Travel to Middle East

The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq

Format: Hardcover
Author: Rory Stewart
ReleaseDate: 26 July, 2006
Publisher: Harcourt
Rating:

No Chance to Succeed
In THE PRINCE OF THE MARSHES (And Other Occupational Hazards Of A Year In Iraq), Stewart describes CPA efforts to establish representative government in these two Iraqi states in the first 15 months after the invasion. Rory Stewart, a young veteran of the British Foreign Office, worked as a coordinator in the Iraqi governorate (state) of Maysan from September 2003 to January 2004 and as an advisor in the Coalition Provisional Authority in the Iraqi governorate of Dhi Qar from March through June of 2004.

Surprising to me was the progress that Stewart and his colleagues made in this visionary project. While local commitment to a representative government in each governorate was shallow, at best, Stewart and his colleagues either appointed representative governments or held actual, albeit imperfect, elections that produced governors. While alternative (shadow) Sadrist governments existed, the Western diplomats had the machinery for representative government in place.

So what happened? In Maysan, violence immediately after elections demonstrated the weakness of the new democracy, with its politicians then claiming autocratic powers. Thereafter, everything unraveled. And in Dhi Qar, the failure of Italian military units to establish control allowed a relative handful of violent Sadrists to drive out the CPA, as well as intimidate elected officials.

The fundamental failure in Iraq, in other words, was the failure to provide security. Without security, the CPA's new government structures could never establish legitimacy. The existence of violent intimidation also showed moderate Iraqis that they were unprotected if they took the side of representative government.

Of course, most of Stewart's narrative is about the daily grind of establishing a new civic order and undertaking beneficial civic projects. (Much good was done. ) At this layer of the narrative, he shows how tribalism, crime, religion, Arab politics, and a history of autocratic rule combined to foment the chaotic and dangerous Iraq we recognize today. At this narrative layer, he also attends meetings in the Green Zone where people close to Bremer discuss "best practice gaps analysis" or applaud the country's long tradition of democracy. But the underlying story of THE PRINCE OF MARSHES is the failure in Iraq to establish public safety. (We all know that Army Chief of Staff Shinseki was right about the occupation. ) Without this, reforms just couldn't take hold.

A fantastic must-read book!
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Sheikh of Shiekhs
He had just spent 20 months traveling Asia and had returned from Afghanistan. By April of 2002 Rory Stewart had returned home to the Highlands of Scotland resigning from the Foreign Office. Somewhere along his life's journey he had learned Farsi/Persian. For fourteen months Stewart lived a mile from the nearest town on the edge of a woods. In March of 2003, the US invaded Iraq. In August Stewart took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad to ask for a job from the director of operations and to walk around the city. On his return to Britain, the Foreign Office asked him to again go to work for them. He was a Scot born in Hong Kong and reared in Malaysia. He had been an infantry officer before he joined the Foreign Service where he served in embassies in Indonesia and Yugoslavia. In 2003 the Foreign Office asked him to be the deputy governate coordinator of the province of Maysan which lay in the Iraqi marshes "just north of the Garden of Eden. "

When Stewart arrived in Iraq to assume his duties, the Prince of the Marshes was already a famous name. Provincial shiekhs tended to be grandfather figures not ones with rugged Valentino looks. The Prince had been waging guerilla warfare against Saddam Hussein for seventeen years. He was the tall leader of the provnce of Maysan known as "Abu Hatim," son of Mahood, son of Hattab of the tribe of Albu Muhammad. The title "Prince of the Marshes" reflected the desperation of the situation. Some claim Bremer first gave him that title though Bremer denied it. Perhaps the title came from soldiers who were watching "Lord of the Rings" and found in Abu Hatim an ally in their war against "Mordor. " Abu Hatim was willing to fight for the Coalition's new Iraq. The Prince was probably the most famous resistance leader in Iraq. He could be a dangerous enemy, but he was not radical either politically or religiously. Probably he had participated in the looting of a province and profited from selling stolen ministry vehicles to the Kurds. The problem was that the Coalition was promoting democracy not a warlord.

At a high level meeting in Baghdad the governor from Najaf interrupted Bremer saying that he could not do any traveling and had a staff of eight. Worst of all, he could not see the plans broadcast by intranet. Bremer promised that Baghdad was working hard to get the governor what he wanted. A general joined in the conversation saying that Iraq was not a security problem but an economic problem. "Hundreds of thousands of young men do not have jobs and that is why they are joining the insurgency. " At last Bremer cut in and said security really was the problem and "it is your job to solve it. " Democracy had been promised, but Stewart finds shame in occupation. "We wanted to justify the invasion by doing some good. "

By October Abu Rashid had been murdered. "Two high-velocity shells - you can tell by the exit wounds. " The Prince opposed one after another of Stewart's moves. General Sabih was a Baathist. A public safety committee was a group of Iranian spies. Seyyad Hassan was a follower of Al Sadr. Stewart met with a few clerics and shiekhs each of whom spun his own web. By October 29th each of the numerous factions had found a way to justify and enlist Coalition support as if to heal Iraq. On Nov 1 Stewart held a summit of the various factions.

After allowing the factions the platform to speak, Stewart asked the factions to sign a document renouncing violence. Stewart speaks Farsi but not much Arabic. He depended upon a translator. When no one moved toward signing his document, he asked again. Still no response. At this point a man shouted from the back of the room that Stewart's translator was not doing the job right. At this time Stewart as deputy governate coordinator was "sheikh of sheikhs" in Maysan yet he was wondering how much of what he was saying was not getting translated.

On June 28, 2004, sovereignty was handed over to the Iraqi government. Stewart participated in a ceremony at famous Ziggurat of Ur. At the end of the ceremony Stewart suggested that the group of officials walk down. Then Asad, a middle-aged poet of the marsh Arabs told Stewart, "We will miss you. " Stewart wondered why Asad had been firing mortar rounds at him five weeks earlier. Asad replied that it was nothing personal.

From the above it would appear that Stewart recognizes Iraq to be a convoluted mess. From the recent news stories of waste of US dollars in Iraq and recent stories of the wisdom of a troop surge, it would appear that Iraq is an insoluble quagmire as well. After three and a half years, perhaps it is time that the US starts to think "outside the box. " What the US and the Brits have tried for years has not worked.

Rule By RPG


Here's an excerpt from the book that explains why success in Iraq has eluded the U. Stewart's description of the inhabitants of Southern Iraq does not differ greatly from those he met on his trek across Afghanistan ("The Places In Between") prior to becoming deputy governor in Iraq, despite the significant difference in the two countries' natural resources and wealth. S. and true democracy will not take root in the foreseeable future:

"Politics was not a level playing field. The Iranians and Syrians were pouring money into more extreme Isamlist groups, sometimes encouraging them to preach against us, sometimes to attack us, aiming thereby to create instability and deter us from invading them next. . . . . More moderate islamists. . . wanted to travel the province and communicate their vision of the future but they could not afford cars or bodyguards, rent meeting halls or microphones, nor print pamphlets. The moderates could not hire a tea-boy; the extremists could hire an entire rioting crowd. "

Seyyed Rory paints a bleak picture of Iraqi politics; a situation that is utterly hopeless with little to no representation without militias armed with mortars and RPGs, the most notorious of which is the Sadrists.

Despite his best intentions to build a moderate government and a viable economy in two Southern Iraqi provinces of Amara and Nasiriyah, the author saw his vision go up in flames literally with extremists taking hold of the government following the CPA's hand over of power in June 2004. So when Bush said in a recent "60 Minutes" interview Iraq owes the U. S. a debt of gratitude, I wonder if he was referring to the families of the 34,000 or so Iraqis slain in 2006 as a result of "liberating" their country.

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