What if Potatoes Grew in Iraq?

Dr. S. M. Rahman

There is a great hullabaloo about democracy – the political oxygen – as if the tormented Iraqis were so desperately gasping for, and that the Iraq war came as a therapeutic necessity. USA’s George Bush and lone supporter Tony Blair, constituted the so-called coalition needed to justify what humanity at large, unequivocally condemned as unjust war. But, perhaps, democratic governance of Iraq transcended all other considerations. Even the vox-populi (voice of people) – which is the quintessential norm of democracy - had to be sacrificed for the sake of Iraqis freedom. In reality, however, truth is the most blatant causality in the Iraq war.

The great Gettysburg idea as propounded by a very visionary US leader - Abraham Lincoln: “government of the people, by the people, for the people” – is undoubtedly what democracy is all about. But the catch is by the people. Any imposed order from without is utterly repugnant to democratic sensibility. Democracy is essentially a farm concept. Soil to be prepared, seeds to be sown and watered. All these patiently and persistently. There is no quick fix in democracy. No one-time solution. Pearl S. Buck rightly pointed out, “History has shown that democracy has developed only when the dangers and difficulties of human life are reduced to a certain minimum”. Iraq did not meet the precondition, as ever since the Gulf war I in 1991, the country was, as if, an extended experimental laboratory, set up to study how human beings (homosapiens) behave under conditions of grave deprivations, sanctions and continuous exposure to death, dread and destruction.

The second war in Iraq lasted for 23 days before the ‘Will’ of the people collapsed. Not an ordinary achievement if dispassionately viewed in terms of human endurance. How could then “democracy” be a lollypop to people living under such excruciating conditions? If anything insecurity and threat impels people to surrender their freedom. A very enlightening thesis was propounded by Erich Fromm in his famous book Escape from Freedom, that dictators have been known to thrive on peoples’ miseries and sense of insecurity. One need not go back in history, just see what happened in the case of USA. The 9/11 episode was overly propagated through media to create paranoia in the US citizens. The threat of terrorism became so overwhelming that the same people who lived for the glory of individual rights are now willingly surrendering these to gain a sense of security. Jessica Stern in her book “The ultimate terrorist” had predicted as to what could happen if terrorists targeted say Empire State Building in New York (she wrote it before 9/11), and said that “leaders might feel compelled to reinforce the government’s authority to search out and deport foreign terrorists, and might call for measures that would violate civil rights. Phones might be tapped, foreigner’s movements monitored. Mosques, for example, might be targeted for surveillance. Rights of free speech and free assembly might be curtailed. There would probably be much more sympathy for FBI snooping, for CIA spying, and for chips that monitor electronic conversations. Citizens might demand an expansion of military’s role in protecting civilians at home. Within days, the American way of life might change substantially”. It did. USA has lost its glory and glitter. It was bastion of soft power and the sublime values that characterized its national ethos – is very much on the wane. The worst sufferer is USA itself.

Terrorism and democracy are not bedfellows. Iraq war in defiance to UN resolutions cannot but be termed as state-terrorism at a colossal scale. The magnitude of suffering and human miseries that it entailed is indeed one of the worst witnessed in human history. For Iraq it was a replay of loot and plunder and savage destruction of its cultural heritage, as it had happened during the Mongol invasion. The upholder of so-called values of liberalism, modernity and democratic governance inflicted the same wounds on the people of Iraq, as did the Mongol tyrant ‘Halaku’. What difference did it make to the Iraqis? What credibility is left for US brand democracy that it was so hurriedly committed to import to Iraq?

Democracy according to American forebears like Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the hope of the world. “If in our generation”, he said can “ continue it successful application in the Americas it will spread and supersede other methods by which men are governed and which seems to most of us to run, counter to our ideals of human liberty and progress”. But in the recent history all the three successive US presidents did not act as models for democracy to flourish in the world. Paul Krugman a respectable columnist in New York Times in his write-up, “Bush’s Weapons of Mass Deceit”, regretted the way the administration hyped the threat Saddam Hussein posed to US. Neither the much published WMD nor Saddam with all his follies, nor regime change were the reasons that led to such a high-profile-technological-war, which objectively speaking was neither war nor victory in any sense of the term. Democracy is as elusive in Iraq as it is in Afghanistan. The difference is that Afghans have taken up Arms against US occupation, whereas, Iraqis are politically agile and signaling message for USA to leave Iraq to determine their own political destiny.

The US has more than 400,000 troops assigned in different parts of the world to protect its oil interest. Iraq had to be captured as a geo-economic compulsion to gain control of its too prized oil wealth. Had it only grown potatoes it could evade its tragedy. The Iraq war to say in Clintonian way – it was black gold stupid!