Competing narratives

by Chris Bertram on August 9, 2004

I assume that everyone reads “Juan Cole”:http://www.juancole.com/ , but if not, they should. Belle linked the other day to his coverage of the burned double agent story. But, of course, he is best know for his continuing coverage of Iraq. One popular narrative has the current Iraqi government as the harbingers of peace and democracy, impeded in their efforts by ex-Baathists, Al Qaida, the Mehdi Army, the Iranians, etc, and therefore fully justified in using all the force at their disposal to establish order. If I read Cole correctly there is another, competing story, the credibility of which is bolstered by the arrest warrants against the Chalabis (including the one in charge of Saddam’s trial). Namely that Allawi and his allies are using their position, and their access to US and allied firepower, to crush their competitors for political power. The distinction between these narratives is somewhat blurred, of course, by the fact that the current objects of repressive or judicial action are or include very many people who are indeed rogues, gangsters, fanatics, etc. Still, I wouldn’t bet my house on the first version, in which Allawi and co will turn out to have been the good guys, there will be genuinely competitive elections, the righteous will flourish and the unjust will be punished, and so on.

{ 7 comments }

1

Russkie 08.09.04 at 10:23 am

Aren’t these competing “assessments” rather than “narratives”?

Call me unwashed.

2

John Quiggin 08.09.04 at 12:22 pm

It isn’t clear who is pulling the strings here. There were a whole lot of surprises in the last few months of the CPA, including the attempt by Bremer to crush Sadr, the first set of raids on Chalabi (coinciding with the release of material purporting to show him as an Iranian agent) and the IGC fait accompli that short-circuited the deliberations of the UN representative (can’t recall his name offhand) and produced Allawi as PM. Even with all the assistance provided by Juan Cole, it’s hard to make sense of all this, but it certainly doesn’t look a promising start for a new democracy.

3

Jack 08.09.04 at 2:59 pm

“they looked from pig to man and man to pig and pig to man again:but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

There is some extent to which Saddam’s brutality is a product of the political problems he could only solve by violence. Unless we can come up with some better political solutions we will end up solving them in just the same way.

4

marguerite 08.09.04 at 3:29 pm

This article. is relevant, and very discouraging to put it mildly (horrifying would be putting it less mildly)

He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days.
In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices — metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs.

The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions.

But in a move that frustrated and infuriated the guardsmen, Hendrickson’s superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29 — Iraq’s first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion.

5

Robin Green 08.10.04 at 12:50 am

[i]There is some extent to which Saddam’s brutality is a product of the political problems he could only solve by violence.[/i]

What political problems are you referring to, Jack?

Let’s see what the Iraqis in the street are saying, and why they’re so angry:

– Americans get out of Iraq now!

– Why has the government still not fixed our electricity and water supplies?

– Why do we still have no security?

That’s basically what I’m hearing.

These problems are not caused by decades old political problems, they are caused largely (I’d argue) by US imperialism.

6

derrida derider 08.10.04 at 5:34 am

Cecily: … I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
Miss Prism. [In my novel] the good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
– Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest

Unfortunately I think Cecily is in no danger of depression from the Iraq story.

7

Jack 08.10.04 at 10:29 am

I’m talking about balancing the interests of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites the perennial problems of post Ottoman Iraq and the novel problem of coping with the Baathist and Al-Qaeda factions, not to mention the meddling of not too pleasant neighbours.

These were problems for almost all of the last century, certainly before Saddam and as discussions of three state solutions have illustrated, not at all easy to solve. Whether you blame Ottoman, British or American imperialism for causing them or only for postponing a solution they are real, were faced by Saddam and until recently and by the looks of it again, solved by main force.

I would have said something closer to what I meant if I had said willing instead of able. The point is that with no democratic manadate and no popular settlement from which to obtain one, Saddam had considerable political problems that he dealt with by violence.

Now that we have inherited those problems, we, and our proxies, are in danger of solving them by the same methods. Already we have a clampdown on freedom of the press, restoration of the death penalty, Baathists returning to power and conflicts, with indeed the enemies of the man we came to depose, leaving hundreds or thousands dead. Without the vision or understanding to come up with something better we will not only have done no good but be deserving of some of the opprobium heaped on Saddam.

These are the concrete problems of unaccountable and ignorant power. If intentions are anything to go by US rule would certainly be preferable to Saddam but unfortunately they are not enough and as far as I am concerned this is the fundamental problem of so-called imperialism. You don’t need to show that the US made all the problems to suggest that its involvement is not a great idea. The phenomena you list only demonstrate that the US is in power at the moment.

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