Where
Is Iraq Heading? Lessons From Basra
By
The
International Crisis Group
Amid
the media and military focus on Baghdad, another major Iraqi
city – Basra – is being overlooked. Yet Basra’s
experience carries important lessons for the capital and nation
as a whole. Coalition forces have already implemented a security
plan there, Operation Sinbad, which was in many ways similar
to Baghdad’s current military surge. What US commanders
call “clear, hold and build”, their British counterparts
earlier had dubbed “clear, hold and civil reconstruction”.
And, as in the capital, the putative goal was to pave the way
for a takeover by Iraqi forces. Far from being a model to be
replicated, however, Basra is an example of what to avoid.
With renewed violence and instability, Basra illustrates the
pitfalls of a transitional process that has led to collapse
of the state apparatus and failed to build legitimate institutions.
Fierce intra-Shi?a fighting also disproves the simplistic view
of Iraq neatly divided between three homogenous communities.
Lack
of attention to Basra is understandable. Iraq’s
future is often believed to depend on Baghdad, and most of
the spectacular bombings have taken place in the centre of
the country, far from the southern city. Observers, by now
accustomed to the capital’s dynamics, have had difficulty
making sense of Basra’s and so have tended to downplay
them. Finally, because US forces have not been directly involved,
news coverage has been both limited to Arabic and British media
and forced to compete with the gruesome violence that is tearing
the centre apart.
Strategic Importance
But
to neglect Basra is a mistake. The nation’s second
largest city, it is located in its most oil-rich region. Basra
governorate also is the only region enjoying maritime access,
making it the country’s de facto economic capital and
a significant prize for local political actors. Sandwiched
between Iran and the Gulf monarchies, at the intersection of
the Arab and Persian worlds, the region is strategically important.
Sociologically, Basra’s identity essentially has been
forged in opposition not only to the capital but also to other
major southern cities such as Najaf and Karbala. For these
reasons, it is wrong either to ignore it or lump it together
with an imaginary, undifferentiated Shi?a south.
On
its face, Basra’s security plan ranked as a qualified
success. Between September 2006 and March 2007, Operation Sinbad
sought to rout out militias and hand security over to newly
vetted and stronger Iraqi security forces while kick-starting
economic reconstruction. Criminality, political assassinations
and sectarian killings, all of which were rampant in 2006,
receded somewhat and – certainly as compared to elsewhere
in the country – a relative calm prevailed. Yet this
reality was both superficial and fleeting. By March–April
2007, renewed political tensions once more threatened to destabilize
the city, and relentless attacks against British forces in
effect had driven them off the streets into increasingly secluded
compounds. Basra’s residents and militiamen view this
not as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat.
Today, the city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful
and unconstrained than before.
What
progress has occurred cannot conceal the most glaring failing
of all:
the inability to establish a legitimate and
functioning provincial apparatus capable of redistributing
resources, imposing respect for the rule of law and ensuring
a peaceful transition at the local level. Basra’s political
arena remains in the hands of actors engaged in bloody competition
for resources, undermining what is left of governorate institutions
and coercively enforcing their rule. The local population has
no choice but to seek protection from one of the dominant camps.
Periods of stability do not reflect greater governing authority
so much as they do a momentary – and fragile – balance
of interests or of terror between rival militias. Inevitably,
conflicts re-emerge and even apparently minor incidents can
set off a cycle of retaliatory violence. A political process
designed to pacify competition and ensure the non-violent allocation
of goods and power has become a source of intense and often
brutal struggle.
Case Study Of Violence
Basra
is a case study of Iraq’s multiple and multiplying
forms of violence. These often have little to do with sectarianism
or anti-occupation resistance. Instead, they involve the systematic
misuse of official institutions, political assassinations,
tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement
of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias
that increasingly intermingle with political actors. Should
other causes of strife – sectarian violence and the fight
against coalition forces – recede, the concern must still
be that Basra’s fate will be replicated throughout the
country on a larger, more chaotic and more dangerous scale.
The lessons are clear. Iraq’s violence is multifaceted,
and sectarianism is only one of its sources. It follows that
the country’s division along supposedly inherent and
homogenous confessional and ethnic lines is not an answer.
It follows, too, that rebuilding the state, tackling militias
and imposing the rule of law cannot be done without confronting
the parties that currently dominate the political process and
forging a new and far more inclusive political compact.
Iraq
is in the midst of a civil war. But before and beyond that,
Iraq has become a failed state – a country whose
institutions and, with them, any semblance of national cohesion,
have been obliterated. That is what has made the violence – all
the violence: sectarian, anti-coalition, political, criminal
and otherwise – both possible and, for many, necessary.
Resolving the confrontation between Sunni Arabs, Shi?a and
Kurds is one priority. But rebuilding a functioning and legitimate
state is another – no less urgent, no less important
and no less daunting.
- Read the full Crisis Group report on: http://www.crisisgroup.org
