. But one must not forget that in life, second chances are hard to come by, and third chances are almost never heard of. This might be an important fact to remember as the United States prepares for the next 18 months of presidential campaigning, with Iraq being pushed further down the political priority list.
The writer is a candidate for the JD degree from Seton Hall University School of Law, Newark, New Jersey. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |