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TRESTON WHEAT - 07 FEBRUARY 2012

Introduction

            The situation seems dire when U.S. officials look at Afghanistan because they face such monumental problems. The government is corrupt because drug money pays the workers while terrorists attack U.S. forces and bomb civilians on election days. During elections, parties try to illegitimately influence the system so their side wins. America is becoming more and more unpopular because bombings that strike the Taliban consistently cause collateral damage against civilians. The American government has not set a premature departure date for 2013. All of these problems prevent the most necessary aspect of the war from coming to fruition: nation-building. Nothing else matters if the Afghan citizens do not have an economic base from which to better themselves and their country. However, Afghanistan’s current economy relies heavily on poppy seed production and heroin trading. Therefore, if America wishes to help the country, it needs to fix the opium trade, which actually offers a way to help the country develop in the long term.

Current Counter-Narcotics Strategy

            The opium trade is considered one of the greatest threats to Afghan stability, and counter-narcotics strategies have become essential to the overall strategy for defeating the Taliban because their illegal taxes on poppy seed farmers fund the terrorists. The heroin that comes from the poppy seeds also creates social and health problems.

There are many basic problems concerning the opium trade. Increased cultivation in the country means that heroin prices will be lower and the purity of the drugs will increase. With a higher purity, it cannot only be injected but also smoked, snorted, and ingested, which increases the potential number of uses.[1] Opium and heroin brought about $3.1 billion dollars in 2006 into Afghanistan, which was 1/3 of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), both legal and illegal. The Taliban siphons anywhere between 10-50% of these revenues annually.[2] This funding is substantial in the Taliban’s jihad against the United States and the government of Afghanistan (GOA). They use their funds to strengthen their holdings in southern Afghanistan, build up a better guerilla army to take on the Afghan forces and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and destabilize the country so they can take over the state.[3] Finally, the opium trade threatens the security of surrounding countries because the drugs go through them to get to America and Europe. Russia is concerned that opium going through Central Asia funds Islamic militants on their borders.[4] This is the basic problem facing the U.S. security forces and the fledgling Afghan state.

            Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. followed “Five Pillars of Counter-narcotics:” public information, alternative development, eradication, interdiction, and an increase in law enforcement and justice reform. Public information ideally encourages Afghan civilians to choose to stop producing poppy seeds through disseminated information.[5] The media or local leaders could do this. The second is alternative development where the U.S. and GOA would try to help the Afghanis produce different crops besides poppy seeds. Annually the U.S. puts $120-150 million into short-term cash-for-works projects and other programs to detract from the illegal trades. Legal agriculture has doubled, which has increased farmer’s wages. Cash-for-works projects have built over 1000 km of rural roads and helped the irrigation systems for about 3% of the country. In addition, $3.1 million has been given to over 100,000 farmers to be trained in more efficient agricultural practices.[6] These are only the first two pillars of Bush’s counter-narcotics stratagem.

            The third pillar has had a lot of emphasis under Bush; eradication was seen as the way to just wipe out poppy seed fields. Theoretically, purging the source of the problem would eliminate the problem. Authorities eradicated 15,300 hectares (Ha)[7] in 2006 and 19,000 Ha in 2007.[8] One basic problem with this technique is that it leads to tension between the government and the people. The former is destroying the latter’s only way to feed themselves and their family. Interdiction, to cut off an enemy supply line, is the fourth pillar of this strategy. The focus of this tactic is to basically attack the trafficking rings to break them apart; it attacks the sellers of the drugs in hopes of breaking down the system and preventing money from falling into the hands of the Taliban.[9] Finally, the fifth pillar is trying to increase law enforcement and instituting justice reforms. This would be to build up the justice infrastructure, which was nearly nonexistent during this period.[10] The Five Pillar strategy was the comprehensive approach used under Bush to try and fight the narcotics trade.

            There are serious problems with each aspect of this plan. The north is more successfully eliminating the poppy seed trade, but the south is still having trouble. Government Led Eradication (GLE) has been successful in Balkh and Bamyan, which are actually becoming poppy free. However, the south, especially Helmand Province, is seeing massive resistance to eradication initiatives.[11] There is also more security in the north, which is thought to provide the room to engage in counter-narcotics. The pillar strategy and the GLE have issues. The Taliban counters the public information, and the U.S. utilizes it incorrectly. America tried at first to use the media rather than local leaders, which meant the people did not consider the information trustworthy.[12] The Taliban also used public information by misleadingly telling the farmers the counter-narcotics strategy was anti-poor and would eventually bring down Afghanistan.[13] Alternative development is good in theory, but economic incentives have never successfully turned people away from a drug trade.

There is a distinct lack of political will to follow through with the eradication process, and corruption within the government allows the illicit drug trade to flourish.[14] Interdiction has intercepted less than 2% of the drugs because the borders are unsecure; People freely pass through certain parts. Furthermore, the mountainous terrain is difficult to track and hunt down the traffickers that are engaging in the trade.[15] Interdiction and eradication also do not account for the fact that poppy seeds can be stored for years without rotting. This is why the trade still continued when the Taliban outlawed it in 2001; the people just stored the seeds and sold them when the Taliban was overthrown. The law enforcement and justice reforms are impractical because Afghanistan does not have the judicial infrastructure to deal with high-level criminals because of the lack of laws and institutions.[16] 

President Obama did not turn directly away from Bush’s strategy, but he did guide it into a different direction with an emphasis on security and interdiction. Eradication and interdiction were never going to bankrupt the Taliban the way they were designed, and without security the people could never develop new ways to make money. Opium trade was the socio-economic-political base for Afghanistan for the past 25-30 years, and it would be difficult to imagine just uprooting this overnight.[17] The Taliban receive roughly $70-100 million dollars annually from this through taxing the farmers at different levels of the market.[18] It is important to note that in the last year farmers produced only 6,900 metric tons of opium, which is a decline from the previous years. However, this is not because of U.S. or Afghan policy, but because of overproduction by the farmers. As with any product, when supply increases prices decrease, which is what happened with the opium.[19] These are the problems Obama had to work with when he was deciding the new policy.

The new policy would focus on security and interdiction. The complete lack of security in some areas allows the Taliban to move in and “protect” the local civilians for support.[20] When the government is unable to provide the security necessary, the people turn to the alternative. Therefore, Obama decided that establishing a security base was essential before moving forward in nation-building and counter-narcotics. The concept is to eliminate the Taliban and other Islamist terrorist groups so that the people can begin to develop the land and build what they need. For example, it is difficult to construct a well when surrounded by bombings and firefights. The interdiction that Obama seeks to establish would have to be incredibly selective so that the military did not overreach itself, but there would still be issues. Turf wars would inevitably arise with this solution, like they have in Mexico over the cocaine trade.[21] In addition, interdiction depends on arresting criminals and stopping the trade, and as previously mentioned Afghanistan does not have rule of law or proper institutions to administer justice.[22] Obama’s current strategy also employs rural development with alternative crops like Bush’s. The plan is to build more infrastructure, irrigation systems, give out more microcredit, and of course the new crops. Wheat is often given as an idea, but recently its prices were only higher than poppy seeds because of the overproduction of poppy. Also, wheat is not labor intensive and will not employ enough people. Experts have suggested various fruits, vegetables, and saffron as alternatives.[23] This is the basic outline of Obama’s strategy for the region, but it does not offer effective solutions.

Even though Obama is focusing on development, security, and interdiction, eradication is still being employed. This has dangerous consequences when it actually works. In Nangahar, Gul Agha Shirzai, the governor of the province, was successful in the suppression of the poppy seed trade, and this strategy had many negative side effects. He did this by eradicating the fields and telling the people NATO would bomb any farmers cultivating poppy seeds. Although the illicit trade ended, the people became impoverished; incomes fell by 90%; they went into massive debt; and crimes increased.[24] The citizens in Nangahar either fled into the Helmand province to engage in poppy seed farming or they went into Pakistan where they joined the Taliban. Khogiani, Achin, and Shinwar became places that NGOs and GOA could not enter because they were radically anti-government and became safe havens for the Taliban.[25] The tribal leaders that supported the elimination of opium became discredited after 2005, and only a few years later, poppy seed production resumed in the province.

Solutions to the Problem

This solution comes from the International Council on Security and Development (ICSD). They created a thorough plan for addressing the poppy seed problem, which is to allow the farmers to grow poppy seeds for legal opiate production, like morphine. However, they have certain flaws in their conception, which will be discussed later. Their model starts with the village. Afghanistan is a tribal society where the village and local community are essential in life. The local people are ruled by a shura, which is similar to the Western concept of a city council. These are respected leaders within the community. This communal system is vital to the success of the model.

The ICSB starts the Poppy for Medicine idea with getting a license from an agency within the central government. To do this, the farmer would need to meet very strict criteria. They would have the unavailability of other alternative development projects, commitment of local leadership to compulsory economic diversification, strong local social cohesion, and access to a road network to transport materials, agricultural land and climate suitable for optimal medicinal poppy cultivation, access to arable land, and farming expertise.[26] The main argument here is that eventually the farmer would get off of poppy seeds and venture into new economic areas. This is a common theme in their report. Poppy for Medicine’s idea is to have the people farm the poppy seeds and transport them to a local factory to be produced into morphine and codeine products because processed morphine sells for more than the raw seeds.

The strict oversight would begin with the shura in the community; the local government and communal atmosphere would help ensure that illegal activity was not happening. Also, the central government would establish an agency to help oversee the project with international cooperation. The goal of the international oversight is to help the farmers diversify their crops or economic sources.[27] Diversification will occur by channeling the revenues from the legal sale of poppy seeds to force them to find alternative means of support.[28] The authorities would punish workers that still pursued a career in drug trafficking; both the shura and central authorities would deal with this problem. The central government would track the entire harvest from cultivation to production in order to limit the illicit drug trade as much as possible, including testing the product at different phases.[29]

There are many alleged benefits from this system, including economic and political benefits. The economic benefit is incredibly clear. With the illicit drug trade farmers would make about $450 USD annually, while with the legal trade of morphine they could make $917. Poppy farmers could more than double their salaries with morphine production and legally trading opium.[30] The government would facilitate international trade by having the state, either directly or through a company, purchase the morphine or sell it abroad. Poppy for Medicine suggests that the Afghan government purchase morphine at $3,100 USD per kilo from the factories and then sell it abroad for $4,300 USD per kilo. Afghanistan would not sell immediately to places like the United States and Western Europe because there is not a great enough demand.[31] However, the target customers would be places like Latin America that do not have sufficient access to pain management drugs. Latin America consumes less than 1% of the world’s morphine because of certain restrictions and high costs. In 2005, those with pain needs, mostly cancer and HIV/AIDS patients, need 7.1 metric tons of pain killers. Yet, only 600 kg were used, meaning only 9% of patients were serviced with the adequate medicine.[32] Afghanistan’s target market would be lower income countries; the lower cost would allow poorer countries to actually purchase necessary medication while providing increased income for rural Afghanis.

There are definite benefits to the Poppy for Medicine proposal. With the eradication process advocated by so many people, the civilians are alienated and turn against the government. This is counterproductive to the US strategy to combat terrorism. Loyalty would be essential to the Poppy for Medicine project because the central government would have such a vital role to play in the whole process.[33] Afghanis’ lives would soon be connected to the governing body rather than to drug traffickers. By putting the project’s control in the hands of the local government and leaders, corruption would be much less likely because the tribal leaders can control the group.[34] The local leaders who are respected would oversee the whole procedure. The last benefit is that farmers would be out from under the thumb of drug traffickers and warlords. They could support themselves and their families without having to rely on unethical people.

Poppy for Medicine has a good base from which to consider their ideas, but there is an important flaw in their proposed solution. They are right that the village and local community need to govern over the poppy seed farmers and factories because the communal nature of Afghan culture will help prevent the illicit drug trade. They were also correct in saying that one of the main problems with Afghanistan now is that the people do not consider the government legitimate; by making it appear as if the central authority is helping with the process, the government would establish legitimacy.[35] In addition, it is important that they target emerging countries and that the state would do the selling to help promote costs. Otherwise, poppy seeds and morphine could be worth no more than wheat, which does not have the ability to sustain farmers financially.[36]

The main problem with Poppy for Medicine’s analyses is that they want to try to diversify Afghanistan’s economy too quickly. Afghanistan could easily become for opiate-based medication what Saudi Arabia is for oil. Farmers can yield poppy seeds all over the country, and peoples will want morphine and codeine products for years to come. Currently in the United States, 1 in 30 Americans use an opiate based medicine every week.[37] That is only is the US. As previously mentioned with Latin America, there are millions of people throughout the world that are in need of pain management drugs. With increasing access to healthcare across the globe, soon many more people will utilize morphine and codeine to deal with painful diseases like cancer and HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, Afghanistan could easily become like Turkey, a country that turned its poppy seed production into a long-term employment and an economic solution. During the early 1970’s, President Richard Nixon did not like that American soldiers in Vietnam were doing heroin, which he said came from Turkey. Originally he wanted the Turkish prime minister to eradicate the fields, but instead the leaders compromised and created the system to turn poppy seeds into medicine. Every year the Turkish government gives 100,000 farmers licenses and 600,000 people earn their living by farming poppy seeds.[38] These workers produce over 75 tons of morphine every year that bring in $60 million USD annually.[39] Poppy seed and morphine trade should not be seen as a short-term solution, but instead as a long term economic resource for the country of Afghanistan that would bring in revenue to help modernize the country.

The main problem with trying to implement this idea is the security of the farmers and their farms from the Taliban and other terrorists, which is something Poppy for Medicine never addresses. It is entirely possible the first year America works with the Afghan people to make morphine the Taliban could come through and burn all the fields and blow up the factories. The people would then be unwilling to work in this fashion and go back to working with the Taliban’s drug traffickers. If the U.S. is unwilling or unable to bear the burden of fighting the insurgents and protecting the factories and farms, the other option would be to turn to the UN. Historically, the United Nations has had success in peacekeeping missions, most notably in Bosnia. America could ask the UN to deploy peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan to guard the factories and farms for several years until the Afghan military is able to take over operations, which as previously stated is one of the goals of nation-building in Afghanistan.

Conclusion

            The United States engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom after 9-11 both to punish the Taliban for protecting al-Qaeda and to liberate the Afghan people. To establish Afghanistan as a liberal, capitalistic, representative government America needs to change its current policy initiatives. In the book The Pentagon’s New Map, Thomas Barnett argues that for a country to reach that stage, three things must happen. A country needs to establish the rule of law, create economic freedom, and allow political freedom. A country can start with any one of the three, which will eventually lead to the other two. Using this analysis, one can see how legitimizing the opiate trade in Afghanistan could lead the country to become a stable country. Political freedom is nigh impossible because the people do not see the government as legitimate, and there continues to be corruption within the election process. Establishing rule of law is also difficult because the Taliban attack from within Pakistan, which constantly disrupts people’s daily lives, and narcotics traffickers cannot be prosecuted appropriately. That means economic freedom should be the starting point for Afghanistan. This can happen by allowing Afghan farmers to grow poppy seeds to make morphine and sell it in markets around the world.

Morphine sales would increase revenues for the people and the economy and would allow for economic diversification when the people start establishing a healthcare system, restaurants, and other services. It would bring in tax revenues to a desperately depleted government that could use the boost in its resources and legitimacy. Furthermore, with local villages selling the morphine to pharmaceutical companies around the world, the Taliban would be prevented from acquiring much of their financial resources, allowing the ISAF and Afghan military to establish security and the rule of law. With an economic basis, Afghanistan could transition into a liberal, capitalistic representative government with eventual changes to the political stability. In addition, as Louise Richardson argued, terrorism needs a disaffected individual, complicit society, and legitimizing ideology. Although morphine sales could do nothing about the legitimizing ideology, an economically viable country could help prevent the disaffected individual because she/he could be a productive member of society. With legal jobs, the Taliban would lose its support and the complicit society with it. Terrorism could be directly lessened by allowing the country to flourish economically with the poppy seed and morphine trade, and Afghanistan could develop into a stable and secure society.

[1] Schweich, Thomas A., U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan. August 2007. Pg. 13.

[2] Ibid. Pg. 14.

[3] Ibid. Pg. 16.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid. Pg. 17.

[6] Ibid.

[7] A hectare is about 10,000 square meters.

[8] Ibid. Pg. 18.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid. Pg. 25.

[12] Ibid. Pg. 27.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid. Pg. 26.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid. Pg. 27.

[17] Felbab-Brown, Vanda. The obama adminsitration’s new counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan: its promises and potential pitfalls. Policy Brief 171. September 2009. Pg. 2.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid. Pg. 3.

[20]Glaze, John A. Opium and Afghanistan: reassessing u.s. counternarcotics strategy. Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College. October 2007. Pg. 10.

[21] Felbab-Brown, Vanda. The obama adminsitration’s new counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan: its promises and potential pitfalls. Policy Brief 171. September 2009. Pg. 6.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid. Pg 3.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Poppy for Medicine. Licensing poppy cultivation for the production of essential medicines: an integrated counter-narcotics, development, and counter-insurgency model for Afghanistan. The International Council on Security and Development. June 2007. Pg. 24.

[27] Ibid. Pg. 29.

[28] Ibid. Pg. 32.

[29] Ibid. Pgs. 36-37.

[30] Ibid. Pg. 45.

[31] Peters, Gretchen. (2009). Seeds of terror: how heroin is bankrolling the taliban and al qaeda. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. Pg. 227.

[32] Poppy for Medicine. Licensing poppy cultivation for the production of essential medicines: an integrated counter-narcotics, development, and counter-insurgency model for Afghanistan. The International Council on Security and Development. June 2007. Pg. 89.

[33] Ibid. Pg. 64.

[34] Ibid. Pg. 68.

[35] Starr, S. Frederick. (Ed.). (2006). Sovereignty and legitimacy in afghan nation building. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

[36] Peters, Gretchen. (2009). Seeds of terror: how heroin is bankrolling the taliban and al qaeda. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. Pg. 228.

[37] Daniloff, Caleb. (2008, October 08). America’s on opioids: bu study finds one in 30 adults takes opiates for pain. BU Today, Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/today/node/7536.

[38] Kammiga, Jorrit. The political history of turkey’s opium licensing system for the production of medicines: lessons for Afghanistan. Security and Development Policy Group. http://www.poppyformedicine.net/documents/Political_History_Poppy_Licensing_Turkey_May_2006. Pg. 4.

[39] Ibid.

JACOB DERR - 16 JANUARY 2012

Introduction

            Colin Powell says he did not tell President George W. Bush that Iraq was like a precious crystal, and that if the United States broke it, the Bush Administration would have to buy it:  “I never did it.  [Thomas Friedman] did it…But what I did say…is that once you break it, you are going to own it, and we’re going to be responsible for 26 million people standing there looking at us.  And it’s going to suck up a good 40 to 50 percent of the Army for years.  And it’s going to take all the oxygen out of the political environment.”[1]  Whether or not he claimed directly that the United States would own the situation, it was clear that the United States was responsible for establishing structures of government on a society divided by sectarian differences and that had been driven into the ground with regard to the economy, religious tolerance, and human rights by the rule of Saddam Hussein.

            But the U.S. mission in Iraq has ended, perhaps for reasons of both political necessity (the economy has political valence with Americans; foreign interventionism does not) and because the balance of state sovereignty and U.S. control could not be struck.  This time there isn’t any mission accomplished banner, but it does fulfill a campaign promise made by President Obama, and the last U.S. troops fighting in the region were home by Christmas Day.

            But if the toppling of Saddam’s regime was the first act of the war and the easing of sectarian tensions and founding of a new national government was the second act, that still leaves us with the third act yet to be written.  What happens when the United States leaves a country the leadership of which could fall into turmoil?  It remains to be seen whether the individual internalization of democratic ideals has happened, and whether this, combined with the formalized institutions the U.S. has left behind, is enough to protect the people of Iraq.  

            There are multiple axes to this problem, and this article examines three players who will be important in the coming year.  The first is the government run by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia.  The second is the Sadrist movement run by Muqtada al-Sadr, who have, as a group of people, been consistently defined over the past 30 years only by their propensity to “break rank” and do what is little expected of them.  Finally, there has been a serious uptick in attacks on behalf of Iraqi Sunnis, some of them claimed by the Al Qaeda organization in Iraq, whose failures in 2006 and 2007 helped set the stage for the winning policies of David Petraeus.

The Third Act

            Even as the last troops crossed into Kuwait, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was beginning to fray, and the end of the yarn was exposed.  Al-Maliki, the secretary-general of the Shia Dawa party that came into power after the Iraqi Transitional Government, rules over a coalition government made up of Shia who, for decades under Saddam Hussein, were second class citizens.  It was hoped that his government, made up in part of ethnic Kurds as well as Shia, would govern the country without resorting to sectarian lines. 

Within 24 hours of the United States’ last troops crossing into Kuwait, however, al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant for Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi on charges of terrorism.  Al-Hashimi is the highest ranking Sunni member of the Iraqi government, and al-Maliki doubled down on this action by placing Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, a leader of the Sunni Iraqiya bloc, on an extended leave on December 21.  These actions may be Al-Maliki following the law, asserting his control over a country he was just given full permission to run without U.S. interference.  Or it may be that he’s just asserting control, with his coalition, over the country’s affairs, running roughshod over the Sunni minority that used to be in power.

Both foreign observers and Iraqi citizens think it’s the latter.  David Ignatius refers to him as “the underground man,” and warns that when the Coalition Provisional Authority failed to establish a political culture within the country before knocking out the dictator, “those likely to triumph are…the survivors, the backroom plotters, the people left standing when the regime-changers pack up their bags and go home.”[2]  He suspects this is just such a backroom plot by a man disinterested in unity.  The Iraqiya party suspects so as well, patently refusing negotiations until al-Maliki steps down.  They’re not only saying that negotiations can’t resume, but that al-Maliki needs to step down so that a “national reconciliation” can happen.[3]

The Shia in Iraq are just now coming into power in a meaningful way, and it remains to be seen if al-Maliki and those he has surrounded himself with have the democratic credentials to safeguard the liberties of the people and strengthen the resolve of the country.  It is also far too early to assess the impact of the power vacuum left by the United States with regards to protecting the country from outside influences.  Iran is a Shia theocracy that has had an interconnected history with Iraq, albeit very rarely a history that has involved respecting the sovereignty of its neighbor.  The history of Iraqi Shia is itself complex, and the Badr organization and Quds force in Iran, while at times on the side of Iraqi Shia, have not always come to their aid, as in attempts at uprising following the conflict in Kuwait.  At a little less than a month since the U.S. left the country, this is clearly an ongoing situation.

Leading the Masses

            But it remains to be seen whether al-Maliki’s party represents Iraq—and what Iraq is represented by his political rivals.  Muqtada al-Sadr, the third leader of a section of Shias who broke from the Dawa party years ago, still has a flock to lead.

            The Sadrists’ existence plays out strategically, with the party appealing at different times to different strategies of resistance against the rule of Saddam Hussein, the intervention of U.S. troops, and the government of al-Maliki.  Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr or “Sadr I” as he has come to be known was one of the founding members of the Dawa party.  He set about creating the foundations for an Islamist party in Iraqi governance, which attracted the ire of the Ba’athists under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and then Saddam Hussein.  While at the same time lending support to armed insurgents threatening Ba’athist control and national stability, Baqir broke with the leadership of Dawa, who replaced him with Abu Al-Qassim Al-Khoei and pursued a strategy of political nonintervention.  The Iranian revolution strengthened the resolve of the Sadrists, but their action was short-lived.  Iran did not come to the aid of Baqir’s action, and his remaining adherents in Dawa were targeted by Saddam Hussein.  He was captured in 1980 and was likely tortured before being killed.  “’Sayyid Mohammed Baqir chose death,’ recalls his son Jafar al-sadr, ‘after he had seen that his friends abandoned him and Iran let him down despite his support for it.’”[4]

            Baqir’s cousin Mohammad Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr, or Sadr II, was initially thought by Ba’athists to be working on their behalf to both control their followers and ingratiate themselves with Saddam Hussein’s leadership.  Sadiq spent several years exercising conciliatory gestures in public, and only indirectly in his speeches criticizing government rule and warning his followers that their resistance was strong.  He wanted to cultivate something stronger than a militant resistance, and “aimed for a Shia cultural revival in which it was important what you saw at the cinema and the music you listened to.  He wanted to establish an Islamic popular base strong enough to stand up to a murderous and tyrannical regime.”[5]  Crucially, Sadiq’s appeal was strong with the young hopeless Shia already mentioned who were growing up with drastically reduced future prospects and no opportunity for meaningful advancement because of Saddam’s crackdowns and U.N. sanctions that filtered down to the people, as detailed by Denis Halliday when he resigned as U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq in 1998.  Sadiq could not keep his opposition quiet forever, though, and Saddam’s administration became much warier of him.  His defiance of their orders to return to the party ensured his death, which happened as he was leaving a mosque in Najaf in 1999.  The blast also killed his two oldest sons.

            So it fell to his youngest son, Muqtada, to continue his father’s work.  There was no great shift in ideology or strategy by Muqtada, but his strategic skills have very likely kept him alive when so many of his contemporaries have been killed.  Accordingly, he remained largely quiet until Saddam was toppled by U.S. forces in 2003, and remained ready to step into the void and fight for the Shia in Iraq.  He stood in opposition to the CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council, which was populated by figures such as Baqir al-Hakim who had been out of Iraqi politics for many years.  Muqtada’s Mahdi Army fought the CPA in Najaf in 2004 at the same time as Sunni uprisings in Fallujah and, although he lost many men, Muqtada “emerged the winner because he had challenged the U.S.-led occupation, held off their greatly superior army for weeks, and survived without making concessions that would have weakened him permanently.”[6]  His power and influence became obvious to those in Iraq, though he fled to Iran at the time of the U.S. surge in a strategic calculation that he would be killed and his movement shattered.  He spent his time abroad calling for the U.S. to leave Iraq, and threatened to reopen conflict using his Mahdi Army if the timetable set by the Obama administration was not respected.  He returned to Iraq in 2011, and has re-entered politics with vigor and with support from a substantial number of Iraqi citizens.

            When al-Maliki took action against Vice President al-Hashimi, it was not just other Sunnis, but al-Sadr as well, who called for new elections for the country.  This is the most public challenge to al-Maliki from within his own coalition, and it has added fuel to the fires of those who worry that al-Sadr is attempting, like Hezbollah, to create a “state within a state” using local governance, outreach, and spirituality until he can take power more forcefully in Iraq.

            But perhaps the main issue regarding al-Sadr is just what isn’t known.  No one can say with any certainty what he will do, and yet what he does is vital to the future of Iraq.  The Sadrists have historically marched to the beat of their own drum without regard for the mainstream opinions of other Shias. [7] Moreover, Sadrism is a bastion of hope and opportunity for young people whose stations in life and future prospects were destroyed in a matter of years if not months during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  As the U.S. leaves 8 years after coming to Iraq, jobs are still scarce and even basic necessities for life, like electricity, are not being delivered.[8]  He has won concessions on oil deals signed by al-Maliki, and it remains unclear whether his power in this regard stems from respect or fear.  Anyone who guesses correctly what he does next will have a better handle on the future of the entire political machine.  Anyone who underestimates him or finds him an outcast or inconsequential figure does so at their own peril.

Why Do You Live Here?

That reconciliation Iraqiya’s spokesmen were referring to might be harder than they expect.  Baghdad in the past few weeks has looked unnervingly like Baghdad in 2006 and 2007, the years when the crystal looked like it might be broken beyond repair.  Most of the attacks have targeted Shiite civilians, presumably as retaliation for the actions of the central government, and over a hundred have died so far, but some attacks have been against Sunni Iraqis.  The Salafist Sunnis of the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq have taken responsibility for some bomb blasts on December 27th and during the second week in January, but others are clearly about religious violence more than the global war that characterizes al-Qaeda’s efforts abroad.[9]

The al-Qaeda organization in Iraq, or AQI, previously arose in 2004 to capitalize on the chaos after the toppling of the Ba’athist regime.  Led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death in 2006, the group’s actions were done as much by outside elements as by Iraqi citizens.  The group attempted to use terror to incite sectarian violence, hoping the situation would deteriorate past the point of democratic engagement and that the U.S. would eventually have to admit defeat.  However, the group overplayed its hand largely and the Iraqi citizenry turned against the group because of the pervasiveness of terror attacks in the region.  By 2008, the group was mostly neutralized as a political entity.  The idea that they might have arisen again is both somewhat expected and potentially disastrous.  Their previous goals likely still stand, which means the line between their attacks against Shias (and, potentially, Sunnis) and sectarian attacks by one of the other of the groups will be very difficult to ascertain.

Perhaps more terrifying than the attacks themselves is the culture that underlies such attacks.  An Associated Press story detailing Iraqi Sunnis who are leaving their previously mixed neighborhoods begins with an eerie question:  “Why do you live here?”[10]  If the Iraqi government can’t manage to ensure the safety of its civilians in their neighborhoods in Baghdad, it doesn’t bode well for the future safety of its democracy.

Conclusion

            January 18 will mark one month since the U.S. left Iraq, and we still have little idea what the country is going to look like moving forward.  But if we were to surmise the future using the present, we aren’t looking forward to a united Iraq.  The U.S.’s efforts at reestablishing democracy after demolishing not just the Ba’ath party leadership but all semblances of democratic institutions in 2003 have not held up without the presence of our forces—at least thus far.  “All our politicians represent the political aims of foreign countries,” says taxi driver Mustafa Ahmed as reported by Dahr Jamail for al-Jazeera.  The western powers are likely to look elsewhere for issues to pursue; we won’t be leaning on the Iraqi government now that we’re gone.  It will be the responsibility of the Iraqi elements themselves to find the original purpose of their constitution, which was to find other ways to politically apportion political authority so as to make religion and personal interest a non-issue in voting.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the parties are prepared for that right now.  Laments Ahmed, “I don’t know if the sectarian violence will return, but the Iraqi people understand the situation and the biggest loser is the Iraqi citizen.”[11]

[1] Powell, C. (2007, October). Ideas and consequences. The Atlantic Magazine, Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/10/ideas-and-consequences/6193/

[2] Ignatius, D. (2011, December 14). In iraq, maliki is a man of the shadows. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-maliki-is-a-man-of-the-shadows/2011/12/13/gIQAM7kluO_story.html

[3] UPI. (2012, January 13). Iraqiya: No talks while maliki in power. United Press International. Retrieved from http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2012/01/13/Iraqiya-No-talks-while-Maliki-in-power/UPI-34411326470864/

[4] Cockburn, P. (2008). Muqtada al-sadr and the battle for the future of iraq. (2 ed., p. 41). New York: Scribner; Simon & Schuster.

[5] Cockburn, P. (2008). Muqtada al-sadr and the battle for the future of iraq. (2 ed., p. 80). New York: Scribner; Simon & Schuster.

[6] Cockburn, P. (2008). Muqtada al-sadr and the battle for the future of iraq. (2 ed., p. 149). New York: Scribner; Simon & Schuster.

[7] Enders, D. (2011, October 19). Iraq: Powerless no longer. Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Retrieved from http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/iraq-sadr-city-baghdad-sadeq-al-sadr-government

[8] Logan, J. (2011, December 18). Last u.s. troops leave iraq, ending war. Reuters. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/nearly-nine-years-u-withdraws-iraq-043831767.html

[9] Associated Press. (2011, December 27). Al-qaeda says it was behind baghdad blasts. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/story/2011-12-27/iraq-al-qaeda-attacks/52238952/1

[10] Santana, R. (2012, January 02). Fearful, iraq's sunnis leave mixed neighborhoods. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/story/2012-01-02/iraq-sunni-shiite/52330366/1

[11] Jamail, D. (2011, December 28). Rivals say maliki leading iraq to 'civil war'. Al-Jazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/12/2011122881820637664.html

By Eduardo Lacerda - 12 December 2011