Traboulsi 49breakup of the Iraqi state—which was not by any means a necessary
requirement for the overthrow of the Ba‘th regime—merits ample and
deep reflection insofar as it has been and still is a cause of deep concern.
By the “semiplanned breakup of the Iraqi state” we refer to the process
that had for its code name “nation building” rather than “regime change.”
It comprised the refusal by the U.S.-led occupation forces to defend any
government institution save the Ministries of Oil and of the Interior in
addition to the postoccupation decisions to disband the whole of the
Iraqi army, the administration and the Ba‘th Party. “State destruction” had
turned out to be the precondition, as it were, of “nation building.”
f we wish to evade the question of intentions, the least that can be I
said about that process is that it had two quite disastrous consequences.
First, on the level of the democratization process: Let us assume, for the
sake of argumentation, that the democratization process in Iraq was
a serious concern of the U.S.-led coalition. Then we can safely say that
that democratization process has been relegated to a minor position as
the issue of security and the rebuilding of the Iraqi state takes priority
over everything else. Second, the Iraqi case illustrates a situation in which
the state—which is not synonymous at all with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’thi
regime—was a vital component of the unity of the multiethnic and multi-
sectarian Iraqi society. We cannot merely attribute the increasingly rapid
division of Iraq and the Iraqis along ethnic and sectarian lines exclusively
to Saddam Hussein’s policies. The objective factor of the destruction of
the Iraqi state—as a state—has a lot to do with the above-mentioned situ-
ation. Of course, the relationship here can be said to be dialectical. One
can even venture to propose that the present Iraqi crisis can be partially
looked at as the result of a weakened state that is becoming increasingly
incapable of achieving the minimum required degree of unity and inte-
gration of its society at a time when that society is incapable of generating
the forces required to organically produce a new state.