THE Ramadan Agreement for inter-communal cooperation, still being fleshed out, may be the last opportunity to stop Iraq tearing itself apart. The plan for local neighborhood security committees, initially in Baghdad then throughout the country, is on the face of it, logical. The idea that these committees should include representatives from all Iraq’s communities, even when a district does not have a full mix of these, is laudable.
But is this scheme workable? Has too much blood already been spilt in sectarian violence for sufficient trust to still exist to make such a potentially powerful system of local policing work?
Some neighborhoods, particularly in the capital, have already created their own protective organizations. Most often however, militias control such mechanisms. In both cases, the motive is defensive. Opinions are frequently polarized. The enemy is seen as the guys in the other community. The idea now that neighborhoods would welcome representatives from among perceived rivals will be a hard one to sell. One of the political leaders negotiating the Ramadan Agreement described it as “a sham”. Another said that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had only launched the initiative as a result of US pressure. Some observers fear that legitimizing security committees to monitor neighborhoods will merely endorse the widespread control already exerted by militias or criminal gangs. It has also been pointed out that if a security committee of ordinary Iraqis proved to be at all effective at curbing the violence in a locality, its members would immediately become targets for assassination or intimidation.
Besides given that the rising tide of lawlessness is happening despite the presence of Iraqi police and army, to say nothing of the occupation forces of the Coalition, where could a local security committee turn with confidence if it wished to have back-up to deal with violent elements in its midst? There are clearly all kinds of problems with the Ramadan Agreement, causing some to suspect it will be a dead letter even as it is finally signed.
Nevertheless, Iraqis must ask themselves, what is the alternative? The bombings and murders pass a new peak of horror each week. The original killers from Al-Qaeda and unreformed Baathist insurgents are seeing all their wicked plans come to fruition. They have created a monstrous climate of fear and anger sufficient to set Iraqi citizens at each other’s throats. In the growing chaos, they appear to be operating with ever-greater impunity.
How can this obscene rising tide of bloodletting and injustice be stopped? A single thought might help. Iraqis did not bring about this catastrophe. George W. Bush, one of the most ill-informed and purblind presidents ever to occupy the White House, did it for them. Bush turned Iraq into the new battleground for international terror and fugitive Saddam loyalists. The struggle is between the Americans and fanatical thugs. Ordinary Iraqis, whatever their background and however great their fear, do not have to involve themselves in this. They can win a victory by putting aside their differences and working together.
