WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Is the current morass in Iraq a reflection of the Bush administration's incompetence in dealing with the situation, or is Iraq in its current configuration simply ungovernable?
Weakened by the war in Iraq and the loss of the Republican majority in Congress, President George W. Bush prepares to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday. Iraq, no doubt, will be a major component of his speech to the nation.
One thought the president might ponder as he spends part of Monday fine-tuning his address might have him asking why all three Iraqi prime ministers to have held office since the U.S. invasion -- all Shiites -- have had a difficult time dealing with the Bush administration.
The three who served as prime ministers -- Iyad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari and the current prime minister Nuri al-Maliki -- all came under severer criticism from the U.S. Allawi, a former Baathist, was accused of corruption; Jaafari, who is from the DAWA party (as is Maliki) was feared to be too pro-Iranian and Maliki's latest spat with Bush comes after comments made by Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Maliki's government may be living on borrowed time. Maliki retorted that it was the American government which was living on borrowed time.
Add to that list of disenchanted Shiite leaders the name of Ahmad Chalabi, once the darling child of the Bush administration. Chalabi played a major role in convincing the Bush administration to intervene in Iraq and overthrow Saddam. Although Chalabi never became prime minister, in the initial stages of the war he carried much clout with the U.S. administration until the United States began suspecting him of having relations with Iran deemed a tad too close for comfort.
One might question if these ongoing problems are indeed a reflection of the Bush administration's incapacity in dealing with the complex situation that is Iraq today, or is Iraq in its current configuration simply impossible to manage. Or a combination of the two, perhaps?
"The Americans created a beast they cannot control anymore," said an observer with a Washington think tank who manages several projects in Iraq, and who asked not to be identified. "I'm not sure they (the Americans) have a say anymore.
"There seems to be a purge of the Sunni intelligencia that is taking place. There is an insurgency that is an equal opportunity killing. Killing Shiites for the sake of killing Shiites, but here is an actual targeted assassination to remove people of certain professional classes. It seems as though the machine has gotten out of control."
In its haste to get to Iraq the administration seems to have overlooked Iraq's turbulent history. The Bush administration considered Iraq as a single entity called Iraq, when in reality there are three very different Iraqs. Quite possibly four Iraqs.
There is the Iraq of the Kurds in the north, a region that has greatly prospered thanks to political and economic stability the Kurds have enjoyed since the end of the last Gulf war in 1991. The United States imposed a "no fly zone" over Kurdistan, banning Saddam's helicopters the air space over Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is oil-rich and the have been unable to extract the oil due to attacks and sabotage by guerrilla forces.
There is the Iraq of the Sunnis in the middle, who despite being a minority in the country, have for centuries been a dominant minority, ruling -- often with an iron hand -- the other communities. Since the Ottoman Turks took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, then lost it to the Iranian Safavids in 1509 but managed to win it back in 1632, the Sunnis remained the dominant factor. The Ottomans rule over Iraq lasted until World War I when they sided with Germany and the Central Powers.
The Ottomans were forced out of Iraq by the British who lost 92,000 soldiers in the Mesopotamian campaign. The exact number of casualties suffered by the Ottomans is unknown, but the British captured a total of 45,000 prisoners of war. By the end of 1918 the British had deployed 410,000 men into the area though only 112,000 of them were combat troops.
There are Assyrian, Chaldean and other Christian minorities Iraq, Christians struggling to survive amid an overwhelming Muslim majority. The Assyrians, one of the oldest communities in Iraq, speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ.
And then there is the Shiite Iraq -- the majority -- who comprise about 65 percent of the population, and sit on most of the country's oil reserves in the southern part of the country. For decades the Shiites were oppressed under Saddam, and for centuries before under the Ottoman Turks.
For three out of four centuries of Ottoman rule, the vilayets of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra were administered from Baghdad. The British, who took over the administration of Iraq after the departure of the Turks had to repeatedly put down rebellions by using armed force.
Yes, there existed a unified Iraq prior to Saddam but it was constantly liable to coups and counter coups. There existed a unified Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but at what cost? Saddam massacred tens of thousands of people, especially among the Kurds and the Shiites.
And the Ottoman Turks also imposed a pax Ottomana, not hesitating to deploy force whenever needed.
Much like the Ottomans and the Brits before him, Bush had to send in more men. Since the surge of additional troops began, so too has a new offensives by the insurgency. As of last Saturday 25 American troops were killed in Iraq, making it one of the bloodiest day for U.S. forces since the war began almost four years ago.
As President Bush takes the lectern on Capitol Hill Tuesday night the war in Iraq remains clearly his main preoccupation, as it does for 34 percent of Americans, according to a new Zogby poll.
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