What do Iraqis want? (Martin Woollacott - August 2002)
This piece by Martin Woollacott in the Guardian doesn't offer anything like a definitive answer to the question posed in the heading, but it does offer some useful food for thought. The main reason it struck my eye is that it very effectively points out something important about the current debates: With very few exceptions, neither proponents nor opponents of military action against Saddam Hussein's regime actually care much about what Iraqis themselves might want, or about the welfare of ordinary Iraqis.
(This is obviously true of the two partly-overlapping Bush administrations, of course; but I'm afraid that, with some exceptions, it's also true of almost arguments against military action that I've seen. Naturally, some people on both sides claim to be motivated by humanitarian concern about the Iraqi population, but I sometimes find it hard to decide which kind of hypocrisy--or, sometimes, naivete--I find more offensive.)
If most Iraqis are ready for the risks of a war to get rid of Saddam, it may not mean in itself that such a war would be wise, but surely it alters the context in which decisions are to be made. The American administration may not see what it plans as primarily a rescue of the Iraqi people but that is, among other things, what it would be.
If we decide not to join in an effort to rescue the Iraqis because the effort would be too costly and dangerous to us, exposing our own populations to unacceptable risk, then we had better be honest about it, as we were during the cold war when we left the Hungarians and others to the mercy of the Russians. Prudence, however, is not the only virtue that nations can display.
During the past few weeks, I've tried to avoid getting sucked too deeply into these debates myself, since that could easily swallow up all one's time. (That's one reason why I'm afraid I've left a few loose ends dangling in my e-mail exchanges--temporarily, I hope.) But this piece highlights some issues worth considering.
Yours in struggle,
Jeff Weintraub
======================
The Guardian
August 16, 2002
One in six Iraqis are in exile,
and they want this war
Many have fled Saddam Hussein's
tyranny. We must listen to them
Martin Woollacott
Friday August 16, 2002
The Guardian
That difference reflects a wider division between the left and liberal classes in the west, especially in Europe, and what might be called the Iraqi liberal diaspora. Indeed, outside of specialist circles like that at the conference, it is less a difference than an ignorance. Close to one in six Iraqis are in exile, and it is extraordinary that the views of this large community, as well as the insights they offer into the feelings of those still in the country, should have been neglected so far in the Iraq debate.
That debate goes back and forth, as it has done in Britain over the last three weeks, with only the most perfunctory references to the views of Iraqis themselves. Opponents of the war, after the obligatory admission that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant, move rapidly on to criticise the wilfulness of American policy, the danger of flouting international law, the risks that weapons of mass destruction will be used and the anger of Arabs and other Muslims at an assault on a fraternal country, especially when the US has put so little pressure on Israel to change its ways.
Most advocates of war, after an equally brief mention of Saddam's sins against his own people, move on just as rapidly to stress the danger that the same weapons of mass destruction (those Saddam has now and those he may soon acquire), represent to people outside Iraq, especially to Israel and to western countries. Until now it has been a largely selfish debate in Europe and America, centring on the threats to the west and its friends on the one hand, and on the moral issues arising from American hegemony on the other. It has been all about us, and not at all about them. It has been even more selfish among Arabs, if it has taken place at all. The spectrum of what it is politically permissible to agitate about in Arab countries runs from Palestine at one end to Palestine at the other, with no room, in public at least, for the plight of Iraqis.
The measure of Iraqi opinion abroad is not to be found in the statements of the professional opposition but in the private opinions of hundreds of thousands of households around the world. The Iraqi diaspora is one largely created by Saddam's regime and it is naturally animated by dislike, to put it at a minimum, of the man who drove them out. In more benign circumstances there would of course be some Iraqis living outside Iraq. But these huge numbers, between 4 and 5 million, against a population of 23 million in Iraq, tell a different story.
There is an older generation of educated migrants, including opponents of the regime in its earlier days; then those who fled to avoid the murderous war that Saddam started with Iran; then the half-million or so he expelled into Iran because they were ethnically or religiously suspect; and, finally, the wave after wave of mainly middle-class migrants who came out in the 1990s.
In the broadest sense their motives were political, in that they did not wish to live in Saddam's Iraq, they did not wish their sons to serve in his armies or their most talented members to be coopted into the regime. It is not that, deportations aside, it is easy to leave. Saddam makes that almost impossible for certain professions, such as scientists and doctors, and businessmen often have chosen to sell up and go abroad with only a fraction of their previous wealth.
No doubt there are some abroad who support Saddam, others who are neutral and others who want to see him go but do not think an American war is the way to do it. But what the majority think, in the words of one careful student of Iraqi opinion, is that "military action is the price that has to be paid for the removal of the regime, and this is also the view of most Iraqis in the country". Iraqis at home, leaving aside those so complicit with the regime that they fear change will bring disaster and death to their families, are "worried about bombs raining down on them but things are so bad that they will take that prospect on... People in Iraq are waiting for the strike to happen".
There are few followers among Iraqis, according to the same source, for the "wait until he dies" school, and much fear of the chaos that might come as as Saddam's sons and followers strive to survive. By contrast, most Iraqis regard western predictions about civil war in the aftermath of an American attack as almost racist. Such arguments ignore Iraq's large educated and democratically inclined middle class, much of it in the diaspora but ready to return, the lessons learned by Iraq's peoples under the dictatorship and the heartfelt longing for a new start.
The silence of those in Iraq is understandable. But why are the voices of Iraqis abroad not heard? There are reasons. First, every Iraqi family abroad has hostages at home, in the shape of relatives who remained. Second, there has been until recently an understandable cynicism about how serious the Americans were about displacing Saddam. Third, there is the dominance of the Palestinian issue. Iraqis may feel they have as much right to look to the outside world for redress as Palestinians do, but that is not what the world has seemed to think. Finally, there is the inattention of the west. It does not seem to want to hear, even when Iraqis such as Kanan Makiya (the Iraqi scholar whose analysis of the evils of the regime was so influential at the time of the Gulf war), speak out.
If most Iraqis are ready for the risks of a war to get rid of Saddam, it may not mean in itself that such a war would be wise, but surely it alters the context in which decisions are to be made. The American administration may not see what it plans as primarily a rescue of the Iraqi people but that is, among other things, what it would be.
If we decide not to join in an effort to rescue the Iraqis because the effort would be too costly and dangerous to us, exposing our own populations to unacceptable risk, then we had better be honest about it, as we were during the cold war when we left the Hungarians and others to the mercy of the Russians. Prudence, however, is not the only virtue that nations can display.
posted by Jeff Weintraub at 3:31 PM
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