As I write, the immediate crisis on Mount Sinjar appears to have been resolved but the appalling scenes which have dominated our television screens in recent weeks and the graphic reports in newspapers have galvanised public opionion. People demand that we do all in our power to help the Christians and the Yasidis who are being so viciously persecuted. And they are right to do so. This is a problem that will not go away. One million people have been displaced since Islamic State militants took over swathes of Northern Iraq. Yesterday, the governor of Dohuk province warned of a “genocide”, as hundreds of thousands sought refuge there.
So what exactly is in our power? This requires a realistic appraisal of the situation on the ground and of our capacity to change it. Certainly, the situation across the Middle East is now more chaotic and dangerous than it has been for half a century.
The enthusiasm of yester-year for the “Arab Spring” has proved entirely misguided. It has led to chaos in Egypt and anarchy in Libya. Those determined to be “on the right side of history” now find themselves on the wrong side of the argument. Democracy is empathically not the solution for extremely complex societies and Western meddling only makes matters immeasurably worse. The fundamental reason for our failure is that democracy, as we understand it, simply doesn’t work in Middle Eastern countries where family, tribe, sect and personal friendships trump the apparatus of the state. These are certainly not societies governed by the rule of law. On the contrary, they are better described as “favour for favour” societies. When you have a problem of any kind, you look for someone related to you by family, tribe or region to help you out and requests are most unlikely to be refused since these ties are especially powerful. In countries where there is no effective social security, your future security lies only in the often extensive family.
Behind what we might perceive as this somewhat chaotic structure lie the secret police and the armed forces. They hold the state together under the aegis of the president, king, or whoever rules the roost. That leader keeps the different elements of society in play with concessions to each group but he has an iron fist to be used when necessary, as the public well understand.
Examples can readily be found in Presidents Mubarak in Egypt, Asad in Syria and Saddam in Iraq. Nor are the kings of Jordan, Bahrain or, indeed, Saudi Arabia altogether different. There is much less cruelty in the latter countries but the iron fist is there when needed. Yet who in those countries today could survey the Middle East and believe that a republic would be a better option.
The West’s abject failure to understand the inner workings of these countries has had some disastrous effects. Iraq is the classic case. I was opposed to the invasion of that country, not because I had any love for Saddam but because I believed that the alternative would be worse. I was concerned that our invasion would destroy the stability of the Gulf which had, since the fall of the Shah in 1979, depended on a tripod comprising Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (the latter supported by the West). That is exactly what happened and we now find that the Iranians are in a position to dominate the Gulf region.
Internally, the outcome was even worse. The army was disbanded (although some would say it disbanded itself). The Americans then closed down the Ba’ath party, the only political organisation in the country. Certainly, it had been an instrument of Saddam’s rule but it was not all bad. Just as anybody in a position of responsibility in the Soviet Union was obliged to be a member of the Communist party so were senior Iraqis obliged to be members of the Ba’ath party. The result was to atomise the social and political structure of the entire country. Favour for favour ground to a halt and so did the country’s governance.
A while later, elections were held to loud applause from Washington. There was a huge turnout by the majority Shia’ who must have been amazed at the naivety of their occupiers. As it turned out, Nouri Malaki, the Iraqi prime minister who was finally forced to step down this week, proved to be a Shia’ version of Saddam – at least as the minority Sunnis perceived him. Indeed, it was the severe disaffection of the Sunni tribes in the North of Iraq that permitted IS to make the rapid territorial gains that have stunned both the West and the governments of the region.
We in the West have little conception of the mutual hatred and contempt between these two Islamic sects. Think of the Protestant and Catholic hatreds, thankfully of the past, and multiply them up. Then add in a regional struggle for power