November 10,. 2006
 

Quantum Note

An Elegy for Iraq
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal

Several months ago I wanted to write an ode to Baghdad—the city that had been plundered and destroyed by Halagu Khan in 1258 to such an extent that no one could have then predicted that this burnt-out city would ever be a place for the living again. Estimates of dead bodies piled in the streets of Baghdad in weeks following the Mongol invasion range from one to three million. But that wonderous city of another era, the famed locale of the Thousand and One Nights, returned to life within a decade of that terrible destruction, and, though it never attained the same glory again, it remained an important center of learning and civilization during the long centuries that followed the Mongol invasion. That never-written Ode was to celebrate the tenacity of that fabled city in the wake of yet another destruction, this time by the Mongols of another era. Shortly after this second destruction—this time with cruise missiles and two-thousand-pound bombs—there was this short duration when Baghdad was poised to become a city like Paris shortly after Nazis occupation.

The comparison may now seem far-fetched, but during those initial days which witnessed the spontaneous eruption of a resistance movement, Baghdad was similar to Paris where a network of resistance against the Nazis emerged, imparting a heroic character to the city which would be celebrated by the greatest writers of the post-World War II era. That phase has now passed away. No one celebrated it; no one recorded it; no one paid homage to it. Baghdad rose from its ashes but only momentarily, and only to be drowned in an internal strife that seems to have broken the will of the Iraqi people, who are now fleeing in the thousands.

The irony of this situation is that it has taken place through an internal strife. This is an entirely new situation for Iraqis, and indeed for the entire Middle East. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that so far 1.6 million Iraqis have fled the country, 1.5 million are displaced within Iraq; with an estimated 40,000 Iraqis arriving in Syria every month, this country of 26 million will soon become a haunted place. Out of the half a million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and an equal number in Syria, those who have money and/or western education and professional training are looking toward Europe and North America as their next home. This is the largest population movement in the Middle East since Israel expelled close to a million Palestinians in the 1940s.

The sectarian strife that has broken the will of Iraqi people is foreign to the long history of Iraqi Shias and Sunnis, most of whom have family and tribal relations across the sectarian divide. But once unleashed through brutal bombings of shrines and homes, kidnappings, and target killings, this genie is not about to return to its bottle.

If we were to take into consideration the dreadful impact of the UN/US imposed sanctions before the invasion of Iraq, the tragedy can easily be called one of the greatest tragedies of recent centuries. A whole nation has been effectively crippled. Millions of children have been orphaned, civic infrastructure has been destroyed; its institutions have been made dysfunctional. In short, a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world has been reduced to a totally dysfunctional polity heading for decades of civil war.

All of this has happened through a ruthless process which seems so chaotic that one cannot accuse those really responsible for it of planning it in cold blood. Yet there is a method to this madness; this entire process of destruction has certain turning points which, in retrospect, seem to be clear indicators of coming disaster. Recall the systematic dismemberment of state institutions during the weeks following the arrival of the US army in Baghdad. Anyone with a minimum level of intelligence could tell that in a polity like Iraq, the only way to maintain a minimum degree of law and order is through the army and police; yet both institutions were destroyed within a few days of US occupation. Then there was the systematic looting and plunder of the resources of the state: hospitals, ministries, museums, post-offices, banks, civic institutions, and state-owned offices responsible for services like sewerage, power, gas, and water were all systematically destroyed. Following this, contracts worth millions of dollars were given to certain American companies to rebuilt Iraqi infrastructure.

Bechtel, the US engineering giant which received some of the largest contracts, announced on November 2, 2006 that it was leaving the country, complaining that the security situation in Iraq has made it too difficult to continue operating. One wonders why Bechtel realized this only after filling its coffers with 2.3 billion dollars? Can one really believe that shrewd men like Cliff Mumm, Bechtel’s president for infrastructure work, did not understand ground realities until November 2, 2006? Can one really believe that a company like Bechtel had no means of knowing before signing contracts that it cannot build roads, bridges, water treatment plants, hospitals, and power grids in a country where even American soldiers equipped with the latest weapons cannot walk in the streets? Or was it all part of the great plan that was cooked up in some secretive building, an evil plan designed to destroy one of the oldest human habitats on this planet?

Whatever the initial designs of those who invaded and destroyed Iraq, the future looks very bleak. It seems it is only a matter of time that Iraq as it has been known so far will cease to exist, with momentous and unpredictable consequences for the entire region. Perhaps this is what George Bush, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice meant when they talked about building a new Middle East.

Back to the 2006 Contents                                                           Back to the Main Page