The End of Reconciliation?
RT: At the end of December, observers who predicted that Iraq would slide back into sectarian war after the US troop withdrawal looked to be correct. Maliki tried to have Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi arrested on allegedly false charges of terrorism. Subsequently, the main Sunni party withdrew from parliament. Days later as if in response, a wave of bombings killed over 70 people, mostly Shias in Baghdad. Put those facts together and you have a very bleak view of Iraq's future. Another view is more optimistic, which is that the recent attacks were not a response to al-Hashimi's arrest warrant and were more likely a part of Al-Qaeda's last bid to derail Iraq's progress. For all the Sunni/Shia divisions, Kurdish leaders appear committed to the role of peace maker, and Maliki’s uneasy alliance with the Sadrists is now even shakier. Public political statements have been restrained, so the optimistic view is that politics will win the day. Which view seems more accurate?
JW: First the bombings in Baghdad take weeks of preparation, and were probably planned by Al-Qaeda for after the US withdrawal, not because of the current political crisis. They likely had the attacks planned out far before the current crisis even started. While there had not been that many bombings in one day for quite some time, it was in line with Al-Qaeda's modus operandi, which is to pull off one large scale, media grabbing operation every 1-2 months.
As for the government breakdown, I think Maliki is really pushing this to the limit. The Iraqi National Movement was very divided, with the ministers and other politicians holding office quite happy with what they had, while Iyad Allawi was on the outside left complaining about Maliki, while completely neglecting his job as a lawmaker. Now, Maliki's action has united the list. Almost all the other parties, the Kurdish Coalition, the Supreme Council, and White Iraqiya have all offered to mediate as well, which shows that they are not behind Maliki's stance. The Sadrists appear to be the only ones he can consistently rely upon. I think that places limits on the Prime Minister, but he seems to be committed to this confrontation. In the end, I think there will be some kind of negotiated settlement, but it will leave Maliki and Allawi's National Movement more bitter than ever, which will solidify the dysfunction.
I'm very critical of the American pundits and politicians who are pulling the "I told you so" line about Iraq unraveling as a result of these two events. Maliki had that huge crackdown on Baathists arresting hundreds of people while there were still tens of thousands of U.S. forces in the country. Was Washington able to do anything about that? Were they able to mediate the Prime Minister's actions? Not one bit. Same thing with the violence, remember the attacks in August 2011? 10 out of 18 provinces were hit even though there were over 49,000 American forces in the country. They're basing their remarks upon their world view rather than actual facts on the ground. They seem deeply committed to the belief that nothing positive will happen in Iraq without a US military presence. They just can't believe that Iraqis will be able to do anything on their own.
Coup D'Etat
RT: In August 2010, David Kilkullen told the BBC of the risk of a military coup in Iraq. Maliki’s heavy handed attempts to control the Iraqi military show he is aware of this danger (although he blames Baathist plots.) However, Maliki’s party are not the only ones interfering with Iraqi military appointments. Particularly suspect is the arrest of General Noman Dakhil, who General Buchanan claimed was effective in the fight against the Special Groups (Iranian backed terrorists). Considering political conditions are arguably worse than at the time of Kilkullen’s interview, might we expect an Iranian backed coup d’etat in Iraq? Maybe Maliki’s rise to power is in itself a kind of coup...
JW: I don’t think there’s much chance of a coup at all. Iraq’s military command structure is very fragmented so it would be hard for one general or a group of officers to get enough units to pull one off. There are 14 army divisions, but also independent units that are outside the regular chain of command. There are also separate commands like the Baghdad Operations Command that answer directly to Maliki, not to the Defense or Interior Ministry. Second, everyone has their own people in the security forces. That’s a result of the Americans trying to get as many Iraqi soldiers and police in the field as quickly as possible. That allowed militias, insurgents, political parties, you name it, to join. Around 35,000 Kurdish peshmerga were integrated directly into the army. For example, the Badr Brigade was able to have entire units of theirs join the police commando, etc. There are just too many conflicting groups and lines of authority for someone to organize a takeover.
As for your last comment, I think some would consider Maliki’s second term in office akin to a coup. His State of Law list did not win the most seats in the 2010 parliamentary elections, but he was able to outmanoeuvre all of his opponents to hang on, and remain in power. That allowed him to continue to centralize power in his hands, which have led many to accuse him of becoming an autocrat.
The End of Assad
RT: Toby Dodge at LSE recently claimed the fall of Assad in Syria could seriously destabilize Iraq. Apparently, some Sunni’s have claimed Shia militias have already headed west to help Assad’s forces. It might be too much to assume that a Muslim Brotherhood victory in Syria will automatically lead to a surge in militia activity in Iraq. So far, we’ve seen the opposite: Syria’s turmoil has slowed the infiltration of fighters into Iraq. Dodge’s claim would need a range of scenarios to happen in tandem. Do you agree that the fall of Assad inevitably spells trouble for Iraq?
JW: Iraqi politicians talk like that’s what they’re afraid of, and why they are suddenly supporting the Syrian government, but I doubt it would have that much of an affect. Most Islamists are just not that focused upon Iraq anymore, so even if the Syrian-Iraq border went unguarded for example, there would not be a sudden surge of foreign fighters flooding into Iraq. They are just heading to different places right now. It’s also unclear how any new Syrian government would feel about their neighbor, so it’s just pure speculation that the events in Syria are destabilizing Iraq. In 2011 there was around $5 billion in trade between the two countries, which I don’t think would be affected in the long-term by the fall of Assad either.
RT: Why do you think militant Islamists are shifting their focus away from Iraq?
JW: I think that they consider Iraq a losing cause now and there are more flash points that have gained their attention such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, etc. After the Awakening started in Anbar and then the Sons of Iraq, the writing was on the wall that the Iraqi insurgency was on the decline, and that foreign Islamists were not going to get the domestic support from Iraqis that they received in the past. All together that meant Iraq simply didn't have the luster that it did before for Islamists. Syria reportedly also made it harder for people to cross the border into Iraq, which was the main transit point into the country.
Unemployment
RT: High unemployment in Iraq still poses a threat to social cohesion. You have cited how few people the hydrocarbon industry needs to employ even as profits come rolling in. On a positive note, the oil boom promises to fund huge Iraqi government construction and infrastructure projects, some government led, some with multi nationals, that will see demand for concrete at French run plants within Iraq rise by 2 million tonnes in 2012. Can Iraq turn 9 percent economic growth into jobs for all Iraqis, or do you think corruption, prejudice and bureaucracy will obstruct such progress?
JW: Unless the Iraqi government makes serious reforms to its economy, namely moving away from a state-run system, it will always have high-unemployment/underemployment. The government’s current plan to solve joblessness, for example, is simply to expand its ministries, and add more useless public sector workers. There just aren’t enough of those slots available to ever solve the problem.
The country really is a poster child for the oil curse. Petroleum provides 90 percent of revenue, but only 1 percent of jobs. Like many oil producing countries, the government tries to make up for this by expanding the public sector rather than diversifying the economy. In fact, Iraq’s oil plans to tremendously boost output in the next several years will make the country even more dependent than ever. There doesn’t appear to be any long-term economic planning going on other than getting oil production up.
Corruption and red tape also stifles the creation of more private businesses. The World Bank has ranked Iraq one of the worst places to do business in for the last several years. The number of forms and steps entrepreneurs have to go through, plus countless bribes that are demanded of them, is staggering, and prevents many medium and large size firms from even being created in the country. There actually has been an increase in very small businesses in the country like local shops, but they can’t really fuel economic or job growth.
Finally, there are no exact numbers available, but a lot of the construction projects and investments being publicized in Iraq right now come to nothing. Iraqi banks are currently incapable of financing many expensive endeavors, and as already stated, the regulatory environment is horrible. There are also conflicting lines of authority between the provinces, ministries, and the central government that complicate matters, and the Iraqi bureaucracy lacks the trained staff to implement many of these plans. In March 2011 for instance, the Electricity Ministry announced that it was going to build 50 small power plants by 2012 to try to help address the blackouts that plague the country. The deals for those facilities all fell through, and now the government is back to square one trying to get companies to build them. The same thing happened with many of the large housing developments that have been announced, so Iraqis can’t even rely upon this type of government spending to provide them with jobs.
Death by Big Government
RT: In the early 1970s, an oil price spike caused economic havoc in South Vietnam. Plagued by severe public sector corruption, they could not financially sustain their vast armed forces. Nearly 40 years later, the threat of global economic downturn could cause a drop in oil prices. Suddenly Iraq could find it can’t afford to maintain it’s security forces, with catastrophic consequences because their corrupted public sector are so dependant on oil revenue. How likely do you think this is?
JW: During the current recession, oil prices have actually been going up because the Arab Spring and Libyan revolt shook investors, and increased speculation. With continued unrest in Syria, and the stewing problems with Iran I don’t see that ending for now.
If oil prices ever did take a big fall, it would not be the Iraqi security forces that would really be hit the worst, but rather the other government workers and services. I would suspect Baghdad would get rid of the useless workers first, rather than reducing the army or police. Then the plans to fix the infrastructure would be next. Since Iraq is the most oil dependent country in the region, any serious drop in prices would have a tremendous affect upon it.
An Israeli Attack on Iran
RT: Finally, it has been suggested that Israel could overfly undefended Iraqi airspace as a short cut to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. How destabilising would such an action be within Iraq, assuming it became public knowledge there?
JW: Iraqis would obviously complain about it, but there’s really nothing else they could do. Iraq is beset by so many internal problems that Israel is not really an issue in domestic politics there. Basically, it would be a short-term issue that would not really affect the country.
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Posted on December 28, 2011
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