Iraq is among the statesmen and politicians
The US occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the ninth of April / May 2003, formed a satisfaction for all of the Iraqi people, as many experts in international relations, predicted that this fall will mark a new stage in the modern political and economic history of Iraq, it is in political terms the political system will be built on the basis of parliamentary democracy, pluralism and the principle of rotation of power, and abandon Arabism as an intellectual anchor, and the shift toward the local national that gives priority to Iraq.
In economic terms, that fall will establish to the beginning of a new era of deliberate policies to restore civilian economy, it will be the lifting of international sanctions imposed on Iraq against the backdrop of its occupation of Kuwait on the second of August 1990, and the adoption of new economic policies based on the economic liberal system which is represented by capitalist ideology, individualism, liberalism and the market system, where it will prevail private property and the private project and economic openness to the world , and the freedom of private activity in the interior, and the free movement of goods, services and capital toward the outside, and the freedom of foreign investment and acquisitions, and to engage in the globalization of production and marketing system, and a commitment to the three principles of globalization institutions: the international Monetary Fund, World Bank and World trade Organization, and comply with all its requirements, and to meet all the demands and requirements. It will be there in the end, economic system, free market, free foreign trade , effectively and dominant private sector, and by this new economic policy the Iraqi economy may regain the era of economic recovery, or some of them that was prevailed in the era of the seventies of the past age .
After nearly 13 years of this occupation and overthrow , we do wonder what has been achieved from those expectations ? the answer to this question is summarized in reading the two Iraqi current political and economic scenes , the first scene can be read as follows: There is no longer an Iraqi state in the real sense , first due to the US occupation, which resulted in a constitutional vacuum, security disorder, and the operations of looting and excess to the state property and citizens alike, and on the scenery and the sight of the occupation forces and the extremist and fanatic religious and sectarian tendencies were emerged , led to the outbreak of a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq in 2006 .
Secondly, due to the influence of the Iranian regime in all aspects of the state, where this influence encouraged on the emergence of the Shiite militia allies in the Iraqi political scene, to be used against its opponents inside Iraq, and against opponents of Arab and regional countries like kidnapping Turkish workers and Qatari hunters by those militias . With this influence , it is natural that the Iraqi political system in both the government and non- government to abandon with Arabism and proceed in the context of Iranian policies in the Arab Environment ,and it did not allow that the Iraqi political system to be turned towards a real national as happened with Germany and Japan in the post-World War II.
After the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi territory by the end of 2011, and the consolidation of Iranian influence its control over the political system in Iraq, the country’s sectarian violence has intensified , based on a set of historical , geographical, religious and political factors . with this troubled situation ,the state regulation found a fertile space to extend its control over some Iraqi provinces with a Sunni character, enhanced by the severity of the state of chaos and the Diaspora in the Iraqi political and social body, which is behind the massacres against thousands and pay millions to flee into the unknown to escape the catastrophic situation in the country , all of that was taken place under full disability or completely inadvertently by former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to stop the rapid progress of the organization of the state, despite international support and the political and material support by different strategic forces.
The Iraqi economic scene now can be summarized as follows: that the economy is suffering of comprehensive and devastating economic distortions imbalances, which is the internal and external debt, and fully stumbled in the oil policy , and absence of the two central supervision and regulation , and the absence of political and economic stability together, and the spread of the phenomenon of corruption of multiple forms in all joints of the Iraqi state, as well as mass unemployment, overall economic confusion , and the destruction of the infrastructure of roads, water, electricity, communication, and the deterioration of the hospitals and the low state of education and health, and the loss of security and unbridled rise in prices. As a result of this, the Iraqi economy is on the verge of collapse, as some instructs this collapse to two reasons: the decline in oil prices, and the fight against state regulation, but this instruction is inaccurate absolutely, because the decline in oil prices is not limited only on Iraq , but on all the producing and oil-exporting countries and with regarding to its war against “Daash,” Iraq is not fighting this war alone, but there is an international coalition to this war to be economic burden on it alone.
The paradox that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime fought three wars resulted in the destruction of the Iraqi economy, and subjected to an international embargo because of the occupation of Kuwait and the blockade continued until the fall, however the Iraqi economy was not subject to collapse, while the second paradox, how the Iraqi economy arrived after a year 2003, and to this day, to this catastrophic level at a time when Iraq has all the elements of the booming economic of human, material , natural , capital, technical and financial and economic resources ,that it can by it to rebuild its economy on the solid material foundations that qualify it , in the last, to start economic and social development of unremitting and sustainable process to return Iraq , starting from the point at which it ended up in the late seventies of the elapsed century, and with the start of eighties ; that is, before the Iran war in 1980. And then pay it to the vigorous development lead it to a best living standards, and consistent with what was enjoyed by the parallel societies in which they match up with it in terms of richness of resources, and the advancement of knowledge, and how it does not happen?
Iraq has vast oil resources, that the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London estimated that Iraq has 112 billion barrels of oil in subsoil which has not been exploited and constitute 11 percent of the oil reserves in the world. In Iraq thousand oil well that produces about 2.5 million barrels per day of the fifteen major fields in the north and the south and east of Iraq . And it is estimated that the true potential of these wells are more than 3.8 million barrels per day. Iraq has a certain reserve of 112-116 billion barrels of oil, and is thus is a second of the world after Saudi Arabia of reserves . Some expect that the reserve in Iraq to exceed its counterpart after completion the research and exploration in the area which has not received a full geological survey . Iraqi oil is ranked first in the world in terms of lower cost of production due to the presence of crude close to the surface and the absence of geological obstacles and north western Iraq have not yet to explore, and geologists estimated that the sea of excellent light oil is located deeper than the Ain Zala field , especially in Safiya and Safan Hjar Tel in the desert island and others.
Iraq has the ample water resources compared to the majority of Arab countries and riches in its mineral wealth as Iraq ranked first in the world in terms of free sulfur , and the second after the Kingdom of Morocco in terms of phosphate, as well as huge reserves of silica sand and ceramic clays, as it is rich in metallic mineral wealth such as Aluminum , copper, gold, silver, iron, lead and uranium, and nonmetallic such as hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine and iodine.
Iraq also owns wide agricultural land and preliminary industrial base , and abundant scientific infrastructure , and several massive population and a high proportion of primary education, and significant financial resources, and sufficient human power to meet the industrial and agricultural needs, and Iraq is enjoying with central Geo –strategic location across disparate ages, and its location in the heart of the ancient world may make it as a river, , land and sea crossing point between the ancient continents. A central location of it formed , for the Middle East , as of paramount importance in the vital area accounts for those important region in the modern world as the center of the central seas of the world : the Mediterranean, Black and the Arabian Gulf and the Caspian. Thus, Iraq is counted as a bridge to connect between East and West in the past and at present between the North and the South and in the future , it is a fundamental aspect of a real head for the Gulf region, which is on the other side is the beating heart for the vital powerful strategic interests in the Middle East. And it was recently described by a third party as the eastern gate of the Arab nation , as well as being Arab contacts key between Turkey and Iran together considering them as they are influential powers in the regional environment, not to mention being a central religious and ideological presence of the holy Shiite shrines and scientific estate of the Shia Twelver . Iraq also has efficient organizational capabilities and proven presence in the nineties of the last century in the aftermath of the second Gulf War in 1991.The rebuilding process has been proven after 1991:
* Iraqi individual capacities for creativity and achievement and development. So by pure Iraqi hands , the damaged things as a result of the mentioned war were rebuilt in various economic sectors.
* The importance of incentives and their usefulness in pushing Iraqi worker towards the construction and giving is unprecedented.
* The importance of the agricultural sector in Iraq, including providing the needed and adequate food, without resorting to foreign imports.
* Efficient and consummate organizational capacity , which is characterized by the Iraqis when they have the opportunity.
In spite of all these economic fundamentals and the experience of re-Iraqi reconstruction, but the Iraqi governments after 2003 has failed to reach the Iraqi economy in 2016, to what it was achieved in 1980 for per capita of GDP . But it brought it to the breaking point. The question in this context why this economy reached the catastrophic level with the availability of all the elements of the advancement and success to it ?
Iraq was not able to have statesmen as much as Germany to the level of a statesman, former German chancellor, “Konrad Adenauer” and Japan with former prime minister, “Yoshida Shigeru” After World War II, who were able to go beyond of that devastating war results on their countries. They were able to make use of the contradictions of the Cold War in order to serve the interests of their respective countries, noting that the former joined the axis of the United States and joined the alliance NATO and work to arm his country with the consent of the Western camp, and joined a group of iron and the European Coal, which was the nucleus of the European Economic Community and then the European Union, and here Germany is today , the first economy at the level of the European Union lev.
The experience of Japan in the advancement in the era of “Yoshida Shigeru,” it is considered in itself a lesson for all those interested in the advancement of their countries, at a time when scholars of international relations agreed that Japan will not rise again after suffering from destruction and surrender in World War II, however, “Yoshida” saw just the opposite, saying: “History provides examples of diplomacy to win after losing the war,” and felt “Yoshida” the defeated nation may use conflicts between the victors to their advantage in the post-war settlement. In fact, he has made the outbreak of the Cold War, such as this opportunity.
Because Japan is a poor country of natural resources, “Yoshida” relied on a policy of “commercial realism” based on economic growth which is based on the precise engineering industries, in other words, Japan is focusing its energies in obtaining raw materials and turns it to the products on a high degree of quality for export. Scientific technology and fighting spirit under the commercial cover was , from the standpoint of “Yoshida” , Japan’s Secret Army.
On the political military side “Yoshida” avoided any obligations of it and adopted the three principles of non-nuclear “not to produce nuclear weapons, or possession of it , or allow it to enter the” three principles that deny arms and export of military technology and restrict military spending at one percent of gross national product. By virtue of this policy , Japan’s economic and technological power has become in the Eighties of elapsed century equivalent to the power of the United States of America. Wealth and its trade accounts surpluses were accumulated that enabled it to become the largest lender in the world and the biggest donor state to the aid . In this context, all of the “Henry Kissinger” former secretary of state of the United States and “Samuel Hemenjton” Global Academic , competent for political experimental Japanese affairs ,, the former said: “Japan’s decisions were the most fore-sighted decisions and smarter than any major nation in the post-war era “. The second said: “Japan has accepted all realistic hypotheses but are applied in a pure way in the economic field.”
The Iraqi experience at some point after 2003, are quite different, from the previous experiences in which it was emerged within the Iraqi political scene in the post-2003 new forces in the search for strategic coalitions and re-formation of political alliances produced the multiplicity of forces that claim to religious and political legitimacy for the reconstruction of the country, but most of these political forces were with a unified religious “Islamic” orientations but with different political bets” noting that part of them were pro-foreign intervention, and others resist this occupation, and some of them are supporting the transitional government , and others to oppose to their presence in the political arena,” which negatively contributed in achieving the required democratic transition and reinforced the case of the Iraqi failure . Especially during the government of former Iraqi prime minister, “2006 -2014”, which worked to dispel the hundreds of billions of wealth of Iraq, rather than to work on the country’s development in all areas, and based on sectarianism, exclusion and marginalization of the Sunni component as the prominent example to his rule, and revenge on his political opponents, as well as harness of the resources of Iraqi economy, for the Iranian regime to face international sanctions that were imposed on it , and its ally, Bashar al-Assad to confront the revolution of the Syrian people against him, before he is forced to leave office after the control of state regulation of the city of Mosul in June 2014. Iraq , which have huge wealth , was about to be a significant regional economic power similar to the Malaysian and the Singapore economy. He possessed only politicians and not statesmen and the result is the economic collapse.
