Saddam Hussein’s execution is a pivotal event, one which
calls for a
re-evaluation of the positive consequences of the American-led
invasion of Iraq, as well as our present strategy of attempting to
rebuild Iraq.
The U.S. has achieved several crucial accomplishments in this
war, primarily the liberation of millions of people, which are
downplayed in the pessimistic media environment as most reports
focus on the ongoing sectarian violence.
The current violence, though, requires that we consider a more
comprehensive political solution than simply deciding whether to
increase or decrease the number of U.S. troops. Rather than
establishing a single democracy which forces bitterly warring sects
together, it should instead consider more of a loose confederation
with autonomy for each group.
Within hours of Hussein’s execution ““ a seemingly
key positive event ““ media outlets reported that the event
could serve to increase violence, something that has yet to be
clearly manifest.
But the same reporters have been spreading these claims for some
time, playing up reports that the removal of Hussein’s regime
and the continued American presence destabilizes the region into
open violence. Some even suggest that Iraq was more peaceful under
Hussein’s brutal regime.
Yet thousands died in the mass graves of Hussein’s brutal
regime, including 5,000 Kurdish villagers killed in a single 1988
attack. Some accounts put the total number murdered under
Hussein’s regime at more than 200,000.
For comparison, IraqBodyCount.org
puts the number of Iraqis killed since the U.S. invasion between
53,000 and 59,000, and even that number may be inflated due to its
heavy reliance on unofficial eyewitness accounts.
Hussein’s government-sanctioned killings have been
decisively put to an end. Many of his murders occurred under a
brutally enforced veil of secrecy in which his opponents simply
disappeared.
The situation is far more positive than media reports let on;
there is no question that Iraq is far better off than it was under
Hussein.
There is the lower death toll achieved by removing a tyrant who
massacred his own people and who invaded Kuwait. The U.S.
eliminated an exporter of terror ““ Hussein harbored
terrorists and funded suicide attacks in Israel. In addition,
Iraqis now enjoy priceless freedoms, as well as healthy economic
growth, which the Global Insight firm estimates had a gross
domestic product growth rate of 17 percent for 2005.
Despite these successes, the ongoing violence suggests that it
may very well be time to dismantle another part of Hussein’s
legacy.
The dictator held the country together by violence. Under
Hussein’s regime, the Sunni Muslim minority dominated the
Shiite majority (making up around one-third and two-thirds of the
population, respectively).
Iraq as a nation is largely a fabrication. The British captured
the territory from the Ottoman Empire during World War I, and the
League of Nations created Iraq’s borders when it declared
Iraq a mandate in 1920. These borders lumped together several
groups, including religiously distinct Shiites and Sunnis, and
ethnically different Kurds and Arabs, with little common
identity.
Decades of tyrants, culminating in Hussein, held the various
groups together through oppression, putting down multiple
separatist uprisings.
The overthrow of Hussein’s regime merely forced the Iraqis
to openly address a fundamental conflict that had never been
resolved, a conflict now categorized by many as a full-blown civil
war. Hussein’s regime effectively carried out a civil war,
evidenced by the large number of Iraqis the tyrant killed. The
bloodshed was just more one-sided than today’s conflict.
The new Iraqi constitution already contains some amount of
power-sharing, including a guarantee of representation for
different groups from different areas of the country.
But, in light of ongoing violence, rather than continuing to
forge a country from such fundamentally different groups such as
Sunnis and Shiites, the U.S. should look into creating a
confederacy in which each of the sects would be largely
autonomous.
This may mitigate the violence which claims the lives of Iraqis
and American troops. This violence results from a Shiite backlash
against the Sunnis, who benefited from Hussein’s brutal
regime, as well as a Sunni reaction to their loss of power.
There is some precedent for such a system of representation
based on consensus between self-governing regions. Termed
consociational democracy by political scientists, the system seeks
to resolve struggles for control between ethnic groups within a
country, according to Michael Thies, assistant professor of
political science at UCLA. He mentioned Belgium, Switzerland and
Lebanon as possible examples of the strategy’s success.
The fact that the control over oil is at the center of disputes
lends itself to a relatively easy compromise. According to Thies,
“Oil is a resource that is sold for money, which can be
distributed easily, since it is infinitely divisible.”
Establishing a system of this sort would not be admitting
defeat, but it would be acknowledging past errors ““ which the
U.S. did not commit ““ in the creation and brutal enforcement
of the borders of a country which only really existed on paper.
Lasting peace would then be within reach because, as the cliche
goes, good fences make good neighbors.
If you want to play a rousing round of Risk with Lazar,
e-mail him at dlazar@media.ucla.edu.