The Iraqi meltdown

It doesn't appear to be online, but this weekend's National Post has a lengthy, depressing piece (originally from Britain's Sunday Telegraph) about sectarian strife in Iraq four years after the fall of Saddam.

When Saddam Hussein was unceremoniously turfed from power in 2003, I hoped Iraq's nascent democracy would be a model for the Middle East. Instead, according to the Telegraph, the 2005 election may have set back the democratic cause:

The historic first elections of 2005, [Iraqis] say, have been disastrous for the country. Far from ushering in the Middle East's first secular, liberal state, as the West had hoped, they have allowed Islamist parties to take hold, encouraging Iraqis to identify as Sunnis or Shias and opening up 1,500-year-old religious tensions that might otherwise have lain dormant.

[...]

The euphoria of polling day, [a secular Sunni politician] points out, eclipsed the fact that the elections were scarcely the informed, rational contest of policies that is supposed to characterize a democracy. Inexperienced in the ways of multi-party politics after decades of totalitarianism, millions of Iraqis voted for the Shia or Sunni religious parties simply because they thought they would go to hell if they didn't. "My own brother told me that the imam in his mosque told him to vote for the Twaffaq [a Sunni religious party] if he wanted to join Muhammad in the afterlife," Mr. Mutlaq said. "And it was the same with the Shias. Their hands would shake with fear if they didn't mark the box for their religious parties."

I don't think Iraq's sectarian divide was ever "dormant" - especially not under Saddam, whose government was dominated by his fellow Sunnis. What we're seeing today is largely because of decades under totalitarian dictatorship.

To that end, a new poll suggests that most Iraqis think their life today, despite daily horrors and violence, is still better than life under Saddam Hussein. (That probably says more about the late, unlamented dictator than it does about the situation today.)

The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.

One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today.

Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.

By a majority of two to one, Iraqis believe military operations now under way will disarm all militias. More than half say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces.

Damian P.

Update: Tigerhawk has more about that poll. So does Andrew Sullivan.

Posted by damian at March 18, 2007 07:17 PM