Thanks for the cite, David. The Wikipedia entry is somewhat less than comprehensive.
Stranger
But what is “Persian Iraq”? AFAIK, ethnic Persians are a minoirty in Iraq, if they exist at all. if you look at a map of Iraq, Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra span the length of modern day Iraq.
I’m just challenging the conventional wisdom, and asking for information. I don’t claim to know much of anything about Ottoman era Iraq, other than the common statement that Iraq was part of that empire. I’ll open a GQ thread in the hopes that someone like **Tamerlane **can explain the situation.
BTW, Stranger, I don’t mean to hijack this thread into a discussion about Ottoman Iraq, but it wasn’t exaclty clear what you wanted to debate here. Can you spell that out? I’ve certainly seen interviews with Sunni and Shiite Iraqis who say the feel that they are Iraqis first, and Sunni/Shiite second, but I have no idea how pervasive that mindset is. I suspect it’s more common in urban, mixed areas and less common in rural, ethinically homogenous areas.
Still, even if they don’t feel much allegiance to the current borders, there really isn’t any better solution. You can’t just divide up Iraq into Sunni Arab, Shiite, and Kurdish areas-- there are too many mixed regioins. And of the nominally Sunni area isn’t a viable state, anyway. Furthermore, it’s unclear how a civil war would ever end. Besides religion and ethnicity, Iraqis are loyal to their family clans, of which there are dozens (maybe hyundreds).
I don’t think it is to anyone’s advantage to allow Iraq to be divided up, and don’t think any of Iraq’s neighbors would allow that to happen if we were to leave. A true civil war in Iraq would almost certainly escalate into a regional war including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria. How would that be better than the current situation?
Ok.
Again, true (to a point…I’m not sure that the characterization of ‘little’ cultural similarity is quite accurate). I’m unsure what this has to do with the question of Iraqi nationalism TODAY though. 1918 was 88 years ago after all. Certainly enough time for SOME sense of ‘Iraqiness’ to grow among the population, no?
I ask again (as I see John Mace has)…whats the debate here exactly? Are we debating whether or not there is some level of Iraqi nationalism…or the fact that Rice et al miscalculated? Or that the administration is a bunch of idiots? Or…something else?
-XT
Iran
I’m just starting to read the site in my post. It looks to me like the Ottomans had a province for Kurds, Mosul; a province for Sunnis, Bagdhad; and a province for Shi’ites, Basra. The was an entirely separate province or provinces for Persians and that became Iran.
I’m far from aware of all the ins and outs of Iraq, however I do know that 88 years is the wink of an eye in ethnic or religious strife. I think what it has to do with Iraq nationalism today is that there isn’t a whole lot of it. It would seem to me that the main loyalties are to tribes and religion and not any nation.
I suppose some “Iraqness” has developed among secular Iraqis. I wonder how many of them there are and what their place in the new government will be.
It doesn’t appear to be so. Since the fall of Saddam, Iraq has refractured along the same ethnic and religious lines that existed before the repressive regimes of recent past forced the country together.
What I see is the Administration overselling this “Iraqness” as a strong point in favor of a successful conclusion to the business. The truth is that there is a weak sense of nationality among the residents. This can and indeed must be improved if there is to be a stable, secular, all-inclusive representative government in Iraq. But claiming, as Rice seems to be doing, that the plan is:
[ol]
[li]Appeal to “Iraqness”,[/li][li]???[/li][li]Peace![/ol][/li]ignores the reality of the situation, which is that the so-called coalition government is nothing more than a collection of competing interests that is likely to fall apart at the first major challenge. Sell it for what it is–a long, fairly risky process to bringing the Iraqi people to a point where they are prepared to effectively self-govern. Not an appeal to a mostly illusionary Iraqi nationalism.
Stranger
There was something about just this on From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 the weekend before last. The correspondent noted that just after the fall of Saddam, vox pops he took comprised Iraqis united against a common enemy and proclaiming their Iraqiness. Three years on, he said that sense of unity has dissolved into tribalism first, and national identity second.
When you get right down to it, I think it’s pretty unlikely that a government imposed by a foreign conquerer is going to attract any Iraqi nationalists. If there are any, I expect they are with the insurgents.
Well, how much or how little there is I’m not exactly sure. What I AM sure of is that it exists to some degree.
As for the amount of time…think about how long Germany was a unified nation before German nationalism took over. It was less than 88 years. US nationalism (well, we call it Patriotism) also took hold in less than 88 years…and with arguably a more diverse population (though perhaps without all the tribal/clan blood fueds).
I think its more than just among the secular Iraqis. I don’t discount that clan and tribal (or even regions) allegiance is probably a higher priority to most Iraqis than Iraqi nationalism…I’m just pointing out that Iraqi nationalism is far from a non effect that it seems its being made out to be.
True…however, how many Iraqis are calling for the dismembering of Iraq into separate states? Afaik not many. So SOME level of ‘Iraqiness’ is certainly there. Also I think that the factionalism can be prevalent and there STILL be a sense of an ‘Iraq’ as a whole.
I don’t think its the sense of Iraqi nationalism (weak or strong) that has lead to what we currently face. Its more of ‘who will hold the whip hand’ IMHO…the old guard who held it for decades or the majority. THAT seems (to me) to be the major point of contention…not whether or not there should BE a unified Iraq (which is what Iraqi nationalism or a sense of ‘Iraqiness’ really boils down too). Even the Kurds seem to be mostly on board with keeping Iraq unified…and I’d say Iraqi nationalism is weakest there.
I think the weakness of Rice (and ultimately Bush and the Administrations) plan lay in underestimating the underlieing factionalism…and the underlieing fear on the part of the Sunnis to losing control through a democracy. Also underestimating the level of violence that would transpire in Iraq, underestimating the realistic forces and effort the US would have to commit to bring about a stable Iraq, underestimating world opinion towards the US and how this has steadily erroded US moral towards this fucked up adventure…etc etc.
Well, while I doubt they (quite) thought in such simplistic terms about what it would take to ‘win’ in Iraq, I agree that they certainly underestimated the environment. Again, I don’t agree with you that an appeal to Iraqi nationalism is the root of the fuckup, nor do I agree that Iraqi nationalism is quite as lacking as you seem to be saying.
At the core though I think we agree that some serious underestimations were made by our government with reguard to Iraq.
-XT
Precisely.
If you keep supporting your adult kids, you’ll keep supporting them. At some point you have to tell them to pay their own bills. A little advance warning is usually merited.
Both Germany and Japan today have a pretty healthy sense of ‘German-ness’ and ‘Japan-ness’…and we ‘imposed’ our ideas of government on them exactly the same way we did in Iraq. I think your reasoning is flawed if you think that this is the core reason it failed.
I seriously doubt the ‘insurgents’ inspire any great sense of nationalism with the vast majority of the population…outside (perhaps) their little corner of Iraq where they come from. There IS no monolithic ‘insurgency’…just a lot of little bands, some of which aren’t even Iraqi at all. And they all seem to be fighting for different goals…most of which don’t seem to have much to do with ‘Iraqiness’.
-XT
Iran was not under the control of the Ottomans, so I’m not sure how “Persian Iraq” = Iran. At any rate, I openned a thread in GD to better understand Iraq under the Ottomans.
Well, I think we’re all more or less just guesing how much “Iraqiness” there is, but the last election had a pretty good turnout, so that’s one sign. We’ll see how that plays out over the next few elections. But I doubt that the neighboring countries will allow it to be carved up, and I don’t think any of the factions want to become subsumed into one of their neighbors, so one way or another I think they are going to have to find a way to function as a unified country.
The Kurds don’t want to become part of Turkey, and the Sunnis Arabs don’t want to become part of Saudi Arabia or Syria (which is run by a Shiite clan, btw), and the Shiites have no reason to want to become a minority again by joining with Iran and it’s 70M people, only 8% of whom are Arab.
The problem here is that there are no good solutions, only solutions of varying degrees of badness. The “least bad” solution is that the country remain within its present borders.