Iraq’s tragedy of errors from Saddam the CIA agent to ISIL's Takeover of Mosul

A version of this article was published by the Middle East Eye

Late last week, the world was awakened to the news of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant’s capture of Iraq’s second largest city. The rapid disintegration of the larger and better-equipped Iraqi army caught everyone with surprise. World media sounded the alarm. The violent al-Qaeda-affiliated group has overtaken Mosul on its way to Baghdad. This focus on the ISIL says more about the world’s image of the movement than its actual size and contribution to the events on the ground. It overlooks the fact that the movement is a part of a mosaic of Sunni groups disgruntled with the rule of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Without the actions of all these forces combined, ISIL could not have done more than the asymmetric warfare, which it has been carrying out since 2006. It is true that ISIL’s ranks have some of the most war-hardened fighters in the region, but neither its traditional tactics nor its light nature warranted a major operation such as the takeover of Mosul.

More important than collapsing the work of all Sunni combatants into a war of a few hours and attributing it all to the ISIL, much of what has been written about Iraq sheds far too little light on the historical context which on close inspection shows that recent events where both predictable and inevitable. 

This is not to downplay, legitimate or reprobate the ISIL or the role it has played or going to play as the crisis takes an international dimension as it inevitably will: Iraq is a rich country where too many actors are invested, and no one will wait and see how the storm ends.

What this essay hopes to highlight is that the current events are a part of a long tragedy of errors; a long history of mishaps, of missed opportunities, of shady deals, of meaningless wars, and foreign meddling. A tragedy of this historical background is a tragedy that is likely to drag in many players and one that is likely to linger, even if half victories are celebrated by one camp or the other. Big guns often win, but they also tend to change hands. 

The distant roots of Iraq’s Tragedy of Error

If one is to trace the early acts of this tragedy in post-independence Iraq, one must inevitably address the cooperation between Saddam Hussein and the C.I.A, which goes as far back as 1958. This cooperation paved the way for the violent rule of Saddam Hussein, and to a bloody trail preceding his ascension to power and proceeding therefrom. Thanks to the assistance of the CIA and a number of other Western intelligence agencies, Saddam, who became effectively the president of Iraq in 1973—although not in name until 1979, was able to establish a network of security organizations whose tactics and warring henchmen would spread a culture of terror and violence.

During his 30 years of effective rule, Saddam emptied Iraq of all political figures with leadership potentials. Those politicians who managed to scape death in Iraq were pursued by hired assassins to wherever they lived. The surviving remnants were either unable or unwilling to resist pursuing the path of the very man they opposed: cooperating with foreign intelligence agencies. This depletion of Iraq’s nationalist leadership would have an adverse effect on the effort to rebuild the Iraqi state after the fall of Hussein. But it was only one of Iraq’s many woes.

Iraq’s road to sectarianism 

Even if one is to dismiss the CIA-Hussein love affair as somehow ancient history, the triggers of the most recent acts of Iraq’s tragedy still featured the same co-conspirators, albeit as they stood on opposite sides. Unlike the coup attempts between 1958 and 1963 and the continuous investment in the rising Baath strongman, the immediate causes of the most recent events were not covert operations, but a well-publicized invasion in 2003.

When American bombers started its ‘shock and awe’ campaign in March of 2003, there was no Islamic State of Iraq. In fact, there was no significant Islamist militant presence in the country. The exception was a small indolent Kurdish group (by the name of Ansar al-Islam) in the northern areas. Of course, the US made a show by awakening its members from their caves. But they did not play then nor do they play now any rule. Much of the forces that are now playing a role in the current political and militant tangram of Iraq were nurtured in the post invasion environment.

Rolling into Baghdad 18 days into the war with Blackwater and other mercenary contractors, corrupt Iraqi politicians from exile and the benediction from Iraq’s main Shi‘i cleric, Sistani, America and her allies had all the necessary ingredients to transform Iraq.

The invaders had a special reading of Iraqi history and a vision of how to fix it. They believed that the struggle in Iraq is shaped by religious differences, not political platforms. A corollary of that belief was the idea that the struggle was taking place within the Arabic community since the Kurds already have an autonomous region.  Excluding the Kurds meant that the Shi‘i sect would constitute the majority. It follows that, since the president during the last twenty-two years was a Sunni, a correction of that unfair history is crucial for the future of the state. The push to compensate Shi‘is for the unjust history was in part driven by America’s own guilt toward its past, particularly turning blind eyes to the repression of the 1991 revolt.

 Although not necessarily driven by a desire to divide prerogatives along sectarian lines, the outcome was precisely that: a sectarian vision, a sectarian rhetoric, and predictably sectarian policies. It made matters considerably worse that some of the Iraqi advisers to the Provisional Authority came with strong sectarian biases and extensive ties with Iran.

It suffices to highlight this aspect of Iraqi politics to look at the profile of two influential figures in the current regime: Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki (who concentrates in his hands vast powers, especially in matters related to security and armed forces) and the Minister of Transportation (who is at the same time the head of the Shi‘i extremist militia Faylaq Badr), Hadi al-‘Amiri. Both have deep ties with the Iranian intelligence community.  Faylaq Badr  is one of four main Shi‘i militias ( Faylaq Badr, Jaysha l-Mahdi, ‘Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, and the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah). The first two of these were active in the summer of 2003 before any Sunni palpable counterpart emerged.

Al-‘Amiri’s Faylaq Badr, received considerable assistance and training from Iran since its early creation in 1981. Once in Iraq after the invasion, al-‘Amiri became an ally of al-Maliki, which allowed him to place his men from Faylaq Badr in sensitive posts in the security apparatus. In position of power, Al-‘Amiri exacted revenge on many former senior military officers. Although some of what he did in Iran is unknown, many Iraqi prisoners of war claimed he tortured them during their captivity in Iran.

The regime’s main figure, al-Maliki, has also along sectarian history and deep ties with the Iranians.  During the period from 1979 to 1987, he was the leader of the military wing of the Hizb al-Ad‘wa, which took the Iranian side in the war. Al-Maliki’s first assignment after the invasion was to assist the director of the De-Baathification Program. In that post, al-Maliki made sure to purge all his foes from the system and introduce his allies.

This direction would encourage the awakening of sectarian sentiments. The vying for dominance was not only raging in the government hallways but on the airwaves as well. The sudden and unmonitored deregulation of the Iraqi media sector opened the gates for a cacophony of conflicting channels. Rising rapidly with dubious backing, the new actors aggressively pursued conflicting agendas, fanning in the process the flames of sectarian grievances. This chaotic atmosphere was unprecedented. In the pre-invasion Iraq, the media was exclusively state-owned, and its content strictly state-controlled.  Despite its savagery, Saddam Hussein’s regime didn’t allow sectarian divisions to play any role in either public policy or public discourse.

The unlearned lessons: al-Qaeda emergence, defeat and second rise

When Bush would declare— 22 days after his troops entered Baghdad— the war a ‘mission accomplished,’ the signs of trouble were already looming. Within days the Americans were taking casualties due to resistance operations. Erupting mostly from Sunni areas, the resistance spread to most of the north, west and center of Iraq, reaching a number of Shi‘i cities. After Shi‘i resistance elements were quickly neutralized, Shi‘i politicians put their cultural expertise and sectarian militias at the service of their American allies to help put down the fierce resistance in the Sunni areas.

Showing little restrains, these militias raided Sunni neighborhoods, using brutal tactics to force residents to cooperate. Many men were executed and many women were raped.

The gruesome images and stories of Sunni plight would not only enrage local Sunnis but would also draw in foreign forces. Chiefly motivated by sectarian revenge and lacking an appreciation of Iraqi tribal and sectarian ties, the new comers pursued brutal tactics (car bombing amongst other things), which exacerbated sectarian tension and confused the Iraqi resistance scene.

 

The confusion was so great that the Ayman al-Zawahiri—then al-Qaeda’s second in command—felt the need to address from his location in Afghanistan Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, then a rising figure in what proved to be a bloody and protracted war. The missive, which came in early October of 2005, highlighted two important points in al-Qaeda’s strategic thinking. The first was that the American presence in Iraq is temporary and that the movement should think beyond their presence. The second point was that the organization would like to impart to the Iraqi branch the bitter lesson learned after 9/11: targeting civilians is not popular amongst Muslims.

Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian fighter, who had some training in Afghanistan and some prison time in Jordan, was doing in war what many Iraqis working with the US were doing in politics: rapidly transforming the fighting in the Iraqi theatre into sectarian battlefield. Al-Zawahiri warned that this was terribly damaging the reputation of the Iraqi resistance, which had given the Arab mujahedeen (now under the banner of al-Qaeda) a second chance, and a friendlier environment.

Al-Zarqawi had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda a year earlier. His declaration was a surprise to most Islamists who knew of discord between Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi, discord going back to the latter’s stay in Afghanistan. Because of that discord Zarqawi avoided acknowledging the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Doctrinally, al-Zarqawi shares with al-Qaeda the belief in the need to militate for a Muslim world free of (what both sides see as) the most insidious aspect of the colonial legacy: the nation-state. Like almost all the ranks and files of the mother organization, al-Zarqawi and his men were Salafis. Beyond this, al-Zarqawi and his Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi espoused far more radical views than the mother organization, more particularly a strong anti-Shi‘i feelings.  

Despite Zawahiri’s warning, al-Zarqawi and his group continued their extensive use of indiscriminate suicide bombings, further fueling a civil war that had began with a sectarian purge committed by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and other state organs under the guise of debaathification. 

Although al-Qaeda in Afghanistan sent more than one message to the same effect, al-Zarqawi disregarded them. The discord between the mother organization and the branch in Iraq was kept hidden, however, and business proceeded as usual. The Iraqi branch continued its attacks, targeting houses of worship, crowded markets and Shi‘i shrines. Sunnis accused of ties with the regime or the Americans were targeted as well.

This provoked a global outrage and discords within the Sunni camp in Iraq and beyond. Tensions between al-Qaeda in Iraq and other resistance groups, such as Iraq’s Islamic Army, intensified. This would prove disastrous both to al-Qaeda but also to the Iraqi resistance. American military leaders, who were looking for a way out of the seemingly endless asymmetric warfare in which their army was embroiled, saw an opportunity to turn Iraqi tribal leaders against their ungrateful guest, al-Qaeda in Iraq. That was the beginning of the Sahawat phenomenon and a major blow to al-Qaeda’s influence in Iraq.

The Americans knew from the beginning that— although enlisting and paying off tribal leaders would provide a respite for their embattled troops— it would not resolve the rising sectarian problem in the long term. Yet, they took no real steps to systematically address the sectarian schism. The opportunity presented by the Sunni active participation in the fight against al-Qaeda was missed.

Instead of pushing for national reconciliation, sectarian-based policies became the norm. Nouri al-Maliki, who had been ascending the political ladder in his party and also in the Iraqi regime, remained loyal to his sectarian vision even after he assumed the Prime Minister’s office in 2006. Instead of reaching out to the disgruntled Sunnis who were for much of the period from 2007 until January of 2014 willing to settle for some concessions on his part, he sent his ground troops as well as his bombers to silence their protests.

After the American partial withdrawal, al-Maliki grew more dictatorial. What could have become a small Sunni uprising with limited demands (at a time when sectarian emotions run high throughout the region) was faced with draconian measures. Thousands of men were detained and hundreds were killed. Stories of detainees’ abuse, of mass rape, of sectarian militias joining the Iraqi army to participating in looting and pillaging of Sunni areas abounded. Videos and other records proclaiming to highlight some of these brutal measures were posted on various websites and circulated across the Sunni cyber space.

To make matters worse, Sunni tribal leaders of the Sahawat, which the Americans enlisted to defeat al-Qaeda during the ‘Surge’ did not represent a credible political class to help tie the Sunnis to the political system. Despite the sympathy they garnered during their war of attrition against the men of al-Zarqawi and his successor al-Baghdadi, the sahawat squandered that political capital, favoring al-Maliki’s favors over their own community interests. This situation left the Sunni Arab with far fewer options.

ISIL exploits the void

Since last summer the Sunni areas have been simmering with discontent.  Although some Sunni leaders remained reluctant to take up arms against al-Maliki, fearing a fate similar to that of their Syrian brethren, that was all changing by autumn. Sunni groups began targeting Iraqi security units. These were mostly tactical attacks since some Sunnis still believed that pressuring al-Maliki through peaceful demonstrations and perhaps some limited violence would yield some outcome. Al-Malik made a major miscalculation, judging that not conceding to any demand is better than conceding any ground. The latter approach, he feared, would embolden the dissenters and fuel more rebellion.

Around this time, the disciples of al-Zarqawi who had five years earlier found the Sunny Triangle suddenly inhospitable having made too many enemies were again bogged down in Syria. The Syrian regime’s choice three years earlier to turn the Syrian uprising into a sectarian strife, the injudicious decision by Hezbollah to come to Assad’s rescue, and the parallel Saudi decision to encourage undesired elements to plunge into the Syrian incinerator gave the fading movement a conducive environment to regroup, weakly defended arms depots to take and influx of fresh recruits as well as old connections from the Arabian peninsula.

In Syria, the movement had for a while some success, garnering the respect of some Sunnis inside and outside Syrian. Despite these successes in Syrian, the movement’s presence in Iraq remained until recently very negligible. The tribal dislike of the movement leader, al-Baghdadi, had discouraged the latter and his men of trying to enter Sunni areas. Soon the foolhardy al-Baghdadi would spoil all the hard fought gains both in terms of territory and reputation by entering a messy conflict with Jabhat al-Nusra and its emir, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani. The traditional discord between al-Qaeda’s main group, which has become progressively sensitive to its public image within the Sunni constituent, and the obdurate Iraqi branch resurfaced.

As Zarqawi had earlier done in Iraqi, al-Baghdadi declared a branch of ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra, a traitor group and proceeded to fight them. Al-Baghdadi won some of the battles against al-Jabha, much to the delight of Assad’s supporters. But the new campaign of fratricide would cost al-Baghdadi his reputation inside and outside Syrian, and many of his fresh recruits started to desert his camp. Even al-Qaeda declared him a renegade force, and on May 3^rd, Zawahiri urged al-Baghdadi to quit Syria and turn attention to Iraq, where more work needed to be done.

Within the month, al-Baghdadi did what Zawahiri wanted. This was more likely not because al-Baghdadi has become suddenly a faithful disciple but because the poor strategist is a clever tactician. The policies of al-Maliki have become so unbearable that most Sunni areas where in revolt and a small amount of trained gamblers could change the tide. Al-Baghdadi moved in a contingent of his men from Syria to take the prize. As statements’ from his organization reveal, he was himself surprised both by how welcome he was and by the speed and the scale of the Iraqi army’s disintegration. Staging the takeover of the Mosul is no doubt an efficient recruitment tool for a movement whose reputation was very much on the wane. ISIL now could claim to be saving the Sunni Iraqis after the latter had forced it out a few years back.   

America’s role and options

While it is true that neither the late Hussein nor the Americans are actively involved in this round of conflict, one thing should be emphasized. Having covertly supported the delinquent Saddam Hussein of late 1950s, making his ascension to power unavoidable ‘accident’ of history and again invading his country in an unprovoked war in 2003, America and its allies could do some reflection as the war rages in Iraq before deafening the world with their moral indignation and civilized grandiloquence and before contributing to the hostilities.

Any haste to action would only spoil the existing opportunities to push toward a more sustained solution of the crisis and would create further trouble down the road to Iraq and to the region regardless of how successful any intervention might at first appear. Obama’s recent speech bore some appreciation of the problem, speaking of the need for al-Maliki to involve the Sunnis in the political process. But this advice maybe too tardy and there may be no solution short of al-Maliki’s departure. He has had enough time in power and has so far done more bad than good.

While it is refreshing to see that the US is aware of the background of the current conflict and doesn’t simply reduce it to the rise of ISIL, injudicious past interventions in the region are a cause of concern. It was never misinformation that has marred US policies vis-à-vis the region, but rather the power of the interest groups who tend to have the final say on what course of action should be pursued.

The role of these interest groups was clear in Obama’s speech after the fall of Mosul. At no point did the speech reflect an appreciation of the immediate and long-term consequences of the American and other Western countries’ tacit approval of the burial of the democratic experiments in Egypt and Libya--a novel case to add to a long list of grievances.

The urgency with which the youth of the region look forward to a chance to secure a respectable place for their nations in the world order doesn’t seem to be taken seriously in DC. There is no cognizance of the fact that a well-informed Arab middle class could clearly see that all roads to peaceful transition within their countries are closed and that the promise of liberalized political and economic systems has been illusory. The West may believe, as it has arrogantly done so far, that there are no alternatives and that the system could be maintained by the occasional replacement of notoriously bad leaders with worse but unknown ones.

When enough segment of the youthful and dynamic Arabs, who had so far cast their lot with the world system, concludes that they will lose nothing but their humiliating dependence on the West if they proceed to fight their way through the layered world of corruption and colonial clienteles in their lands, a lot could change and change dramatically.  The telecommunication revolution in the past century and the spread of universal education have made it harder to maintain a narrative or a reality of exception. It will be progressively difficult to sell the beautiful images and rhetoric of a benevolent master, when the locals could clearly see him playing all his tricks to keep them bereft of the essence of what he proclaims to offer them.