Share

--

--

David S. Patel, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University who spent seven months in Iraq, mostly in Shiite areas in the south, says the country will overcome its difficulties and emerge from the current upheaval a unified state. “I’m bullish on Iraq,” he says. “I think the country can definitely stick together, and I think it will. I was surprised at the degree of Iraqi nationalism.” He cautions that “there are going to be some very large speed bumps between June 30,” when sovereignty is returned to the Iraqis, and the national elections scheduled for January 2005. Still, he expects that the uprising led by Muqtada al-Sadr will be put down and that the rebellious cleric will be sent into exile. And, although Iraqis are not yet up to providing their own security, he says they are in charge of most government ministries.

Patel, who recently wrote an article about Iraqi politics in Arab Reform Bulletin, was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on May 18, 2004.

How long were you in Iraq?

I arrived last September, and I was there until early March.

Were you mostly in the south?

Mostly in the south, in Basra, but I traveled extensively throughout the country. I went up to Baghdad perhaps once a month. I visited Najaf and Karbala. I’ve been through parts of the so-called Sunni triangle, and then on my way out, I spent two weeks up in the Kurdish area, in Sulaimaniya and Hawler/Irbil, leaving via Turkey.

Were you focusing on the Shiites? Your article was about Islam in general, Sunnis and Shiites.

I was mostly interested in the Shiites and their mosques and religious leaders.

Do you speak Arabic?

I speak Arabic fairly well, well enough to get around.

There’s a lot of concern in the United States about Sadr in Najaf and Karbala. How do you think this is going to play out?

The confrontation with Muqtada Sadr was inevitable. It’s been building for a long time. And it is good that it’s happening now, not after June 30 [the handover date of Iraqi sovereignty]. The United States can confront him now. If they didn’t confront him now, there was going to have to be some sort of confrontation between Sadr and Iraqi authorities. I think the situation with him is going to calm down fairly quickly, but I’ve been saying that for four weeks now. There have been a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiations between CPA [the Coalition Provisional Authority] and the Sadr followers both through the religious authorities and through other political parties. I think some agreement will be reached, probably an agreement that sends him into exile, maybe to Iran or, as some people think, to Azerbaijan, until there’s a transition to Iraqi sovereignty after June 30.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who seemed to have so much influence over the CPA, has been rather muted in his criticism of Sadr. Is this because Sistani does not have armed troops?

Sistani does not have armed troops himself, but Sistani does have a number of tribes that, though not loyal to him, follow his lead and have a lot of armed militias. There’s a group up in Karbala called Ansar al-Sistani, and there’s also a number of religious groups and political parties that have very, very large militias, much larger than Muqtada Sadr’s and much better trained than the Jaish-i-Mahdi [the Sadr militia], that are closely associated with Sistani.

Sistani has benefited from this standoff. A lot of the Western newspapers are saying that his quietism [the tradition in Islam in which clerics shun politics] has weakened him; I think quite the opposite. Muqtada Sadr hasn’t been able to galvanize a lot of support. And, although a lot of people say that the Sadr followers are a movement, a movement that has been in Iraq for more than a decade, I think that it’s important to recognize that Muqtada Sadr and his Jaish-i-Mahdi are only one branch of the movement formed by the followers of his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, and his marja’iyat [religious authority].

What do you think of the U.S. policy of moving gradually against Sadr and being careful not to harm the holy sites in Najaf and Karbala?

The move against him was smart. Now, the way [U.S. forces] did that move probably wasn’t the best. The early rhetoric we heard from [U.S. military officials] about [plans to] “capture or kill” [Sadr] was not particularly useful and probably made it more difficult for some of the [Iraqi] intermediaries to reach some sort of compromise with him. But [officials] did back off that fairly quickly. And we constantly hear from Baghdad that a uniquely Iraqi solution will be found for the problem, and [coalition officials] have given some space for groups to negotiate with [Sadr]. [Coalition forces] haven’t moved in, like you said, to the degree that they could have. There does seem to be restraint on the part of the United States.

Is the situation in Falluja now under control, as far as you can tell?

I don’t know. There are still some lingering issues that need to be resolved in Falluja. It’s not quite clear to me who the fighters there are. Maybe 10 to 15 percent of the [fighters] there are foreign insurgents. I think they need to be dealt with in a certain way. A lot of the people who are there are former soldiers in the Iraqi Army who feel like they have been marginalized, who feel like they have not been given a voice in the political process. They need to be dealt with in a different way, and I think they are. Reversing some of the de-Baathification policies, bringing some of these officers and NCOs [noncommissioned officers] back into the armed forces and security services, and giving some Sunni Arab tribal leaders and some of the leaders who were affiliated with the Baath at low levels a voice in the post-June 30 government, is going to help calm the situation both in Falluja and in some of the other areas.

Can the Iraqis take over and run a government that will not lead to immediate civil war?

I’m bullish on Iraq. I don’t think the Iraqis are close yet to taking control of security. That seems very clear. The police have performed very poorly in much of Iraq, and the Iraqi Army units have not done much better. But from what I understand, on most other issues Iraqis already are running day-to-day operations.

Iraqis are running the ministries—they have been in Basra for quite a while and they have been in Baghdad to an increasing degree. Just a few months ago, you used to see large crowds of people gather outside CPA headquarters asking for simple things like pensions, jobs, or positions in the police. Those people don’t stand outside CPA anymore; now they stand outside the Basra government buildings—when the Basra government buildings aren’t being occupied by Muqtada Sadr’s Jaish-i-Mahdi.

What are the chances for a united Iraq? Several observers have said Iraq should be a loose federation, with significant autonomy for the Kurds. Do you think the country can stick together?

I think the country can definitely stick together, and I think it will. I was surprised at the degree of Iraqi nationalism. There is an Iraqi identity. It’s going to be a challenge to convince the average Kurds up in the northern areas that they have some stake in this larger country. A lot of them recognize it, but they haven’t fully absorbed it yet. I do think the country will stick together, and I think that plans for a U.S. pullout or plans to divide the country up are very short-sighted.

The biggest mistake that people in the West make about Iraq is [they fail to grasp] that most Iraqis do not primarily define themselves in ethnic or religious terms. They don’t define themselves as Sunni Arab or Shiite Arab or even Kurd. The more we constantly reinforce this and say that [Iraq] is three nations, you are going to start seeing people in Iraq following that. But I don’t think that’s a natural tendency. I don’t think that the cleavages are primordial or ingrained. We need to be very careful about this. The coalition made a few wrong steps early on by assuming that you need to have representation of Sunni Arabs and Kurds in proportion to their demographic constituency. We need to encourage the development of constituencies that are not just along ethnic or religious lines.

Who is likely to take over the leadership after June 30? The U.N. envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, has talked about an interim government led by technocrats. Do you think this will fly with Iraqis?

I think if you talk to the average Iraqi, “technocrats,” whatever that term means, is the right move. The average Iraqi seems to think if you put economists in charge of the economy and the educators in charge of education, all politics will be removed. I’m not sure that’s accurate, but it is a common view of people coming out of authoritarian governments. None of the political parties poll very well. None of the individual leaders garner more than six to seven percent in hypothetical elections. There’s not [much] support for any of the parties, and I think Iraqis want to see technocrats running the country, at least in the short term. It allows some of the parties to form constituencies from which they can compete.

When it comes to national leaders, I think [former Iraqi foreign minister Adnan] Pachachi is the one person who right now seems unthreatening to religious parties, political parties, and average Iraqis. His is a well-known name. He is respected, he has experience in government, and most importantly, he doesn’t have a large party backing him. He’s in his early eighties. People could see him as being a transition person for a two-to-four-year period, until each party felt it would have a chance of doing well in elections. [Few Iraqis think] he’s going to be a [Russian President Vladimir] Putin [who was put in office with no political base, solidified his power, and seems politically unassailable now].

So you endorse the idea of a technocrat-run temporary government?

The goal is to find out what the Iraqi people want. I think the idea is good. I don’t know how it will work in practice. It’s not clear to me exactly what the political parties are supposed to do in this interim period: if they are supposed to go home or if they are still, somehow, to be involved in legislating. As I understand it, legislative authority during this interim period hasn’t been fully resolved. There are going to be some very large speed bumps between June 30 and elections in January. I think the Islamists are going to make another attempt to change personal status laws, such as [those affecting] women’s rights; if they [can’t change] the law I think they will try to [undercut it] administratively. The nature of federalism—how many provinces, the relationship between autonomous regions, if there are autonomous regions, and the center, power-sharing—these issues still need to be worked out.

Are Iraqis happy with the idea of the United States remaining as a security force, or do they want the United States to leave?

Most Iraqis, even though they have been frustrated at the slow pace of progress and the slow process of reconstruction, realize that a continued American presence is necessary for the short to medium term to maintain stability. That’s what all Iraqis want. Most Iraqis aren’t that interested in the political process. They want some sort of stability. Most Iraqis haven’t been able to consume any foreign goods since 1991. On the street now, the economy is booming. People with disposable income are buying cell phones, satellite dishes, microwaves, air conditioners, food processors, used cars. This is what Iraqis want: they want some sort of government to provide them stability where they are able to reintegrate themselves into the world, be able to travel, enjoy what they haven’t had since 1991 [when economic sanctions were imposed], if not earlier.

Has life improved in the past year?

Look at what Iraqis say. [According to an ABC-ARD-BBC-NHK poll ], 56 percent say their life has improved. More important, even more Iraqis think their life is going to improve further in the next year. I think that’s the best indication.

Did you have trouble moving around the country? Did you try to keep your American identity unknown?

No, I told people I’m American. As long as I didn’t speak, they assumed I was an Arab. In the south, I was arrested five times because they thought I was a foreign Arab. They thought I might be Syrian or something like that. I’ve been picked up five times: three times by the Iraqi police and twice by religious militias. Once they found out I’m American, they let me go.