But "as long as I am alive" isn’t a very solid guarantee. Sistani is an old man, and SCIRI and the Iranians can afford to be patient. If tactical compromises have to be made — such as scrapping the proposed Shi’a state-within-a-state — they can do that. If, for the time being, they have to settle for half a Khomeinist constitution, they can do that, too. After all, it’s only a piece of paper.
Back to Main
August 21, 2005
WB: Slouching Towards the Islamic Republic II
Comments
It’s funny, after reading the first post on this, I wrote a satirical piece on my blog claiming Iraq actually copied the Iranian constitution. And now it turns out that might be correct.
Last year, someone posted the following on this site. I copied it, but don’t have the exact date. It may be in the archives. Sorry for the length. I post it because of the impending neocon sponsored Islamofascist Iraq. Cheers.
=========================
In 1965 12% of adult literacy centers in Iraq were for women, even though female illiterates outnumbered males by more than two to one. By 1980, out of one batch of 762 people’s schools, 416 were for women and 31 were mixed.(source: al-Jumhuriyya, August 30, 1980 – the people’s schools referred to were from the province of Basrah)
In 1970-71 there were 318,524 girls in primary schools, 88,595 at secondary schools and 9,212 at university. Ba’ath Party policies ensured that by the 1979-80 school year the numbers were respectively as follows – 1,165,856, 278,485 and 28,647. (source: Amal al-Sharqi ‘The emancipation of Iraqi women’ in Iraq: The Contemporary State, Tim Niblock (ed) London (1982), pp80-81)
By 1980 women accounted for 46% of all teachers, 29% of physicians, 46% of dentists, 70% of pharmacists, 15% of accountants, 14% of factory workers and 16% of civil servants. At the Ministry of Oil, in 1980, 37% of the design staff and 30% of the construction staff were women. The State Organization of Buildings was also staffed by many women. Women only constituted 4% of senior managers however, but overall the total participation of women in the non-agricultural labor force rose from 7% in 1968 to 19% in 1980. (source: Amal al-Sharqi ‘The emancipation of Iraqi women’ in Iraq: The Contemporary State, Tim Niblock (ed) London (1982), pp83-85)
All important changes in the social role of women should be set against the 1978 amendments to the Code of Personal Status introduced by the Ba’ath Party. The preamble affirms that the new code is based ‘on the principles of the Islamic Shari’a but only those that are suited to the spirit of today. The break with tradition as it affected women was firstly that authority was given to a state-appointed judge to overrule the wishes of the father in the case of early marriages and secondly the new legislation nullified forced marriages and severely curtailed the array of rights held over women by men of the larger kinship group (uncles, cousins etc). The legislation was intended to diminish the power of the patriarchal family and separate out the nuclear family from the larger kinship group, thus weakening its hold over the lives of women. (source: source: Amal Rassam ‘Revolution within the Revolution? Women and the State in Iraq’ in Iraq: The Contemporary State, Tim Niblock (ed) London (1982), p94)
Another Ba’athist innovation was to insert one or more ‘popular committees’ in each Shari’a court to deal with Personal Status Law and these five person committees had to include at least two women. (source: Article 4, Task and Role of the Popular Committees, Alwaqai 43, October 25th 1978)
The 1977 law regulating women’s entry into the armed forces stipulated that a woman could be appointed as an officer if she carried a university degree in a health-related field (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy). Her rank descended from a low-set level on a scale correlating health-related qualifications to military title (e.g. a nursing qualification of not less than two years study gained the rank of sergeant, second-grade). The army absorbed thousands of women as did the popular militia forces, which commenced in 1976. By 1982 some 40,000 women had been enrolled. (source: Law number 131, For Women Service in the Army, Alwaqai 52, December 28th, 1977)
The Iraq – Iran war saw an even greater expansion of women into the workforce as Iraqi men fought in the conflict. At the end of the war there were difficulties for the Iraqi state, with huge numbers of soldiers requiring to be gradually demobilized and absorbed into the workforce. This created some competition for posts, as can be imagined.
The first Gulf War similarly affected the status of women, first an artificial expansion of employment opportunities, then as the ensuing years of sanctions took their toll Iraqi women and men alike were beggared as the dinar tumbled and living standards plummeted.
Today, thanks to American interference in Iraq the legal status of women is less protected than it was under Husayn and the conditions throughout the country are such that women are afraid to venture outdoors for fear of rape, assault, kidnapping or abuse from fundamentalists (who have also driven many women from their jobs). Subsequently many women now remain in the home, where perhaps their only contact with outsiders is seeing rampaging gangs of American soldiers wrecking their homes, running dogs through the premises and stealing money and jewels in their ‘searches’. Women and children are usually ordered into one room while the soldiers beat the men and often take them away. On other occasions they shoot the men and leave their bodies lying where they fell. Of course, sometimes women are taken as prisoners too sometimes, and the full story of the abuses meted out to them remains to be told.
So, there you have a brief overview of the life and future prospects Iraqi women had, and the life they have now.
Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Aug 22 2005 0:53 utc | 2
I think Billmon a little out his league here. Sistani is acually the most fundamentalist of the Shiite marja, his sucessors are actually more pro-US and pro-Western.
SCIRI is also not an immensely powerful militia without the US propping it up vis-a-vis the new Iraqi army.
Once the US leaves, all signs point to some sort of Sadrist/Sunni nationalist take over. These are non-exiles, they have contacts with each other, and oppose federalism. Iran is not going to have a lot of say in the matter.
Posted by: folkers | Aug 22 2005 2:01 utc | 3
RE: Billmon thinking Iran is supplying
weapons to the Sunnis:
From a letter posted to “Today in Iraq”. The beliefs of these Journal wingers sounds insane for all the reasons noted here earlier in different threads, but maybe those a-holes know something we don’t.
——————————
I watched the Wall Street Journal Editorial on PBS this morning and they talked about Iran’s nuclear development. What shocked me is that all four in the panel said that Bush was likely to use military forces against Iran.
The Journal Editorial Report: 8/19 transcript
What do you think the chances are that we will use military force against Iraq [it’s a typo, should be Iran] before President Bush finishes his second term?
STEPHENS: I think the chances of diplomacy working are zero, and the chances of us using military force I’d say 95 to 100 percent.
HENNINGER: I would say 50-50. I think diplomacy, isolating the Iranians, is probably worth trying.
RILEY: I’d put it higher than 50. I think there’s a pretty good chance that strategic bombing is what we’re going to have to resort to.
GIGOT: Okay. I’m afraid you’re right.
a fan of this site | Email | Homepage | 08.21.05 – 7:21 pm | #
Posted by: Buster | Aug 22 2005 2:19 utc | 4
Must read article by John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey: Evolution of attack:
As the insurgency in Iraq shifts its strategy, the U.S. military must become more nimble
To tell you the truth, it’s the most informative article I have read on Iraq for months.
Reducing our garrison in Iraq — as Pentagon officials have indicated they would like to do by spring — will limit the number of targets for improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers, while improving logistics, field mobility and fire support for those who remain. This will allow us to take and keep the initiative against both the indigenous resistance and the foreign fighters who, until now, have been able to control the tempo of the conflict.
It means, as I suggested in Insight in March — and as seems to be confirmed in recent leaks of classified documents — that a “third way” has been found between abject withdrawal and sticking stubbornly to an increasingly counterproductive course.
Thus we may stay on in Iraq for some years, but at much lower troop levels. In the political sphere, the withdrawal of very significant numbers of our forces will reassure both the Muslim world and the rest of the international community that we did not come to conquer Iraq. And the return of tens of thousands of our soldiers will shore up morale at home, tamping down some of the bitterness that has arisen in the wake of this unnecessary war.
I don’t think this new ad hoc tactic will work very well for the Americans, but it is exactly what they are going to do in Iraq in 2006.
Posted by: Greco | Aug 22 2005 2:54 utc | 5
What God died and left Stephens, Henninger, Riley, and Godot, his prophets on earth? Must be a deaf, dumb and blind one to have this type of clarified vision. Henninger, “I would say 50-50. I think diplomacy, isolating the Iranians, is probably worth trying.” That’s right, we’ll isolate them except for the Indians and Chinese and whoever else follows their lead. Why don’t we just speed up the process and declare the rest of the world off limits, except Israel, to our new found moral majority.
Posted by: christofay | Aug 22 2005 3:13 utc | 6
“It would only delay in the inevitable in any case. America can’t keep an army in Iraq until judgement day, which is how long it would take to block the Iranians and their Iraqi colleagues from claiming their hard-won prize.”
Please, Billmon. *Whose* hard-won prize? That’s like saying Israel attacked Iraq. United States young men and women won the prize for Iran.
Posted by: arbogast | Aug 22 2005 4:45 utc | 7
Well, arbogast, it looks now like it was the Iranians who hooked and played the neo-cons into Iraq this time around. Wasn’t Chalabi their man? That was an achievement of sorts. And there is a sort of irony that the Shia are using the ‘mericans as IED fodder after being hung out to dry by Shrub Snr. in the early 90’s…
Posted by: PeeDee | Aug 22 2005 6:08 utc | 8
I’d agree with Buster and folkers. We are on dangerous ground as it is, blind as we are to what’s really going on (as opposed to what’s being reported, and as opposed to what’s being spun), without trying to cipher the tea leaves.
Let’s agree to stick to commentary of the week past, and not prognosticate ourselves into some justification for BushCo’s Little War with Iran. All the “tell-all meltdown” stories this Sunday sounded more like CIA fluffs, rewriting history and pointing the way for four more years of war.
Rather like the Iraq-Iran insanity, only now we’re dancing in three-z’s instead of two-z’s. Isn’t that Mr. Bush and his gay decoder ring?
Can ya’ smell the 1973 team spirit, playah?
?What if the only reason they’re keeping the war going is because the US economy is bankrupt, and they know if the deficit-spending stops, and god forbid, our troops come home looking for *jobs*, there will be looting in the streets once again.
God, where is Patty Hearst when you need her?
That’s the only blue-blood who ever robbed a pensioner’s savings with an automatic weapon!
In a sense, Bush is Patty Hearst on steroids.
Ahh, is that a little smile? Like the visual?
GWBush in a beret and raincoat with an AK-47?
WGN,BB
Posted by: lash marks | Aug 22 2005 6:17 utc | 9
Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel
Two men who robbed a foreign exchange shop were splayed on the ground. Masked men stood on their hands while others broke their arms with rocks. The shopkeeper offered the insurgents a reward but they declined.
DVDs of beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the souk. Children prefer them to cartoons. “They should not watch such things,” said one grandfather, but parents appeared not to object.
One DVD features a young, blond muscular man who had been disembowelled. He was said to have been a member of a six-strong US sniper team ambushed and killed on August 1. Residents said he had been paraded in town before being executed.
The US military denied that, saying six bodies were recovered and that all appeared to have died in combat. Shortly after the ambush three landmines killed 14 marines in a convoy which ventured from their base outside the town.
Twice in recent months marines backed by aircraft and armour swept into Haditha to flush out the rebels. In a pattern repeated across Anbar there were skirmishes, a few suspects killed or detained, and success was declared.
In reality, said residents, the insurgents withdrew for a few days and returned when the Americans left. They have learned from last November’s battle in Falluja, when hundreds died fighting the marines and still lost the city.
The contrast between your link b, and the Greco, evolution of attack link — is one wide river to cross. I would consider whats going on in Haditha to be the rule, rather than the exception. And this would also be symptomatic of to few troops, so it seems the notion of having fewer troops would increase the effectivness in reducing resistance, is downright laughable, were it not being considered an option. Improving logistics, better field mobility and fire support? give me a break. Logistically we dont control anything, so we can’t go anywhere, so we dont know where to direct fire? Time to pick up and go.
Posted by: anna missed | Aug 22 2005 8:27 utc | 11
Billmon here rather nicely evokes the sense of infinite patience that countries like Iran have available. I think it’s interesting that the US is now faced with strategic challenges from two countries (Iran and China) which are truly ancient (2,500 and 3,000 years respectively of recorded history as recognisable entities). There are certainly some signals visible that a waiting strategy is highly effective against a nation that thinks a 3 year strategy is long-term, and one wonders where else this might become relevant (perhaps the patient small-scale work being done by the Chinese to shore up their position in Latin America might become an interesting example in 30 years or so)
Posted by: JohnTh | Aug 22 2005 8:32 utc | 12
b,
from your Guardian link:
The task now is to bleed the Americans and destabilise the government. Some call that nihilism. Haditha calls it the future.
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Aug 22 2005 8:53 utc | 13
Greco, anna missed,
See Juan Cole Ten Things Congress Could Demand from Bush on Iraq for his outline of a new “enclave theory”. The plan is for the US to hole up in those 14(?) permanent bases built by Bechtel/Halliburton, venturing out to murder Iraqis with f-16s and cobras, ala Ariel Sharon, at the Iraqis request. Protecting “our” oil and making a few key “demands” on the Iraqis which they dutifully meet in “gratitude” for our murderous services.
I couldn’t believe that Juan Cole was actually suggesting this as a “solution”! I’ve badly misjudged the man. He’s a raging neo-liberal.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Aug 22 2005 11:44 utc | 14
@John Francis Lee,
Juan Cole is not exactly in tune with Rumsfeld. The latter speaks, basically, for an enclave strategy, the former tries to avoid civil war with a staged withdrawl.
Posted by: Greco | Aug 22 2005 13:10 utc | 15
Juan Cole was for the illegal invasion of Iraq; he’s just another Hitchens.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 22 2005 13:52 utc | 16
“Because while the Pentagon may be able to figure out a way to keep 100,000+ troops in Iraq through 2009,”
Why am I thinking that Bush wants to make sure he’s not in office when the Iraq war finally ends? Could it be so that he can’t say he’s not the one who lost that war?
Also, Ritchie, the White House Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff in 1975 when Saigon fell were Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, respectively. They don’t want to repeat that experience in Iraq.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Aug 22 2005 15:20 utc | 18
Juan Cole was for the illegal invasion of Iraq; he’s just another Hitchens.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 22, 2005 9:52:17 AM | #
Are you sure? Aren’t you confused with John Cole of Balloon Juice?
If Juan Cole was for the invasion he still ain’t no Hitchens. For one he actually knows about the country and secondo he don’t drink that much.
Posted by: Scott McArthur | Aug 22 2005 17:24 utc | 19
4/1/2002 : Juan Cole
. The planned war against Iraq is not being done right so far. If the Security Council and the European Union get aboard with it, then I will be all for it.
………………………………..
I think Coles position supported the removal of Saddam, but only conditionally. He has been an informed and vocal critic of US policy
for not meeting those conditions.
Posted by: anna missed | Aug 22 2005 18:34 utc | 20
John Arquilla, Juan Cole and the White House have one huge unmentioned problem. No matter their delusions on how long the USA can stay in Iraq; the US Army is on the point of collapse. The Reserves have dried up. Enlistments are down. Troopers in an elite 82nd Airborne battalion are being shipped to Iraq as prison guards. Lifers will retire rather than face their third and fourth tour in Iraq. Only stop loss will keep them in the Army. The war is being fought on the cheap. Troopers face a never ending war, re-conquering the same ground, again and again.
Posted by: Jim S | Aug 22 2005 20:39 utc | 21
Jim S:
I think Juan Cole knows that… his plan calls for the removal of ground forces, big time, and the use of remote control murder by the Air Force, a la Ariel Sharon, for Iraqis who try to disrupt the flow of “our” oil out of Iraq.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Aug 23 2005 3:25 utc | 22