Corruption and Bureaucratic Graft

The same day Iraq signed a $365 million agreement to install a pipeline network to import 25 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas a day to the Sadr, al-Quds and South Baghdad power stations in the Iraqi capital, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hinted to aides that he was considering cutting half of his government’s various ministerial offices.

Corruption and bureaucratic graft are two of the most common complaints among Iraqis. Questions swirl over how the potential eradication of half of the Iraqi government could impact the balance in the cabinet between competing political blocs. But changes must be made. Some eight years after the US military toppled Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, most Iraqis still exist on less than three hours of electricity on a day, and many lack clean water as they cannot depend upon power for purifiers.

In reality, there’s little chance of this political maneuver succeeding. However, it will be interesting to watch Maliki wield ministerial deletion as a political war-hammer. And the cost savings would undoubtedly help the Iraqi government afford all that Iranian gas.

These developments can be instructive. Iraq’s government is corrupt, inefficient and fragile. It will prove increasingly reliant on other regional states to buttress domestic instability if and when the United States exits the country at the end of the calendar year. Generally, observers have presumed that Iran will emerge as the beneficiary of US withdrawal.

However, this logic may not hold. A recent report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) demonstrates that the Obama administration should be less concerned about increased cooperation between Turkey and Iran because the two countries have different visions for the Middle East, while suggesting that the “renewal of the historical Ottoman-Persian rivalry in Mesopotamia is likely as the dominant American presence fades.”

Now, Iran sees some important competition from Ankara. Concerned by the high-profile visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Erbil back in April and the opening of a Turkish consulate in Shi’a dominant Basra in October 2009, Iran has witnessed some heavy pushback against its peripheral influence. Successful outreach, through Turkish investments and trade, and political amity witnessed by Ergodan’s recent trip to Kurdistan may challenge Iran’s assumed influence of Iraq’s Shi’a political majority.

According to USIP expert Sean Kane:

“From the sixteenth century until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Iraqi history was largely determined by the ebb and flow of conflict between Ottoman Turks and the Safavid Persians.”

Whether history will repeat itself remains to be seen. However, there is now quiet certainty that Iran will not emerge unchallenged at the end of US occupation, however fragile the state of affairs in Baghdad.