An "unpure" democratic Iraq the way forward?

the_syco

IMO, the violence in Iraq will continue unitll:

a)democracy is kicked out, and the priests are put in control

or

b)all the terrorists are killed


Option B won't happen (as there'll always be someone), but option A may work. As an example, option B is what the American president is trying to get.

Not in a "pure" sense, such as America, but one like Turkey, where its half the old, and half the new. A total "pure" democracy won't work, as the religous wacho's will keep blowing stuff up, but half old rules, and half new may appease both sides.

By this I mean that the priests in Iraq still hold say (maybe have a 35% /15% say in an British style "house of lords") so that the religous side (35% shi'ite, 15% Sunni) is taken care of, and the other 50% would be elected officials.

The above is just a thought which I had recently. And I say american president, and not american forces, as it was higher up who decided to invade for GW2, and it was also higher up who decided to withdraw help after GW1.

constitutionus

cant see it working as turkey is way different than iraq. personally seeing as their hellbent on bringing about a democracy i predict a fracturing of the country and the end of iraq in it present form. basically the 3 main factions would get their own country's and go forward from there. i hate to say it but the only thing keeping iraq together was despotic rule, without that we get the anarchy we've got now. its no surprise, pratically every country thats had a civil war has split and i cant see iraq being any different. what'll be interesting then is what will turkey do

InFront

the_syco wrote:

Not in a "pure" sense, such as America, but one like Turkey, where its half the old, and half the new. A total "pure" democracy won't work, as the religous wacho's will keep blowing stuff up, but half old rules, and half new may appease both sides.

By this I mean that the priests in Iraq still hold say (maybe have a 35% /15% say in an British style "house of lords") so that the religous side (35% shi'ite, 15% Sunni) is taken care of, and the other 50% would be elected officials.

As regards the "proportional representation" of the leadership... Do you mean a sort of "talking shop" for the religious leaders, but ultimately with no power, like the Lords or the Irish Seanad? I don't think such a regime would foster much support amingst the Muslim leadership of Iraq at all. I don't think many Iraqi's would find it very easy to swallow, being as it would, a typical American democracy with the mere added pereception of Muslim influence.

Or would you support awarding authority to this 'upper house'?
I doubt that apportioning representation to the Iraqi Muslim community in a sort of Lebanese confessionalism type authority, is going to be very productive in itself either.
I think that such an authority would only stave away domestic conflict in the short term, but in the long term, regional dynamics would exacerbate this sort of sectarian disunity and violence would erupt once more (the Americans would be long gone by then of course, and we could kiss sweet goodbye to a firm international inititative for resolution).

Either way, this proposal would not win the support of the religious fundamentalists, or of the old establishment. And the nationalists would probably be divided.

Edit: but at least you can come up with solutions. I don't know what theyre going to do abou t it.

Victor

the_syco wrote:

and the priests are put in control

Do you mean Christian priests or Muslim imams / ayatollahs?

Manic Moran

Part of the reason that Sadr is disliked by the majority of the Iraqi population is that they are not particularly enamoured of his theories of politicised religious leaders running the country. In terms of governance, they like secularity.

NTM

Voipjunkie

Manic Moran wrote:

Part of the reason that Sadr is disliked by the majority of the Iraqi population is that they are not particularly enamoured of his theories of politicised religious leaders running the country. In terms of governance, they like secularity.

NTM

I agree occupation tends to drive people towards fundamentalism Iraq was a largely secular state before the invasion.
There was also a distinct lack of the sectarian divide that is now so obvious.

My own personal opinion is that an end of the occupation even though it will likely lead to a bloody conflict is the only way forward the bloody conflict at the end of the occupation is going to come anyway whether it is now or 2 years from now.
At the moment around 4000 people are dying a month the US/UK are only adding fuel to the fire. The withdrawal of the crutch of US security for those in power in Iraq at the moment might make them more willing to compromise while the withdrawal would also remove the biggest reason for the Sunni insurgency.

Victor

Voipjunkie wrote:

There was also a distinct lack of the sectarian divide that is now so obvious.

Eh, no. Before the war, certainly back to Ottoman times, the Sunni were always the ruling class.

Voipjunkie

Victor wrote:

Eh, no. Before the war, certainly back to Ottoman times, the Sunni were always the ruling class.

But Sunnis and Shias were living side by side and intermarrying with out any problems.
They were not blowing the **** out of each other nor where they picking each other off the street and dumping their multilated and tortured corpses on the street a few days latter because they had the misfortune to belong to the wrong creed.

There was no need for people to change their names or carry to forms of ID one shia one sunni before the invasion.

the_syco

Voipjunkie wrote:

But Sunnis and Shias were living side by side and intermarrying with out any problems.
They were not blowing the **** out of each other nor where they picking each other off the street and dumping their multilated and tortured corpses on the street a few days latter because they had the misfortune to belong to the wrong creed.

They weren't blowing the **** out of each other... the Sunni's were in charge, and anyone who opposed them died. The Sunni's were gassing the Kurds, killing the shi'ites... but no, no-one was killing the Sunni's on a grand scale, if thats what you meant.

=-=

Victor, I menat the "priest dudes", so yes, the Muslim imams / ayatollahs.

=-=

Someone mentioned that they'd all just get along if the US pulled out. They'd get along, to the point that the car bombing would increase ten fold, as it'd be only a matter of time before the goverement folded, and the priest dudes were put into power.

Voipjunkie

the_syco wrote:

They weren't blowing the **** out of each other... the Sunni's were in charge, and anyone who opposed them died. The Sunni's were gassing the Kurds, killing the shi'ites... but no, no-one was killing the Sunni's on a grand scale, if thats what you meant.

The Sunnis have traditionally been the ruling class however the Saddam cabinet shows that it had Shias Kurds and Christians as well as Sunnis the bitter Sectarian conflict that is present now was not present before the invasion.
Yes the Kurds and Shias were attacked but Kurds and shias could live side by side with sunnis without fear of being attacked purely on the basis of their race or religion yes they could be attacked and killed for opposition to the regime but that held true for sunnis as well

the_syco wrote:

Someone mentioned that they'd all just get along if the US pulled out. They'd get along, to the point that the car bombing would increase ten fold, as it'd be only a matter of time before the goverement folded, and the priest dudes were put into power.

Who do you think is the real power at the moment whose name where they chanting as they hung Saddam.
The Shias are already under the control of Shia Fundamentalists and the Sunnis have their own Fundamentalists the presence of the Americans is only driving ordinary Iraqis into the hands of the Fundamentalists.
Yes Violence may increase in the short to medium term after an American withdrawal but that is going to happen anyway whenever the US leaves so better to start the process now.
There will not be a peaceful solution this side of an american withdrawal
.The US/UK have demonstrated that they are incapable of building the institutions of a state like a police force or an army that could possibly take over the running of the country.
Nobody else is going to be willing to send troops in. As harsh as it sounds the only option is to let them fight it out and hope that it ends quickly.
I don't for one minute think that they will get on but I know that you can not force Democracy onto people

InFront

the_syco wrote:

They weren't blowing the **** out of each other... the Sunni's were in charge, and anyone who opposed them died. The Sunni's were gassing the Kurds, killing the shi'ites... but no, no-one was killing the Sunni's on a grand scale, if thats what you meant.

I have to agree with Voipjuncke here. it's simplistic to be saying that saying that the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq have been fighting for a millennium or that Sunnis were in charage and anyone who opposed them died. The Shiite tribes of the south of the country probably only converted over to Shi'ite Islam in the lasty two-hundred year s. And, Sunni-Shiite riots per se were rare in 20th century there. Look at the 1920s rebellion, Sunnis and the Shia both worked together againstbthe common enemy of the British army. In the fifties and sixties you would have been hard-pressed to find a riot between the Sunnis and the Shia in Iraq. There were peasant/landlord struggles or communists versus Baa'thists.

The kind of sectarian fighting we're seeing now in Iraq is new and its ferocity is something modern Islam has not really encountered.

It was the Americans who unleashed it and who exacerbate it.

Frederico

InFront wrote:

It was the Americans who unleashed it and who exacerbate it.

I have said this before. Foreign Jihadists are the main cause of this civil war.. they have concentrated hard on Sunni and Shia soft targets (throughout 2004/2005 mainly).. hoping to ignite or spark civil war and they have succeeded. If this isn't the case then why weren't Sunni and Shia suddenly at each other directly after the invasion in 2003? I reckon Fallujah was the turning point in 'policy' if you wanna call it that for foreign enemies of the US, directly after Fallujah there was a definite focus in igniting tensions between Sunni and Shia.

Victor

Frederico wrote:

Foreign Jihadists are the main cause of this civil war..

Can a group of foreigners cause a civil war?

Frederico

Victor wrote:

Can a group of foreigners cause a civil war?

Very easily if a country is in chaos. You have to remember that the foreign Jihadists call themselves Iraqi's despite the fact that they might be from Saudi, Syria, Yemen, etc. They go to Iraq to die and they will do what they are told, regardless of the target.

So tomorrow, for all you know a group of 'Sunni' gunmen might enter a school in the Kurdish North and kill 30 children and teachers. If hypothetically foreign Jihadists posing as 'Sunnis' continue to attack the Kurds, how soon is it before the Kurds start retaliating? causing the Sunni's to counteract.. and so on and so forth.

nacho libre

They really screwed up not crushing Sadr's militia in Najaf in 2004 and arresting him. They - America - need to purge the new administration of sectarianism by organising a coup and installing a secularist ironman who will purge his adminstration of religious fundamentalists' and appoint ministers on the basis of capability rather than creed and religious sect affiliations. With the death of Saddam in the long term it may bring more of his loyalists into the fold as they realise Iraq is never going back to the old way. The new adminstration can then concentrate their efforts on tackling the Sunni extremists who will fight on. All this along wth the withdrawal of most American troops within a certain time frame may lead to a stable Iraq in a few years...

sovtek

Frederico wrote:

Very easily if a country is in chaos. You have to remember that the foreign Jihadists call themselves Iraqi's despite the fact that they might be from Saudi, Syria, Yemen, etc. They go to Iraq to die and they will do what they are told, regardless of the target.

So tomorrow, for all you know a group of 'Sunni' gunmen might enter a school in the Kurdish North and kill 30 children and teachers. If hypothetically foreign Jihadists posing as 'Sunnis' continue to attack the Kurds, how soon is it before the Kurds start retaliating? causing the Sunni's to counteract.. and so on and so forth.

The "foreign fighters" myth has long been debunked.

sovtek

nacho libre wrote:

They really screwed up not crushing Sadr's militia in Najaf in 2004 and arresting him.

Actually trying to arrest Sadr and close down his newspaper in the first place is what cause the whole **** storm.
Democracy in Iraq is a myth http://counterpunch.org/jarrar01042007.html

Frederico

sovtek wrote:

The "foreign fighters" myth has long been debunked.

What do you mean? There are hundreds if not thousands in Iraq.

sovtek

Frederico wrote:

What do you mean? There are hundreds if not thousands in Iraq.

There are hundreds of thousands of foreignors in Ireland.

El Stuntman

nacho libre wrote:

They really screwed up not crushing Sadr's militia in Najaf in 2004 and arresting him. They - America - need to purge the new administration of sectarianism by organising a coup and installing a secularist ironman who will purge his adminstration of religious fundamentalists' and appoint ministers on the basis of capability rather than creed and religious sect affiliations.

LOL at this

sounds exactly like some guy....Saddam - remember him?

nacho libre

Yes, i see your point the present administration is a paragon of liberal democracy that's for sure. women have more freedom now- they are equal citizens. Marriage between the main religious sects is at an all time high. the torture chambers are gone. no death squads. no sectarian bloodletting. So, i see your point how it is better a secularist like Allawi is not prime minister when you have Nouri Al-Maliki.

Frederico

sovtek wrote:

There are hundreds of thousands of foreignors in Ireland.

Sovtek : Saudi professionals, teachers, etc are Paying thousands of dollars to GO to Iraq and die, in any way shape or form. Most of these people barely even know how to fire a gun. All they know is that God has suddenly given them this golden opportunity, their greatest enemy is suddenly in their backyard.

The insurgency if you want to call it that, can be split into two main groups. The national resistance (made up of mostly ex Baathist and military types who were stripped of everything in 2003) and the religious resistance (financed mainly from abroad and drawing on the fact they have many fanatical foreign Jihadists, Pakis, Saudi's, Syrians, Yemeni's, etc)

The main weapon of the foreign Jihadists is that they have no limits, their main weapon are suicide bombers and they can be just as brutal with the local populace. To give you an example, for well over a year the town of Talefar, on the Syrian border, had been in control of Al Qaeda, who terrorised the local population (beheadings, planting bombs inside the stomachs of corpses, etc) They used this town to smuggle in many foreign fighters, finances and equipment. It was not until the Americans took back control of the town and talked to the locals that they truly discovered what was going on.

Its the same all along the borders of Iraq.. the coalition has been desperately trying to stem the flow of foreign Jihadists from being smuggled in.

Manic Moran

I've finally managed to finish Hashem's book (It's not exactly light reading), which unfortunately was published just before the current round of intersect fighting truly kicked off in March of 2006. According to him, the main issue the Sunnis have is the loss of position: They are well aware that they've been running the country for the last 200 years or so, and are obviously not happy that those 'uneducated and inexperience Shi'a' are being placed in charge. Of particular note is the fact that they are of the firm belief that they are the numerical majority in the country, and any attempt to convince them otherwise is dismissed as incorrect at best, or a lie at worst. As the majority, they should be in charge. Hence a lot of the issue.

NTM

sovtek

Frederico wrote:

Sovtek : Saudi professionals, teachers, etc are Paying thousands of dollars to GO to Iraq and die, in any way shape or form. Most of these people barely even know how to fire a gun. All they know is that God has suddenly given them this golden opportunity, their greatest enemy is suddenly in their backyard.

The insurgency if you want to call it that, can be split into two main groups. The national resistance (made up of mostly ex Baathist and military types who were stripped of everything in 2003) and the religious resistance (financed mainly from abroad and drawing on the fact they have many fanatical foreign Jihadists, Pakis, Saudi's, Syrians, Yemeni's, etc)

The main weapon of the foreign Jihadists is that they have no limits, their main weapon are suicide bombers and they can be just as brutal with the local populace. To give you an example, for well over a year the town of Talefar, on the Syrian border, had been in control of Al Qaeda, who terrorised the local population (beheadings, planting bombs inside the stomachs of corpses, etc) They used this town to smuggle in many foreign fighters, finances and equipment. It was not until the Americans took back control of the town and talked to the locals that they truly discovered what was going on.

Its the same all along the borders of Iraq.. the coalition has been desperately trying to stem the flow of foreign Jihadists from being smuggled in.

I remember commanders on the ground admitting that they might net one or two foreignors after a firefight. There may be "foreign fighters" but they are a trickle. The resistance is led and mainly made up of Iraqis fighting their occupiers.

sovtek

Manic Moran wrote:

I've finally managed to finish Hashem's book (It's not exactly light reading), which unfortunately was published just before the current round of intersect fighting truly kicked off in March of 2006. According to him, the main issue the Sunnis have is the loss of position: They are well aware that they've been running the country for the last 200 years or so, and are obviously not happy that those 'uneducated and inexperience Shi'a' are being placed in charge. Of particular note is the fact that they are of the firm belief that they are the numerical majority in the country, and any attempt to convince them otherwise is dismissed as incorrect at best, or a lie at worst. As the majority, they should be in charge. Hence a lot of the issue.

NTM

And the vast majority of Iraqs' issue is the occupation

Manic Moran

sovtek wrote:

I remember commanders on the ground admitting that they might net one or two foreignors after a firefight. There may be "foreign fighters" but they are a trickle. The resistance is led and mainly made up of Iraqis fighting their occupiers.

This is true, but Tal Afar is something of an exception to the rule. It's an interesting city, as it's predominantly populated by Sunni Turkmen., but the Kurds have designs on it as well. It sits astride what I guess you could consider the Iraqi version of the Underground Railroad, and the active resistance that the Americans encountered there tended to be related to foreigners more than the locals. Hashem has devoted most of a chapter to that town, I'll look it up when I get home for exact details.

NTM

InFront

Frederico wrote:

The insurgency if you want to call it that, can be split into two main groups. The national resistance (made up of mostly ex Baathist and military types who were stripped of everything in 2003) and the religious resistance (financed mainly from abroad and drawing on the fact they have many fanatical foreign Jihadists, Pakis, Saudi's, Syrians, Yemeni's, etc)
.

I would split it further: into three groups. You have the ex-establishement, and seperate to them the common nationalists and then you have the religious fighters. I do not think it is merely the religious extremists who are unwilling to bear limitations on their destruction.

When we say "establishment" we are not discussing old men in their fifties who used to work in Saddam's Ministry for Defense: these men will simply cross over into the new Iraqi transition, and many keep their jobs. There are former Baathists actually in senior positions in the new Iraqi Army. But it is the "Saddam generation" of guys who are now in their late teens and twenties who we must be looking at: the guys who learned Saddam's sayings in the "national education" and would have gone onto university and joined the Baathists, but now have nothing. These hopeless young men are willing to go to the edge of their limits as well to cause mayhem and destruction, as they find themselves in a new and unrecognizable Iraq.

As for the nationalists: these are fuelled by the Anti-American occupation. The political confusion and the typical heavy-handedness of the Americans, and the terrible toll of civilian victims, contribute to it, but fundamentally the current violent resistance to the United States is an inevitable reaction against foreign military occupation. The longer the occupation continues, the more powerful the nationalist reaction becomes, driving even Iraqis disposed to sympathy with America's proclaimed objectives at the start of this illegal invasion and who were once there to welcome them into Baghdad, are now the same guys who are likely to be blowing up Americans in solidarity with the resistance and pushing their own motives forward. War wearied, angry and surrounded by the day to day realities of bloody gore and unthinkable violence, these people are unlimited too in their actions.

And then you have the guys who as Frederico rightly pointed out are flocking to iraq through Pakistan and across the borders, passionate to fight America aa a symbol of Western imperialsim of thought and for it's anti-Islam position in the middle east. Just as Bush has based his violent destructive war-mongering on what his God told him to do, these religious extremists are doing what they believe Allah wants them to do also. As such, we can expect their destruction to also come close to the ferocity of violence unleashed by America onto Islam, the difference is that America, as the rest of the world, knew that was inevitable on day 1 when they began the Afghan invasion. I don't know what the extent of the foreign fighters presence in Iraq is, but if it is as bad as we hear, like Frederico has said, it is indicative of the wider frustration that there is globally with American war peddling.

Whoever is most responsible for the current violence in iraq, it is the Americans who are the King Midas of Wars: and when they do pull out, the legacy of their presence will, as always, survive them for years to come in terms of civil unrest and probably further civil war.

InFront

Manic Moran wrote:

. Of particular note is the fact that they are of the firm belief that they are the numerical majority in the country, and any attempt to convince them otherwise is dismissed as incorrect at best, or a lie at worst. As the majority, they should be in charge. Hence a lot of the issue.
NTM

I doubt that very much. The Religious Shi'ites got something like 50% in the election about this time last year, and the Kurds got 20%, so I doubt the mainstream Iraqi Sunnis actually believe in their majority:rolleyes:

Voipjunkie

InFront wrote:

I doubt that very much. The Religious Shi'ites got something like 50% in the election about this time last year, and the Kurds got 20%, so I doubt the mainstream Iraqi Sunnis actually believe in their majority:rolleyes:

Kurds are Sunnis

And because of the unrest alot of Sunnis did not vote.

It is not surprising that the Sunnis see themselves as underrepresented

Also as long as the Americans are there I would imagine that the Sunnis will always question the validity of any vote. (that is not to say that they would recognise it if the US left either but the US presense could easily be used as propaganda to dismiss any vote)

InFront

I'm talking about mainstram Iraqi Sunnis, who are not Kurds, and I clarified that point. The kurds have their own political representation. As a Sunni myself, though the relevance of that is not in itself significant being a non-iraqi, I do agree with you that the Sunnis are right to be worried about their status in their own country. However, numbers are numbers. They need to, as I believe they already do, accept that they are not in the majority. Power sharing will be necessary.

Victor

Manic Moran wrote:

Of particular note is the fact that [Sunnis] are of the firm belief that they are the numerical majority in the country, and any attempt to convince them otherwise is dismissed as incorrect at best, or a lie at worst. As the majority, they should be in charge. Hence a lot of the issue.

Sunnis are in the majority (just), but Sunni Arabs are not. Most Kurds are Sunni.

Manic Moran

InFront wrote:

I doubt that very much. The Religious Shi'ites got something like 50% in the election about this time last year, and the Kurds got 20%, so I doubt the mainstream Iraqi Sunnis actually believe in their majority:rolleyes:

I'm not the person who went around interviewing people. Complain to the author, but he quotes various different people as having that opinion, to his astonishment.

NTM

InFront

Out of curiosity, when did he interview those people?

Manic Moran

Between late 2003 and late 2005. The problem with relying on the election results as evidence of numerical minority is that there is a fair conception that many Sunnis simply didn't vote, out of either protest or fear.

NTM