Professors discuss historic parallels to fall of Baghdad

Many U.S. media TV stations showed live images of Iraqis toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on the morning of April 9. These images sparked a significant development in the war with Iraq by producing a message that coalition forces had taken Baghdad into their control. Though some IU professors said they agree this will be considered an historic event, they speculate on the future for the Iraqi people.\nAssociate director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies program Zaineb Istrabadi said she feels the images will be considered historic because the ability to destroy a statue of Hussein was unthinkable to the Iraqi people 24 hours prior to the toppling. \n"They would not have managed to do it without the Americans," said Istrabadi, a native of Iraq, "There's something ironic in that they kept tugging at it until the U.S. marines did it for them."\nBoth Istrabadi and chair of the political science department at IU-Purdue University Fort Wayne James Lutz said they would parallel the events to the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989.\n"It will be historic because it's symbolic of toppling the regime," he said. \nLutz also said he feels the media portrayed the events adequately, but not brilliantly due to the lack of perspective, caused by restricted access.\n"The purpose of the news media is to report the news," he said, "not necessarily the news the population is most concerned about."\nChair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and native of Afghanistan Nazif Shahrani said any Muslim in Iraq or anywhere else would be happy about seeing these statues fall. Shahrani said Hussein was certainly against Islamic principles because he was creating an idol of himself.\n"Getting rid of Saddam's regime is certainly a very welcoming development for Iraq and the rest of the Middle East," he said. "The question now is 'At what cost and how?' and 'Has this been worth the lives of so many coalition forces?'"\nShahrani said he feels what the U.S. does with its presence in Iraq is more of an issue than the presence itself. He also said he feels U.S. citizens, as members of the only superpower on earth, must ask themselves how to make use of its immense power. However, he said he is particularly disturbed at the U.S. Department of Defense's strategies in Iraq.\n"The department meticulously planned all aspects of a military invasion of Iraq, but they did not do any planning for the political aspect of occupying the country," he said.\nBoth Shahrani and Istrabadi said they are not thrilled with events during the last several days that included chaos and looting in Baghdad. Shahrani said he is particularly disturbed by hearing the only ministry the Americans are guarding is the Ministry of Petroleum. \n"What kind of a message does that send to the Iraqis and to the rest of the world?" he said.\nIstrabadi said she is upset at everybody because she has maintained for years that the Iraqi people are orphaned.\nAs the direction of the war is changing into occupational aftermath, Istrabadi, Shahrani and Lutz all speculate on the U.S bringing a presence of democracy to Iraq. Lutz said he believes any type of government set up in Iraq will have major problems.\n"I would anticipate that any government set up will have trouble surviving in the near future because of the divisions among types of Islam within Iraq and the lack of organized political forces," he said. "They have no history of democracy to build upon."\nShahrani said he hopes a democracy will work in Iraq, but doesn't believe the signs are promising because the last few days of chaos in Baghdad have pitted Muslims against Muslims and Iraqis against Iraqis. \nIstrabadi said she also hopes a democratic government will materialize in Iraq, but said she will not return to Iraq until she is sure the country is not polluted with radioactive materials as a result of the war.