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Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Holiday from History |
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Saturday, 18 March 2006 |
I was at home in Baghdad listening to President Bush addressing the nation that “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was underway. The operation started at 5:33 AM local time, Mr. Bush was telling the Americans and the world, that Saddam Hussein had to go, he has become a very serious threat to international peace and security and an intolerable menace to his people and his neighbors. Diplomacy has failed and that the only option left to him was to remove the dictator but now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. Many Iraqis like myself have been anticipating the war and hoping that its end would herald a new era after the terrible years under Saddam. We believed that the regime change would be followed as president Bush had on several occasions publicly promised that when he would be finished with Saddam he would immediately initiate with the Iraqis a major program of reconstruction of their dilapidated country and to build a new political structure in its place which would guarantee a democratic, secure and a prosperous Iraq. We were to be let down and disappointed, the Americans failed to honor their promises and their mistakes and blunders which followed the invasion had contributed to the current chaotic and very messy situation. This mess is also and to very large extent is the responsibility of our new political leadership who with the Americans seem to have taken a holiday from history.
Britain invaded Iraq at the beginning of the first World War which they justified as a necessity to protect their oil interests In neighboring Iran and the access from the gulf to their colonies in the far East especially India. Many Iraqis welcomed the British in the beginning with open hands who vowed to end five centuries of Ottoman rule which has grown very corrupt and economically stifling, Britain was the real power, but it’s stay in Iraq was not a picnic it has been marred by nationalist fervor, ethnic uprisings, and tribal wars which finally forced them out of the country at the hands of a small group of officers under the command of Brigadier Qassem who led a military coup in the early hours of July 14, 1958, with Colonel Aref as his second in command, the fall down of the monarchy was followed by a terrible carnage with thousands of people dead with the corpses of them a lot them dragged in the streets. Qassem dissolved the monarchy and the constitution and declared the country a Republic with real power in his hands as Prime Minister. Britain’s experiment in nation building in Iraq failed, but the fall of the monarchy did not bring better stability or progress. Qassem was decent and modest, but was a romantic and politically naïve and couldn’t grasp the complexities of the situation in post Britain Iraq. This resulted in a serious conflict with a lot of people including his second in command ended by demoting the colonel and banishing him to Germany as ambassador. What followed was five years of incredible instability with Qassem was now relying mostly on the Communists and their supporters who clashed viciously with the nationalist which included the budding recently created Ba’ath party who succeeded on the February 8, 1963 in toppling Qassem and brought Aref as figure head president but there was no great affection between the ba’athists and colonel Aref and this move proved in the end to have been a great miscalculation. After the Ba’athists gained power theyunleashed an unprecedented reign of terror against their Communist adversaries and their allies which was a real blood bath they were also very new to government, young and inexperienced so they were immediately engaged in very vicious quarrels amongst themselves and murderous competition for power and influence all of which created a great revulsion against their rule which was utilized by colonel Aref who was finally able to topple them on September of the same year. Aref dismantled their organization and sent them into the wilderness after only six months and started another very uncertain five years in the already very confused situation, the first Aref was killed in a helicopter crash in 1965 which is thought to have been engineered by Saddam and was replaced by his younger brother Abdul-Raman. The Aref regime was ineffective and pretty useless.
Now someone was waiting in the corridors of power, a young man who was trained during his stay in Cairo, he had reorganized the party according to his own personal and tribal principles arranged a bloodless transfer of power from the hands of the second Aref on July 17, 1968 to himself, all power in his hands and the collective leadership the party rule and the president were nothing but a convenient facade behind which he ruled unchallenged until he was finally deposed after the Americans invaded the country in 2003. The man was 31 years old his name was Saddam Hussein Amongst the nationalists were the budding and recently created Ba’ath party. But the Ba’athist were playing their own game and succeeded on February 8th 1963 in toppling Qassem.
America’s relations with Iraq have during the 20th century been very strange and often absolutely incomprehensible, I would like to make it very clear at this juncture that what I mean by the Americans are not the average Americans like Jamie, Jacki, Marisol and Fayrouz and John, Eric and Rick and Wren to whom I have the greatest affection and respect. The average American is a lovely, friendly and a very helpful individual my trouble is with the establishment and the elite. Now during the first half of the century they were content with their share of Iraq’s oil and left the wider political and other aspects of bilateral relations to Britain which was the dominant power in the Middle East but during the second half America’s interests in Iraq and the area as a whole were growing steadily because of the British gradual withdrawal from the area that was due to the breakdown of their empire and the increasing importance of the Middle East in economic geopolitical terms. This was a result from the cold war which was raging now between the US and the former Soviet empire, and because their very special relationship with the newly formed state of Israel. They encouraged the ba’atheists to topple Qassem which they did, but themselves were a great failure so they allowed them to rot after only six months at the hands of colonel Aref. Aref as we have seen was an ineffective and a useless substitute, and plunged Iraq in another five hopeless sterile years. Now someone was waiting in the corridors of power, a young man who was trained during his stay in Cairo, he had reorganized the party according to his own personal and tribal principles arranged a bloodless transfer of power from the hands of the second Aref on July 17, 1968, to himself, all power in his hands and the collective leadership the party rule and the president were nothing but a convenient facade behind which he ruled unchallenged until he was finally deposed after the Americans invaded the country in 2003 our man was 31 years old his name was Saddam Hussein.
The long turbulent history of Iraq especially the deadly three dozen years under Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime and the long turbulent history of this country could have provided immensely valuable lessons for the running of our country after its invasion by the Americans on the 20th of March 2003. History is the study of the past to learn lessons for the future, but both the Americans and our new political leadership are evidently not much interested in history or the lessons which can be garnered from its study.
Our new leaders and the Americans seem to be enjoying a holiday from history.
Dr. Najeeb Hanoudi
Baghdad, March 17, 2006
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Iraq's Important Figures