International community’s unhealthy fixation with a “unified, federal, democratic Iraq"

Kurd24

Since the US invasion of Iraq, time after time and year after year, White House officials relayed the message of the imperative need for a “united, federal, and democratic Iraq.”

Such sentiments were also felt across the international community, with particular emphases from the Western world. Hence, this policy was reflected in the Iraqi constitution, which was ratified not only by a popular vote but also unofficially by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

The constitution presented an almost utopian vision of what the future of Iraq would look like, including devolved authority, democratic governance, strong rule-of-law, and peaceful ethnic and religious coexistence throughout the country.

Unfortunately, however, the large disequilibrium between what the constitution advocated for and the reality-on-the-ground became immediately obvious.

The constitution has since its inception been little more than the trophy symbol of a new era, while its implementation has been almost practically non-existent. Factors such as long-standing ethnoreligious strife (amongst namely Shiites/Sunnis, Arabs/Kurds), a history of dictatorship, and chronic violent insurgency continue to plague the country and its capacity to fulfill the international community’s three-point mantra.

Furthermore, even when the US withdrew its military presence from Iraq in 2011, President Barack Obama inherited this same slogan from his predecessors and expressed his desire for an enduring commitment under the Strategic Framework Agreement to a "united, federal, and democratic Iraq."

The Obama administration, like many governments in the international community, tirelessly called for these three principles as notions which ought to materialize in Iraq while simultaneously overlooking ongoing pressing realities which were completely contradictory to them.

Of these three factors, national unity is often stressed by the international community as being vital for Iraq’s progression. Iraq’s multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian composition has historically made unity a futile prospect.

In fact, long ago in 1933, King Faisal wrote in his memorandum that Iraq “lacked the most important social element: the cultural, ethnic, and religious unity… for it is divided and scattered and there is no "one" Iraqi people, but social forces empty of national feeling and a unified coherence.” 

Almost prophetically, this description still rings true today and has definitely not lost any relevancy despite many successive regimes since the Hashemite kings. Iraq’s territory is demarcated with a Shiite south, Sunni center, and a Kurdish north, which exemplifies its non-monolithic national identity and lack of unity.

The second of the three principles is "democracy" and since 2003, real democracy in Baghdad, in the form of political representation and participation, has also proven to be a difficult and perhaps impossible feat to achieve.

Indeed, the eight-year tenure of one infamous ex-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki exemplified Iraq’s failed attempts at ushering in true democratic politics. Maliki’s premiership was one which became synonymous with forced centralisation of power, autocratic tendencies, and the marginalization of Iraq’s minorities.

Much of his sectarian policies exacerbated notions of alienation amongst Iraq’s Sunni population which had historically been at the helm of governance until the U.S. invasion in 2003, and this arguably set the stage for intensified insurgency and the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (or the Islamic State) in 2014.

During Maliki’s state visits to Washington, the incumbent US president relayed the international community’s hopes of a democratic Iraq and only scrutinized Iraq’s leadership, or lack thereof, when it was too late and Iraq’s second largest city (Mosul) had fallen firmly in the hands of a Sunni Islamist terror organization.

The third point in the international community’s promulgated characteristics for Iraq’s political development is federalism.

True federalism, so far as it relates to devolution and the decentralization of power through fair power and resource sharing mechanisms, is also a feature that is non-existent in Iraq.

Certainly, much of Iraq’s historical grievances and disputes have stemmed from various dictators aiming to forcefully coerce the country into being subservient to the capital in Baghdad. These attempts have successively resulted in mass-resistance and subsequent displays of violent reprisal attacks by the ruling authority in Baghdad (such as the Anfal genocide committed by the Ba’ath party).

And while some would argue federalism in Iraq has emerged in the form of the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), many in the KRG would argue that Baghdad fails across-the-board to observe and implement federal power and revenue sharing agreements.

Examples of this failure include the freezing of the Kurdistan Region’s share of the annual Iraqi budget and the refusal to implement Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution relating to disputed territories.

Unlike the rest of Iraq, where violence and unrest are never-ending, the Kurdistan Region has been a remarkable success story caught up in the contextual realities of a failed Iraqi state, with Kurdish aspirations of independence also falling victim to the international community’s unhealthy fixation with a united, democratic, and federal Iraq.

Thus, the international community’s policy of promoting an Iraq which rests on the foundations of these principles is problematic because it does little to take into account the historical and present realities on the ground.

Such realities have proven that the international policies which were attributed to the current formula for governance in Iraq are unsatisfactory at best and wholly incompatible at worst.

Consequentially, the international community (especially the Western world) would benefit from abandoning its fixation with achieving an Iraq governed based on the principles of “unity, democracy, and federalism" and instead form a new, more holistic and tailored approach, based on the condition of Iraq’s actual current political, social, and security circumstances.

 

Barzani Hussein is an academic and analyst with a primary focus on contemporary Kurdish and Middle Eastern affairs.

 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Kurdistan24, any related institutions, or organizations.