Dreams of Babylon By Ryan Crocker ince the March 7 national elections shiqaq wa al-nifaq” (“Oh people of Iraq, in Iraq, we have watched the high people of disunity and hypocrisy”). Iraqis S drama and low comedy of the gov- quote him today with perverse pride—they ernment-formation process: candidates are the toughest guys on the Middle East- disqualified and reinstated, fraud alleged, ern block. recounts ordered and results upheld, co- Some argue that whether it be Hajjaj alitions forming and shifting in bewilder- at the turn of the eighth century or Sad- ing variations. And when all of this is fi- dam Hussein in the twenty-first, both were nally concluded and a new government uniquely successful as rulers in the land of is formed, it will face a huge agenda of the two rivers because there were no limits unresolved issues: Kurdish-Arab tensions; to their use of terror and violence to main- disputed internal boundaries; corruption; tain order. I was in Iraq early in my career, challenges from neighbors; institutional de- from 1978 to 1980. I was there when Sad- velopment; friction among federal, regional dam assassinated the founder of the Dawa and local governments—the list is virtually Party (of which politician Nuri al-Maliki endless. The truth is that more than seven is a member), Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr. years after the launch of Operation Iraqi His supporters risked torture and death Freedom, Iraq is still at the very beginning to plaster the walls of Baghdad with post- of this chapter in its long history. ers commemorating his death. I still have one. I was there when Saddam ordered the raq is hard. It has always been hard, arrest and execution of his minister of plan- I and it will go on being hard. In Islam’s ning and protégé, Adnan Hussein, for dar- first century, a rebellion of the Khawarij ing to contradict him at a meeting of the in Iraq (whose fundamentalist theology Revolutionary Command Council, then and inclination to violence resemble that the supreme executive and legislative body of al-Qaeda) necessitated the dispatch of in Iraq. Our driver was taken in the middle the Umayyad Empire’s most successful and of the night and imprisoned for years for ruthless general, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. He the crime of working for the Americans— began a famous speech at the Kufa mosque and for being Kurdish. My neighbors were with these words: “Ya ahl al-Iraq, ahl al- afraid to talk to me. It was, as Iraqi scholar and former exile Kanan Makiya so accu- Ryan Crocker is dean and executive professor at rately described it, the “Republic of Fear.” the George Bush School of Government and Public From the highest officials to the everyman Service at Texas A&M University. A career foreign- in the street, Saddam inspired a culture service officer, he served as ambassador to Iraq from of terror. I served in police states before 2007 to 2009. and after, but neither the Shah’s Iran nor 18 The National Interest Dreams of Babylon the Syria of Hafez al-Assad remotely ap- nuclear program. Prime Minister al-Ma- proached Saddam’s Iraq. liki got out just ahead of regime assassins. I returned to Baghdad in 1998 as the Other members of Dawa and his own fam- U.S. representative to unscom’s special ily were not so fortunate. Kurdish leaders t e a m c h a r g e d Massoud Barzani with inspecting and Jalal Talabani Saddam’s palaces survived Saddam’s for weapons of notorious Anfal mass destruc- campaign against tion—the first t h e i r p e o p l e . American diplo- Vice Presidents mat in Iraq since Tariq al-Hash- 1990. I met Abd emi and Adel Hamoud al-Ti- Abdul Mahdi kriti, Saddam’s were hunted. Al- personal secre- Hashemi lost two tary and one of of his siblings the most feared to regime death men in the re- squads. Such ex- gime. He took periences make delight in show- men tough. But ing me the pal- they also make aces of his boss’s c o m p r o m i s e s two sons-in-law difficult. There who had defected is a phrase in to Jordan in 1995 Pakistan—“two and were brutally men, one grave.” murdered follow- It’s you or me. ing their return. I Losing an elec- knew I was in the tion can be far presence of the more serious than man who had arranged those murders—and being forced out of office. It is a legacy that countless others. I saw the physical fear on haunts Iraq. the faces of every Iraqi he encountered. I was back in Iraq in June 2003 when he was y two years in Iraq as ambassador arrested. It was a satisfying moment. M from 2007 to 2009 saw some sig- Americans forget this heritage of fear. nificant developments, a virtuous circle fol- Iraqis do not. Virtually all of the current lowing the vicious spiral of 2006 when the leadership is scarred by Saddam, in some February al-Qaeda bombing of the Golden cases literally. Ayad Allawi, whose coalition Mosque in Samarra, one of Shia Islam’s emerged from March’s election with the most revered sites, triggered an escalating most seats in Iraq’s parliament, survived wave of sectarian violence that brought the an ax attack by Saddam’s agents. He walks country to the verge of civil war. President with a limp. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shah- Bush’s “new way forward,” popularly known ristani spent more than a decade in solitary as the surge, changed the dynamics. Sunnis confinement for refusing to assist Saddam’s in Anbar, confident that we had their backs, Dreams of Babylon July/August 2010 19 turned against al-Qaeda. As this Awaken- will remain the indispensable partner. It is ing moved into Baghdad, Iraqi Shia began noteworthy that when our two agreements to notice that Sunnis were now fighting a on U.S. troop withdrawal and what the common enemy. As extremist Shia mili- postwar country would look like came to a tias like Jaish al-Mahdi became less neces- vote on Thanksgiving Day 2008, they had sary for security, they became less popular, the support of all Iraqi political factions ex- and in early 2008 al-Maliki could order cept the Sadrists. And even the Sadrists are his forces to confront them in Basra and now publicly acknowledging the success of Baghdad’s Sadr City with the full support the surge and U.S. involvement in stabiliz- of the population. Iraqi Sunnis in turn saw ing Iraq. al-Maliki behaving as a nationalist rather than a sectarian leader and rejoined his gov- t is vital that this engagement continue. ernment that summer. Landmark legislation I Iraq is not yesterday’s war. on provincial powers (a major step toward Strategic patience is often in short supply resolving Iraq’s states’ rights issues), a re- in this country. It is not a new problem for form of the controversial de-Baathification us, and it is not limited to Iraq. My time regulations and budget allocations for the in the Foreign Service, from Lebanon in Kurdistan region passed in the National the early 1980s to Iraq twenty-five years Assembly as political leaders were able to later, was in many respects service in a long fashion compromises in an atmosphere of war. Dates such as 4/18 and 10/23—the dramatically reduced violence. bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine Iraqis certainly deserve the credit for this Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983—were transformation; but it would not have hap- seared into my memory well before 9/11. pened without intensive, sustained U.S. I learned a few lessons along the way. One engagement, particularly by those in the is we need to be careful about what we get military who carried the surge forward. into. It is a complex, volatile region with The hardest months of my life came in the long experience in dealing with outside in- first half of 2007, as our casualties mounted terventions—our adversaries often do not with no guarantee that the strategy would organize for the war until some point after work. But it did, and the people of both we think we have already won it. But a sec- nations owe a tremendous debt to those ond lesson is that we need to be even more who fought to secure the Iraqi population, careful about what we propose to get out one hard block at a time. It was good to of. Disengagement can have greater conse- see al-Maliki lay a wreath in Arlington Na- quences than intervention. tional Cemetery last summer to honor their Our withdrawal from Lebanon in 1984 sacrifice. was a victory for Syria and Iran who cre- But the surge was not the only strategy ated and used Hezbollah against us with that helped to bring calm. We were en- devastating consequences. They drew con- gaged at all levels—political, economic clusions about our staying power, and when and diplomatic. My colleagues and I spent I stepped off the helicopter in Baghdad on countless hours with Iraqi political figures a warm night in March 2007 as the new throughout the country, working to find American ambassador, I had the eerie feel- compromises, suggesting alternatives, even ing that I was back in Lebanon a quarter of providing drafts. We were in the back- a century earlier.