February 2003
Post-Saddam Iraq: Territorial Integrity, External Security, and Internal Security

Saddam Hussein’s appeal, insofar as he ever had any, was as a strong central power, willing to subjugate Iraq’s intractable minorities (and its important Shiite majority) into pliant Iraqi citizens. But post-Saddam Iraq will not have a ruthless strongman in Baghdad; indeed, his successor might not even be a Sunni Muslim. How will such changes affect the Iraqi state? Will historic ethnic and religious tensions flourish outside the confines of a police state? Will Iraq’s neighbors attempt to exploit new opportunities? On February 3, 2003, AEI assembled a panel of experts to debate how the United States, its allies, and the new leadership of Iraq can address these challenges.

Iraq is a failed state. It has failed to live up to its people’s aspirations to live with the rule of law, and it has failed the international community with its flagrant violations of international law. There has been much concern voiced that a war in Iraq could cause the state to disintegrate, but Iraq has never been so fragmented in its long history as it is at the present. For a successful state to replace Saddam’s, careful attention must be paid to majority/minority roles in government.

The Sunni community, a minority, has governed Iraq since its establishment. This has distorted Iraqi politics by making its structure rigidly authoritarian and personality focused, which forced the state to strengthen its power to counterbalance the corrosion of its authority. The fundamental problem Iraq will face in the future is that the Shia would always be the national majority and dominant over the smaller Sunni, Kurdish, Turkoman, and other minorities. The rejection of the notion of majority rule is therefore key to establishing a peaceful political structure in Iraq.

The gulf between authority and power must be bridged. This can only be done by designing a program of political inclusion and by liberating individual Iraqis. Iraq must become a sovereign state that derives its power from its own people and not a nationalist ideology or personality cult. This requires that all the communities in Iraq share a common interest in the maintenance of the body politic, and that "majority" and "minority" do not become fixed, permanent assignments. Neither Americans nor Iraqis have really addressed this problem so far.

The Iraqi state will be successful only when all the communities that comprise it come to the conclusion that abiding by the rule of law is in their own interest, as is safeguarding the politics of accommodation and compromise.

To understand the future of Iraqi society, the distinction between Arab and Kurd, between Shia and Sunni, must be forgotten. These are not the primary social faultlines in Iraq, and Iraq will not disintegrate into three distinct ethnic components when the state collapses. Demographic allocations in Iraq do not lend themselves to this kind of fragmentation, and despite how important these ethnic differences may seem at times, they are not a source of mobilization. Baghdad, located in the "Sunni Arab belt," is more Shiite and Kurdish than Sunni. The Kurdish leadership has no basis to argue for an independent state, given their own internal fragmentation. The Shia have never considered themselves anything but Iraqi.

This is not to say that serious social faultlines do not exist in Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan, for example, has had a quasi-independent political system for the last twelve years, and while it has culturally made enormous steps towards autonomy, socially they have developed parallel to the rest of Iraq. All parts of Iraq are following similar patterns of neoliberal privatization, retribalization, and the rise of new patronage structures. The Oil for Food program assures that Iraqi Kurds are dependent on the Iraqi oil economy. Oil will also be an important unifying factor in a future Iraq.

Kurdistan has experienced some economic development and has a fledgling democracy in place, but the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), have been unable to reconcile their differences. This has depoliticized the Kurdish population and caused the fractionalization of the Kurdish territory. Even the Kurdish leadership no longer seriously believes in a Kurdish nationalist project. The canton-like structure promoted by Kanan Makiya, which will establish Iraq as a federal state with territorial units not based on ethnicity, seems the most likely to succeed in a future Iraq. In fact, it is the Islamic parties in Kurdistan that are trying to break the PUK/KDP patronage networks and establish an independent civil voice. This may provide groundwork for future democratic pluralism.

In the parts of Iraq under Saddam’s control, tribes occupy a key role in the control structure. Saddam has bought the loyalty of the tribal leadership with generous gifts and regional infrastructure improvements, thus assuring that the beneficiaries of this largesse will maintain his power beyond Baghdad. There is marked differentiation between these areas and regions that have opposed his control, such as Kurdistan, and it is in these regions that there is hope for the future of a stable, democratic Iraq.

In Kurdistan, Saddam engaged in a deliberate campaign to destroy the tribes. He burned villages and orchards and forced thousands of Kurds into internment camps while thousands more fled into Iran. Men were slaughtered and women forced into prostitution in villages known to oppose Saddam--which may shed some light on why Iraqi scientists are so reluctant to speak with UN inspectors. In 1987, poison gas was used against all the tribes that were supporting the guerrilla leaders, which killed over 150,000 people and had untold long-term genetic and psychological effects. The Anfal campaign, in which over 100,000 Kurds were killed, began in 1988.

All of this destruction caused an emotional transformation in the Kurds, strengthening their sense of cultural and political identity and inspiring them to fight against Saddam’s army during the Gulf War. By the end of the Gulf War, nearly all of the tribal bonds had weakened because of the massive population dislocation and unifying traumatic experience, which has fostered a dynamic urban development in the region. The protection of the West has been extremely instrumental to this process. The region still has significant problems that must be addressed, but the general sense is that things are improving and people are getting on with their lives.

While it is easy to agree with the negative viewpoint of the future of Iraq--the inevitable explosion of ethnic and religious tensions, the disintegration of the state, etc.-- there is also cause for optimism. Emerging from disaster can inspire the feeling that something extraordinary is happening, and this is enough to propel Iraq to a better future if the West remains committed, long-term, to the process of post-Saddam reconstruction.

Iraq’s relations with its neighbors will be a crucial factor for its future security, particularly with respect to Turkey and Iran. Both nations have strong historical and cultural ties with Iraq, and if they interfere in Iraq post-Saddam, they could jeopardize a successful democratic transition. Only international assistance will prevent this from happening. Turkish troops, for example, must stop crossing the Iraqi border in large numbers. The Iranian government, for obvious reasons, is in favor of a completely demilitarized Iraq, but hopefully constructive relations can be established post-Saddam to assuage their fears. Better relations with Iran will also decrease the possibility of internal interference.

Iraq is not as divided along Sunni-Shia-Kurdish lines as it is often portrayed to be. It is more accurate to characterize Iraqis as either urban or non-urban, and view Saddam’s ascension to power as "the invasion of Bedouins into Baghdad." This has tribalized Iraqi society, but the core of Saddam’s mentality is still foreign to the roughly 70 percent of Iraqi society that is urban. The Sunni are also not such avid supporters of Saddam; they fear his retribution as much as they hope for his rewards. The Sunni cannot be excluded from reconstruction, and will have valuable skills to offer.

Finally, as Saddam constructed a coup-resistant military structure that institutionalized corruption, this structure must be reformed.

History provides several lessons for how we should view the future of Iraq and how to establish security and stability. Division and instability are the exception in Iraq rather than the rule. The ruling regime has often failed to understand that military power alone is just one element of maintaining national security. The final lesson is that Iraq’s neighbors have always meddled in Iraqis’ internal affairs, which complicates the internal security dynamic.

With these lessons in mind, national security decisionmaking in a future Iraq must be done on the political level; security must be a universal right; the security of the regime must be linked to the security of society, not guaranteed by security services; and justice and equality without prejudice must be established. The return of refugees and deportees will cause some economic and social disruption, but the skills they bring with them will quickly make them invaluable to reconstruction efforts. Finally, Iraq can only be rebuilt with international support and aid.