November 26, 2007

“A TORRENT of good news": So The New York Times described the reports of a significant fall in violence in Iraq. But reducing all Iraqi news to measures of violence can hamper understanding of a complex situation.

Those who opposed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 prefer to focus on violence, for it has seemed to confirm their claim that the war was wrong. They've downplayed all good news from post-Saddam Iraq - the end of an evil regime that had oppressed the Iraqi people for 35 years; the return home of a million-plus Iraqi refugees in the first year after liberation; the fact that the Iraqis got together to write a new constitution and hold referendums and free elections - for the first time in their history - and moved to form coalition governments answerable to the parliament.

The drop in violence is certainly a good thing. But other Iraq news, both good and bad, needs to be taken into account.

On the good side:
* More than 70 percent of the cells created by al Qaeda in Iraq have been dismantled, with vast amounts of money and arms seized from terrorists and insurgents. The so-called Islamic State in Iraq, set up by al Qaeda in parts of four provinces, has collapsed.
* Iraqis who'd sought temporary refuge in neighboring countries are returning home in large numbers - 1,000 a day returning from Syria alone.
* Thanks to mediation by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite coalition, the three groups that had withdrawn from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government are expected to return to the fold.
* The British forces' handover of Basra to Iraqi authorities was completed without a hitch; Iraq's second largest city is rapidly returning to normal.
* Iraq's national currency, the dinar, is trading at its highest level since 1990 against the Iranian rial, the Kuwaiti dinar and the US dollar.
* Iraqi oil production is at its highest since 2002. Oil Minister Hussein Shahrestani recently notified OPEC that Iraq intends to produce its full quota next year.
* There's a rush of applications to set up small and medium businesses. In Baghdad alone, the figure for October was 400, compared to 80 last August.
* The fourth American university in the Arab world, and the first in Iraq, has started work in Suleymanieh, close to the Iranian border.

And on the bad:
* All programs for training the new Iraqi army and police are behind schedule. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hasn't met even a third of its quota. Only one Iraqi officer is training at Sandhurst, the famed British military academy. (Former Prime Minister Tony Blair had promised 22 places.)
* A new leadership elite has emerged locally, but isn't represented in central decision-making. In parts of the country, the officials in place are isolated, if not actually disliked, while unofficial leaders organize and manage some services that government should provide.
* The parties dominating the parliament have failed to set a date for local elections - without which full return to normal is unlikely. The former exiles who now dominate know they'd lose power in any elections to new groups led by homegrown figures.
* Prime Minister al-Maliki continues to prevaricate over draft legislation on oil exploration, production, export and revenue-sharing.
* Draft bills on limiting the effects of de-Baathification and facilitating the inclusion of thousands of former officers and NCOs in the new army remain backburnered. This gives the impression that the governing coalition, strengthened by the drop in violence, is reluctant to take measures that might loosen its hold on power.
* As a result of pressure by the ruling elite, the crackdown on corruption and embezzlement, launched earlier this year, has ground to a halt. Public perception of widespread corruption - coupled with the government's inability to provide regular services - undermines the legitimacy of the authorities.
* The government has taken few steps to help those driven out of their homes to return to their original places of abode. Most returnees are persuaded to settle in other areas. The net effect is to "ratify" the ethnic cleansing imposed by militants in the heyday of the "war of the sectarians."
* With pressure from al Qaeda and the insurgency easing, the ruling elites (even the Kurds, who'd hitherto remained united) have become involved in bitter power feuds. The United States is doing little to persuade the elites to spend their energies on more productive endeavors.
* The command-economy mindset, discredited after liberation, is making a comeback. The new budget presented to the parliament is based on the principle of a rentier economy: The state, thanks to its control of oil revenues, affects all major decisions. The idea of a modern capitalist economy, much in vogue in 2003-'04, appears to have been shelved, at least for now.
* The authorities appear to be ignoring cultural fascists who are trying to impose their vision of an "Islamic society" through terror. This is especially the case in the predominantly Shiite provinces of the south, where the so-called campaign of "re-Islamicization" is openly funded by Iran. Friends of the new Iraq must impress on its leaders that these cultural fascists could, in time, prove as deadly as al Qaeda terrorists.

IRAQ today is a hundred times better than what it would have been under Saddam in any imaginable circumstances. Statistics of violence don't begin to measure the efforts of a whole nation to re-emerge from the darkest night in its history. And in that sense, the news from Iraq since April 2003 has always been more good than bad.

What is new is that now more Americans appear willing to acknowledge this - good news in itself. As long as the United States remains resolute in its support for the new Iraq, there will be more good news than bad from what is at present the main battlefield in the War on Terror.

Source: New York Post