Iraq is the grip of an epidemic of chaos and violence. Last week suicide bombings reached a record high. The Iraqi Government’s panicked response was the declaration of a total three-day curfew across Baghdad last weekend. It is doubtful that this will make much difference.
Official figures report that 6,600 Iraqis suffered violent deaths in July and August, a 13 per cent increase on the previous two months. It is the bitterest of ironies that in the aftermath of an invasion, justified in the name of liberation, the chief expert on torture for the United Nations, Manfred Nowak, describes the current situation as “out of control”, saying that the use of torture by the security forces, militias and the insurgency may be “worse than in the times of Saddam Hussein”.
How did it get this bad? Much criticism has been directed at the hubris with which President Bush and his advisers carried out the removal of Saddam. All of this is fair but three crucial factors explain the bloody situation in Iraq today and point to a possible solution. The three weeks of looting that flared up after American troops reached Baghdad caused the Iraqi State to collapse. Civil servants and policemen went home to protect their families and in their absence government offices were torn to the ground.
Today, Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, and his Cabinet are trying to rule Iraq without ministries. Their government is based in the green zone, the fortress complex at the centre of Baghdad. However, they have little or no ability to influence events beyond the high walls that protect them. The institutions of the Iraqi State simply do not exist. Ordinary Iraqis try to live as best they can with little or no help from government, leaving them prey to criminals, militias and insurgents.
The second problem that has contributed to the extreme instability is the speed with which the United States has sought to divest itself of its postwar responsibilities. In little more than a year it tried and failed to rebuild the Iraqi State and on June 28, 2004, it turned responsibility over to a small group of handpicked politicians.
This new ruling elite has created the third problem hindering Iraq’s reconstruction. In the past year and a half, Iraq has had three prime ministers — Iyad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari and now Mr al-Maliki. All three, like the majority of their Cabinet, spent many years in exile and have little or no experience of government, let alone state building. In spite of two elections since the war, government in Iraq is still dominated by corruption, incoherence and a series of petty but disruptive disputes. This new elite has proved singularly unable to rebuild the State, impose order across the country or help the vast majority of Iraqis whose lives continue in misery.
There is an alternative to simply carrying on with the same policy, as George Bush and Tony Blair suggest, or running away as the antiwar campaigners demand. First, this would involve an admission that the current policy has failed. Washington has to recognise that it needs a great deal of help. The task of rebuilding the Iraqi State from the ground up is far too great for the world’s sole superpower, let alone a small group of Iraqi politicians long exiled from the country.
The second step is for the international community to change its attitude. The great powers that sit on the United Nations Security Council, especially France, have to put the bitterness surrounding the invasion behind them. The continued descent of Iraq into civil war will cause problems on a truly global scale: after all, Iraq is far closer to Europe than the United States. Iraq now poses such a problem that all the international community has an undeniable interest in solving it.
Against this background the UN, with full and unrestricted backing from the European Union, has to take over running the country. Such a huge undertaking would involve giving Iraq a similar status to Kosovo. Iraq’s sovereignty would have to be put temporarily into the hands of the international community. The creation of a new post-Saddam political settlement would have to start from scratch.
The beginning of this process would entail a new peace process overseen by neutral international arbitrators and guaranteed by the UN. This would bring all Iraqi parties involved in the dispute to the table. The present governing Iraqi elite would have a place at the table but could not be in government for the duration of the negotiations. Their place at the head of failing or semi-functioning ministries would, temporarily, be taken by international civil servants.
Iraqi insurgents, as opposed to transnational jihadists, would also be encouraged to take part by giving them what they have long demanded, the removal of US forces from the streets of Iraq’s cities. A multilateral force of peacekeepers not associated with the bungled invasion and its bloody aftermath would take their place. In return for a place at the table the insurgents would have to agree to reject al-Qaeda forces in the country. Once a UN-sponsored peace and reconciliation process were in place, the Iraqi insurgents’ goals, focused as they are on control of the Iraqi State, would be easily distinguishable from those of al-Qaeda, who are waging a permanent war against the West, with Iraq as a sideshow. Once both the international community and America have got past the deep divisions caused by the invasion, the way is open for far more aid and expertise to pour into the country.
The alternative to the UN — leaving Iraq to sink farther into a violent quagmire — would mean instability spreading well beyond the borders of the Middle East. Iraq now poses a problem of global significance; a solution can only be delivered by a truly international intervention.
Toby Dodge, a reader in International Politics at Queen Mary, University of London and author of Inventing Iraq: the Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied.