Iraq: When Countries Build While Others Destroy
18 February 2018Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
Iraq has been promised a sum of $30 billion in reconstruction plans. Truth is,
not many are excited about the idea for several reasons which include the
difficult economic circumstances the region's countries are going through and
the high cost of wars.
What's worse than money shortage is the mismanagement in Iraq itself. Who
would want to invest money in a country where militias are deployed and
corruption is rampant? There is sectarianism there and the government is weak.
Terrorism has not been eliminated even though it was defeated in Mosul and
other areas. Obvious foreign interferences, particularly Iran's, continue to
increase. These are all dangerous challenges which we cannot ignore despite
American and international pressures to provide support.
Iraq's problems are not due to the lack of financial resources but to the many
woes it suffers from. Iraq itself is rich. It's the world's fifth largest
proven oil reserves, and it lies on a treasure of gas.
This is in addition to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. If it had been stable
and if its political authority had been capable of managing the entire state,
no one would have hesitated to provide funds, loans and investments to
reconstruct it.
Iraqis must not be fooled by international conferences and commitments to
reconstruct the country as similar promises have been made but never been
fulfilled, like the case is for Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Gaza and Lebanon.
Financial commitments were not kept because the latter continued to suffer
from violence and chaos. The experience in Gaza is a bad model as every time
it was supported, it was destroyed due to its authority's ill management and
to its enemy's violent reactions.
The same applies to Lebanon whom Hezbollah involved in wars several times and
led to its destruction. They act as such then expect Gulf and western
countries to reconstruct bridges, ports and the army.
Iraq paid a high price for its mistakes. It compensated Kuwait for invading it
as it paid it $46 billion and $4 billion are left. And today, Iraq has
received promises that it will receive 30$ billion for reconstruction plans.
Turkey said it will pay $5 billion, the US said it will pay $3 billion, Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait said they will pay $1.5 billion each, Qatar committed to pay
$0.5 billion and the EU committed to paying less than $0.5.
What can we notice when looking at the list of supporters? The only country
that's not helping the Iraqis is Iran which is the most responsible for Iraq's
destruction and for the failure of its central authority as it disintegrated
Iraqi state institutions in order to control them and established a parallel
army, i.e. the Popular Mobilization which resembles Hezbollah in Lebanon and
performs the same task.
Khamenei's regime has worked on supporting Iraqi religious groups at the
expense of the civil state and it sent its general Qassem Soleimani to dictate
the Iraqi command how to manage its military institutions and lead its wars.
It also used Iraq to fund its operations and exploited it as a passage to
Syria and Lebanon.
If it hadn't been for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' interferences, the
Iraqis would have been in a better situation under the control of their
political state institutions and the international community's support. Iraq
had in the past benefited from making use of its oil, water and human
resources to establish a great state.
The question is: How can the Iraqis build their country when armed religious
militias along with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards control it?
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, and the
leading Arabic weekly magazine Al-Majalla. He is also a senior columnist in
the daily newspapers Al-Madina and Al-Bilad.
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