Nationalists without Nationalism, Part 1: National Unity

***Post Time Adjusted In Celebration of the Namesake's Return***

Iraqologist has been challenged in the comments to address Iraqi nationalism, which is, according to his critics, "the major factor" in Iraqi politics right now. Iraqologist is not a political scientist and lacks the comparative perspective to address this question properly, but he will try to say something coherent on the subject anyway.

As it is commonly used, Iraqi nationalism refers to three separate but related phenomena: 1) commitment to national unity and a common, national identity that transcends identities like sect, tribe, self-interested faction, etc. 2) rejection of foreign influence (especially US and Iranian) and the assertion of national autonomy and agency and 3) support for the administrative unity of the state and a strong central government or, if decentralized, not organized along identity lines (geographic federalism).

That the third factor is currently in ascendance cannot be denied. The center has emerged and it is the locus of political action. ISCI by all appearances has abandoned its support of sectarian federalism. Kurd/Arab tensions have been thrown into relief: now that Arab Iraq is becoming more peaceful and organized, Arab Iraqis are making their displeasure at the Kurdish overreach of the past five years known. The July 22 coalition has thrown up a road block to premature settling of the Kirkuk question as part of the provincial elections debate in the COR, and Maliki has sent the message in Khanaqin that Kurdish military efforts to annex territory will not be tolerated. In addition to PTB/PTA power sharing issues, this Arab/Kurd tension is the second main axis along which political disputes in Iraq fall.

Iraqologist has dealt with the federalism issue at length in other posts, so better to focus on the other two aspects of nationalism he has so far ignored: national unity/identity (Part 1 of this post) and the rejection of foreign influence (Part 2).

Much public debate about Iraq in the US and in the media betrays a very simplistic understanding of Iraqi identity. Specifically, casual observers tend to view Iraqi identity through the lens of whatever identities are currently ascendant in Iraq, and then draw conclusions about what Iraq is in its essence from that. When sectarian identity was raging and Iraq was in the midst of a Sunni-Shi'a civil war, sectarian partition ideas were popular in the US and in the media, people would say things like "it takes a dictatorship to keep Sunnis and Shi'a from killing each other," and did not consider that there might be other identities that were more fundamental or even competed with sectarian identity. Soon after, tribalism became ascendant with the Awakening, meaning Iraqis started to be able to make money by claiming to be tribal leaders, and "nationalist" insurgents wanted a new, more flexible identity hat to put on to be able to cooperate with the US and the GOI. At this point, casual observers of Iraq began to say, "This is a tribal society and will never function as a modern state."

All this, despite the fact that, if you actually talk to non-Kurdish Iraqis, probably 90% will tell you they consider "Iraqi" to be their dominant identity, the other 10% answering "Muslim" or "Arab," with sect and tribe far down the list. More importantly, the idea of “Iraqi unity” is of central, defining importance in Iraqi political rhetoric and in the Iraqi political imagination. Very few, if any, Arab Iraqis will ever openly acknowledge that their political ambitions are not directed toward the unity of Iraq. Even when the Hakims--the bete noire of Iraqi nationalists--used to advocate the RCS, they (somewhat bizarrely) claimed that this initiative would guarantee the unity of Iraq. “Iraqi unity” is an absolute red line for Sunni and Shi'a Iraqis, and they are correspondingly inclined to bewail factionalism and sectarianism. It is thus understandable that Iraqis and Iraq scholars get frustrated when US policymakers, journalists and analysts ignore a factor that is so obviously part of how Iraqis describe themselves politically. A very common complaint of many Iraqis against the US is that the US has, in its policies, undermined Iraqi unity.*

However, despite this superficial commitment to unity and constant appeals to a common Iraqi identity, underlying factional and sectarian divisions continue to make themselves known, as anyone could see over the past five years. It is simply part of the unusual and seemingly paradoxical nature of Iraqi politics that, as bad as sectarian and factional violence can get, no one will ever admit to putting his own group first. (Except for the Kurds, who are the exception that proves the rule.) Iraqi Ba'thists are nationalist in rhetoric and sectarian and factional in practice. Sadrists are nationalist in rhetoric and sectarian and factional in practice.** Nationalist rhetoric is very often a fig-leaf for very narrowly-defined political ambitions. Again, Iraqologist lacks the proper comparative perspective, but he doubts you will find another similarly conflict-ridden country where such a vast multitude of opposed and fragmented groups all claim to be devoted to national unity.

So if, when you say that Iraqi nationalism is "the major factor" in Iraqi politics, you mean commitment to Iraqi identity and Iraqi unity, you have to mean more than politicians appealing to these ideas and the Iraqi public holding these ideas dear. That has always been the case and always will be the case. But is this identity motivating political action? Are there signs that Iraq's famous panoply of fragmented groups are sublimating their individual ambitions to the cause of national unity? Does nationalism account for leaders acting in ways that couldn't be just as easily explained, if not better explained, by narrow, factional self-interest?

The answer is, for the most part, no. Fragmentation of the Iraqi political class (especially the PTA) proceeds apace (cf. Lynch/Katulis). Accounts of political groups breaking apart proliferate; accounts of political groups merging or otherwise finding common cause are very few, if they're happening at all. Tawafuq is splintering. The Sadrists, always more fragmented than commonly understood, remain so, and are registered to run in the provincial elections as separate parties even in single provinces. The Awakenings, though there are some efforts to align them as a unified political force, remain divided, a division reinforced (to some extent, but not totally, created) by the CLC/SoI program. Allawi's Iraqiya list--despite all that the constituent groups manifestly have in common in the context of Iraqi politics--remains divided. Take a look at the vast number of parties registered for the provincial elections (great link here). These groups may yet get past their differences, form coalition lists, and make a run at the PTB, but the current level of division is staggering. You can go on and on with the examples. If nationalism is in fact on the rise, this cannot mean the meaningful commitment to national unity or the expression of a common national identity.***

Champions of Iraqi nationalism as a unifying force often point to the efforts of what has been called the July 22 coalition. As Reidar Visser has helpfully pointed out in the comments to Iraqologist's last post, this group (both before and after it acquired the 7/22 moniker) has achieved a very small number of parliamentary successes. These include the passage of provincial elections legislation (ultimately vetoed), a unified front on oil legislation that was deemed too favorable to foreign interests, and concerted opposition to the law enabling the formation of new federal regions.

The latter two certainly qualify as nationalism in action: a cross-factional coalition finding unity in their rejection of foreign influence in Iraq and in their commitment to the administrative unity of the Iraqi state. The July 22 coalition's efforts on provincial elections, on the other hand, are only partly nationalist in nature, insofar as they have recently become a vehicle for challenging the Kurds on Kirkuk. The efforts to force early elections--after nearly 2 years of PTB foot-dragging on the subject--were largely driven by the self-interest of PTA parties underrepresented in provincial governments and was, in that sense, a tactical alliance largely unconnected to nationalism. In total, you have one effort that failed (regions), another effort that ended up dying for other reasons (oil), and a largely successful effort (provincial elections) that was bound not merely by commitment to national unity but by the sturdy, trusty glue of mutual self-interest. This is not nothing, but it's hardly much evidence for the rise of Iraqi nationalism taken in the balance with everything else.

Much of the rest of political progress, such as it is, in the COR the past two years--De-Ba'thification, the budget, the provincial powers law, amnesty--arguably has nothing to do with nationalism, but rather tactical horse-trading in which factions make tradeoffs and compromise and find a muddled-through middle ground. To Iraqologist's way of thinking, this method of political progress is certainly much firmer footing on which to build a polity in a democracy than appeals to national unity grounded in a common identity. Interests trump ideology. The concrete trumps the abstract. The good-enough trumps the ideal.

This is why Iraqologist is always yammering on about why PTA/PTB is a good way to understand Iraqi politics. It is in the self-interest of the PTA parties to get unified and challenge the PTB because the PTA have so many common interests. It's a shame they haven't been more successful in uniting. But ideology--nationalism per se--however present it is in rhetoric, is proving to be a weak force in actually uniting Iraqis. In fact, a greater realization among the PTA party leaders of common interests as a uniting force and compromise as a means of satisfying them would probably yield much more in the way of actual concessions from the PTB.

Part 2 on the much weightier and more significant aspect of nationalism—the rejection of foreign interference—to come.


*This complaint is justified in some cases and ridiculous in others. Iraqologist may get into that in another post.

**An absurd but telling example of this phenomenon was when AQI recast itself as the "Islamic State of Iraq" in late 2006, gave itself an Iraqi leader, put Iraq in the name (which before had been Al-Qaida in the "Land of the Two Rivers"), and so forth, and this is for a group whose whole raison d'etre is the abolishment of the "Sykes-Picot" states of the Middle East!

***Just to be clear, Iraqologist is not saying, as Lynch/Katulis appear to, that all fragmentation is bad or means a lack of political progress. Certainly the disintegration of the UIA in parliament is a good thing, since it reflects a weakening of Shi'a identity as unifying political force. Tawafuq was always a shell coalition dominated by the IIP and served as kind of a proxy for "Sunni" interests. The fact that groups are breaking away from it to form their own parties is at least in part a sign that they are invested in the political process and are trying to more accurately represent and appeal to their constituencies.