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Dual Intransigence: An Assessment of the US-Iran Conflict and Prospects for Rapprochement

THE INITIAL MILITARY SUCCESSES in Iraq and Afghanistan were overcome by protracted insurgencies and political instability, resulting in tenuous gains in democratic development that came at an enormous cost. The United States is fast approaching a decade at war. In these current conditions of political and military fatigue, a U.S. invasion of Iran seems unlikely; however, the Iranian regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its fierce anti-Americanism create the imperative to consider a future where diplomatic and economic coercion is exhausted, and no options remain other than military action. Should a war become necessary, lessons learned during the Coalition occupation of Iraq can be instructional for conjecture on a post-invasion Iran. The similarities are many: repressive leadership, a brutal security apparatus, and a society in search of opportunity, social mobility, and political inclusion. Ethnicity and sectarianism play key roles both in public and in private life. And although Iraqi Baathism differs drastically from Islamism, parallels exist in their use of oppression and state control. These key similarities and distinctions between government, society, and security in Iraq and Iran, in light of Iraq's immediate pre-and post-war environment, can illuminate the major challenges of shaping the peace in a post-war Iran. Government, society, and security in Iraq COALITION EFFORTS TO establish a democratic Iraqi government encountered societal challenges from the beginning. The Bush administration operated under the impression that after Coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraqis would welcome the liberators. This theory was only partly true, and the part that was true was fleeting. Of the 27 million Iraqis, 18.5 percent are Sunni Arabs and 55 percent are Shia--or, in the words of Hassan al-Alawi, the country is divided between the "sect of the rulers" (the former) and the "sect of the ruled." The fall of Saddam Hussein brought an end to Sunni Arab glory, and for them, there was no liberation in that. A sense of liberation did sweep over the Shia, and the Kurds as well, who comprise nearly 20 percent of the population, but it was short-lived. The envisioned embrace of democracy, freedom, and equality was supplanted by the distrust and suspicion that many Iraqis had for foreign occupiers and for indigenous rival sects and ethnicities. The Coalition that swept away the regime could do nothing to assuage the pain caused by the mass graves filled with victims of Saddam's brutality--a malice that left over 150,000 Shia dead, an estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages destroyed, 1.5 million people displaced, and up to 180,000 Kurds killed under orders of Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid. As summer replaced spring in 2003, retribution among separate Iraqi social classes emerged, and internecine violence increased as Iraqis settled old scores in the absence of law and order. Without ample military forces or a coherent plan to protect the population, security in Iraq disintegrated, and the liberators morphed into occupiers, rekindling memories of the British occupation after World War I during the formation of the modern Iraqi state. A study of this period reveals a historical Iraqi loathing for occupation and a proclivity for heightened sectarian animosity relative to other Islamic societies. In April 1920, the League of Nations mandated that Britain prepare Iraq for self-rule. Having endured British occupation since 1914, most Iraqis were not receptive to an indefinite extension of colonial administration, and in defiance, on June 30, 1920, Iraq embarked upon a six-month, Shia-inspired insurrection against the British. The British, reports William Roe Polk in his book Understanding Iraq, lost 1,654 men and spent six times what they had spent during their entire World War I Middle East campaign. Horrified by the losses and the financial drain, the British taste for a presence in Iraq soured. …

Leif Eckholm

Papers

Invading Iran: Lessons from Iraq