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The Muslim will win in Iraq

PRESIDENT JALAL TALABANI HAS left the "security" of the Green Zone for the "security" of London. He wanted to tell the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, of his government's plan for the referendum on October 15. But neither he nor members of his government has visited the people of Iraq of what the referendum brings. It is too unsafe. He and his ministers have not ventured out of the Green Zone for fear of being killed by the people. In President Talabani's terms, those people who are against the referendum and those who create mayhem in Iraq are terrorists, and should be eradicated, preferably by the United States or Britain or by the other countries who are part of the US-established multi-lateral force. But the insurgency would not last if locals do not support it, as President Talabani should know by now. First the country is invaded, then the election is set so that the elected are kept isolated in the Green Zone, and those elected ask those who put them in power to remain. President Talabani was "thankful" in London for the multinational effort in Iraq. He blamed Iraqis for protesting against the US-led invasion, as "Saddam Hussein as a bad man". But the United States dealt with the "bad man" for nearly 30 years, had made him a prime CIA source, like Osama bin Laden, and then turned against him, because he did not agree with Washington's plans for the region. President Talabani now faces Saddam Hussein in this attempt to turn Iraq into a US colony. The British tried it earlier, turning the Kurdish, Sunni and Shia provinces of the Ottoman Empre, and called it Iraq after the first world war. They knew their Middle Eastern history, and made sure the Sunnis, who formed 20 per cent of Iraq, as the rulers. They formed Iraq to defeat the French colonial power, who took Syria earlier, and established a Shia president there although he was from a minority Shia sect, the Aluwaites. Nearly 80 per cent of Syrians are Sunnis. The Prime Minister of Iraq, dressed in a woman's dress and flayed alive in Baghdad in 1958 was a Sunni Muslim. The governments that followed is Sunni, of which the latest is Saddam Hussein, which the Americans, like a bull in a China shop, erased, and brought about the present civil war.

The BBC now talks of insurgency in the centre of Iraq, and of its dangers in the referendum on October 15. But it is the centre of Iraq that conain the Sunnis which has experience of government. They are out of jobs, they support Saddam Hussein even if they once did not. They could have ruled Iraq, but now they rule the insurgency. One is not surprised this happens. The Tamil insurrection in Sri Lanka grew worse after it became policy to discriminate against the Tamil civil servant, and Tamil groups will tell you that it got worse when they were excluded. And the Tamils were not the favoured group in Sri Lanka. The British made sure the Sunnis ruled during their dominance in Iraq, but joined with the Americans to dismantle it. The Sunnis rejected plans for them, and did not take part in the election of the National Assembly. They were brought in, as if that was a great concession, but the constitution was drafted by the elected Shias and Kurds, and the fear of Sunnis caused a rule to be forced upon the National Assembly by the Americans and British that the Sunni objection can only stand if it got two-thirds the vote. The National Assembly rejected it, but the damage had already been done. The Sunnis are deliberately sidelined. The condescension the Shia and Kurds over Sunni participation is not lost on the Sunnis, including the National Assembly vote on the rule that prevented a rejection. It is all in all an constituition which is hammered in Washington and London which the Iraqi is expected to vote. It will remain in force so long as the US-led multinational forces remain, call it UN forces if you like, as Tony Blair did yesterday. The US do not have the experience in foreign affairs that the British have, and they make more mistakes. If they remain in control for 40 years, as the British did, they would do well. But they would be forced out much sooner.

President Talabani is a Kurd, with an American passport. His prime minister is a British-subject Shia pysician. And many in his government hold two passports, which is not allowed in Australia, one of the multinational forces, to take part in politics. They lived overseas, in exile or inevitably until the United States and Britain recruited them to get rid of Saddam Hussein. They have no legal or political reason to speak on behalf of Iraq, which would be even more of a mess than it is today once the mulinational force leaves. The thinking at home, in Britain and the United States, is that they do soon. The question of their departure is when, not if, despite what President Talabani said in London yesterday. He is, to all intents and purposes, a foreigner, and he will be a foreigner when the US and the multinational forces it cobbled together leaves Iraq. But Iraq will be destroyed, depleted uranium and untold bullets left behind. A report recently said that 250,000 bullets are used to killed an insurgent, most of whom are Iraqis. Other Muslim groups have come in from overseas. But most of these people are trained by the United States to defeat the USSR during the Cold War. The US turned against their erstwhile friends once the USSR (now Russia) is no more a threat. But Saddam Hussein is now a more serious threat. He is in prison, but he has turned the US invasion of Iraq into a Sunni threat, and has got all Arabs in the Middle East on his side. They did not like him when he was in power, but not now. The Arab street rises to his defence. He will get the death sentence, and would probably be sentenced to death. But here is the problem. He would be martyr if he is sentenced to death, and win if he gets any other imprisonment. If he is put to death, he becomes a martyr. President Talabani has already said he would ask his deputy to confirm the death sentence, since he is opposed to the death penalty. But death is what you get if you remain in the country after you are overthrown. And he must be put to death. You win, if you live. Iraq's future is now based on a personal dispute between the President, Jalal Talabini, and the former President, Saddam Hussein. And it is the Sunni who would win.

Statements from Washington and London suggest that it is the crusades all over again. President Bush has told Palestinians that God told him to invade Iraq. He seems to be finding creative reasons for the mess the United States created in Iraq. But it would not wash. The Muslim, particularly the Sunni, now takes the United States and the West as their enemy. Islam is not what the Christian nations of its supporters, like Malaysian or Pakistani leader, say it is. Islam today is the religion of the street, and with a mind of its own. Otherwise, President Bush would have such opposition in Iraq, with outside Sunni Muslims coming in to fight. The US and its supporters are trying to get Muslim leaders to go on the bandwagon, but the Muslim street in these countries refuse to do so. They try to get Muslim leaders on their side, like in Indonesia, but the president does not want Jemayah Islamiyah banned, as the Western countries would like it to. Enough in the government there are not certain it should be. Islam in Indonesia is much more gentle, but the Indonesian street, although still not as extreme as elsewhere, is becoming more extremist as Bush and his supporters around the world blame Islam and the Muslim for much of their problems. The fact is that President Bush and his supporters have turned Islam into an extremist organisation, and since there are 2 million of its believers, a quarter taking the law into their hands spell danger for President Bush's plan.

It is, as I have written, Vietnam redux. The Christian powers have been trying to put the other religions in their pockets. The British attempt to control Hinduism in India ended their British empire. The United States went home licking their boots when they tried to rein in Buddhism in Vietnam, and lost the Cold War there to Russia. Now, the US takes on the other great religion, Islam. The problem here for the United States is that Islam is multinational, aggressive, and in Islamic countries normallay thought of as supporting Washington. And they spread across the world. There are now 70,00 Muslims in Europe, a Christian nation which will add millions if Turkey is admitted. As the Muslims involved in the London bombing showed, the Muslim objection to be second graded can affect the most docile of Muslims. The war on terror encompasses no territory, and apart from the Middle East, it can be anywhere. That is the United States' fault. It is no use blaming Islam, as commentaries in the West are apt to do, when suicide bombings take place. Islam is not a religion framed by Christianity. But Washington has taken battle now to Islam, but Islam has two main branches, Sunni and Shia. Shia Islam is dominated by Iran, a non-Arab nation, although Shia Muslims are Arab as well. But Washington attacks Iran as well, so it has made an enemy of iran, and by extension Shia Muslims. What the United States has done in Afghanisation, Iraq and elsewhere has affected the Islamic street, and these people think with their feet, not with their minds. And they are more likely to fight an insult to their religion with blood than with argument. President Musharraf is find this for himself. He supported Washington and the war on terror, but his people did not.

M.G.G.Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com