opinionWar

Can Haider al-Abadi Unite a Divided Iraq?

Democracy is still a new process for Iraqis after decades of autocratic rule and life under military occupation. Embracing it as a governing system is accompanied by new difficulties and headaches. After each round of elections, conflicts emerge between the leaders of the multiple political blocs when it comes time to form a new government. The most recent political crisis broke out after the electoral victory of Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law Party, part of  Iraq’s largest political coalition, the National Alliance. According to the constitution and a ruling by the Iraqi Federal Court, Maliki should be asked by the president to form a new government. The heads of several major political blocs, however, were strongly opposed to a third term for Maliki. They warned of a possible civil war and the division of Iraq if he were invited to form a government. Malikis government was certainly not worthy of a third term. Now, with the support of the Iranian government a decisive factor, Haider al-Abadi has been asked by the president to form a government as prime minister.

But those who stood up against Maliki also have dirty hands. They claimed they were ready to pay any price to stop his reappointment.  Some even assisted the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) now investing spans of northern Iraq and naively colluded with them. ISIS went on to occupy the Iraqi provinces of Nineveh and Salahaddin, declared an Islamic caliphate, and call itself the Islamic State (IS) in the area of its control in northern Iraq and parts of Syria. In the Iraqi city of Mosul, ISIS inaugurated Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as its Caliph. Shortly after, they began to commit unspeakable massacres of religious minorities in the region, the full toll of which is still unknown. Iraq is, once again, a serious issue for America and the world.

Iraq’s problems cannot all be solved by air strikes and aid drops. The current crisis is just one acute aspect of a deeper, systemic problem that will continue to cause trouble in Iraqand Americafor years to come.

Today’s Iraqi society is deeply divided into many factions, many of which are based on the political ideologies and agendas set by returned former-exiles from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and members of the former Iraqi opposition of the 1990s. The average Iraqi is part of a system in which there is no real engagement with or involvement of the people. It should, in some ways, sound somewhat familiar to many Americans, as our own system has faced and continues to face many of the same challenges.

The Political Class

This group of Iraqi society consists of supporters of political parties, members, and followers whose parents or family members were killed by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Though they only represent one-quarter of society, they make up about 80% of the civil servants in the ministries and have deep political influence in each ministry and department. Many of them do not have skills, experience or education to perform their jobs. Many of them have been known to present fake academic degrees. The chaos, disorder, mismanagement and corruption that seem to characterize Iraqi government are the consequence of these unqualified people being given significant positions through a system of political patronage that would make even Andrew Jackson cringe. Their aim is to perpetuate their own political control, with the effect that they are building an obsolete state with no chance of developing into a modern, well-educated society with freedom of speech and of opinion. This group does not want a divided Iraq of any kind, neither geographically nor administratively, because they would lose political influence and their monopoly on Iraq’s government resources. Nevertheless, they all support political and religious sectarianism in order to maintain their support and their own gains. They benefit from division.

<