Attacks in Baghdad: Undermining the Concept of Iraq
By Aaron Mannes
In the Arab world, according to the eminent Bernard Lewis, the nation-state is faced with pressures from above and below. From below tribal, sectarian, and ethnic loyalties frequently trump national allegiances. From above, grand causes, pan-Arabism for much of the 20th century, now Islamism trump nationalism.
The pair of bombings in Iraq yesterday, targeting the Iraqi Parliament and the Sarrafiya Bridge had many implications – but they were both attacks on the concept of Iraq as a nation. According to radical Islamist doctrine (as described in The Management of Savagery by Abu Bakr Naji, translated by William McCants at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center) when a region dissolves into savagery people seeking security will rally around tribal affinities, gangs, and prominent individuals. These local actors can then be co-opted to the Islamist cause. By this means, the loyalty to the broader Islamist community will trump local and national affiliations.
The attack on the Parliament has received the greater attention in the international media. The terrorist’s capability of striking at the very heart of the Iraqi government and U.S. administration in the supposedly secure Green Zone will obviously undermine perception of security. It also has an international impact and can only diminish the already low level of American confidence that progress is being made. The Parliament is only a nascent Iraqi institution, and held in low repute by most Iraqis both for its fecklessness and for its relative privilege. The bombing may improve the Parliament’s standing by showing the Iraqi people that their elected leaders share their risks, and ideally it would spur the Parliament to more effective action. This is a slender hope.
(Apparently the bomber was an MP’s bodyguard. A politician’s bodyguard also took the Saddam execution video. Better regulation of these posses may have both security implications and improve the Parliament’s standing among the Iraqi public.)
The Sarrafiya Bridge was another matter. A relic from a previous round of nation-building (by the British in the middle of the 20th century) the bridge, also known as Jisr al-Hadeed (“the iron bridge”) was a central artery linking the banks of the Tigris. According to Omar Fadhil at Iraq the Model most of his friends were far more upset about the destruction of the bridge than about the attack on Parliament. Many Baghdadis have fond memories of the bridge itself. Practically, its loss virtually slices the city in two.
Sarrafiya’s destruction is yet another blow to any possibility of normal life in Baghdad, further diminishing Baghdad as a cosmopolitan and distinctly Iraqi city, and atomizing Iraqi society.
Cross-posted at ProfilesinTerror