A Wall in Baghdad

Early in the year it was the announcement of “a surge” of troops to pacify Baghdad. The announced “surge” began quite promptly, and is continuing. But there has been no respite in the deadly violence that unfolds almost daily claiming untoward number of lives in the Iraqi capital ever since US occupation of the country began. Then Saturday came news that as part of its pacification efforts in Baghdad, the US military had started to erect a wall in the middle of the city that will block a Sunni neighborhood from other parts of the city. Although the Bush White insists otherwise, the construction of the wall that takes place only under the cover of darkness is yet another symbolic manifestation of the continuing failure of US occupation of Iraq.

This obvious is beside the other facts about this wall in Baghdad. From the sharp reaction of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mr. Nuri Kamal al-Maliki who spoke against the wall from a safe distance in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, it does seem like either the decision to build the wall was a unilateral undertaking by the US occupation forces or it was endorsed by Mr. al-Maliki who acted like a puppet and summoned the courage to change his mind when the wall drew opposition from his Shiite benefactors. According to reports, Mr. al-Maliki who spoke in a press conference that he held with Arab League secretary general, Mr. Amr Moussa said: “I oppose the building of the wall, and its construction will stop.” He also insisted that: “There are other methods to protect neighborhoods.”

It is an interesting paradox that the US that stood opposed to the Berlin Wall built by the East Germans with obvious support of the Kremlin during the Cold War would find logic in building a similar edifice somewhere else this time. It will be recalled that for the duration of the Cold War, the US was unequivocal in calling for the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. During his tenure as president, Mr. Ronald Reagan made one of his monumental anti-Soviet speeches in West Berlin in what was then West Germany. In that speech he issued his now famous proclamation in which he called on then Soviet leader, “Mr. Gorbachev [to] tear down this wall!”

The Baghdad wall drew instant opposition from all round Iraqi stakeholders not only because of its physical barrier presence but also because of its symbolism as an edifice that demarcates the city by sects. Mr. Moktada al-Sadr’s Movement called it “the first step toward (sic) dividing the regions into cantons and blockading people there”. “Today”, he said, it happens in Adhamiya. Tomorrow it will happen in Sadr City.” He was referring to Mr. al-Sadr’s stronghold in a part of Baghdad. The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party charged that the wall “will enhance sectarian feelings”, in addition to harming the areas concerned “economically and socially”. In what seems to depict their obvious embarrassment over the idea of building the wall, a spokesman for the US military called it a temporary measure.

When will US President George W. Bush who Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this morning is in “a state of denial over Iraq” get to grips with reality? Reid who also indicated that “the new Congress will show him the way” to a better Iraq policy have a lot on his hands in that regard.