Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Middle East Opinion #6

Federalism, Iraq, and Arab Dictators



The history of modern Iraq, from the moment of its forced creation by the British more than eighty years ago when they installed King Faisal on a new throne, has been one of a series of strong central governments. Only a strong state security system, including torture, mass uprooting, internal and external exile of opponents, could keep in power the minority regime that was forced on the population. The British introduced the rudiments of a parliamentary system, but they stacked the deck in favor of the Arab Sunni minority. The Brits did worry about it, but at the time they were told by the Sunni grandees of Baghdad that, “the Shi’as will go along. They are just simple peasants.” That same phrase is most likely being repeated today to U.S leaders and congressional delegations by modern smooth-talking Arab grandees, the Petro-potentates and dictators across the Arab World (I know this for sure now because Joe Klein told me in his latest Time Magazine column.)

The Brits, especially the King-makers Gertrude Bell and Percy Cox, were impressed by those smooth-talking grandees, those former sycophants of the Ottoman Turks, and they did not trust the majority Shi’as. Perhaps because of the strong and independent influence of the Hawza, the Shi’a Academy, perhaps they worried about some connection to Shi’a Iran (sounds familiar??) God only knows what they thought of the Kurds of the northern mountains. So, these smooth-talking, accommodating grandees of the central region were handed power. Of course at some point the Shi’as did have their Great Rebellion, but they were bombed and crushed by the British, along with the restive Kurds who were being set up for decades of ethnic cleansing. The grandees- the designated rulers- waited for the smoke and dust to settle in order to receive their new entitlement. The country lived with strongmen of one kind or another since that time. Still, rebellions broke out occasionally. There was a sort of stability, but it was the kind that no American would wish for his country. It was a stability based on the absence of freedoms, a stability enforced through state terror. Much like the kind of stability the Nazis brought to Germany after the roller coaster years of Weimar (I know, I know- this comparison has been overused, but it is a good one).

Many in the central-western part of Iraq support re-creation of a strong central government. And it is not really because they worry about the oil revenues- that is just the Western interpretation of the deeper tribal-sectarian forces at work. The presumption is that these strong rulers will still come from those regions as in the past. In order to have that outcome, the electoral system will have to be distorted again in favor of those regions, which would mean a new reign of terror.

This idea seems to have support in the Arab countries at large, and that is mainly because centralized authority is a lynchpin of the Arab political systems. For an un-elected leader, delegation of authority is considered dangerous. Most Arab leaders either have no deputies (for example, no vice presidents) or they have more than one deputy (two or three is not unheard of). There are two reasons for that: they do not want one ambitious man breathing down their necks, anxiously waiting his turn, perhaps being tempted to rush things and give fate a hand, and they all seem to think that they will live forever, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. Come to think of it, even some Arab monarchs have come to power through the overthrow of others, mainly relatives- literally palace coups.

Cheers
Mohammed

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