An English saying goes: You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. This saying can be applied to our miserable countries as such: You can end a tyrannical rule in one country but you cannot replace it with a democratic rule if the country is not ready or does not wish for that. The reason for my saying is the tenth anniversary of the American war against Iraq and what become of the promises of democracy following the “gift" of toppling Saddam Hussein that the Americans gave to the Iraqi people. There is no exaggeration in saying that the dictatorship in Iraq nowadays under the rule of Nouri al-Maliki and his “democratic" government is as bad as the dictatorship of Saddam and his Baathist government. In a detailed investigative report carried by the British Independent yesterday, journalist Patrick Cockburn indicated that the feeling of insecurity and tyranny is the same today as it was during the days of Saddam. And if the Iraqis feel less fearful of the security services, this is not because these services are less violent and less corrupted but because they are weaker and less efficient. The rule of Nouri al-Maliki who has been heading the Iraqi government since 2006 has turned into a quasi-dictatorship with the use of modern oppression means such as secret prisons and widespread torture. Moreover, he has established an almost absolute control over the army, the intelligence services, the state budget, and the government institutions with the aim of guaranteeing the lion's share in jobs and contracts to his supporters. Cockburn further indicates that jobs are distributed based on political loyalty rather than experience or efficiency. Thus, joining the Call Party is the only “requirement" for landing a job. Going back to the horse proverb, one might wonder: Are the Americans to blame for the fate of Iraq ten years after the fall of Saddam at a time when Iraq could have turned into the most stable and prosperous country in the region? Or are the Iraqis the ones to blame because of their fighting for government posts and lack of nationalism in many of their leaders and their excessive implication in state corruption? In a country with a yearly income of one hundred billion dollars from oil returns, the widespread corruption and the stealing of the public funds led to a quasi full collapse of the public services in addition to high proportions of unemployment affecting more than one third of the working force and the regression of the central state's authority in favor of the parties, movements and tribes with religious and sectarian affiliations. Last week, Nouri al-Maliki warned that the victory of the opposition in Syria will lead to a civil war in Lebanon, dismantlement in Jordan, and an expansion of the sectarian strife in Iraq. This warning echoed Bashar al-Assad's threats that the fall of his regime will start a massive fire in the region. The danger of this threat is that it is turning the sectarian control of the Damascus and Baghdad regimes over the country's wealth into a bargaining chip in return of maintaining the stability in Syria, Iraq, and the region as a whole. In reality, what poses a threat to Iraq is the direct and biased interference of the Iraqi prime minister in the Syrian crisis and his overseeing of the internal dismantlement process, which is exacerbated by the corruption of his rule and the fact that large numbers of Iraqis, mainly Sunnis and Kurds, have been pushed away from power posts. The Americans are not responsible for this situation because they played a part in Nouri al-Maliki's access to power. Indeed, the Americans are not supposed to be keener on preserving the fate of Iraq than the Iraqi prime minister himself.
