Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (4)

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Azzaman, February 5, 2010

There are two possible scenarios when talking about the specter of a coup in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. occupation of the country.

The chaos, which some described as “creative”, was in their eyes a means to put the house in order. They believed partial or total destruction leads to reconstruction.

This is what armed groups fighting under the umbrella of resistance might resort to do as part of a coup to change the status quo.

The other likelihood is a bid by an army general or armed factional groups to barge into the presidential palace as a final resort to gain power. Of course the possibility for this to happen is almost impossible so long as U.S. troops are in the country.

In the second instance there is no need for the plotters to bring radio and television under their control. Media are no longer pivotal for a coup. Every faction have their own media today.

Who will be storming the presidential palace? Certainly the armed forces.  And if Iraqi political factions and their armed militias contemplate such a step, they will have to do it through their stooges in the army.

This might have been the reason which prompted Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki to issue orders forbidding political factions from meddling in the army affairs.

Maliki is aware of the conspiratorial nature of the Iraqi army. He knows the army which he raised might turn against him.

The Iraqi political scene is bound to change once U.S. troops are out of the country.

Once withdrawn, local forces will take over, and Iraq’s file will no longer be of international interest. It will be purely a domestic affair.

The possibility of a coup in these circumstances will be even higher. But no plotter and no coup would have the ability to spread control across the country. Coups will only have dominance over certain regions.

All countries in the region are readying themselves for the post-U.S. Iraq – an Iraq without U.S. troops.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops will amount to the coup that brought them in – through this coup the U.S. occupied Iraq in a humiliating and barbaric operation in which all slogans of democracy, freedom, human rights and liberation were trampled on.

Have Iraqi factions, those in the government and outside, prepared themselves for the post-U.S. Iraq? That is a question for which the answer is negative at least for the time being.