The steady stream of impersonal bad news from Iraq has tended to desensitize me to the magnitude of the horror facing ordinary Iraqis. That changed when I heard on the radio the story of one Baghdadi family's plight. They are a Sunni family of limited means forced to leave their apartment in a Shia dominated neighborhood under threat to seek refuge in the Western, Sunni dominated areas. Their Shia neighbors don't want them to leave but are unable to protect them. They used up all of their modest savings on this move.
This is happening all over Baghdad in Sunni and Shia neighborhoods. The city is becoming polarized and divided. Anyone with enough means is leaving the country. In addition to the indignation of having to forcefully leave one's home, violence threatens everyone. Dozens of mutilated bodies are found everyday in Baghdad. Suicide bombers strike at will. The depravity of the violence facing Iraqis is mind-numbing. Nothing is sacred; not mosques, not churches, not funerals and not weddings. The average citizen has no one to turn to for protection. The Iraqi police are infiltrated with sectarian killers and the American troops often act like paranoid, trigger happy vigilante. A recent report has put the death toll in Iraq since 2003 at over 600,000!
This IS a civil war, make no mistake about it. The sectarian killings remind me of the Katl al hawiyeh of the worst episodes of the Lebanese civil war, only magnified several fold.
I vehemently opposed the American invasion of Iraq. I hated Saddam and all that he stood for but I also knew the Americans had no idea what they were getting into. They were driven by ideology and not reason. The pretexts given for the invasion were fabricated and self-serving. Yet, how can you not rejoice when a despicable tyrant such as Saddam is deposed. I hoped against all odds that the Iraqis could pull it off but a combination of massive American incompetence, self-serving sectarian interests and nihilistic jihadists have conspired to turn Iraq into its present state.
The story of this family has left me with a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt sad for the Iraqis but also fearful for Syria. Is this what awaits Syria should the Baathist regime crumble? How different Syria from Iraq? The Saddam regime was much more brutal than the Asad dynasty ever was and the sectarian divides are not as raw in Syria -though no one really knows what will happen once the tight lid of the regime comes off. It is not surprising then that the average Syrian feels besieged and fearful of change. This is the reason why many Syrians, even those who want change, minimize the regime's misdeeds; peace and safety first, democracy can wait. Some feel that the autocratic police state is a necessary evil keeping anarchy and chaos at bay. Because of these sentiments some in Syria are angered by Syrian expatriates, sitting in the safety of exile, agitating loudly for change. What these people fail to realize is that Syria's present predicament is the result of the Baathist regime's utter failure to build a viable state after 43 years in power.
This is happening all over Baghdad in Sunni and Shia neighborhoods. The city is becoming polarized and divided. Anyone with enough means is leaving the country. In addition to the indignation of having to forcefully leave one's home, violence threatens everyone. Dozens of mutilated bodies are found everyday in Baghdad. Suicide bombers strike at will. The depravity of the violence facing Iraqis is mind-numbing. Nothing is sacred; not mosques, not churches, not funerals and not weddings. The average citizen has no one to turn to for protection. The Iraqi police are infiltrated with sectarian killers and the American troops often act like paranoid, trigger happy vigilante. A recent report has put the death toll in Iraq since 2003 at over 600,000!
This IS a civil war, make no mistake about it. The sectarian killings remind me of the Katl al hawiyeh of the worst episodes of the Lebanese civil war, only magnified several fold.
I vehemently opposed the American invasion of Iraq. I hated Saddam and all that he stood for but I also knew the Americans had no idea what they were getting into. They were driven by ideology and not reason. The pretexts given for the invasion were fabricated and self-serving. Yet, how can you not rejoice when a despicable tyrant such as Saddam is deposed. I hoped against all odds that the Iraqis could pull it off but a combination of massive American incompetence, self-serving sectarian interests and nihilistic jihadists have conspired to turn Iraq into its present state.
The story of this family has left me with a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt sad for the Iraqis but also fearful for Syria. Is this what awaits Syria should the Baathist regime crumble? How different Syria from Iraq? The Saddam regime was much more brutal than the Asad dynasty ever was and the sectarian divides are not as raw in Syria -though no one really knows what will happen once the tight lid of the regime comes off. It is not surprising then that the average Syrian feels besieged and fearful of change. This is the reason why many Syrians, even those who want change, minimize the regime's misdeeds; peace and safety first, democracy can wait. Some feel that the autocratic police state is a necessary evil keeping anarchy and chaos at bay. Because of these sentiments some in Syria are angered by Syrian expatriates, sitting in the safety of exile, agitating loudly for change. What these people fail to realize is that Syria's present predicament is the result of the Baathist regime's utter failure to build a viable state after 43 years in power.
Yet these are particularly volatile times and, as Iraq clearly shows, a sudden forceful change in the absence of a viable opposition movement with popular support, will be disastrous.
So what has the story of the Iraqi family taught me? Well, it has reinforced my feeling that change has to come from within with help from Syrians on the outside but without foreign interference. The other necessary components are that the Syrian people have to be invested in change and that within the vast corrupt Baathist machine, their are few honest souls who will allow some reforms to start materializing.
I realize that there are many "ifs" in my equation for change and the process will be long and tedious, as my friend SB has pointed out, but the alternative, an Iraqi-type quagmire, is too painful to contemplate.
I realize that there are many "ifs" in my equation for change and the process will be long and tedious, as my friend SB has pointed out, but the alternative, an Iraqi-type quagmire, is too painful to contemplate.
(Photo by AK, Texas hills)
5 comments:
An excellent post, Abu Kareem.
I think both pro and anti-Americans tend to lay the blame for the Iraqi tragedy unfairly. A lot of Arabs blame America or Israel for all the sectarian violence and terror attacks. It may be true that these hands are working behind the scenes, along with Iran and others, but just blaming them ignores the very real problems of sectarian intolerance/ power struggles/ criminal turf wars and Wahhabi nihilism which exist in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. And then, a lot of Western people see the disaster as the ungratefulness of the Iraqis to their American saviours, who genuinely wanted to build a real democracy. This is patently false. The neo-cons aimed for 'creative chaos.' They allowed and even participated in the looting and burning of all state institutions in the first days of the occupation. They dissolved the army and the Baath party - the two institutions which constituted the state - rather than purging the top ranks. With no Iraqi authority to keep order, criminal and sectarian gangs became the law. Alos, the original American plan was not for democracy. Only when Sistani brought the Shia onto the streets did the Americans realise they would have to give in, and then they did so in a rush, allowing mullahs and militias to confiscate the system before it was born.
US and Israeli palns for the region are all about imperial control, nothing about freedom. Arabs forget this at their peril. The alternatives to seeking Western help for change are harder and will require longer, but when change comes it will be real positive change.
Fares, Ehsani2 and Qunfuz, thank you all for your comments.
Qunfuz, your last comment, I think is the most critical. Real, transformative, positive change has to be native-born. And here our time scale is not years but generations.
My friend,
This is a very perceptive and insightful post. You have so eloquantly put in words some the fears, doubts and emotions that I wake up with every single day.. So many 'ifs', as you said.. so many imponderables... I have no doubt that my own fears (and, I am sure, yours as well) are magnified a thousand times in the mind of every honest, hard-working, peace-loving Syrian living within the Country..
Thank you for putting in such clear and honest words what I have been struggling with for months.
Fares,
Don't count on Khaddam to give you an honest or fair assessment of Syria's involvement in Iraq or Lebanon. He is a corrupt and dishonest mafioso, who oversaw the rape of our Country and the pilllaging of its resources.. He ciphoned millions of dollars into bank accounts held by himself and his sons.. God help us if he ever goes into open war with the Regime.. because then, whoever wins, WE lose!...
Excellent post abu kareem and an important and difficult topic.
Societies do not change until the majority are ready to change. As you rightly say, people are fearful of chaos, conflict and death and destruction and would put up with political oppression and inequality for a a relatively peaceful life.
However, I foresee massive change in Syria in the next 10 years to be brought about by a very serious economic squeeze. No need to go into details here and now but the combination of a rapidly rising population, increasing unemployment, falling oil revenue and decaying infrastructure will create immense social and political pressures, unseen in Syria before. The only thing a despot can and will do is to intimidate potential leaders and encourage young people to emigrate(wait for the abolition of exit visas!). One day, a group of army officers will see an opportunity to take matters in their own hands and may succeed in ousting the current regime. If the Assads can be credited with anything, it is their skill in judging when to ease off and when to pull hard on the reins. It will become increasingly difficult to play this game as desperation reaches unprecedented levels and people take to the streets.
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