MILLIYET- Columnist Taha Akyol comments on a possible postwar future in Iraq. A summary of his column is as follows:
Back in 1989, Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in the hope that he could benefit from the confusion of that country’s revolution. eight years later, however, he was forced to withdraw, with financial losses amounting to $105 billion and a death toll of 50,000. If he hadn’t attacked Iran and had instead followed an enlightened policy of establishing a developed Iraq with the support of the Arab and Western worlds, today his would have been the most developed country among the Arab states and Iraq’s ethnic groups would have been peacefully integrated through social and economic ties. Saddam later invaded Kuwait to make up for the financial losses of the Iran-Iraq war and Iraq’s $35 billion weapons debt. The Iraqis looted Kuwait’s Central Bank and Iraqi soldiers plundered the mansions and luxury cars of Kuwait’s elite. But Saddam had again miscalculated because he didn’t reap Kuwait, but rather the woes of the Gulf War and a decade-long embargo. Moreover, since Kuwait’s Central Bank declared worthless the dinars Iraq had stolen, using their recorded serial numbers, Saddam couldn’t benefit from this theft, either.
Saddam’s repeated miscalculations come from his militarist culture, which celebrates conquests. His is a ‘Pan Arabism’ and narcissism which considers itself the ‘great leader’ of all Arabs. It’s also a tribal culture which can’t find its place in the modern world. Now Iraq is facing the fear of war and disintegration. Shiite Arabs in the country’s south have a tradition of revolt. They started a revolt during 1991’s Gulf War, but Saddam defeated them. In addition, there are Kurds in northern Iraq who never integrated with the country’s mainstream due to their tribal structure. They, too, have a longstanding tradition of revolt and struggle. They revolted during the Gulf War and attacked Kirkuk, but Saddam overcame them as well. Today they have a well-established ‘protected’ region. Finally, there are the sovereign Sunni Arabs in the middle third of the country with their Baath party and secret police.
If the bull of war comes into this china shop, would the Shiites and Kurds revolt again? What would their political demands be? Would a civil war break out with counterattacks against the battered remains of Saddam’s collapsed regime? When the Shiites and Kurds revolted during the Gulf War, Saddam stopped them with blood and terror until the US-British ‘no-flight zones’ were established in order to stop him. If Saddam and his regime are removed from power during the war, and angry groups revolt again and civil conflicts break out, who will ensure order? US forces? How would a new regime be established? Once the central authority collapses, will the ethnic factions who have a tradition of revolt and separation fight for competing regimes? What would be the result of all this? A war seems a very difficult prospect, but a postwar period seems to be even moreso. And besides Iraq, it would be most difficult for Turkey! Turkey can’t just remain a bystander to this, nor can it behave dogmatically. Instead, Turkey has to be effective and do whatever is necessary.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION