Iraq and Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty comes from an English rhyme dating from at least the late 1700s. As I'm sure most people know, Humpty Dumpty was an egg sitting on a wall, and an egg is held together by a shell. A shell is generally fragile, and when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and broke, he could not be put back together again.

The area that "generally" is modern Iraq, Mesopotamia, has a prominent place in the story of mankind. Just briefly and superficially, modern Iraq had been part of the pre World War One "Ottoman Empire" of the Turks. The British fought the Turks there during World War One, when the Turks were allied with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The victorious British controlled the area after the war until the early 1930s, when they granted independence to Iraq, which became a kingdom; that is, ruled by a king, and the monarchy was Sunni Muslim. A revolution in the late 1950s ended the monarchy and replaced it with several military leaders over the next few years. Another revolution in the late 1960s brought the Ba'ath Party to power, which eventually brought military leader Saddam Hussein to rule Iraq. As you can see, Iraq has not been an easy country to govern.

Iraq is an overwhelmingly Muslim country, with a relatively small Christian segment, but its Muslim population is divided between a Shia sect majority and a Sunni sect minority. Ethnically, Iraqis are heavily Arabic,* but with a regional Kurdish population in the majority in the far northern area of the country.**

Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim, and although he was a secular leader, religious division in Iraq was important, as was ethnic background, especially for the Kurdish population. Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist, invaded neighboring Iran (an overwhelmingly Shia Muslim majority country), invaded and occupied neighboring Kuwait, and ruthlessly suppressed Kurdish attempts at independence. Saddam's occupation of Kuwait in 1990 brought large scale military action against his forces by an American led coalition, which included other Arab and Muslim nations. After his defeat and a ceasefire, there were uprisings in Kurdish and Shia areas of the country, but Hussein responded with military actions to successfully put down the insurrections and keep himself in power, although through the United Nations, "no fly zones" were set up, which prohibited Iraqi aircraft to fly in certain parts of the country, thus limiting attacks on certain groups. The ceasefire agreement ending the war imposed tough trade sanctions on Iraq and called for Iraq to destroy all chemical weapons and to abandon any attempt to develop nuclear weapons. U.N. inspectors were to verify compliance with the destruction of chemical and biological weapons and production facilities, as well as verify that there was no development of nuclear weapons. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minster Tony Blair launched air and missile strikes in the late 1990s on a number of targets in Iraq, as Saddam interfered with weapons' inspectors, accusing some inspectors of being spies for the U.S.  

Following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the U.S. and its allies commenced military operations in Afghanistan to chase the ruling Taliban from power, along with Al Qaeda operatives and trainees, who had been given sanctuary there by the Taliban. President George W. Bush and members of his administration, most notably, Vice President Dick Cheney, then tied Saddam Hussein to the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11.*** With Saddam's interference with weapons' inspectors, the fear developed in the Bush administration and elsewhere, that Hussein was hiding various weapons and that he would get biological, chemical, and perhaps some type of nuclear weapon, all of these collectively known as "weapons of mass destruction, or 'WMD,' " into the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists. The administration began a concerted effort to present a case for war against Iraq to the American, and even the world, public. The 9/11 attacks had shaken not only the United States, but much of the world, as the attacks demonstrated the commitment of religious fanatics to wage war on those, even other Muslims, who did not share in their beliefs. This mindset led many Americans and others to assume the worst from the "evidence" provided by the Bush administration.**** Vice President Cheney assured Americans that invading forces would be greeted as liberators. (See NBC's "Meet The Press" for March 16, 2003)

The invasion of Iraq quickly toppled Saddam Hussein, who was found months later hiding in a hole outside his hometown of Tikrit. It didn't take long for the jubilation over Saddam's fall to turn to anger and despair, as the war ravaged country saw the emergence of armed religious factions and Al Qaeda groups fighting not only the occupying forces, but each other, creating a civil war type situation, with occupying forces and humanitarian personnel caught in the middle. Bombings and kidnappings became common, with many a terrible death attributed to both. So now there was an Iraq of Sunnis, an Iraq of Shia, and a northern region of Iraq of Kurds. All of this combined with an element of a nation unaccustomed to any form of democracy. Gradually "a general sense of order" came to be restored by the occupying forces, which also took to providing training for Iraqi police and military units, but periodic attacks on installations, occupying troops and Iraqi police and military units continued. A national election was held and a new Iraqi government, led by Shia Muslim Nouri al Maliki, as prime minister, was installed. With Iraq a majority Shia country, Sunnis feared exclusion in governing the country. The Kurds successfully secured regional self government, while remaining as a part of Iraq.***** With Americans growing increasingly disenchanted with American involvement (and mounting casualties) in Iraq, and with many Iraqis wanting to take full control of their country, President George W. Bush negotiated an agreement to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of 2011, which indeed took place.

Prime Minister Al Maliki has maintained close relations with neighboring Shia majority Iran, and his relations with other Middle Eastern nations is more sketchy, especially with those, like Saudi Arabia, which have a Sunni majority. Since the withdrawal of occupying forces, attacks on public places and on military and police installations have continued, seemingly more by some radical and militant Sunnis.****** More recently, "ISIS" ("Islamic State of Iraq and Syria"), a highly radical Sunni militia group and offshoot of Al Qaeda, has been advancing deep into Iraq from Syria, threatening the capital of Baghdad. This has brought a call to arms by Shia religious and public leaders to defend the city and to defeat ISIS, which, if reports are correct, and they certainly seem to be, has massacred untold numbers of Iraqis in the areas they have captured. In the north, the independent minded Kurds have a substantial army of their own to guard their territory, and their forces have generally been deemed to be much better than many of the Iraqi forces that have thus far faced ISIS. Many Iraqi units collapsed with barely a fight, and reports indicate that many men discarded their uniforms and threw away their weapons. The U.S. is in the process of sending about 300 "advisers" to Iraq to provide further training and such to Iraqis. To me, the idea that 300 men with such a task will have a major impact is ridiculous. "My guess" is, the men will act as "spotters" to call in American airstrikes (or missile strikes), if the President decides to so act.

Recent polls show that Americans now think the invasion of Iraq was not worth the cost. The problem is, the invasion, which found no weapons of mass destruction, may have toppled Saddam Hussein, but it also toppled the Humpty Dumpty of Iraq from his wall, and while the rhyme dates from the 1700s, no one has yet figured out how to put Humpty back together again. The situation is terrible, with few, if any, good options, but the sending of any major U.S. forces has so far been ruled out by the President and it seems even some typically bellicose members of Congress are reluctant to call for armed intervention, but we'll see, since if some had their way, the U.S. would have troops stationed in far more places around the world than we already do.

* The Arabic language is part of the Semitic family of languages, which includes Hebrew, among others.

** The Kurds are closely related to the Persians, and the Kurdish language (and its dialects) is Indo European, making it related to English, but further down the family tree.

*** For a little more on the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, see my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-about-coalitions-not-purity-part_25.html

**** To be clear here, not all Americans were convinced by the administration provided "evidence," nor were the leaders of many other nations, as the military coalition assembled by George W. Bush was nowhere near the size of that put together by his father in 1990. "Generally," polls showed around 60% of Americans supported a war against Iraq with U.N.approval, but slightly less than 50% supported such a war without U.N. approval. (See prewar polls by Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, CNN/USA Today)

***** In theory, the Kurds had been granted a form of regional self rule by Saddam long before, but he never adhered to the agreement, instead using force against the Kurds. Such "semi-autonomous" setups are not unknown, as the long contested German majority areas of "Alsace-Lorraine" in France achieved such after World War Two, and likewise, as did the German majority area of South Tyrol in Italy after World War Two. In these cases, much self government was granted, which guaranteed the German language and cultural heritage of the regions, but the areas also remained a part of France and Italy, respectively, and the people were citizens of those respective nations. Finland too was a largely self governing grand duchy of the Russian Empire during the 1800s and up until 1917.

****** Just from news reports I've seen, not all Sunnis support ISIS, and indeed many fear ISIS, which has a reputation for atrocities, and has been imposing strict Islamic law in conquered areas. Americans take note! This is what can happen when super reactionary groups want to take a country far back in time.

WORD HISTORY:
Far-This word goes back to Indo European "per," which the notion of "beyond." Its Old Germanic offspring was "ferro," ^ which meant "beyond, further." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "feorr," which meant "distant, far, remote" (also used in terms of time), and this later became "far." The other Germanic languages have: German has "fern," Low German "feern," West Frisian "fier," Dutch "ver," Danish and Norwegian "fjern," Icelandic "fjar-," and Swedish "fjärr."

^ The Indo European "p" often became "f" in its Old Germanic offshoot.