Iraq begins to flex its muscles
Iraqis have been seen rejoicing in the streets of their capital and elsewhere following the withdrawal, on Tuesday, of U.S. combat forces from major Iraqi cities and towns into suburban or rural areas, the first step towards a total military pullout from the war-torn Arab country in 2011.
Although the American reaction is not as evident, there is no doubt that the feeling is shared by many Americans for whom this has been the second most expensive military conflict in American history, the first being World War II. Americans lost more than 4,200 soldiers and 30,000 were wounded in the last six years. Additionally, the cost of the Iraq war is estimated at about $694 billion, if Congress approves the latest Obama administration budget.
By comparison, the Vietnam war cost $686 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars and World War II cost $4 trillion, according to a congressional research service study completed last year.
There is no official Iraqi casualty count, but various groups have estimated Iraqi deaths from violence, following the U..S-led invasion that started in 2003, to range anywhere from 100,000 to over one million. More than four million Iraqis left the country, mostly to neighboring Syria and Jordan.
But this American pullout is not what former president George W. Bush had prematurely labeled as “mission accomplished”; it is, as put by Iraqi Minister of the Interior Jawad Bolani, “the beginning of a highly uncertain chapter in Iraqi democracy and self governance.”
In the months ahead, Iraq will most likely continue to face violence, hopefully not too severe, in clashes anticipated among various ethnic or sectarian groups - Kurds against Arabs, or Sunnis battling Shiites, the largest community in this oil-rich country. Moreover, corruption has emerged as a serious issue during the rule of this multilayered authority running the country. Some 1,000 Iraqi officials are now charged with corruption in the wake of the resignation of the trade minister who supervised food rationing parceled out to about 60 per cent of the Iraqi people. More than 60,000 employees at the interior ministry have been fired on similar charges and more than 40 police officers are now facing charges for alleged abuse of prisoners.
In the months ahead, Iraq will most likely continue to face violence, hopefully not too severe, in clashes anticipated among various ethnic or sectarian groups - Kurds against Arabs, or Sunnis battling Shiites, the largest community in this oil-rich country
In six months’ time, Iraq will be holding general elections that may see continued turmoil among the various ethnic and sectarian groups. Iraq’s neighbors, Syria, Iran and Turkey, the new emerging powerhouse, as well as the Gulf Arab states, are bound to be closely watching their newly strengthened neighbor, once full sovereignty is restored in 20l2.
Still, Iraq retains its powerful muscle that was brandished once again this week when it invited 32 international oil companies to return to its oil fields for the first time in almost 40 years, when the Iraqi oil industry was nationalized. In this respect, and for many Iraqis, there are still lingering suspicious that the secret purpose of the U.S. occupation was to seize their oil reserves which are their country’s only resource. Yet, Iraq, which has reserves estimated at 115 billion barrels of crude oil, the third largest in the world, is in much need of funds to rebuild its devastated country.
At the televised bidding session, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani stressed that the companies will not own a single barrel of Iraqi oil and that the country will get an extra $1.7 trillion in revenue over 20 years, which will pay for “infrastructural projects across Iraq - schools, roads, airports, housing, hospitals.”
Still, Iraq retains its powerful muscle that was brandished once again this week when it invited 32 international oil companies to return to its oil fields for the first time in almost 40 years, when the Iraqi oil industry was nationalized
The U.S. role in the next few months will be watched closely, to see whether it can be neutral in the anticipated internal and regional conflicts. This will, for a start, facilitate the return of the Iraqi refugees who, like the Palestinians, were either forced out of their country or took refuge among neighbors in the hope that the fighting will die soon. Their return, especially that many constitute the elite and educated class, can help revive Iraq to take its rightful place among its neighbors.
As The New York Times concluded last Sunday in its extensive editorial, “in the time left, [the U.S.] has a responsibility and a strong strategic interest to do its best to help Iraq emerge from this (American-precipitated) disaster as a functioning, sovereign and reasonably democratic state.”
The American role will be closely watched in the Arab world as it might signal what the Obama administration may be doing in handling the long-simmering Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
*Published in Jordan's THE JORDAN TIMES on July 3.
The U.S. role in the next few months will be watched closely, to see whether it can be neutral in the anticipated internal and regional conflicts