Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (3)

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Azzaman, February 5, 2010

Politics is like football. The winner is only declared at the end of the game. But in football, the game is time-limited. In politics it is timeless.

Politics has one important characteristic to share with football. In both neither the winners nor the losers retain their status for ever.

However, politicians have the natural tendency of sticking to power no matter what. Thus the idea of a military coup is the only issue that is a matter of concern for Iraqi politicians inside government or outside.

Iraq is a country of ‘miracles’. Miracles not in the sense of things that are good. It is a country of miracles in its tragedies which those in power see as feats of success.

Otherwise how could someone expect Iraq’s most ranking officials paying gratitude to the U.S. for invading their country. How would one expect the highest level official to describe foreign occupation of his country as “liberation.”

No one knows how aggravated conditions have become in Iraq as the U.S. Here I mean its military commanders and not the administration in Washington.

But conditions are moving from bad to worse and provide no guarantees to all the players involved in them.

No one in Iraq in current circumstances can guarantee something for another. Because all of them own nothing. And for this reason all the players are paranoid, fearing what lurks ahead.

The unknown hiding somewhere is a coup that will turn everything upside down.

There are good signals for this to happen. The first is the open desire of Iraqi politicians to steal whatever comes to their hands, particularly the things that lead to swift wealth. Corruption is not only rampant. It has become a culture.

Saddam Hussein did not have 10 percent of the military and security might – national and foreign – currently deployed in Iraq. Still it was extremely hard to penetrate his security ranks.

Despite massive military and security forces the country is being infiltrated and security conditions are in shambles.

Iraq’s political cards are so mixed that the card of a military coup has been inserted in them without anybody noticing it.