The changing face of Iraqi national reconciliation

Vice President Biden’s visit to Baghdad yesterday and today is getting scarce mention in the U.S. press, with the emphasis mainly on talk about economic cooperation and a few well-time bombs that killed two Iraqis.  But far bigger things are happening here.

The atmosphere, as I posted yesterday, is a good deal brighter and more optimistic than it has been for a long time.  The “national partnership” government, while recognized as less than ideal in the way it assigned ministries to coalition partners according to a weighting system, is a symbol of success in Iraqi eyes, opening up the possibility of a broader social and civic effort to limit violence and bring an end to the militias that have plagued Iraqi streets for too many years.  Iraqi investigative capacities are not getting much stronger, but the population is giving the security forces a lot more help with tips about where to find weapons and who is planning attacks.

The new parliament and government are viewed as distinctly different from their predecessors, despite the repeating figure of the prime minister.  The previous parliament was strongly affected by the violence of 2006/7, which created serious political problems.  The broad distribution of ministerial portfolios in the new government is expected to pacify the situation, or as Arab League secretary general said this week during his visit to Baghdad “the political situation has matured.”  The national partnership government will not necessarily be the most effective, but it is expected to prevent a return to war.  That is good news for Americans, who want nothing to prevent most of their forces from getting out of Iraq by the December 31 deadline, even if they might like to be asked to leave behind a significant contingent of trainers.

In the past, national reconciliation in Iraq meant things like paying or reintegrating the Sahwa (tribal anti-insurgent forces) into the security services, getting some of the former soldiers and police back to their jobs (or at least paying their pensions), and amending the constitution, which many Sunnis view as favoring the Shia and Kurds who dominated its drafting.  But those tasks, while not completed, are no longer topmost on peoples‘ minds.

The emphasis now is on more far reaching measures.  While some claim the problems are purely political and do not concern ordinary people in the street, the fact is that many Iraqis no longer trust those beyond their own sectarian or ethnic group.  Arabs don’t think Kurds regard themselves as Iraqi.  Kurds don’t think Arabs respect their rights.  Sunnis will sometimes refer to Shia derogatorily as Iranians, while Shia view Sunnis as beholden to Saudi money.  Violence has undermined confidence.  What is needed is a “culture of forgiveness,” one that will restore confidence and mutual respect.

How to create such a “culture of forgiveness”?  Would it be sufficient to ignore the past and start anew?  After all, no accounting–or accountability–will ever cover everything that has happened.  A major public campaign in favor of reconciliation might help.  Or is accountability vital, at least for key leaders who back Saddam Hussein?  Is there a need for apology, which is unusual in Iraqi culture because it is regarded as suggesting weakness, not strength?  Would it make any sense for the current government, which bears no responsibility for what Saddam Hussein did, to apologize for the gassing of Kurds at Halabja? Is compensation appropriate? Virtually everyone has been harmed at one point or another in Iraq’s recent history–it wouldn’t be right for some that were harmed in one way to be paying off others who were harmed in another way.

The search for national reconciliation will take the Iraqis in many directions:  it will affect their concept of citizenship and who is eligible to participate in public life, the way they teach history, their notions of equitable treatment, their views on what constitutes incitement, and their relations with Iran and Arab neighbors.  Iraq is in a process of redefining itself, or perhaps defining itself for the first time, since in its earlier incarnations it was largely defined first by the British and later by Saddam Hussein.  This is not an easy task, though oil–if wisely used–can lubricate the machinery of state and provide a lot of ways of satisfying people who otherwise might be fighting over unworthy scraps.

All this makes me think of other situations in which I’ve seen these problems arise:  in Bosnia, in Serbia and Kosovo, among Afghans, between north and south Sudanese.  I do not know any magic formulas, though I do think some documentation and acknowledgment of harm is an important element in getting forgiveness to stick, even if a formal apology is not feasible.  There is no recipe though for national reconciliation.  Each country seems to find, or fail to find, its own balance among the many ingredients available.

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