Reconstruction of Iraq
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Today is one of the happiest days in your life. At least, your wedding day is supposed to be one the happiest days of your life. Women are so happy most of them cry because of joy. Men rarely cry, but it is different on your wedding day because while you were being married the church was bombed and several children died. This event actually occurred several months ago in Iraq, even though the war is over. Hearing of events like this have to make people wonder if the reconstruction of Iraq can be successful during and post U.S. occupation, especially when there is more negative than positive news on the progress in Iraq. One of the main problems with the current U.S. stance on Iraq and previous stances when trying to alter countries governments for the best is that the U.S. thinks the solution for these countries is to model their government after our own. This inability to accept a different form of government or culture not only illustrates one of the main problems in U.S. foreign affairs but also helps to explain the prejudice that is prevalent in our society. The U.S. needs to end their failing occupation/reconstruction of Iraq because success is impossible due to insurgent groups, the countries history of civil unrest and Iraqis long history of non-democratic forms of government.
A successful reconstruction of Iraq will be very difficult to come by with the consistent flow of insurgent attacks on foreign people working to reconstruct the country. Not only does it demoralize the foreigners, but it also invokes military retaliation that results in civilian casualties that demoralize the inhabitants. One of the most recent insurgent incidents occurred October 7, 2004, “Insurgents fired two rockets into the Ishtar Sheraton Hotel in central Baghdad on Thursday night, setting rooms ablaze and forcing the temporary evacuation of scores of journalists and foreign contractors working on reconstruction projects in Iraq.” (Wong and Filkins). According to Wong and Filkins events likes these are slowly deteriorating the number of investors or people willing to help in the rebuilding or Iraq. Personally I would take events like this as a statement by these insurgents, who may or may not represent the majority, that they do not welcome foreign occupation. A U.S. Army Colonel currently dealing with this problem stated, “The only way it can end for us is to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens,” (qtd. in Ozernoy). However, there has been no sign of this happening. On the contrary, insurgent opposition is getting worse from the viewpoint of a Sergeant in Ilana Ozernoys article. How can a country successfully be reconstructed when the occupying party is constantly facing military opposition from inhabitants of the country? It is impossible because if the insurgents do not thwart the occupiers then they will most likely destroy what the occupiers leave behind, for instance a government system. The insurgents should serve the same purpose to the U.S. that the red light serves to an automobile driver. The purpose being that if you ignore a red light then you are most likely going to get hit. These insurgent groups are one of the main problems keeping a U.S. led reconstruction of Iraq from being successful and there is no sign of the groups dying out.
The next contributing factor to a failed reconstruction of Iraq is the civil unrest of the people. The main causes for the civil conflicts are religious divisions amongst the people. Even if the U.S. ends their occupation because they feel that Iraq has successfully been reconstructed, that does not mean the country will all of a sudden be a peaceful and unified country. The three most known groups in Iraq are the Sunnis, Shiites and the Kurds. These groups have historically been unable to peacefully coexist. In the textbook The West Encounters and Transformations the authors date the emergence of the Shiites and the Sunnis to around 632 C.E. These groups emerged because the Islamic communitys leader Muhammad died and there was a disagreement on who should be his successor. The Shiites supported Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad, as the rightful successor. He eventually gained power in 656 C.E., but was assassinated in 661 C.E. by supporters of the Umayyad family, the Sunnis. This initiated problems between the Sunnis and the Shiites. The Kurds are a smaller group of Iraq that has a long history of persecution, mainly from Saddam Hussein. But even after Saddam the Kurds are still having problems as Ilnur Cevik explains in an article (Kurds) for Turkish Daily News. He speaks of the importance of these three groups living harmoniously and how that is already failing because of Shiite leaders. The leaders are upset that the interim constitution gives the Kurds veto power and declares that the power should be revoked. The groups are not even on their own yet and they are already having trouble with the thought of coexisting as equals. In a second article (Chapter) Cevik speaks of how the Shiites are going to need to give up their ways of the past and not ignore rights of the Sunnis and the Kurds. He also talks of how the Sunnis must get used to the fact that they do not have Saddam to rule as they wish anymore. Cevik makes it clear that historically two of three of these groups have been in a position to oppress other groups. Naturally this kind of past most likely leads to a present feeling of resentment that is difficult to overcome and a decent chance that groups will go on being oppressed. Therefore, U.S. reconstruction will have failed because one of the major goals was to eliminate the rampant oppression of Iraqi people.
Reconstruction in the mind of the U.S. is a successful democracy; therefore a failure of the constructed democracy equals a failed reconstruction. How does the U.S. expect to successfully set up a democracy in a country with no experience with it? The first form of government for the majority group, the Shiites, was a caliphate. The caliphate was a regime ruled by one. The people had no official say in government. They could not vote, elect leaders or anything else to do with government. The people had one way of showing their displeasure with the caliphate, revolt. In addition to that the Islamic way of life did not allow for a separation between church and state. Unlike the democratic U.S. in the Islamic Empire your status depended on your religion. This is still visible today in things like the Shiites attempt to remove the Kurds veto power. However, since 1958 Iraq has been ruled by dictators. Stanley Reed explains this as a repercussion of the British installation of the Hashemite royal family into a newly independent Iraq. King Faisal was assassinated and so started the long line of dictators. The Britishs