Iraq is disintegrating
faster than ever. The
Turkish army invaded the
north of the country
last week and is still
there. Iraqi Kurdistan
is becoming like Gaza
where Israel can send in
its tanks and
helicopters at will.
The US, so sensitive to
any threat to Iraqi
sovereignty from Iran or
Syria, has blandly
consented to the Turkish
attack on the one part
of Iraq which was at
peace. The Turkish
government piously
claims that its army is
in pursuit of PKK
Turkish Kurd guerrillas,
but it is unlikely to
inflict serious damage
on them as they hide in
long-prepared bunkers
and deep ravines of the
Kurdish mountains. What
the Turkish incursion is
doing is weakening the
Kurdistan Regional
Government, the
autonomous Kurdish zone,
the creation of which is
one of the few concrete
achievements of the US
and British invasion of
Iraq five years ago.
One of the most
extraordinary
developments in the
Iraqi war has been the
success with which the
White House has been
able to persuade so much
of the political and
media establishment in
the US that, by means of
"the Surge", an extra
30,000 US troops, it is
on the verge of
political and military
success in Iraq. All
that is needed now,
argue US generals, is
political reconciliation
between the Iraqi
communities.
Few demands could be
more hypocritical.
American success in
reducing the level of
violence over the last
year has happened
precisely because Iraqis
are so divided. The
Sunni Arabs of Iraq were
the heart of the
rebellion against the
American occupation. In
fighting the US forces,
they were highly
successful. But in 2006,
after the bombing of the
Shia shrine at Samarra,
Baghdad and central Iraq
was wracked by a savage
civil war between Shia
and Sunni. In some
months the bodies of
3,000 civilians were
found, and many others
lie buried in the desert
or disappeared into the
river. I do not know an
Iraqi family that did
not lose a relative, and
usually more than one.
The Shia won this
civil war. By the end of
2006 they held
threequarters of
Baghdad. The Sunni
rebels, fighting the
Mehdi Army Shia militia
and the Shia, dominated
the Iraqi army and
police, and also under
pressure from al Qa'ida,
decided to end their war
with US forces. They
formed al-Sahwa, the
Awakening movement,
which is now allied to
and paid for by the US.
In effect Iraq now
has an 80,000 strong
Sunni militia which does
not hide its contempt
for the Iraqi
government, which it
claims is dominated by
Iranian controlled
militias. The former
anti-American guerrillas
have largely joined al-Sahwa.
The Shia majority, for
its part, is determined
not to let the Sunni win
back their control of
the Iraqi state. Power
is more fragmented than
ever.
This all may sound
like good news for
America. For the moment
its casualties are down.
Fewer Iraqi civilians
are being slaughtered.
But the Sunni have not
fallen in love with the
occupation. The
fundamental weakness of
the US position in Iraq
remains its lack of
reliable allies outside
Kurdistan. At one
moment, British officers
used to lecture their
American counterparts,
much to their
irritation, about the
British Army's rich
experience of successful
counter-insurgency
warfare in Malaya and
Northern Ireland. "That
showed a fundamental
misunderstanding of Iraq
on our part," a former
British officer in Basra
told me in exasperation.
"In Malaya the
guerrillas all came from
the minority Chinese
community and in
Northern Ireland from
the minority Roman
Catholics. Basra was
exactly the opposite.
The majority supported
our enemies. We had no
friends there."
This lack of allies
may not be so
immediately obvious in
Baghdad and central Iraq
because both Shia and
Sunni are willing and at
times eager to make
tactical alliances with
US forces. But in the
long term neither Sunni
nor Shia Arab want the
Americans to stay in
Iraq. Hitherto the only
reliable American allies
have been the Kurds, who
are now discovering that
Washington is not going
to protect them against
Turkey.
Very little is
holding Iraq together.
The government is
marooned in the Green
Zone. Having declared
the Surge a great
success, the US military
commanders need just as
many troops to maintain
a semblance of control
now as they did before
the Surge. The mainly
Shia police force
regards al-Sahwa as
anti-government
guerrillas wearing new
uniforms.
The Turkish invasion
should have given the
government in Baghdad a
chance to defend Iraq's
territorial integrity
and burnish its
patriotic credentials.
Instead the prime
minister Nouri al-Maliki
has chosen this moment
to have his regular
medical check up in
London, a visit which
his colleagues say is
simply an excuse to
escape Baghdad. Behind
him he has left a
country which is visibly
falling apart.
