Only three months had passed since the United States and its allies announced the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime on the ninth of April 2003, until a lengthy dialogue brought together the writer of these lines and an academic colleague to assess what happened in Iraq, and among what this colleague said: “I feel that the air What I breathe today has become better, I can’t believe that Saddam is gone from our lives.”
These spontaneous words that were said twenty years ago did not express the feelings of those who said them only, but also expressed the feelings of most Iraqis – at that time – with the exception of a few who benefited from the former Baath regime or were deceived by its empty slogans inside and outside Iraq, and it is not surprising that violent tyrannical regimes are very similar Epidemics and environmental disasters that afflict humans and nature, as they poison everything they control and dominate: such as people’s relationships with each other, their sense of self-respect, as well as sabotaging their livelihoods, confiscating their freedom and independence, and distorting their future.
Societies ruled by tyrants lose the energy and vitality of life, and become mere sick, frustrated human structures, captive to fear, poverty, corruption and loss of dignity.
The fall of Saddam Hussein was a happy event for most Iraqis of all walks of life and affiliations, and they received this event with two completely different feelings: one was the feeling of pain that their country had fallen under the yoke of the occupation of a foreign power, which had always caused them harm as a result of its support one day for the tyrant who wronged them, like that Like all the other tyrants she supported in many countries, or during her subsequent wars with him when the interests of the two parties intersected. As for the other, it is the feeling of hope that the fall of this tyrant will put an end to their long suffering, and pave the way for the future to what is better, at the level of freedom, prosperity, and sound institutional constitutional governance.
Unfortunately, the Iraqis did not achieve what they dreamed of, so they quickly became frustrated and disappointed by the serious deviant events that befell them after the American invasion, those events that are due to two main factors:
The first is the failure of the United States of America in Iraq.
When it invaded Iraq, the United States invoked many pretexts to convince the American and international public opinion of the validity of its aggressive approach towards Baghdad, including its endeavor to destroy the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and to eliminate the support of its ruling regime for terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda and others, which were pretexts whose complete falsity and inaccuracy were revealed later. .
Nevertheless, the ugliness of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and his clumsy decisions that he took during the years of his rule, did not leave this regime to defend it and protect it from its eventual fall, despite facing a brutal invasion in violation of international law, and this explains its rapid fall in the field, as well as the joy of most Iraqis. By eliminating him, they dream of Washington’s success in liberating their country and putting their new system of government on the right democratic path.
Washington succeeded in overthrowing the tyrant of Iraq after many years of successive wars and severe economic sanctions that pulled out all his claws. However, success in wars on the ground is not called success unless it is confirmed or denied by the political decisions that come after that, and this is what the occupation administration failed to do. Because of its commission of a series of unforgivable mistakes, foremost of which is its foolish decision to dissolve the former Iraqi army, its failure to protect most state institutions from looting, tampering and systematic destruction, as well as its lack of understanding of the nature of the culture of the Iraqi people and what they really need, and its participation, intentionally or stupidly, in The door was opened wide for the intervention of the neighboring powers, led by Iran, to fill the security vacuum in a country that had lost all manifestations of its sovereignty and deterrent authority over its lands… These and other mistakes increased the fragmentation of the Iraqi political situation and dismantled its social fabric.
This confused and faltering path that the occupation administration took, and what happened to it after that made it reconsider its calculations greatly, as building democracy in Iraq is no longer its top priority as expected, as democracy is not compatible at all with a military campaign that was based on chaos and destruction of everything. , arguing that it is “creative chaos.”
In the end, the United States failed to establish a sound democratic system of government in Iraq as promised, and many observers and experts from inside and outside the United States pointed to this failure, including those who participated closely or strongly defended at some point the decision to invade Iraq, and paid the price of this failure The Iraqi people, who discovered that their suffering did not end with the demise of their former tyrannical ruler, and that the situation was quickly getting worse.
The second – the ineligibility of the new Iraqi political class.
The political class that came with and after the American invasion lacked – and still does – the virtue of a sense of responsibility, especially since many of its leaders suffered from numerous psychological and intellectual complexes, and were characterized by a clear strategic deficiency in appreciating the requirements of building the human and the state together, in addition to their belonging to intersecting intellectual and ethnic tendencies in Interests, loyalties, and perceptions.
Accordingly, in most cases, personal and factional interests overshadowed the higher national interests, and sub-identities (tribal, clan, sectarian, national, religious, etc.) were employed in gaining political and economic monopoly, in exchange for intentional neglect of the unifying national identity. A decisive priority in the thinking of many members of this class and their close and distant followers.
The worst fate that people go through when they face the danger of foreign occupation or important historical transformations is the absence of a qualified political leadership to lead them in these sensitive and complex circumstances, and this is what happened in Iraq. In committing grave mistakes, whether with regard to providing the requirements of transitional justice or in organizing constitutional institutions, activating law enforcement powers, and putting an end to external interference in the internal affairs of her country.
The above two factors participated in creating the catastrophic events that Iraq witnessed during the past twenty years, and because of them, the Iraqis incurred huge numbers of victims estimated at more than two hundred thousand people, between civilians and military personnel, not to mention the millions of disabled and displaced people during mutual political and sectarian liquidation campaigns, and extremist terrorist operations. , which almost plunged the country into a devastating civil war since 2005, and reached its climax with the fall of a third of Iraq at the hands of the terrorist organization ISIS in the years 2014-2017.
In addition, Iraq’s wealth has been subjected to systematic looting, as a result of which hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenues have been lost at the hands of corruption and organized crime mafias, not to mention the serious weakness in law enforcement authorities, the continuous failure of development strategies in all its forms, and the endless conflict between political forces. And its deliberate obstruction of legal texts and constitutional institutions…
All of the aforementioned left its negative effects on the lives of Iraqis, as their sense of well-being, security and stability declined with the spread of unemployment, poverty, crime and family disintegration, and the escalation of feelings of uncertainty in the future among many of them, and their lack of confidence in the ruling system and the political class, which was clearly reflected in the successive popular protests, which reached culminating in the bloody protests of 2019.
However, the matter in Iraq is not limited to the gloomy picture mentioned above, but there are bright aspects that give hope, including: that despite the intended destruction locally and internationally of the cohesion of the Iraqi social fabric, and its exposure to painful blows in the past twenty years, the bonds of friendship and bridges of communication remain. It is still going on among Iraqis of all walks and ethnic, intellectual and religious affiliations, and finds its indications in their standing by each other in difficult circumstances resulting from natural disasters and attacks by extremist terrorist organizations, as you find in religious occasions, national holidays, and scientific, literary and popular forums.
And that the partition projects, behind some of which were external agendas, or internal national aspirations, or destructive terrorist goals, or exclusive political intentions, all collided with the unitary tendency of the Iraqi people, that tendency that showed an undoubted tendency among most Iraqis to preserve the political unity of their country, and to betray and attack Every party or entity involved in putting forward a project to divide it at the dialogue table.
In addition to the foregoing, despite the fragile democracy that Iraq witnessed after the occupation, and the apparent weakness and lack in building constitutional institutions, the Iraqi people have coexisted wonderfully with periodic elections to choose their representatives in the legislative and executive bodies, and their participation has only declined in recent years. Because of his lack of confidence in the ruling class and his extreme dissatisfaction with the deterioration of government performance more than his lack of belief in elections and the democratic choice, and this is very natural, when democracy lacks good political leaders who believe in it, and respect its mechanisms, rules and values, then its mechanisms will be employed as a tool in the hands of corrupt and failed politicians, and certainly such a situation will be realized by him The people feel its negative results time after time, so that the lack of participation in democratic mechanisms is a manifestation of the popular protest against the performance of the authority, and a strong expression of the peaceful uprising against its leaders and ruling parties.
Nevertheless, the elections continued, and hope persisted in their ability to change the situation for the better. Therefore, you find the rise of popular voices calling for amending the democratic path, not calling for the overthrow of democracy and a return to the furnace of tyranny and dictatorship.
In addition to the foregoing, the pressure of Iraqi public opinion left its clear effects on the work of the parties and currents of power. Despite their intense conflict with each other, which reached its climax after the October 2021 elections, they were forced to maintain not engaging in an open armed confrontation among themselves. Yes, the influence of the external factor on the issue cannot also be ruled out – and therefore it preserved the peaceful transfer of power, and after the last elections the fifth Iraqi government was formed under the 2005 constitution in force.
The end of 2017 also marked an important turning point in the Iraqi political situation. At this time, the Iraqi government declared a military victory over the terrorist organization ISIS, after the Iraqi armed forces liberated the city of Mosul.
We win the regional and international doors to develop Iraq’s foreign relations, and activate the positive role of its foreign policy in its regional and international surroundings. The effects of this event are still continuing, and successive governments are working to encourage them to make their country more acceptable by organizing its foreign relations in a balanced way – as much as possible – to protect its supreme interests.
All of these positive indicators, and others, cannot be attributed to the United States, nor to the ruling Iraqi political class. The mistakes of both sides, as we have explained previously, were very terrible and bear a costly tax on Iraq and its people in various fields, and its deep wounds will need a long time to heal. But the direct credit for it goes to the Iraqi people, who showed indescribable resilience, and had enormous positive latent energies when dealing with crises and dangers in the most difficult and darkest circumstances, and they are a people – unfortunately – who do not deserve what they have suffered, and are still suffering, from Pain, misery, and deviation from the path of progress and advancement, and if it had a coherent political leadership that pours most of its thinking and attention on making Iraq, with its political and social geography, a top priority in its calculations, then this people would have presented, within a short period of not more than five decades, an astonishing positive model of geostrategic influence at the level of the Middle East and the world .
In sum: Washington and the ruling Iraqi political class have failed many times in the past twenty years, while the Iraqi people have won their difficult tests more than once, but the future still shows many signs of uncertainty, as well as undeniable dangers, which provoke fear and panic and warn. With more difficult exams, and unless the lessons of the recent past are learned, Iraq and its people will remain stuck in a cycle of suffering and endless external interference.
