POMED Notes: “What’s Happening in Iraq: Prelude to Civil War or Politics as Usual?”

On Thursday, the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force and National Securities Studies Program hosted a presentation analyzing the political crisis in Iraq following the U.S. military’s withdrawal in December of 2011. On the panel was Douglas Ollivant, a senior National Security Studies Fellow at the New America Foundation and former Director for Iraq at the National Security Council; Joel Rayburn, a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army and a Military Fellow at the New America Foundation and National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies; and Rahman Aljebouri, a Senior Program Officer for the Middle East and North Africa with National Endowment for Democracy. The presentation was moderated by Leila Hilal, Co-Director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.

For full event notes, continue reading below. Or, click here for the PDF

Douglas Ollivant described the Shias in Iraq as “in charge” but they had trouble believing it, which he attributed to their recent subjugation under the Hussein regime and deep fear of a Baathist return.  He noted the Sunnis were on the losing side of a civil war, and that losers in civil wars tend to get less than their fair share.  On the other hand, the Kurds were heavily vested in the status quo and feared a return to violence that would threaten the stability of their region. Ollivant claimed the current violence in Iraq was not sectarian but rather were Al Qaeda terrorist attacks responding to the U.S. withdrawal, unrelated to the current crisis. The latest political crisis was an example of “hardball” politics resulting from the tough neighborhood, and Ollivant noted that there were similar threats of chaos made in the past that never materialized. There are real democratic checks on power, a fact Ollivant said the Iraqi parliament demonstrated when it refused Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. military that granted American soldiers immunity from Iraqi law. Overall, he argued, “quietist Shiism” was the ruling idea, rather than the more militant “Sadrist Shiism,” and Sunnis were in a better position after the civil war than expected; Iraq would muddle through its current crisis.

Joel Rayburn argued that the political crisis was more serious than Ollivant suggested. Prime Minister Maliki’s attacks on his political rivals in the Iraqiyya party, his threats to appoint Dawa party loyalists to counter the Iraqiyya boycott of parliament, and his move to arrest the Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi on charges of terrorism showed that Maliki was consolidating political power and steering Iraq towards authoritarianism. Rayburn claimed that the two arrangements that led to a reduction in violence in the past, the separation of powers and political accommodation, were breaking down. Maliki was gaining influence over supposedly independent organizations like the judiciary, various oversight committees, and the electoral commission. In moving against his political rivals, Rayburn warned that Maliki could open up space for sectarian violence to begin again.

Rahman Aljebouri noted the parliament was divided and stripped of power, the government was not responding to the needs of citizens, the judiciary was not independent, and the media was controlled either by government or political parties. Aljebouri described Iraq’s civil society organizations as some of the few legitimate institutions left, but they were left weak and underfunded after the American withdrawal. In short, there were no institutions which were holding the government accountable.

Leila Hilal asked what the current political crisis meant for the U.S. legacy in Iraq, specifically for the goal of democratization. Ollivant said that eight years after an invasion and four years after a civil war, Iraq was in a relatively good position politically. Institutional reform is a generational project, he noted. Raymond countered that because of Iraq’s strategic location in the Middle East, huge oil reserves, and influence in regional developments, the U.S. could not afford to take a long-term view of the situation. Maliki was taking a foreign policy stance toward Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Assad regime in Syria at odds with U.S. interests. Although the U.S. had lost practical military leverage, Raymond claimed, it still possessed political leverage in international bodies like the U.N. and European Union, and still provided some security assistance; Raymond noted that this was largely “undiscovered” leverage. Aljebouri agreed that institution-building needed time but it also needed a stable security environment, and that Maliki was creating an environment that could lead to a new dictatorship.

One audience member asked the panel to describe the makeup of the Iraqi army- AlJebouri replied that it resembled a collection of militias loyal to their local regions, and Raymond added that there was a professional officer corps that was competent but politicized. When another audience member described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as a failure, Raymond replied that what happened was not inevitable, but rather the result of a number of strategic errors by the U.S. There was space for cross-sectarian coalitions and deal-making after the reduction in violence, but in 2010 de-Baathification efforts by Maliki’s allies eliminated hundreds of candidates from rival political parties, and the decision for a major withdrawal of troops soon after gave sent the signal that the U.S. was not committed to the democratic system, decreasing our leverage when it was needed the most.

Another attendee posed the question of whether the panel predicted a withdrawal of Iraqi Sunnis from politics and possibly founding their own federated territory. Ollivant described how the Iraqi constitution allowed for a referendum which could let one or more governorates form federated areas with control of their own security, budget, and resources, like Iraqi Kurdistan. However, Aljebouri noted that this referendum would have to go to the election commission with the approval of the Prime Minister. Raymond cautioned that the disintegration of Iraq into federated territories would not be a positive development; sectarian lines were so widespread in Iraq that there would be no way to separate them without conflict. Part of the problem, the panelists noted, was that no one understood how the federation process would take place. On a final question about Iraq’s regional impact and ties with Iran, Ollivant argued that the U.S. needed to accept that Iraq had its own interests, that it would support Shias in both Iran and the Gulf, and that this was not “countering” the U.S. position. Raymond strongly disagreed, claiming that this sectarian regional policy was an artificial one created by Maliki, as demonstrated by his support of Sunni Assad in Syria, and would not exist if there were proper power sharing and accountability mechanisms in Iraq.