Who takes the responsibility for Iraq spiralling into sectarian violence?

By: Hatto Fischer, Athens

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Western silence about its own responsibility for having invaded Iraq makes it doubtful that political consequences are drawn in time to prevent further waves of hatred sweeping Muslim masses. After the bombs ripped apart the golden roof of the Samarra shrine, Western media focus again solely on Iraq and indicated that the responsibility lies with Iraq. As if wishing to say we have nothing to do with what goes on there but see, they cannot get their act together. The bombing of the holy shrine took place Wednesday, by Sunday the Western newspapers identify two important trends: American foreign policy is without stating so reaching a climax of crisis culminating in an absolute failure in Iraq while the religious war in Iraq itself shows a country going beyond the era of Saddam Hussein by being driven towards sectarian violence. Two examples of Newspapers underline these two tones:

The New York Times carries the news as follows:

“After a bomb exploded in Samarra at one of Iraq's most sacred Shiite shrines on Wednesday, many young Shiites ignored his pleas for calm, instead heeding more extreme calls and attacking Sunni mosques and killing Sunni civilians, even imams, in a crisis that has threatened to provoke open civil war.” – ROBERT F. WORTH and EDWARD WONG, Younger Clerics Showing Power in Iraq's Unrest New York Times, Published: February 26, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/middleeast/26clerics.html?

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In WASHINGTON Reuters conveyed the news that “U.S. President George W. Bush made a round of phone calls on Saturday to Iraqi leaders of all sects, urging them to work together to calm violence that has raised fears of an all-out civil war. Bush commended Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Sunni political leader Tareq al-Hashimi and others for showing restraint, the White House said.”

In this query about the most recent events in Iraq, two questions are crucial to be answered insofar as politics requires an analysis of what is happening not only in Iraq but throughout the world for it is crucial how the West responds. An indication of by-passing the need to name reality is the declaration that the destruction on Wednesday of a major Shiite mosque may be “a suspected al Qaeda bombing.” Whenever something like this happens, blame is immediately given to those terrorists and more concretely to the al Qaeda network (as recently as well when an attempt was made to attack oil rigs in Saudia Arabia). It distracts from Western powers being responsible for this continual violence in Iraq. Clearly the Western media point out only what consequences this has in Iraq itself for the destruction of the shrine “triggered waves of reprisal attacks against Sunni Muslims.” This is underlined by the fact that “more than 100 people have been killed in the gravest crisis since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the strife threatens the Bush administration's hopes of withdrawing its forces from the country.”

If anything, the Bush administration has to take the full responsibility for having invaded Iraq. There is no other way to rationalize away such grave political mistake. The many people killed by now in Iraq since March 2003 when the decision was made to invade and to take over control in Baghdad is of such huge tragic dimension that the silence of the West, its politicians and media, is becoming a clear cut burden in finding solutions not merely in Iraq, but at international level. Bolton was installed in the United Nations by President Bush despite Congress opposing his appointment; Bush used the artificial possibility to make the appointment while Congress was in recess. Certainly the President has such power and possibility to side step Congress but it is not advisable to ignore certain objections. Otherwise American foreign policy will go astray by being wrong footed and just clumsy. Still, it is an indication that in the recent debate in the United States about a company in Dubai being allowed or not to take over the ownership of certain American ports a common American voice was saying that “the USA is an empire and as such has it not necessary to outsource its port.” Such open admission to be an empire means political thinking is shaped by other than just national interests in the narrow sense. Nor would security concerns suffice to explain the position Congress wants to take in opposition to President Bush who favours such foreign ownership. Rather the repeated question is whether American politics are entering such a critical phase that all classical mistakes are aggravated by no critical voice being around to give developments both at home and abroad another dimension than merely exporting violence.

To remind, Bush justified the invasion of Iraq among other things by taking the war against terrorism out of the US and into what he made Iraq into, namely the territory of the terrorists. War as exporter of violence means to produce more violence to justify the means as the process unfolds. It is an absurd hypothesis but it has been accepted by the American mainstream and its politicians. The United States have not experienced a similar attack like 9/11 since then on its own territory. So there is viable proof for such an ideological premise made into a sophisticated doctrine by Rumsfeld insofar as he promotes the permanent war as keeping everyone busy, i.e. in fear of still further violence, while saying everyone can feel safe at home. Such a premise explains the blindness to the very fact as pointed out by critics that Iraq is not absorbing terrorist violence and thereby distracts them from attacking directly the United States insofar as Europe had to bear the brunt (Madrid bombing, London bombing), but that it has become instead a training ground for more terrorists. Naturally the blame is shifted to countries like Syria and even Iran for providing crucial support but the key turning point of Iraq in this elongation of violence has never been refuted. It should be recalled that the Bush administration linked via media speculations 9/11 to Saddam Hussein although it was known then and has become a widely accepted fact that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda had nothing to do with one another. Again the critics say now Iraq is much closer to this fact than it was the case before Saddam Hussein was toppled.

This then touches upon the crucial justification to topple Saddam Hussein as he was a brutal dictator and thereby his removal by violence, but a violence of war brought onto Iraq from the outside, is still justified even though it violates all Western values. The invasion left the country not merely stranded but without own protection against any form of violence whether from the inside or from outside. Since the West never questioned the method deployed, namely regime change by violent means and moreover by not internal forces but external ones, and therefore has not understood what this means for democracy based on free, equally non violent changes in power, the victim has not been merely Iraq, but Western democracy.

Here then the indications are that Western politicians fail not only to perceive the violence inherent in its own foreign policy, but does not understand the Islamic movements. Louis Baeck states the main reason for a lack of an open discourse at international level is that

"From the point of view of western neoconservative or fundamentalist commentators who are influential theorists of the prevailing discourse, these multiple ways of asserting identities will inevitably lead to a clash of civilizations. From a hegemonic perspective, Western publicists judge the policies and practices of other civilizations on the basis of principles and ideals prevailing in the western world. According to this method, the non Western cultures are judged according to criteria which are not theirs." (Louis Baeck, “Islamic views on globalization”, ed. Jean Tardiff for www.planetagora.org 2005).

Some warned the United States from entering Iraq with force; this place housing signs of the oldest civilisation should have been treated with respect for its people. Cultural means should have been used to further mutual understanding and trust, and thereby give Iraqis the space to make their own emancipation from dictatorship but under their own terms and in knowledge of all the pitfalls, including religion succeeding in taking over power. But by entering with tanks and soldiers, not only precious cultural heritage has been smashed but fibres of human understanding has been twisted by now into coils of misunderstanding leading to fear and violence. Without the United States taking full responsibility for the grave error made when allowing Bush to invade Iraq, no lesson shall be drawn either now or for the future. After Viet Nam there had been some hope that lessons would be learned; now there exists the proof that this was a hope in vain.