Violence in Baghdad part of sweeping changes in Middle East

The spread of Middle Eastern protests to Iraq could be a portent of what is to come after US troops complete their withdrawal from the war-weary country by the end of this year. US neo-conservatives who have been quick to endorse the wave of revolutions in the Middle East as something they hatched through the invasion of Iraq, will be confounded by this new development. Though the violence that has flared in Baghdad and other cities does not seem to be aimed directly at Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the wave of discontent follows a similar pattern to that sweeping other Middle Eastern countries in that it is a reflection of popular disgust over years of corruption and government inertia. The unpalatable truth for the West is that, eight years after the invasion, and despite $200 billion in US aid since 2002, Iraqis felt they had to take to the streets because they are fed up with food shortages, power and water cuts and high unemployment. So far, so much in common with protests in other Arab countries. But Iraqis are bound to feel frustrate that, elected government or not, theirs is a democracy established with outside help -- and it isn’t even a good one. The world shall see whether healthy democracies are established elsewhere in the region after the current wave of revolutions (some, like Libya, could conceivably collapse into “failed states”), but the new Iraqi government took eight months to be formed after an election held in March 2010 was marred by the banning of 500 candidates deemed to be linked to the former Baathist regime. That was a symptom of Iraq’s enduring, bitter sectarian differences, though Shuruq al-Abayachi, director of the Iraqi Women’s Centre and one of the protest’s organisers, was quick to point out to AFP out that “none of us are al-Qaeda or Saddamists. All of us are nationalists calling for services, an end to corruption and for reforms to the political system.” But if, after all they have been through, Iraqis are indeed thinking of starting over would that be a good thing?  Some are warning that their budding “revolution” has already been hijacked: “The Egypt­ian rev­o­lu­tion is pure Egypt­ian, has sur­prised the whole world, includ­ing the US and all Euro­pean coun­tries, while Iraq is a hub for regional inter­ests, any rev­o­lu­tion is obliged to be accepted and approved by the US, Iran, Syr­ia, Turkey and Saudi Ara­bia, to fit their agendas”. But there are other potential conflicts just over the horizon. The UN has been warning of the pressing need to resolve a dispute over oil revenue sharing before US troops complete their withdrawal. The dispute concerns the fact that most of Iraq’s oil is concentrated in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and around Kirkuk, which the Kurds claim as their capital. This is disputed by Arabs, and a referendum on the matter was put on the back burner some years ago, and there it has remained. Kirkuk was traditionally inhabited mainly by Kurds, but Saddam Hussein tried to ensure Arab control of the oil fields through forced population movements, which has increased the Turkmen as well as Arab populations to the detriment of the Kurds'.  A wave of bomb attacks in Kirkuk earlier this month was an indication of the heightened tensions in the area, which could be exploited by al-Qaeda and other groups. According to a 2010 report to the US Congress the question of Kurdish independence from Iraq is not a problem at the present time, though it is a source of constant worry to Iraq’s neighbours with sizeable Kurdish minorities – Turkey, Iran and Syria. The old guard of the Kurdish leadership have pledged not to push for independence now, probably because it would be difficult to achieve, but it is not clear how representative they are anymore of Kurdish opinion, and there is a concern that the next generation of leaders may try to make the break.

Related posts:

1. Unanswered Kurdish questions hang over Iraq poll
2. Jack Straw: Iran ‘not bogeyman of Middle East’
3. Elections may deepen Iraq’s ethnic divide