Interview with Gilbert Achcar

Q. The U.S. occupation of Iraq has obviously been a disaster, even from the point of view of U.S. elite interests. There is a lot of second-guessing going on now trying to explain how this catastrophe came about. Was it wrong to disband the army and order de-Baathification?

GA. Was it wrong? It depends for whom! From the point of view of U.S. imperial interests, from the point of view of U.S. control over Iraq, the Bush administration made only the wrong choices all along, ever since it decided to invade the country. One could argue, from that angle, that the decision to invade the country by itself was a major mistake. However, one could still say that there could have been efficient ways for U.S. imperial control to be imposed over Iraq through military intervention, ways that involve a serious attempt at cutting a deal with major segments of the Iraqi Baathist state apparatus. That was possible, it was envisaged and even prepared, but discarded briefly before the invasion.

There was indeed a possibility from the viewpoint of U.S. imperial interests at least to try to run Iraq through major chunks of the Baathist apparatus, but without Saddam Hussein, and to get in this way what they are most interested in — that is, major influence over the country, control over its oil production and exports. Therefore, from that angle, yes, disbanding the army and de-Baathification was a deadly mistake. But, was it morally wrong? Was it wrong from the point of view of Arab Shiites’ interests? This is why I said that "Was it wrong" depends on "For whom?" De-Baathification — except for its excesses — was certainly not morally wrong, because the Baath was such a terribly murderous dictatorship. The rest is a problem of calculation depending on which interests you are putting in the balance. Seen from the angle of Arab Shiites’ interests, thoroughly dismantling the Baathist state apparatus was definitely an indispensable condition for achieving real majority rule in Iraq.

Q. Do you think that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will lead to even worse sectarian violence? Will withdrawal lead to the victory of either Baathists or Islamic fundamentalists?

GA. Victory of Islamic fundamentalists is something you can already take for granted. The Baathists no longer have enough clout for them to be able to achieve control of the situation again — probably not even in the Arab Sunni areas alone. From what one can gather from Iraqi sources, it does not seem like there is any longer any major control exerted by the Baathist apparatus, in a centralized or organized way. Remnants of the Baathist apparatus, for the most part, have split into various groups that do not claim any allegiance to Baathism. Actually, to a certain extent, it seems that al-Qaeda has achieved more force in Iraq than whatever remains of the loyalist apparatus of the "Saddamist" Baath. Now, that brings me back to your question about all-out civil war. What you would get would be the de-facto split of the country: the country will be divided into different areas based, on the one hand, on sectarian or ethnic differences, and on the other hand, probably, on different political forces.

That is, you will not have a homogenous Arab Sunni area, but various Sunni forces controlling segments of the area and clashing among themselves, with a similar pattern on the Shiite side. The two major Kurdish forces clashed violently some years ago, and could very likely clash again. This is the most likely outcome of an all-out war. It would resemble the kind of situation that prevailed in my own country, Lebanon, after 1975, when the country was not only split into two broad camps, but fell under the control of various warlords and sub-entities inside each camp — a pattern repeated later in Afghanistan. A neologism was invented to describe this situation: "Lebanonization." Iraq, indeed, runs the risk of complete "Lebanonization."

Q. The U.S. has seized and detained Iranians in Iraq and has been accusing Iran of meddling in the country. The Bush administration has charged that some of the sophisticated explosive devices being used against US troops in Iraq come from Iran, with training provided by Hezbollah. What do you think Iran is up to? Are Iran-backed Shiite groups engaged in military encounters with U.S. forces?

GA. Yes, definitely. Iraqi Shiite forces are waging a resistance fight against the coalition troops. If you visit the websites dedicated to the Mahdi Army or the Sadrists, you will find a long list of military operations against occupation troops as well as complaints about media blackout. They complain that the media do not report resistance actions in Shiite areas, but only actions taking place in Sunni areas. There is definitely a resistance struggle in the Shiite areas, mainly through "IEDs" (Improvised Explosive Devices) and the like, more than through direct frontal attacks against occupation troops, although you can also read about the latter kind of actions. Now, to believe that Iran is helping this in some ways makes sense — it is not absurd at all. One would very much understand why Iran would have some interest in backing this, provided its backing does not appear too openly. Iran resorts very likely to what in the United States is called "covert action," a kind of action of which the U.S. is very much a specialist, as you know. What would Iran try to achieve through that? On the one hand, of course, it is definitely in Tehran’s interest that U.S. troops remain stuck in a quagmire in Iraq at a time when the U.S. administration is trying to put Iran in a corner, exert strong pressure on it, threaten it with military action, and so on.

On the other hand, Iran is engaged in a regional struggle with Washington and there are two aspects of that. One is defensive, since it is Washington that is on the offensive, targeting Iran, speaking of regime change and all the rest. It is not Tehran that is trying to force regime change in Washington, but the reverse — although you might say that Tehran is interested in hastening the political defeat of the Bush administration, but that is not exactly the same kind of "regime change"! The other aspect of the Iranian regional struggle, which could go beyond the defensive, is that Tehran is interested in extending its influence in the area to form a kind of buffer zone, or a protective area of friendly states. It has also an interest in the economic field; if you recall, when I was speaking about oil, I said that the Iraqis could also cut deals with Iranian oil companies, because Iran has some means in that regard, though nothing comparable to what Western oil companies have. There is finally the ideological factor that should not be belittled: both the Islamic fundamentalist dimension, appealing to all brands of Islamic fundamentalism, whether Shiite or Sunni, and the sectarian dimension. By the latter, I mean Shiite sectarian solidarity, which extends beyond Iraq and Lebanon to the oppressed Shiites populating the oil producing areas of the Saudi Kingdom, as well as to those who constitute the oppressed majority in Bahrain, and many other Shiite minorities in the broader Middle East. If you put all these factors together, you get an idea of the set of incentives and motivations that stand behind Iranian actions in the area.

Gilbert Achcar was interviewed by Stephen R. Shalom and Chris Spannos for ZNet on January 18, 2007.