What happens when the centre does not want to hold? Look at Iraq, says Galal Nassar Of everything happening in Iraq the only new development is the soaring rate of casualties. Sectarian violence is claiming dozens of lives daily now that occupation forces have left the streets of Iraqi cities, retiring to their bases where they are safe from road mines, if not from the missiles, of the Iraqi resistance. As regards the political role of the occupation forces, it has little to do with where they are located on the ground and much to do with the plans of the occupying power. There is nothing new in the treachery, aggression and murder that target Iraqi civilians in areas that can best be described as the realms of misery and death. People are still prey to random sectarian violence relentlessly bent on generating an upward spiral of sectarian warfare. Sectarian violence is like a bushfire. It is rapidly fanned and often roars in directions set by those determined to control the winds. Iraq has experienced such conflagrations time and time again. Nor is there anything new in the number of players involved in, and benefiting from, the latest ravages in Iraq. Some say that the primary agent is the major party in the Iraqi government which feels under assault by recent developments in power balances and on the streets, and which therefore believes the only way to ward off the threat to what it imagined to be its permanent hold on power is to reignite sectarian violence. The accusation has been aired on earlier occasions, though the arguments were slightly different. It is also said that certain parties in government are trying to secure their place in power by rallying support among their religious affiliates, staging terrorist attacks against members of the very sects whose support they are seeking. The proponents of this view seem happy to subscribe to the Bush doctrine of inciting alarm against terrorism in order to drive people into the arms of those responsible for the terror in the first place. Others hold that those behind the current wave of bombings hope to induce the occupation forces to remain in the country. They argue that some groups fear that the withdrawal of US forces, especially an accelerated withdrawal, will lead to the collapse of the current government. This view, too, has a familiar ring. The eruptions in Samarra were, according to this theory, the work of an Iraqi party, in collusion with Iran, determined to spread terror in order to convince people of the need for the continued presence of the occupation forces. Some would add that the occupation forces and the private security firms contracted by them to supply mercenaries, among other support services, are lending themselves to such scenarios. The security firms have a profit incentive to remain in Iraq, while there are other parties, the arguments runs, who wish to put paid to the notion that the Americans had to retreat beneath a cloud of defeat hoping, thereby, to forestall a repetition of the Vietnam syndrome. Yet another camp of opinion is keen to stress the part played by other regional powers in view of deteriorating relations between Iran and various Arab governments. The argument runs along the following lines: there are those keen to exploit Iraq's current weakness in order to tip the balance against Iran which has so successfully capitalised on the situation in Iraq until now. Then there is the useful way in which events in Iraq can be used to divert the attention of various Arab publics from domestic problems. Some go so far as to suggest that the latest spate of violence in Iraq is intended to pre-empt or delay the impending battle at home. Again, there is nothing new in such suggestions. To determine whether or not any of the foregoing conjectures are valid it is necessary to take a closer look at what is actually happening in Iraq. Even as opinions fly back and forth one thing is clear, the situation is the outward manifestation of something deeper. What is happening in Iraq is that the political situation is spinning out of control and this has ushered in a new wave of genocide of the Iraqi people. No party in Iraq is immune to crisis at this juncture. The occupation power faces a full-scale strategic and political dilemma. After all the destruction and havoc it wrought in Iraq, at enormous cost to American tax payers and to the severe detriment of its international standing, the US ultimately found that it had to hand control of Iraq to Iran. Washington could not change the balances of political power that it shaped in Iraq in coordination with Iran. Nor could it create the political and military institutions capable of taking control over Iraq in a manner that would serve the interests of the Iraqi people. The occupation authorities also found themselves in the unenviable position of having to court some factions of the Iraqi resistance in the hope of creating a counterweight to the forces backed by Iran. The US cannot leave Iraq in the state that country is in now, not so much because of its fear for Iraq, per se, but because of its anxieties over its interests there, specifically the production and flow of petroleum and other strategic needs. To aggravate the situation further, Washington's allies in the region, perhaps more than its adversaries, are taking advantage of the US's current dilemma to reassert their own agendas. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government that the US hoped to nurture is floundering. On the one hand, the alliances, personal relations and arrangements of convenience among the parties in power are unravelling. There is undoubtedly a connection between domestic tensions in Iran and the mounting discord in Iraq, if not because of the links between certain factions in Iraq with one or other of the parties clashing in Tehran then at least because Tehran is not free to exercise as much influence in Iraq as formerly. To this can be added divergent attitudes among pro-Iranian forces in Iraq towards the circumstances surrounding prospective talks between Tehran and Washington. It seems that Baghdad has woken to the realisation that it is the worn circus lion beleaguered from all sides by indefatigable tamers. The Americans insist upon one change after another in the government's composition, whether to alleviate their current predicament, or to win some kudos with the Arabs (most likely to facilitate progress on other Middle Eastern fronts) and to offset the gains the Iranians have scored in Iraq. The Iranians are exerting just as much pressure in an opposing direction in order to secure their gains in Iraq and to sustain their grip on one of their most important levers in future talks with the US. Meanwhile, the people of Iraq and the resistance forces are lashing out at the government, either because it is incapable of meeting a minimum level of their basic needs or because, to the resistance, it is still an arm of the occupation power, regardless of whether or not the occupation forces are visible in the streets. The forces that took part in the political process of the occupation are in a more precarious position than ever. They are the lame and ailing ageing horses that it would be more humane to put down so that they escape their misery. Alternative political forces are emerging by the day, challenging Nuri Al-Maliki's power bases. The "Sunni" parties pass from one delirium to the next, and even the wayward Shia parties are now shirked by the public after their involvement in criminal activities, such as the recent robberies of the Rafidain Bank and a currency exchange bureau -- incidents which reflect the shortage of funds militias face now that the Americans and Iranians have cut off aid due to their own financial and political straits -- was revealed. Nor are the Kurdish areas immune to challenges to established powers. Suddenly the US-Israeli installed Kurdish leaders who imagined that they held the key to the future of the Kurdish region find themselves challenged in recent elections by local figures and parties who favour closer ties with Baghdad as opposed to secession. As for the resistance forces, they too are in the grips of crisis. Not only are they in disarray due to their failure to unify or agree a coherent strategy for liberation and construction, a major breach has opened in their ranks with the decision of one resistance group to engage in separate negotiations with the occupation authority. In the midst of the tangle of crises in Iraq, the most appalling trend is the inclination on the part of the various parties to solve their problems and achieve their political ends through massacre. The phenomenon appears to have gained as much of a hold over the rival parties and forces, both in Iraq and abroad, under the current conditions of political confusion, as it had at the peak of the occupation. Perhaps it was the occupation forces that set the tone. Reviewing US military campaigns against Iraqi cities, the common thread is a thirst to "discipline" the people who support the resistance, using the most brutal means of collective punishment, massacre and wholesale destruction of buildings and infrastructure, in order to drive the lesson home to potential insurgents in other cities. It is the occupation that was responsible for the emergence of private militias. It actively fostered some of them, supplying money and arms, seeking to use them against civilians as an instrument of repression. On top of this the occupation power had at its disposal the notorious mercenaries and death squads supplied by private security firms and which undertook targeted assassinations and wholesale massacres also intended to serve political ends. Now, it appears, genocide tops the agenda of the occupation authority. Granted, the occupation forces' scope for direct operations has shrunk with their withdrawal into their bases, with the result that they have to resort to less overt means. The same applies to the governing authorities installed by the occupation. Faced with a dwindling physical presence and political sway, their sole choice is to wreak havoc through staged terrorist acts, tightening security as they point fingers, and using the opportunity to rally religious affiliates whose kin have fallen victim to the violence. Genocide has become the instrument of choice in the north as well as the south. Fanatic Kurdish leaders have turned to ethnic cleansing in the region over which they want to secure their control. Meanwhile, Iraq's neighbours continue to dread the day when Iraq will be able to stand on its own two feet and are doing their utmost to drive the country into an endless spiral of sectarian violence. As always, the Iraqi people are paying the highest price. If the resistance is their sole source of succour, the resistance in its current state offers little hope. Only through solidifying its ranks and adopting a unified strategy can the resistance become Iraq's road to safety and salvation.
