Republic of Fear

Writing a constitution and electing a transitional government cannot provide Iraq with an effective national army. Go anywhere in Iraq with the National Guard and you see courageous men wearing balaclavas for fear of revealing their identity. Iraq seems unlikely to get a police force soon that can patrol the streets without fear of being killed.

When Iraqis finally elect a government of their own, it is likely to lack both the power and the effective institutions to impose its will on the country or the insurgents. The long-awaited government will almost certainly still be reliant on US and UK power to govern.

The exiled Iraqi human rights activist Kanan Makiya famously defined the country under the Ba’ath party as the republic of fear. Travelling through central Iraq this month, I saw the constant fear that still drains life of any sense of normality for Iraqis…

Iraq is still a place of fear for its people. And it is full of fears for the British and US governments, too — the fear that the insurgency will increase in intensity; the fear that Iran will extend its influence in the country; the fear that Shia domination of the government will lead to civil conflict; fear that that the troops will be there for years…

This will be a defining year in Iraq, and a long and painful one for the Iraqi people. They already find themselves caught between a democratic system that they have bravely voted for — but that doesn’t have the power to bring them peace, security and the rule of law — and western powers that have that power, but cannot exercise it fully without destroying the legitimacy of the nascent Iraqi state.

Excerpted from an article by Rageh Omaar, BBC reporter and writer, in the Guardian, January 31