Will Iraq be another Bosnia?
Sept 8 2010
Civil war blood bath, a healing self-governing country, or a purgatory? What will become of Iraq with our withdrawal of U.S. combat forces and eventually even the 50,000 left there? No one knows for sure, but our experience in Bosnia could give us an idea of what is likely to happen. We may be in for a long term headache.
Between 1992 and 1995, a bloody civil war raged in Bosnia until ethnic cleansing was completed, minorities were purged of geographic areas, and the population grew weary of the killing fields. The Dayton Accord brought the active fighting to an end. NATO and the United Nations nursed the country through some of the immediate post-war times. European Union troops serve as peacekeepers to this day. Pre-war population was 4 million. It is estimated that as the result of the war there were 240,000 casualties, mostly Muslim. The United Nations reports that there were 2.2 million refugees of which only 1 million have returned and still 113,000 mostly elderly reside in the country as internally displaced refugees.
The Bosnian federal government does not function well, ethnic conflict continues within ruling bodies, corruption abounds, and the country is threatening to break apart with elections scheduled this coming October. Serbians in their nearly purified, semi-autonomous state of the Srbska Republika are threatening to negate the Dayton Accord; Croats are demanding their own autonomous region; Muslims demand more power, too.
Louise Arbour, former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, writing in a recent issue of Foreign Policy Magazine, fear a political, social and economic meltdown. They applaud the NATO foreign ministers agreement this spring once again to give guidance to Bosnia and to bring the country closer to NATO, perhaps future membership.
There are some striking similarities between Iraq and Bosnia. Each contains three sectarian groups large enough to fight against domination by another group. In Bosnia, it is the Croatians, the Serbs, and the Muslim Bosniaks. Iraq is split among Shia and Sunni Muslims and Kurds. In both countries strong dictatorships kept the lid on ethnic conflict. In Bosnia, Tito suppressed any ethnic nationalism; in Iraq, Saddam did likewise though he also brutalized Shia and Kurds, favoring his own Sunni ties. When the lids were removed, the cauldron of hatred boiled over as groups jockeyed and fought for supremacy or to protect their status. Third parties, whether NATO or western coalitions, attempted to let the steam out to give them time and room to get their governing acts together.
Bosnia's ability to govern itself is still questionable 15 years after the war, and the process has a weak and fractious beginning in Iraq which is still struggling to form a government.
Where Iraq gives us more hope is a tradition of unified national identification and the proud heritage of the cradle of civilization. Bosnia, however, never considered itself a nation. Instead, its ethnic factions looked to bordering states containing similar ethnic groups for leadership. Bosnia was only a state carved within a Yugoslavia, patched together with borders artificially drawn after World War I. Iraq has a national military tradition of army discipline, while Bosnia partisans perfected guerilla warfare tactics to fight the Nazis and others in World War II. Iraq has also found unity in wars against their long time enemy, Iran.
It is this difference, national identification, that gives some hope that Iraqi self governance will be more successful than in Bosnia. The Obama administration seems to be cautiously optimistic that Iraq will not come unglued.
Always an unspoken question is whether the West would ever intervene actively again to head off a bloodbath in either country. If experience in Bosnia is any guide, it may be a long time before we can stop worrying about Iraq.
- Felicia Muftic has been a frequent visitor to the Balkans since 1959.
A version of the following post appeared in the Sky Hi Daily News during the week of May 8, 2013.:
Between 1992 and 1995, a bloody civil war raged in Bosnia until ethnic cleansing was completed, minorities were purged of geographic areas, and the population grew weary of the killing fields. The Dayton Accord brought the active fighting to an end. NATO and the United Nations nursed the country through some of the immediate post-war times. European Union troops serve as peacekeepers to this day. Pre-war population was 4 million. It is estimated that as the result of the war there were 240,000 casualties, mostly Muslim. The United Nations reports that there were 2.2 million refugees of which only 1 million have returned and still 113,000 mostly elderly reside in the country as internally displaced refugees.
The Bosnian federal government does not function well, ethnic conflict continues within ruling bodies, corruption abounds, and the country is threatening to break apart with elections scheduled this coming October. Serbians in their nearly purified, semi-autonomous state of the Srbska Republika are threatening to negate the Dayton Accord; Croats are demanding their own autonomous region; Muslims demand more power, too.
Louise Arbour, former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, writing in a recent issue of Foreign Policy Magazine, fear a political, social and economic meltdown. They applaud the NATO foreign ministers agreement this spring once again to give guidance to Bosnia and to bring the country closer to NATO, perhaps future membership.
There are some striking similarities between Iraq and Bosnia. Each contains three sectarian groups large enough to fight against domination by another group. In Bosnia, it is the Croatians, the Serbs, and the Muslim Bosniaks. Iraq is split among Shia and Sunni Muslims and Kurds. In both countries strong dictatorships kept the lid on ethnic conflict. In Bosnia, Tito suppressed any ethnic nationalism; in Iraq, Saddam did likewise though he also brutalized Shia and Kurds, favoring his own Sunni ties. When the lids were removed, the cauldron of hatred boiled over as groups jockeyed and fought for supremacy or to protect their status. Third parties, whether NATO or western coalitions, attempted to let the steam out to give them time and room to get their governing acts together.
Bosnia's ability to govern itself is still questionable 15 years after the war, and the process has a weak and fractious beginning in Iraq which is still struggling to form a government.
Where Iraq gives us more hope is a tradition of unified national identification and the proud heritage of the cradle of civilization. Bosnia, however, never considered itself a nation. Instead, its ethnic factions looked to bordering states containing similar ethnic groups for leadership. Bosnia was only a state carved within a Yugoslavia, patched together with borders artificially drawn after World War I. Iraq has a national military tradition of army discipline, while Bosnia partisans perfected guerilla warfare tactics to fight the Nazis and others in World War II. Iraq has also found unity in wars against their long time enemy, Iran.
It is this difference, national identification, that gives some hope that Iraqi self governance will be more successful than in Bosnia. The Obama administration seems to be cautiously optimistic that Iraq will not come unglued.
Always an unspoken question is whether the West would ever intervene actively again to head off a bloodbath in either country. If experience in Bosnia is any guide, it may be a long time before we can stop worrying about Iraq.
- Felicia Muftic has been a frequent visitor to the Balkans since 1959.
A version of the following post appeared in the Sky Hi Daily News during the week of May 8, 2013.:
Syria’s civil war is emerging as a US foreign policy crisis and there is a gnawing feeling of “been there, done that in Iraq and Afghanistan”. While it was probably a mistake, last year Pres. Obama drew a red line that would trigger greater US involvement if Syrian Pres. Assad’s used chemical weapons. There is some evidence Assad did.
Empty threats risk future threats not being taken seriously and the president has been under pressure to make good on his threat. At least Obama is right in being cautious now. All of his options carry risks. Ethnic civil wars like the one in Syria are the tar sands of outsider intervention; easy to get into and difficult to get out of , and risk spreading conflicts beyond borders.
The New York Times reported Israel wiped out Syria’s main chemical weapons facility and long range missile storehouses last week. While the strikes served Israel’s purpose to take out Syria’s arming Hezbollah in Lebanon, it may also have made the chemical weapons redline issue moot. No one is claiming Israel’s strikes were a proxy for making good on a US threat, but it served that purpose, too.
Military aid to the rebels and no fly zones should still be on the table because they promote an end that serves our national interests. . Israel’s airstrikes demonstrated the weakness of Syria’s air defense and the feasibility of enforcing no fly zones. Boots on the ground have wisely been ruled out by about everyone in the US. We learned some hard lessons in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The situation on the ground has changed since last year, with Al Qaeda- like organizations hijacking many of the rebel groups and with few moderate forces left to arm. Our weapons could fall into the wrong hands, making the situation more dangerous. We can only hope our intelligence assessments are accurate.
Giving military aid and enforcing no fly zones could be the catalyst to get Russia to force Assad to step down, since military aid to the rebels could tip the stalemated conflict against Assad. The final outcome is still mostly in Russia’s hands. Assad is their client. Russia’s reluctance to force Assad out is understandable. The fall of Assad could put Al Qaeda like rebels in charge, closer to their borders.
Russia may be gambling that our reluctance to get involved will not change. Beware. We found ourselves eventually caught up in the Balkan Wars in the 1990’s as the former Yugoslavia broke up. Media coverage of ethnic cleansing , fleeing refugees, and the shelling of Dubrovnik and Sarajevo turned US public opinion around to support intervention. Western countries also feared Bosnia could become a stronghold for Al Qaeda Europe.
During the Balkan conflict NATO put only peacekeeper boots on the ground, but they enforced no fly zones and bombed Serbia during the Kosovo conflict. Military aid flowed freely to all parties, with Russia supplying Serbia and the West backing Croatia.
The conflict in the Balkans was ultimately resolved by diplomats and the agreements contain models that could benefit both Russia and the West in Syria. Croatia and Serbia were carved from the former Yugoslavia. These new nations were left with even fewer ethnic minorities though these were already areas with historical cohesiveness. Croatia joins the European Union this July and last month Serbia agreed to enter in negotiations to resolve Kosovo’s status.
Bosnia, still balanced demographically between Muslims, Croatian Catholics, and Serbs, is a less successful result of the settlement. Ethnic factions are hunkered down in cohesive geographic sectors, barely working together cooperatively on a national level. At least the shooting, ethnic cleansing and threat to Europe was stopped.
Syria also has some religious cohesive regions . A Balkanized solution just might work for Russia and the US.
For Felicia Muftic’s Balkan background, visit www.mufticforum.com
Column translated into Croatian is also posted at www.mufticforum.com
Column translated into Croatian is also posted at www.mufticforum.com
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