- Tomasz Rydelek
The Fallen State.
"My fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
When President Bush was saying these words 20 years ago, on 19 March 2003, the first US aircraft were already bombing targets in Iraq. A few hours later, the ground forces of the international coalition went into action. Thus began the Second Gulf War, which was to have disastrous consequences not only for Iraq itself but for the entire Middle East.
The invasion led not only to the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime but, above all, to the destruction of Iraqi statehood. The complete collapse of public institutions and the ensuing chaos led to a bloody civil war and the infiltration of Iraq by the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran. The chaos in Mesopotamia was also quickly exploited by terrorists who, a few years after Saddam's overthrow, raised the 'black flags' of the Islamic State over swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Iraq, in a few decades, went from being a regional power to a failed state. Today we look at Iraq from the perspective of 20 years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. How has Iraq changed in the past 2 decades, where is Iraq today, and where is it heading?
How to destroy a state? Iraq - a case study
Until the 1970s, Iraq, with a thriving economy and a strong army, was a key player in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein's adventurous foreign policy, however, collapsed Iraq's potential.
First Hussein spent eight years in a bloody war with Iran. Then he invaded Kuwait, which led to US military intervention and heavy sanctions on Iraq. Domestic perturbations also accompanied international problems. The country's economy collapsed, and Shia and Kurdish resistance to Hussein's rule began to grow.
By the end of Saddam's rule, Iraq was a mere shadow of its former 1970s power. However, the real nail in the coffin for Iraq was the 2003 invasion. It not only brought the end of Saddam Hussein's rule, but also completely dismantled the Iraqi state.
In May 2003, a little over a month after the fall of Baghdad, Paul Bremer, President Bush's special envoy for Iraq and head of the occupation authority, arrived in Iraq. Bremer launched a large-scale operation of de-ba'athification of Iraq.
Following the example of denazification in post-war Germany, the Americans wanted to eliminate high-ranking members of the Ba'ath Party, which had ruled Iraq since 1968, from political life. Whether someone was subject to De-Ba'athification was determined not by the crimes they had committed but by the mere fact of their membership of the Ba'ath party.
Bremer did not stop at destroying the Ba’ath party. His second order - as head of the occupation forces - was the decision to disband the Iraqi armed forces, which numbered around 300,000 troops on the eve of the invasion.
These two decisions by Bremer (the start of de-ba'athification and the disbanding of the Iraqi Armed Forces) resulted in a total of nearly 750,000 Iraqis losing their jobs overnight, with unemployment in the country rising to 60%.
Bremer's colleagues warned him from the beginning about the consequences of such a repressive policy. However, Bremer remained unmoved, claiming that he was only carrying out Washington's orders. The head of the CIA cell in Baghdad, Charles Seidel, who had warned Bremer, was particularly harsh about the de-ba'athification plans, and said:
“If you do that, you will not be able to govern this country. By the time the sun rises over Baghdad, you will have 50,000 insurgents in the city.”
Time has shown that Seidel was right. The disbanding of the Iraqi army and the de-ba'athification policy led to a rise in anti-American sentiment and gave rise to an armed insurgency against the occupation forces.
The first to take up arms were the Sunnis.
Since the creation of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1921, they have been the political elite of the country. This was also the case under Saddam. The 2003 invasion, however, completely reversed this situation. The de-ba'athification affected primarily the Sunnis, pushing them to the margins of political life in post-Saddam Iraq. The Sunnis' resentment towards the Americans was all the greater because after 2003 most of the power in the country went to the Kurds and Shiites.
Tensions between Iraq's various ethno-religious groups have admittedly existed since the establishment of the state in 1921. Over the years, there have also been Shiite and Kurdish rebellions against the central government. Yet, there have been attempts - more and less successful - to create a common Iraqi national identity.
The Americans, on the other hand, led to a situation in which the political and social order was based primarily on sectarian affiliations, i.e. membership of the Shiite, Sunni or Kurdish communities.
As a result of US policy, as early as the summer of 2003, the Sunnis, who felt most embittered by the post-Saddam reality, took up arms and began to organise guerrillas. The epicentre of this rebellion was in the so-called Sunni triangle, i.e. the area between Ramadi, Baghdad and Tikrit.
Initially, the Americans tried to portray the rebels as sympathisers of the Hussein regime. However, in early 2004, the Mahdi Army joined the rebellion. Muqtada al-Sadr, a member of a respected Shiite clan, led it. While the Sunni rebels could be accused of sympathising with Saddam, this argument did not work in Sadr's case. After all, his father, Ayatollah Muhammad al-Sadr - like many other Shiite clerics - was killed by Saddam's men in the 1990s.
Thus, less than a year after Saddam's overthrow, the Americans found themselves in a situation where they had to fight both Sunnis and Shiites. Just around the corner, meanwhile, lurked another enemy - the jihadists.
The black banner
ISIS is another incarnation of Al Qaeda in Iraq that emerged as a result of our invasion [of 2003]. This is an example of unintended consequences. Therefore, in general, we should aim first and shoot later.
• Barack Obama, 2015.
The chaos that prevailed in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was quickly exploited by jihadists, the most prominent of whom was an Al Qaeda-linked Jordanian national, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
When the Americans entered Iraq, al-Zarqawi had a small group of only about 30 fighters. The disastrous consequences of the American occupation, however, allowed Zarkawi to expand the ranks of his organisation quickly.
Al-Zarqawi deftly exploited Sunni discontent with the de-ba'athification policy. He presented himself as the sole defender of the Sunnis against the Americans and the - Shia-dominated - government in Baghdad.
Soon Al-Zarqawi became known to the whole world.
In May 2004, a video of him beheading an American, Nicholas Berg, appeared online. A few months later, Al-Zarqawi took an official oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden, whom he had met a few years earlier in Afghanistan. In return, Al-Zarqawi was given the title of Emir of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Al-Zarqawi’s main objective, however, was not to fight the Americans. According to Professor Fawaz Gerges: 'From the beginning, Al-Zarkawi's strategic goal was to provoke an all-out war between Shiites and Sunnis.' Al-Zarqawi believed that this was the only way he could drive the Americans out of Iraq and establish an Islamic Emirate here.
The Jordanian national was devoid of any scruples. It was his people who popularised beheadings and suicide bombings. Al-Zarqawi’s men waged total war. They attacked American soldiers, kidnapped foreigners and organised bombings of Shiites. Attacks on Sunnis who refused to submit to al-Zarqawi were also commonplace.
Al-Zarkawi's fighting methods were controversial even to other jihadists. Some of his actions - especially his attacks on Shiites - were criticised by Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
Yet ultimately, Al-Zarkawi achieved his goal and led to bloodshed between Shiites and Sunnis.
On 22 January 2006, Al Qaeda militants in Iraq detonated explosives at the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra. No one was killed in the attack, but the golden dome of the mosque collapsed. This was enough to provoke Shiites into retaliatory attacks targeting Sunnis.
This has plunged Iraq into two conflicts. Alongside the ongoing struggle against the occupying forces, a bloody civil war has erupted, marked by clashes between Shiites and Sunnis, bombings and ethnic cleansing. How much violence we are talking about is well illustrated by a map showing the religious-ethnic changes in Baghdad in late 2006 and early 2007.
The situation in Iraq had deteriorated to such an extent that, by early 2007, casualties and attacks had risen to levels similar to those of the 2003 invasion. To salvage the situation, President Bush sent an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq. Despite initial criticism, the President's decision had a tangible effect.
At the end of 2008, it seemed that the stabilisation of Iraq was at hand. Abu Musab Zarqawi was killed by the Americans, which greatly weakened Al Qaeda in Iraq. Thanks to the deals made by the Americans with the tribal elders, the situation in the so-called Sunni triangle was also brought under control. There was also success in the Shiite South. The Mahdi Army was smashed, and Muktada Sadr was forced to leave Iraq.
When, at the end of 2008, President Bush signed the agreement on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, it may have seemed that the Americans were leaving behind a relatively stable government in Baghdad. However, a new problem was already looming on the horizon. Prime Minister Maliki's authoritarian policies posed the threat of Iraq going down in flames again.
Road to the Islamic State
Nuri Maliki became Prime Minister of Iraq in 2006. From the start, he betrayed authoritarian tendencies. As early as 2007, the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crooker, described Maliki as a "paranoid" person who, like Hussein, was trying to accumulate as much power as possible in his hands.
Maliki's authoritarian tendencies became particularly evident after 2009, when the Americans began their retreat from Iraq. In addition to his position as prime minister, he simultaneously served as interior minister for four years. He surrounded himself with loyal colleagues and broke the resistance of independent institutions. He also set up special troops that - bypassed the defence ministry - and answered directly to Maliki. This private army of the Prime Minister was referred to as Maliki's Fedaini - a reference to a similar formation that existed during the Hussein era.
Maliki's men suppressed all forms of protest, especially on the streets. Under his rule, Sunnis were particularly oppressed, as Maliki - a Shia - treated them as second-class citizens.
In late 2011 and early 2012. - when the Americans had already withdrawn from Iraq - Maliki carried out a large-scale arrest operation among high-ranking Sunni politicians. He accused them of corruption, abuse of power and even preparing a coup. One of the politicians for whom an arrest warrant was issued at the time was Iraq's vice-president, Tarik al-Hashimi.
No wonder that, the rise of sectarian divisions was quickly exploited by the jihadists. Although Al-Zarqawi was no longer alive, he was replaced by an equally brutal and cunning player, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who headed a reorganised Al Qaeda in Iraq, which now took the name: Islamic State in Iraq. Baghdadi's men fuelled the atmosphere of sectarian conflict while gaining increasing influence in the Sunni community. The familiar Zarqawi-era motif of the jihadists as defenders of the Sunnis appeared again.
It was Maliki's repressive policies that dragged many Sunnis to the side of the Islamic State. Baghdadi's ambitions were also fostered by the chaos in neighbouring Syria, which - riding the wave of Arab Spring protests - had plunged into civil war.
The seizure of Mosul - Iraq's second-largest city - by the jihadists became a symbol of the collapse of Maliki's policies. It was in this city that al Baghdadi soon proclaimed the establishment of the Caliphate.
As we know, after several years of fighting and the support of the international coalition, the Islamic State was defeated. However - as it happens in Iraq - the solution to one problem gave rise to another one. Years of fighting against the Islamic State have greatly strengthened Shiite militias and Iranian influence in Baghdad. As a result, Iraq has become a new field of rivalry between the US and Iran.
Iranians in Baghdad
As Mosul fell, Islamic State militants began their march on Baghdad. With the capital under threat, Ayatollah Ali Sistani (spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shiites) issued a fatwa calling on all Iraqis to stand up for the Homeland.
Sistani's fatwa became the basis for the establishment of the so-called People's Mobilisation Force (PMF), which included many, diverse (both ethnically, religiously and ideologically) paramilitary organisations that wanted to help in the fight against ISIS. However, only one player gained the most from the creation of the PMF - Iran.
The Iranians used the new formation as a platform to legitimise the existence of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and so, for example, one of the most powerful militias within the PMF became Kata'ib Hezbollah, which was formed (with Iranian assistance) back in 2003 to fight the US occupation forces. By joining the ranks of the PMF and thus legalising its activities, Kata'ib Hezbollah rapidly increased its membership from around 2,000 (as of 2010) to 10,000-30,000 members in 2016, and the commander of Kata'ib Hezbollah himself, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, became deputy supreme commander of the PMF.
After winning the war against the Caliphate, the PMF militias were supposed to be integrated into the regular armed forces. But this has never happened. Quite simply, the pro-Iranian militias that were part of the PMF began to betray great political ambitions.
In the 2018 parliamentary elections, pro-Iranian militia leaders fielded a joint list called Fatah (Arabic: Conquest). The pro-Iranian list won 13% of the vote, the second-best result.
With the legalisation of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and the rise of Fatah, Iran has strengthened its - already strong - position on the Euphrates. The personification of Iranian influence became the figure of General Ghassem Solejmani, head of the elite Kuds Force, part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Solejmani was a frequent visitor to Baghdad. He coordinated support for pro-Iranian militias, met with Iraqi politicians and had an insight into everything that was happening on the Euphrates. Solejmani's position was also strengthened by the personal contacts he had with militia leaders. Muhandis, the deputy PMF chief, for example, knew Solejmani from as far back as the Iraq-Iran war. Indeed, Muhandis - like many Shiite opposition figures - had fought on the side of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iraq plays a key role in Iranian politics. It is through Baghdad that the Iranians circumvent some of the US sanctions. Iraq is also a convenient transit route for Iranian support heading to Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Tehran's growing influence, has made, Iraq a new theatre of rivalry between the US and Iran. This rivalry reached its climax in late 2019/early 2020, when the Americans killed Gen Solemani and Muhandis in Baghdad, and the Iranians fired ballistic missiles at US troops stationed at the Al Asad base.
The liquidation of General Solemani caused chaos in the ranks of the pro-Iranian formations but did not lead to a permanent weakening of Iran's influence in Iraq, which is still enormous.
A divided Shia house
Despite appearances, Iraqi Shiites do not constitute a political monolith. In recent years we have seen an intensification of divisions within this community. The points of contention are many, one of the most important being the attitude of Iraqi Shiites towards Iran.
The pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and people like Muhandis are just a section of the Shiite community. There is also a powerful bias in the milieu centred around - the aforementioned - Ayatollah Sistani, who criticises Iranian interference in Iraqi politics. This is interesting in that Sistani himself is of Iranian origin.
Moreover, the conflict between the pro-Iranian militias and Ayatollah Sistani's circle, has not only a political dimension, but also a religious one.
Indeed, Sistani criticises the Iranian interpretation of the idea of Wilayat al-Faqih. This is the idea that supreme power in the state should be entrusted to an Islamic scholar. This principle underpinned the Iranian political system and justified the 1979 seizure of power by Ayatollah Khomeini.
Sistani rejects the Iranian model of Wilayat al-Faqih, arguing that religious leaders cannot participate directly in political processes. Contrary to appearances, this religious dispute has serious political implications, for some Iraqis believe that Tehran's ultimate goal is to export the Islamic Revolution to Iraq and remodel the country along the lines of revolutionary Iran.
Another, the third Shi'ite party, is the group centred around Muktada Sadr, one of the symbols of resistance against the US occupation. Sadr formally disbanded his Mahdi Army and became involved in the country's political life. His coalition won parliamentary elections in both 2018 and 2021. Sadr - especially during the occupation - has repeatedly benefited from Iranian assistance and clearly still cares about good relations with Tehran. At the same time, however, Sadr regards pro-Iranian militias as a threat to the central government and demands their dismantling. In 2022, Sadr's men even clashed with the militias in a regular battle that took place in the streets of Baghdad.
Still, this is not the end of the divisions. In recent years, especially among younger Iraqi Shiites, a relatively strong movement has emerged, rejecting previous divisions, and identifying neither with pro-Iranian militias, nor with Ayatollah Sistani or Muktada Sadr. They are often referred to as the so-called Tishreen Movement. The name comes from Tishreen Square in Baghdad, where they organised protests in 2019.
The Tishreen movement demands a complete overhaul of the country. Disarming the militias and stripping the existing power elites. The movement is not monolithic but is dominated by strong nationalist and anti-Iranian voices. Although the Tishreen movement originated in Shia areas because it rejects sectarian affiliation in favour of a common Iraqi identity, it has also won sympathy among young Sunnis.
Veterans of Iraqi politics try to downplay the Tishreen Movement, but demographics cannot be fooled. Iraq has one of the youngest populations in the Middle East. The median age in Iraq is around 20, and around 60% of the country's population is under the age of 25. It is estimated that Iraq's population will double from the current 42 million to more than 80 million by 2050.
Year after year, some 500,000 Iraqis are now entering the labour market. The national economy is too small to provide employment for all of them. Unemployment among those under 30 is three times that of the elderly. This is the result of a weak private sector and the fact that Iraq's budget depends on oil export revenues for over 90% of its income.
In a word, Iraq is a ticking demographic bomb, and as the years go by the role of the Tishreen Movement and similar 'protest organisations' will only increase.
20 years later
20 years after Saddam's fall, Iraq remains a thoroughly failed country. Years of occupation, civil war and fighting against the Caliphate have turned the country to ruin. The lack of a strong central government in Baghdad has allowed the Iranians to infiltrate the country and the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran to spread throughout the region.
In recent years, the pace of political life has been set by growing divisions between Iraqi Shiites. These divisions are multidimensional, and the existence of well-armed militias as a kind of 'state within a state' creates the risk that one of the Shiite parties will attempt to resolve the conflict by force. We already had a foretaste of such a situation last year, when Sadr's men seized the parliament building and the presidential palace and then clashed with pro-Iranian militias in Baghdad in a regular battle.
The fall of Saddam Hussein offered an opportunity to create a new Iraq. However, this opportunity was missed, partly by hasty decisions taken by the US occupation authorities and partly by conflicts among Iraqis themselves.
Today, Iraq is a thoroughly failed country. With its demography and natural resources, Iraq could once again - as it did in the 1970s - become the tiger of the Middle East. The country's tragedy, however, is that Iraqis are too divided to restore the homeland to its former power. The current status quo also suits Iraq's neighbours. From the perspective of Turkey, Iran or Saudi Arabia, it is better to maintain a weak government in Baghdad than to wake the 'Iraqi Tiger' from its slumber.
Sources;
ISIS: A History, 2012 r., F. Gerges
Anatomia Irackiej Rewolucji (PDF), 2019 r., T. Rydelek
Population Inflation and Demographic Shifts in Iraq: A Challenge to Human Security and An Entry Point for Political and Societal Destabilization, 2022 r., Al Bayan Center
Religion, Violence, and the State in Iraq, 2019 r., POMEPS
