Imperial
History Repeats Itself
By Randeep Ramesh
The Guardian
04 July , 2003
The blood has barely dried
on the British empire than it has already begun to seep over its American
successor. The US occupation of Iraq is proving a messier task than
Washington had hoped or planned for. On average, US troops have been
dying at a rate of one a day since George Bush proclaimed "mission
accomplished". Bodybags are tangible proof that the war has not
finished: it has only just started.
The six British military
policemen shot dead at Majar al-Kabir last week, and the grenades pounding
the US military in Fallujah, signal a deep unease that much of the killing
is organised, and coalition forces are too thinly spread to stop it.
This saps the imperial strength of America and highlights its greatest
weakness: despite overwhelming military might, US troops in Iraq - like
the British empire's before them - are vulnerable in a war fought among
the shadows of a people chafing under foreign rule.
The answer for Washington
in the first years of the 21st century is the same as London's at the
beginning of the 20th: call for reinforcements from those content to
fulfil the role of loyal provider of brave soldiers for a war not of
their making. Seventy countries have been asked to supply troops - from
as far afield as Mongolia, whose forces were last seen in the Middle
East more than seven centuries ago when they sacked Baghdad. So far,
President Bush's request has been answered by 5,000 troops, mostly from
new Europe and the new world.
This is not enough. What
Washington needs is a "reserve of military strength [capable of]
... supplying an army always in a high state of efficiency and capable
of being hurled at a moment's notice upon any point". These words
are not those of an American neo-conservative in 2003, but were articulated
by the British viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, in 1909. A century later,
the subcontinent's role as a source of auxiliary cohorts for the expansion
of empire is being reprised by President Bush. New Delhi and Islamabad
are considering American requests for a total of 30,000 soldiers to
be sent to Iraq.
India and Pakistan, historic
rivals who have fought three wars in 50 years, would not meet in Iraq.
Dangled in front of both, instead, is the command of sizeable parts
of Iraq, and a warming of the Bush administration's new strategic relationship
with the subcontinent. However tempting the offer of aid, arms and a
new engagement with Washington may be to both nations, both are acutely
aware of the lessons of imperial history.
During the days of the British
Raj, Indian soldiers were used to put down nationalist rebellions, at
home and abroad. Blood was spilt all across the empire - much of it
in Iraq.
During the first world war,
what was then the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia became a battleground
between Turkish and British empires. The low point of Britain's Middle
East campaign came when 12,000 soldiers - more than half composed of
Indian divisions - surrendered the garrison to Turkish forces in May
1916 after a siege which lasted 147 days. Of the troops who left Kut
with their captors, more than 4,000 died either on their way to captivity
or in prisoner-of-war camps. In four years of fighting, 31,000 British
and Indian lives were lost, pockmarking the country with graves and
pyres.
The birth of what would become
modern-day Iraq was a painful one. Mesopotamia was Britain's prize after
the first world war - and like today, its peoples struggled against
the occupying forces. Indian troops were used to suppress the country's
nationalist uprising in the summer of 1920. Like today's American forces,
the 60,000 British and Indian troops securing Mesopotamia were never
engaged in battle, facing instead hit-and-run raids from the desert.
More than 1,000 Indian soldiers and 8,000 Arab fighters were either
killed or captured in a few weeks. Despite Britain's military prowess,
Iraq slowly slipped from its grasp.
But Washington appears indifferent
to the lessons of history. The subtle shift from hegemony to empire
could again see troops from the subcontinent becoming the tools of a
great power's foreign policy. America refuses to believe in the empirical
evidence of its own empire. Its people are suspicious of foreign entanglements
- witness the declining support for the Iraqi occupation. Sizeable numbers
of Pakistani and Indian troops would enable thousands of American soldiers
to return home.
Left to face the growing
anger engendered by the chaos that has replaced the power vacuum brought
about by the fall of Saddam, troops from India and Pakistan - countries
that opposed the war - will be left to secure the peace in the face
of guerrilla attacks and organised resistance. If it looks, sounds and
feels like empire redux, that is because it is.
· Randeep Ramesh edited
The War We Could Not Stop: The Real Story of the Battle for Iraq, published
by Guardian Books
[email protected]