WASHINGTON WATCH Joelle Morabito with Bret Kincaid
Seeking Shalom in Iraq We’re more than five years into the Iraq War, and the question on many minds is whether the US military should stay in Iraq and, if so, for how long. This presents a false choice. The real question is how we can help Iraqis create a society that is politically, economically, and culturally sustainable. Sectarian violence has plagued Iraq since its creation as an imposed amalgamation of ethnic groups following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Much as in the African colonies, the British defined the territorial limits of the Iraqi state without regard to the politics of or relationships among the different ethnic and religious groups, and bloodshed has long plagued relations between the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. Today, after so many lives lost and billions of dollars spent, it is painfully clear that an Iraqi solution will not be a military one. The solution must be political, but how can a civil society be developed in Iraq that encourages bridging ethnic and political cleavages and provides opportunities for cooperation across sectarian lines? The biblical principle of shalom implies harmonious relations with God, ourselves, others, and nature. As Walter Brueggemann reminds us, shalom is both a gracious gift of God and a task we are called to pursue.There is a tension inherent in shalom in that God is its primary source, and yet God gives fallen human beings the responsibility to serve as his agents to create the conditions that make shalom possible. Second Corinthians 5:19 tells Christians that we have been charged to be agents of reconciliation and to work for biblical shalom as God desires for our individual and communal lives.
But decades of oppression have distorted, factionalized, and infused with mistrust the relationships among Kurds, Sunni, and Shiites. Recent efforts at stability and statecraft have been consistently undermined by this mistrust among competing sectarian groups. Iraq today is not Germany or Japan of the 1940s, yielding readily to the political will of occupying forces. It is more like Bosnia of the 1990s—a country divided by ethnonationalist groups centripetally driven by internal and external forces. How can the US encourage shalom in fiercely factionalized Iraq? Whether the US stays or not, it owes Iraq a stable social condition from which it can develop politically and economically. It doesn’t owe Iraq a democracy: Indeed, the only enduring democracy will be one that Iraqis forge themselves. The US does owe Iraq a working infrastructure, one that can effectively deliver energy, education, healthcare, jobs, and security. But the most difficult thing the US owes Iraq is a real opportunity for political reconciliation and an environment that encourages the development of a viable civil society.
How can we help Iraqis create a politically, economically, and culturally sustainable society? Affirming General David Petraeus’ and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker’s belief that Iraq is “fragile” and mostly in need of a “political settlement,” the US should wholeheartedly support Security Council Resolution 1770 mandating the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) to establish a space for political reconciliation among key Iraqi and regional actors. Carlos Pascual, director of foreign policy at Brookings Institution, advocated as much to the Senate Foreign PRISM 2008
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Relations Committee in April. He said, “It will require unequivocal political backing, careful calibration of expectations, and skilled diplomacy. To undertake this task, the UN needs a special team and a flexible mandate. It cannot be business as usual.The lead negotiator should report to the secretary general, and must be empowered to engage regional and international actors directly.” He likened it to the process leading to the Dayton Accords for Bosnia. “The meeting must be a carefully orchestrated process of negotiating among an inner circle of key Iraqis while engaging…a wider contact group of the neighboring states,” he said. The US and Britain began pushing for this kind of UN effort last summer, before the Iraqi parliament passed a few reconciliation measures this past winter. To help shape their implementation, the US should follow up its reconciliation initiative by giving UNAMI its full support. This would also go a long way in repairing the damage done to UN credibility by the US blow as it rushed to war. Concomitantly, civil society in Iraq needs nourishing. But doing so may be done more effectively if addressed indirectly. We suggest the US should fund the indigenous design and implementation of many more civil society projects that require cooperative efforts across sectarian lines. Working together to rebuild the degraded infrastructure is likely to create jobs and a functioning public works system and, more importantly, foster the trust necessary to undergird a viable civil society. This surge in diplomatic efforts would reflect in practice the apostle Paul’s written echo of his Master’s life: overcome evil with good. ★ Joelle Morabito is a Templeton Honors Scholar and political science major at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa., where Bret Kincaid is associate professor of political science.