Jet-Skiing in the Triangle of Death

A former advisor to the U.S. commanding general in Iraq returns to Baghdad as a tourist and eats, chats, and listens to locals cover the Bee Gees, while pondering the country's future.

BY EMMA SKY | JUNE 21, 2011

The taxi driver to the Beirut airport tells me that yom al-qiyama (the day of judgment) is approaching. There will be a big explosion soon -- a very big explosion. The revolutions sweeping the Arab world are not good. Islamic parties will come to power everywhere. There will be no more Christians left in the Middle East. Believe me, believe me, he insists. In anticipation, he will make the hajj to Mecca this year, inshallah. I tell him that I am traveling to Iraq as a tourist. The look he gives me in the rearview mirror says it all: He thinks I am crazy.

I am heading back to Iraq nine months after I left my job as political advisor to the commanding general of U.S. Forces-Iraq. Earlier this year, a sheikh emailed me from his iPad, "Miss Emma we miss you. You must come visit us as a guest. You will stay with me. And you will have no power!" I am excited and nervous. The plane is about a third full. I am the only foreigner. I look around at my fellow passengers. I wonder who they are and whether they bear a grudge for something we might have done.

The flight is one and a half hours long. I read and doze. As we approach Iraq, I look out the window. The sky is full of sand, and visibility is poor. But I can make out the Euphrates below. Land of the two rivers, I am coming back.

I do not have an Iraqi visa. Visas issued in Iraqi embassies abroad are not recognized by the Baghdad airport. I have a letter from an Iraqi general in the Interior Ministry, complete with a signature and stamp. In the airport, I present my passport and letter, fill out a form, pay $80, and receive a visa within 15 minutes. I collect my bag. I am through. I want to reach down and touch the ground, this land that has soaked up so much blood over the years -- ours and theirs.

I spot the Fixer. We grin at each other as we shake hands. Soon we are in his car speeding down the airport road -- that we called Route Irish -- toward the Green Zone. I can't see any Americans. Not on the roads, not at the checkpoints. Iraq looks normal -- for Iraq. What is new? What has changed? The situation is not good, he tells me. The government is bad. Too many assassinations. We laugh and chat like old friends. The Fixer, who used to "smuggle" me out of the Green Zone is now "smuggling" me back in. Leave it to me, he says, smiling and patting his chest with his hand.

Before long, I am sitting with my Iraqi hosts in their home, catching up with their news. I take a dip in their pool. It is 46 degrees Celsius. The brown of the sand-filled sky is broken by flashes of gray, white, and yellow lightening. Later in the evening, the rolls of thunder are replaced by the thuds of mortars targeting the U.S. Embassy.

Sitting in the back of the car wearing abaya and hijab, I drive south toward Karbala with two young Iraqi Army guys, both from Baghdad and Shiite. In the national elections last year, one voted for Nouri al-Maliki to be prime minister; the other voted for Ayad Allawi as he wanted a secular man to lead Iraq. They both agree that life was better under Saddam Hussein -- that there was more security before, people could travel anywhere safely, gas was cheaper, salaries went further, there was no "Sunni-Shiite." They tell me that people are very upset with public services, especially electricity, but are too scared to demonstrate. No one likes living under occupation, but people are also worried that the situation might deteriorate if the Americans leave. They both stress that Jaish al-Mahdi is not the right way.

Emma Sky

 SUBJECTS: IRAQ
 

Emma Sky is traveling the Middle East exploring the "Arab Spring." She was a spring 2011 fellow at the Institute of Politics of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and served as political advisor to General Ray Odierno in Iraq from 2007 to 2010. 

RANDAL

5:34 AM ET

June 22, 2011

Familiar tone

Reading this takes me back to reading accounts by British colonial administrators of trips to African and Asian colonies in transition to independence.

Same inevitable colonial attitudes - the "good guys" (mostly amongst the comfortable elite who have benefitted from foreign rule) who claim to share the colonialist's values, the soft-soaping over the damage done by the colonial power, the bad guys who resist the values and interests of the colonial power - inevitably in the service of a malign foreign power, the self-justifying claims of paternalist affection for the occupied nation.

I suppose similar situations are likely to give rise to similar attitudes, especially in a culture like America's, so self-righteous and so lacking in self-understanding.

 

PALMER

3:22 PM ET

June 22, 2011

Huh?

You must have read a different article than I did. Or is it possible that you are blinded by your pre-determined filters? It seemed like a good insight into the situation in Iraq today, and did not seem to me to be giving the U.S. a free pass for the damage we caused or the failure to restore the country.

 

RANDAL

12:03 PM ET

June 23, 2011

Not a particularly bad article - just a strongly biased one

"You must have read a different article than I did. Or is it possible that you are blinded by your pre-determined filters?"

Seems likely one of us is. (Doubtless, both of us are to some extent).

" It seemed like a good insight into the situation in Iraq today"

It's a perfectly good article in itself, provided its limitations are recognised. Namely, that it is written from the point of view of the occupier, having talked mostly to those who are in privileged positions, who benefited from the occupation or who claim (at least when talking to an American) to be able to take a relatively relaxed view of it all now.

There's no real reflection of the views of those who feel genuine hatred and hostility towards the US for what was done, including the substantial proportion of the Arab Iraqi population who support the Sadrist position on US forces, or of those who want an islamist state rather than a western-style liberal democracy.

That's not to say that Ms Sky is at fault for that - it would be harsh to expect more from her. Which is the whole point, really.

"and did not seem to me to be giving the U.S. a free pass for the damage we caused or the failure to restore the country."

While she mentions a few of the issues in a matter of fact way, they are, as I put it, soft-soaped. There is no recognition of the real, visceral hatred that results from the kind of treatment dished out to Iraqis amongst people less compliant than the "caretaker". If she were to venture into ordinary Iraqi communities rather than hobnobbing with westernised elites, she would soon encounter rather stronger feelings. She mentions the belief amongst many Iraqis that the US brought sectarianism into Iraqi life, then excuses it as being the fault of "exiled Iraqi" advisers (so that's all right, then). She mentions at one point that the "gap between the political elites and the Iraqi people seems to be growing even wider", then later observes that the non-Sadrist political elites want US forces to remain but aren't willing to say so in pulic, but doesn't seem to recognise that the reason they want US forces to stay is precisely because they are the elite, who have remained or become so because of the US occupation.

Her tone and emphasis is very much that of the colonial power. As you would expect. Which was my point.

 

LIAMREGLER

11:48 PM ET

July 20, 2011

Iranian and Sadrist support

Into this toxic mix comes the problem of whether U.S. forces should stay in Iraq post-2011. The Sadrists are adamant that U.S. forces should leave towards the end of the season. They still attack U.S. troops to enable them to declare that they've driven them out. They threaten to protest from the government if services don't overcome August and also to revert to violence if U.S. forces remain at night end of the season. All of those other political elites say in private they wish that some U.S. forces will stay to assist the environment Force protect the solar panels and also the Navy to safeguard the oil platforms, and also to help with training the army and providing intelligence.