In late 2011, after Iraqi police arrested more than 600 former Baathist officials in Tikrit, deputy intelligence minister Hussein Kamal Ali said: “The government has been watching these people for a long time. Ultimately, we learned that they were holding secret meetings and had ill intentions.”
He added that they had intended to stage a coup through a rebellion, with mass protests across the country immediately after the withdrawal of US troops.
That incident went largely unnoticed, but two years on I believe it deserves a second reading.
It was never proven if the Baathists had in fact planned -- or had the means to – stage a coup. Perhaps it was only part of the paranoia that had gripped Iraq’s Shia leaders as the Americans were preparing to leave the country.
But such a coup might -- and in my opinion should -- take place sooner or later. That is because it is unlikely that the Sunnis will ever be able to hold power and rule Iraq again. A coup that could create an independent Sunni region will mean the partition of Iraq, which is the best solution for everyone.
The Sunnis of Iraq are fooling themselves if they think they can live happily and as equal citizens under a Shia government. The poverty, police persecution, torture and government neglect they are facing today is exactly the same as the Shias suffered under the Sunnis for decades.
I covered the Iraq war and the sectarian violence for six extensive years and there is no city, town or village to which I did not travel during that time. In the end, what I always knew and managed to prove was that there is no love lost between the Sunnis and Shias. The two sects are blood enemies: they are, and will always be, suspicious of each other.
Of course in public they say: “We are all brothers. There is no such thing as Shias and Sunnis. We have lived together for hundreds of years.” But those are just fancy words. The reality on the street -- the Sunni car bombs in Shia markets, summary execution of Sunni civilians by Shia militias and piles of dead bodies I saw everyday in Baghdad -- spoke the real truth.
It is true that before the US invasion Shias and Sunnis lived side-by-side and did business with each other in the markets. But it was Saddam Hussein’s iron fist that had kept a lid on their historical enmity. It was the fear of the dictator that kept them quiet, not a genuine and sincere tolerance.
Sunni and Shia clerics speak of brotherhood and coexistence on television. But it is a different story when they talk in the privacy of their homes. In the Sunni neighborhoods they would tell me, “The Shias are not human beings. They don’t deserve to live.” And in Shia neighborhoods they would say, “The Sunnis are all terrorists, Wahhabis, Baathists and torturers. They are getting a dose of their own medicine.”
I have had optimists point to a few cases of Shia-Sunni intermarriage and tell me: “But it is just a war between politicians. The ordinary people have no problem with each other.” To these optimists I would say that I have heard some of the deepest Shia-Sunni hatred from the ordinary people on the street. The torching of homes, the abductions and beheadings, were conducted by ordinary people against their own neighbors, not by aliens from another planet.
So these people should stop pretending that all is well and that they can live together in the same country again. They should scrap this meaningless pride in “the glorious and brave Iraq.” Iraq has only been glorious and brave for one side at the expense of the other.
The Shias waited for centuries to come to power in Iraq and they will probably remain there for centuries. So it is time the Sunnis took matters into their own hands and chose a different path.
I know they like to be on top and rule everyone else, but they have to be realistic and act rationally. Their best bet is to separate from Iraq and create their autonomous region or independent state and name it whatever they wish.
They should stage mass demonstrations, block the highways that connect Iraq to Syria and Jordan and cut all ties with Baghdad. Sunni soldiers and officers in the Iraqi army should desert with their guns and form their own armies in their respective provinces. Perhaps the former Baathists who were arrested two years ago were in fact cooking up something. If that is true, they should try again.
But unfortunately most of the Sunnis -- their tribal leaders and their military people -- just love when someone gives them guns and puts them in charge of an army unit. Saddam kept them quiet by giving them guns. The Americans turned them against al-Qaeda by giving them arms. And now, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is doing the same.
But the Sunnis must quit this old habit and act where their true interest lies. Baghdad needs these Sunni officers today, but might just as well arrest and throw them in jail tomorrow.
It is true that the Sunni provinces have no natural resources and no oil. But they have land, as well as great agricultural and tourism potential. They will have 23 Sunni Arab states by their side. Would they rather give up their dignity for a life in Iraq that will never be theirs again, and a regime that will always treat their most simple men all the way up to their vice president as terrorists?
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