What Comes after the American Withdrawal from Iraq ?
Tuesday, 17 March 2009 08:13
Nahla Chahal
The American forces are going to withdraw from Iraq. Some do not believe it, just as they did not believe that Iraq would be occupied in the first place. Both events are of great importance and consequence. For just as the occupation of Iraq had serious consequences for the country itself, the entire region and even at the international level, the ending of this phase will similarly have new political consequences for Iraq and the Middle East, and at the international level will mark the end of an era of great violence that knew no limits. The participation of the other parties has gradually diminished, with the British forces, the last to remain at the side of the Americans, announcing their complete withdrawal within a few months. The occupation of Iraq shows its failure. For despite the huge number of American forces, both official and hired, their superior technological and arms capabilities, unfettered use of force, and the exploitation of the contradictions of a society weakened by decades of dictatorship and wars, Washington was unable to strengthen its grip on Iraq. The Iraqi society has shown, despite all the damages that it has suffered, and the horrors that have befallen it, an ability to reunite : when general solidarity has been shown during American
attacks on Fallouja, surpassing sectarian divisions ; when large Shi'ite movements joined the resistance to the occupation ; when the Iraqi society rejected Al Qa'eda ; and when fundamental, national axioms emerged : against the division of the country, and for persevering in the search for possible agreements.Washington has economic and political interests in Iraq, and wants to safeguard them, and will strive for this end with force. The "voluntary" withdrawal might facilitate this mission. Perhaps it represents the first of the challenges facing the Iraqis : What are, for the Iraqis, the terms of an "acceptable" agreement with the United States ? What economic order will Iraq try to build, how will the country's capabilities be repaired, how will the instruments of plundering and corruption that accompanied the period of the occupation be got rid of ? What social order is suitable for Iraq ? What kinds of political, intellectual, and cultural freedoms can be agreed upon ? How should power be shared ? How will the Kurdish situation be redefined, and how will a national agreement be realized, as well as an agreement with the Kurds ?
These are the concerns that today have begun to preoccupy the Iraqis, and it seems they have agreed to address them among themselves.
* Nahla Chahal is a Senior Researcher and Deputy Director of the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
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