You've heard of national liberation,
women's liberation and even animal liberation - but what
about accidental liberation?
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This is a theory doing the rounds among
some liberal commentators feeling guilty about their
support for war with Iraq. It holds that, however
bloody, barbaric and American the war will be, at least
it will have the godsent side-effect of liberating
Iraqis from oppression.
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According to Johann Hari of the UK Independent,
'This war is going to be terrible - but leaving Saddam
in place would be even more terrible.... The difference
is the deaths at the hands of Saddam will shore up
Ba'athist national socialism, while deaths in war would
at least clear the way for a free and democratic Iraq'
(1).
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Guardian
loudmouth Julie Burchill puts it more bluntly: 'If you
really think it's better for more people to die over
decades under a tyrannical regime than for fewer people
to die during a brief attack by an outside power, [then]
you're really weird….' (2)
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The idea that the coming war will
accidentally liberate Iraqis betrays a breathtaking
naivety about the consequences of Western intervention.
Outside interference in Iraq has already exacerbated
local tensions, and military intervention can only
further unravel the fragile Iraqi state. The
internationalisation of Iraq's local conflicts threatens
to divide Iraqis further and store up conflict for the
future, rather than herald anything like a new era of
freedom.
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By turning Iraq into an international
issue, America and Britain have paved the way for a
carve-up. Local players like Turkey, Iran and Saudi
Arabia all want a piece of postwar Iraq, while the big
powers - including the supposedly anti-war French and
Germans - have their own plans for postwar occupation.
And if you think such intervention will bring democracy
to Iraq, then you're really weird.
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On the ground, the divvying up of Iraq
between different powers has already started. As part of
its deal to allow US forces to use Turkish territory to
launch attacks on Iraq, Turkey has been given the green
light to double the number of its troops in northern
Iraq from 6000 to 12,000 in recent weeks (3). Northern
Iraq is territory that the United Nations designated as
a 'safe haven' for Kurds following the first Gulf War in
1991, taking the area out of Baghdad's control and
granting limited self-government to Kurdish groups.
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Turkish forces are fortifying a 25-mile
buffer zone between Turkey and northern Iraq - though
according to Newsweek
magazine, Turkish forces are keen to go even further
into Iraqi territory. 'Turkey is demanding that it send
60,000 to 80,000 of its own troops into northern Iraq to
establish "strategic positions" across a
"security arc" as much as 140 to 170 miles
deep in Iraq', reports Newsweek.
'That would take Turkish troops almost halfway to
Baghdad.' (4)
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The Bush administration claims that it
is allowing Turkish forces into northern Iraq for
'humanitarian reasons only' (5), to assist with the
flood of refugees that the war in Iraq will no doubt
create. In truth, with America's blessing, Turkey is
pursuing nobody's interests but its own in northern
Iraq.
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Turkey is demanding free rein in
northern Iraq. It wants to be in charge of 'supervising
the armament and disarmament of Kurdish groups' and of
'restricting the movement' of Kurdish forces where
necessary (6). Under the guise of a humanitarian effort,
Turkey's intervention in northern Iraq is about keeping
a check on Kurdish demands for independence, to ensure
that such demands do not impact on Turkey's own volatile
Kurdish population.
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Since 1984, Turkey has been at war with
the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which fought for Kurdish
independence within Turkish territory. Turkey refuses to
recognise the 'ethnicity' of its Kurdish population and
continues to ban the Kurdish language. Now, Turkey sees
intervention in northern Iraq as the latest front in its
war against the Kurds. As Turkish foreign minister Yasar
Yakis said when asked about postwar Iraq: 'A Kurdistan
should not be set up.' (7)
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The opening up of northern Iraq to
Turkish forces as part of the planned attack on Iraq
lays the ground for renewed conflict between Turks and
Kurds. According to Hoshyar Zebari, a senior official of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which administers
the western portion of northern Iraq: 'Any Turkish
intervention under whatever pretext will lead to
clashes.' (8) 'People in northern Iraqi Kurdistan are
more scared of the Turkish military than of Saddam',
says Nasreen Sideek, a KDP minister (9).
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For Independent
columnist Johann Hari and other Western commentators,
northern Iraq epitomises the kind of democracy that
ought to be extended throughout Iraq. According to Hari,
'[U]nder US and British protection, a democracy with
freedom of speech and protection of human rights has
flourished for the past decade' in northern Iraq (10).
Yet, according to a Kurdish newspaper poll taken on 22
February 2003, 83 percent of the residents of northern
Iraq are opposed to 'any Turkish intrusion' (11). In
what kind of 'flourishing democracy' can you have
foreign intervention against the will of the majority?
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Western intervention in Iraq has turned
northern Iraq's local problems - muted conflict between
different Kurdish groups, the existence of Islamic
terrorist groups - into an international issue. Whatever
stability existed in northern Iraq as a 'safe haven' is
likely to be undermined by Turkey's US-backed
intervention to pursue its own interests.
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Elsewhere in northern Iraq, Iran has
sent in 5000 Shia troops, complete with 'heavy
equipment' (12), in an attempt to protect its borders
with Iraq during and after the war. The Iraqi Shia
troops were originally an Iraq-based Islamic opposition
to Saddam's regime, though they have been granted safe
haven and training by Iraq's longstanding enemy Iran for
the past 20 years.
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Iran claims to have sent the troops into
northern Iraq as a defensive measure, to protect against
a potential attack on Iran by the People's Mujahideen
Organisation, an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq
that allegedly receives support and funding from
Saddam's regime (13). But Iran's real interests seem to
be in fortifying its borders by pre-emptively crossing
over into Iraqi territory, and staking its interest in
any set-up in postwar Iraq.
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According to the Financial
Times, 'Through inserting a proxy force, Iran is
underlining that it cannot be ignored in future
discussions over Iraq's make-up' (14). One expert on
Iraqi/Iranian relations claims that Iran is pursuing
'nothing but an Iranian agenda', to ensure its future
stability. Some Iranian officials are floating the
possibility of extending their influence among Iraq's
Shia Muslim population, by encouraging them to stand up
to the Sunni Muslims that dominate Saddam's regime - a
move that could only cause further fragmentation and
division inside Iraq.
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It might seem odd that Iran - one of
America's 'axis of evil' states, remember - can send
5000 heavily armed troops into Iraq without incurring
much international condemnation (though the Bush
administration is apparently 'concerned'). Perhaps
Tehran officials have been buoyed to intervene in Iraq
by their meetings with UK prime minister Tony Blair
earlier this year, who promised that Iran's interests
would be 'taken into consideration' during and after war
with Iraq.
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With Turkish troops on one side of
northern Iraq and Iranian-backed troops on the other, US
officials are said to be ever-more concerned about 'the
increasingly complicated patchwork of forces in northern
Iraq', and the potential for instability that this
brings about (15). But who was it, if not Western
forces, that made northern Iraq into such free-for-all
territory in the first place?
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The north was taken out of Baghdad's
control after the first Gulf War by Western forces. It
was one of the UN 'safe havens' that was being demanded
by many of those now opposed to military intervention.
As a consequence, Iraq's sovereignty and borders were
seriously undermined, making northern Iraq a less
governed (and generally less governable) place than the
rest of Iraq. It was the West's undermining of Iraqi
state control over northern Iraq that made it such a
borderless and intervention-friendly place.
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As Muzaffer Baca, vice-president of a
Turkish humanitarian relief organisation, argues: 'There
[has been] no effective control of the central
authorities or international institutions. Northern Iraq
is a haven for drug and arms smugglers….The
instability creates an atmosphere in which terror and
terrorist organisations can flourish.' (16)
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Far from being an example for the rest
of Iraq, northern Iraq shows the dangers of Western
intervention, and how undermining a state's sovereignty
heightens the potential for instability and conflict.
Besides, the 'patchwork' of Turkish and Iranian-backed
forces in northern Iraq that so concerns Bush and co
appears to have come about as a result of at least
American and British agreement, if not their full-blown
support.
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Perhaps in response to the potential for
what one newspaper calls 'the permanent disintegration
of Iraq', the Bush administration unveiled its latest
plans for postwar Iraq in late February 2003. The White
House plans a total occupation of Iraq following the
war, to oversee the 'reconstruction of the country's
shattered infrastructure' (the infrastructure that US
forces will just have shattered?) (17).
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According to one report: 'The White
House will outline plans…for taking complete control
of post-Saddam Iraq "for an indefinite period"
and overseeing the reconstruction of the country.
General Tommy Franks, the Texan commander of the allied
invasion forces, will be named as interim governor until
all weapons of mass destruction are found and disabled
and wanted members of the regime tracked down and
arrested.' (18)
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And what will happen once the military
occupation has disarmed Iraq and destroyed any
opposition to its presence? Then the reins will be
handed over to an American civilian, or an 'American of
stature' as one report puts it, who will, again, control
Iraq for an 'indefinite period' (19).
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The French and German alternative to
America's occupation plans isn't much better. France and
Germany may be heralded by the anti-war movement as
forces for peace in the Iraqi crisis, but they too
propose that Iraq be occupied - only by UN rather than
American forces. In France and Germany's preferred
option for Iraq, the UN Security Council would take
control of Iraqi airspace and soil, and Iraq would
effectively become a protectorate, like Kosovo.
Liberation, accidental or otherwise, would be notable by
its absence.
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There is something missing in the
American, British, French and German proposals for
postwar Iraq - the Iraqis themselves. The people of Iraq
may have a starring role in Bush and Blair's rhetoric,
but in the plans for postwar Iraq they don't even get a
look in. Bush and Blair talk up the need to 'free
Iraqis' from 'Saddam's grip', but they push ahead with a
plan that will divide Iraq up and put American generals
in charge.
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This is the 'free and democratic' Iraq
we can expect following further Western intervention -
an Iraq where Iraqis are more divided than ever; where
local conflicts are internationalised and exacerbated;
where neighbouring powers Turkey and Iran vie for
territory and influence; and where the country is
occupied by American or UN forces.
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The liberals' idea of accidental
liberation is a con. It depicts the people of Iraq as
hapless saps who should only expect freedom as the
by-product of a Western war. And it displays a wilful
ignorance of the big power interests that are currently
carving up and destabilising Iraq, even before the war
has started. I prefer the idea of human liberation for
the people of Iraq. And that is something that only the
Iraqis themselves - free from outside interference -
have a vested interest in fighting for.
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