By Isam Al-Khafaji * In the countless workshops, meetings and conferences on Iraq that have been held over the past years, one hears the same question again and again: to what extent do Iraqis oppose the existing regime, and how strong and viable is the Iraqi opposition? Out of the 22 million Iraqis, some three or four million have voted with their feet, simply by leaving Iraq. Many others would certainly follow if they had the chance. The almost 3.5 to four million Kurds are overwhelmingly opposed to the regime. The record of bloody and cruel repression has not spared any political faction or community in Iraq. This should be enough to show how hated this regime is. Yet the other half of the question is not that easy to answer. With Saddam's regime occupying a class of its own among dictators (perhaps only Pol Pot would have the right to challenge that claim), it should be all too obvious that the present political map of the Iraqi forces opposing the regime is highly unrepresentative and distorted. The world had to wait for around a decade after the fall of such "relatively milder" dictators as Spain's Franco or Portugal's Salazar before knowing who was who and what each force represented on the political map of these two countries. Pending that, coup attempts, insurrections and militant rebellions were part and parcel of the transition process to democracy. This is the necessary legacy of dictatorships, which create, by definition, a political vacuum and impoverish the political culture of their subjects. Iraq is no exception. The many existing Iraqi opposition movements, therefore, cannot claim to represent substantial sections of the Iraqi population, despite the fact that most Iraqis oppose Saddam Hussein's regime. Witness to this is the fact that only a very tiny minority of Iraqis living in exile have joined any of the existing movements, despite their opposition to the regime, on the one hand, and their freedom to choose their political affiliation, on the other. Most of those that deserted Saddam's camp and went into exile chose to remain independent. Iraq's case, in fact, is more similar to the dictatorships of eastern Europe, Spain and Portugal than to Nicaragua or Afghanistan. With Iraq's relatively modern urban society and highly centralised polity, any attempts at detaching a "liberated pocket" from which a triumphant liberation army can launch attacks (then call upon the population to rise against the regime) are nothing but a farce. It is this social structure, as well as other factors pertaining to the Iraqi opposition, not the lack of money or military support, that impose severe restrictions on the opposition's potential to develop into a pan-Iraqi liberation movement. These factors may be summed up as follows. First, the Iraqi opposition, to quote Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post, "has suddenly become a national issue in American politics" (5 March 1998). It has indeed become a domestic issue, because the US has taken upon itself the task of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Yet President Clinton and his top aides have assured the American public time and again that this task will not involve the loss of human life -- American human life, that is -- under any circumstances. This was the rationale for not dispatching American ground troops inside Iraq, -- not because of legal or moral issues, but because of the fear of sacrificing American lives. When an enthusiastic American Congress rediscovered the benefits of adopting, embracing (and squeezing to death?) a renovated, polished Iraqi opposition earlier this year, the message to all Iraqis, victims and enemies of the dictator as well as Saddam Hussein himself, was quite clear: the overthrow of Saddam is an American task, the aim of which is to serve American interests. In accomplishing this task, however, the sacrifice of Iraqi lives is the least costly option. This begs a somewhat naive question: how many Americans would be willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of non-American interests? If the obvious answer is none, why then should Iraqis, who have been sacrificing their lives, freedom and security for 30 years with no external assistance, or even recognition, be discovered today as the potential agents of a superpower using them to implement its own goals? Second, what gives the US the authority to decide what it thinks is a democratic movement representing the interests of the Iraqi people? The testimony of Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmed Chalabi earlier this year before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Near Eastern and South Asian Subcommittee, began by a bold statement: "I am here as an elected representative of the Iraqi people and, in their name, I am proud to speak with you today." This statement gives the impression that an elected president like Mr Aristide of Haiti has been deposed by a junta and is looking for American help to restore legitimacy. This is not the case at all. True, Mr Chalabi was "elected" by a group of 400 Iraqi opposition figures back in 1992. But even if one accepts that these 400 figures represent the Iraqi people, Mr Chalabi must also accept their subsequent no-confidence vote as equally democratic. The INC's general assembly never reconvened after the first congress of 1992. Its three-member presidential council ceased to exist; the two main Kurdish parties left it, as did 10 other parties and organisations, not to mention many individuals, including members of the Executive Council headed by Mr Chalabi. The declared reasons behind these resignations varied from charges against Mr Chalabi of dictatorial behaviour, to complaints that he was connected with the CIA. Third, any claim that reports on INC-CIA connections have not tarnished the image of the INC (and the Iraqi opposition in general) would be a gross insult to all Iraqis. In fact, these connections have rendered a great service to Saddam Hussein and his propaganda machine, which capitalised on them by portraying any opposition to his regime as unpatriotic and serving the interests of foreign powers. The resignations and withdrawals from the INC came partly in response to the disclosure of Mr Chalabi's CIA connections. He has not come up with any explanation or evidence to the contrary. When the scandal broke out in 1995, the INC's Executive Council issued a statement that it would take the necessary steps to sue the New York Times. Nothing happened. Then Mr Chalabi himself wrote an article denying these reports, but insisting, as the head of a self-styled democratic organisation, that he is under no obligation to disclose his sources of finance even to his Executive Council, the Presidential Council or the General Assembly of the INC. Fourth, attempts have been made to "explain" the drastic failure of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi organisations (the INC or the Wifaq) to overthrow Saddam's regime by reference to the lack of American financial and logistic support. My argument runs contrary to that. According to various reports, the CIA spent some $200 million for that purpose between 1992 and 1996, that is, an average of $40 million per year. If only half of this amount had been spent on recruiting Iraqis living in the areas controlled by Saddam's regime, it would have been enough to provide a monthly salary of 2,500 dinars (the equivalent of that of a junior army officer) for 700,000 Iraqi families, i.e. around 2.5 million people. So it would be difficult to argue that the CIA has not been generous with its clients. The ball should now be in the clients' court, since they are supposed to present their balance sheets to their financiers, or to their "alleged" constituencies. It is only reasonable to argue, therefore, that what the Iraqi opposition needs most is not more US money or CIA support, but less US involvement in what was, and should remain, an Iraqi domestic issue: that of overthrowing the regime. Very few Iraqis would be proud of their country being treated as the US dealt with Jamaica or Panama. In fact, the plan adopted earlier this year by the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, and shared by Mr Chalabi, called upon the US not to help Iraqis liberate their country from a despotic regime, but to liberate parts of Iraq and hand them to an Iraqi opposition group. The naive assumptions upon which this wishful thinking rests must be questioned at every turn. 1) What if Saddam declined to withdraw his forces from that region? Would the US use ground troops to enforce withdrawal? 2) What if a major Western power like France or Russia sided with the Iraqi regime and challenged the legitimacy of US demands? 3) What if a neighbouring country considered US intervention a step toward the partitioning of Iraq, and sent in troops to prevent it? 4) What if the INC entered the "liberated" zone, but failed to ignite the long-awaited uprising? Would its failure not lead to a de facto partitioning of Iraq, or a civil war? 5 ) What if one or more other opposition group decided to establish bases in the liberated zone? Would the US then support one party and crush the others? Or would we witness infighting as to which is the "real" provisional government ? 6) What if two or three provisional governments, each supported by a foreign power, all claimed to represent the "real" opposition? On what grounds could a US-backed provisional government claim its authenticity? And on and on. It would be wise for the US not to commit Iraq's frozen resources to a group that has yet to prove that it represents some Iraqis, let alone the majority of them. In conclusion, the world community certainly has a role to play in ensuring the Iraqi regime's compliance with its international obligations. If this is done properly, it would facilitate the efforts of the Iraqi people to establish a democratic and pluralistic government. Regrettably, the US has so far failed to distinguish between the Iraqi regime and the Iraqi people. In fact, by sending a message to the Iraqi people that they will suffer more sanctions and devastation if "their" regime does not comply with UN resolutions, the US is helping to unite the regime with its victims. The sanctions could have been politically meaningful if Saddam Hussein had been elected by the people, which was the case with Hitler. They could have been purposeful if there existed a mechanism by which to exert pressure on the regime, as was the case with Apartheid in South Africa. The Iraqi dictator, on the other hand, is accountable to nobody. In fact, by allowing Iraq to export some $11 billion worth of oil per year, the UN is in effect lifting the sanctions on exports, as figures suggest that Iraq's export capacity falls short of that. The right thing to do would have been to lift the embargo on Iraq's exports, while continuing to monitor imports. This would allow Iraqis to return to a semblance of normality and engage in activities other than making ends meet. It would also dissociate Iraqis from the regime, which is using their rationing cards as an additional means to ensure their silence. The second task of the international community is to concentrate pressure where it really belongs -- that is, on the regime -- by responding to the ever-increasing calls to indict Saddam Hussein and his clique on at least two crimes: genocide against his own people (the Al-Anfal campaign of 1987-1988, in which 180,000 Kurds were killed; the suppression of the March 1991 uprising, in which 60,000 killed; the gassing of Halabcha, in which 5,000 were killed...), and war crimes against Iran and Kuwait. Opponents to such an approach argue that indicting the Iraqi regime can only be a symbolic measure, as there is no way of bringing the regime's pillars to trial. But this argument is flawed, simply because indicting the regime in absentia would, first, place serious pressure on it and hamper the free movement of its leaders; and, more importantly, it would provide the legal basis for not recognising the regime as an interlocutor and representative of Iraq. Lift the embargo on Iraqi exports, indict Saddam's regime and let the Iraqi people alone decide the future of their country. * The writer is an Iraqi political exile residing in the Netherlands.
