Author: Martin Kramer

On Entering Basra and Baghdad, Avoid This Mistake

On By Martin Kramer

As war against Saddam looms, military planners should read a very pertinent article by the late Elie Kedourie. Its title: “The Sack of Basra and the Baghdad Farhud.” It’s the story of how not to occupy Iraq’s two principal cities.

In 1941, the British sent forces into Iraq to remove a pro-Axis military junta from power. Now it’s called “regime change,” and more than one journalist and strategist has remarked on the parallels between 1941 and today. But they omit the mistakes made by the British commander, General (later Field Marshal) Sir Archibald Wavell, in securing Basra and Baghdad.

The British didn’t want to use troops to provide administration in the two cities, preferring that it be done by Iraqi authorities, while they bore down on strategic objectives such as the besieged RAF station at Habbaniya. Wavell’s instructions: “As long as Iraqi administration meets our military requirements it is not, repeat not, to be interfered with or superseded because it is inefficient in other directions.” And Wavell again: “Every encouragement is to be given to local Iraq administration to function so far as is consistent with safety of our forces. Political officers are to be regarded as liaison officers between Iraq administration and British forces and not as administrators except where Iraq administration is inoperative.”

British forces thus left key areas of both cities to the mercies of a defeated regime. In Basra, the abdication resulted in the sack of the bazaar by rioters and looters. In Baghdad, it was far worse. Wavell instructed that his forces “should not get involved in street fighting in disadvantageous conditions.” So while the British forces camped west of the Tigris, looting on the east bank by the bedouin and the remnants of the army and police turned into a full-scale pogrom. (Jews used the term farhud, a murderous riot.)

About 180 Jews (and some Muslims) were slaughtered. A British officer later wrote of hearing “the growing crescendo of rifle and machine-gun fire. Baghdad was given up to the looters. All who cared to defend their own belongings were killed, while eight miles to the west waited the eager British force which could have prevented all this.” Iraq’s ancient Jewish community never fully recovered from the blow, and its younger members began to plan emigration. (The pogrom also left a mark on young Elie Kedourie, who lived through it.)

The British could get away with cutting corners in 1941. They were immersed in a world war on multiple fronts, their forces were stretched thin, and the world wasn’t watching. In 2003, the world’s sole superpower is bearing down exclusively on Iraq, under blazing media spotlights. If the 1941 handling of Basra and Baghdad were repeated under these circumstances, the stain would be indelible. Preventing it means exercising complete control in urban areas. Delay could produce a bloodbath surpassing any “collateral damage” in cost and effect.

Battle plans come down to priorities, and in Iraq there are a lot of them: oil fields, the Western desert, possible WMD sites, Tikrit, and more. But the lesson of Baghdad 1941 (the Jewish quarter)—like that of Damascus 1918 (the Turkish hospital) and Beirut 1982 (Sabra and Shatila)—is the importance of immediately deploying forces to police an Arab city upon its conquest. In the absence of such policing, or upon its delegation to others, the likelihood of massacre rises sharply. That lesson is liable to be forgotten in all the optimistic chatter about how ready Iraqis are for democracy. Before that, Iraqis must be kept from settling scores. The road to hell—or a Belgian indictment—is paved with good intentions.

You’ll find Kedourie’s article in his collected volume, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies, 1974.

ADDENDUM: Things were done differently before CNN and the Hague tribunal. Sir Alec Kirkbride, who entered Damascus in 1918 on the defeat of the Turks, explained how he put down looting, rioting, and the butchering of Turkish stragglers by vengeful Damascenes: he made “free use” of his large service revolver. “Occasionally, someone turned nasty and I shot them at once before the trouble could spread.” Right out of his memoirs, A Crackle of Thorns, 1956.

“It’s noon. Do you know where your UCLA professor is?”

On By Martin Kramer

Exactly a week ago, university students around the country walked out on strike at midday, to protest a possible war against Saddam. When students strike, it denies no one a service. The point is self-denial: they’re prepared to sacrifice class time, for which they’ve paid good money, in order to demonstrate a point.

When faculty strike, that’s something else altogether. It really is denial of a service, to students who’ve paid good money for it. On a few campuses, some professors announced they were cancelling classes in solidarity with the student walkout. Universities have different policies on this sort of conduct, and one presumes they’ll uphold them.

The most ironic instance of class cancellation involved the UCLA historian Gabriel Piterberg. For a couple of years now, Piterberg has been striking the pose of an angry avant-garde radical. He harangues campus demonstrations, signs petitions, and teaches a course in post- and anti-Zionism. He even fabricated his own listing at Campus Watch, as though he were being persecuted for his ideas—a bald play for sympathy.

Now what is a poseur to do when an anti-war student strike looms? The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, popped the question to Piterberg the day before the walkout. And the question was pertinent: Piterberg teaches a midday seminar from 11 to 1 on Wednesdays. Piterberg gave this answer: “There is no way I can actively endorse it [the walkout], or not teach if there are students who choose to stay in class. That would be abuse of my position.” Ah, you say, professional ethics trump political commitment—as they should.

But that’s not the end of the story. Thursday’s Daily Bruin carried the news that Piterberg had “cancelled class and attended the rally.”

Piterberg, who teaches a 17-student history seminar at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays, said the vast majority of his class left to be a part of the demonstration.

“Only two students stayed,” Piterberg said.

After almost the entire class left, Piterberg decided to reconvene at 1 p.m. so students who wished to be a part of the walkout would not be punished.

“Politics are part of our lives, missing one class for an hour or two is not going to determine education. An important issue like war is going to affect education,” Piterberg said.

Need I say more? Piterberg said it himself—just a day earlier. He ended up abusing his position. And his student demonstrators got the best of both worlds: they got to pretend they had denied themselves a class session, when in fact Piterberg made it all up to them. A poseur gives a lesson in the art.

Columbia’s Troubles Bubble Up Through the Bubbly

On By Martin Kramer

Last night, Columbia College (the university’s undergraduate college) threw its big bash of the year: a black-tie gala at the Plaza Hotel, held in honor of five alumni recipients of the John Jay Award for professional achievement. One of them, the renowned classical composer John Corigliano, added what a report this morning calls a “moment of drama,” when he “briefly silenced the crowd with his muted but nonetheless unexpected criticism of Columbia’s Middle Eastern Studies program.” Corigliano reflected on his own undergraduate days:

I didn’t know it at the time, but I felt encouraged to go on and be a composer because I wasn’t discouraged by the kind of fundamentalist “there is only one way” kind of composing. I say this because throughout this country there has been an enormous, enormous amount of publicity about the various departments of Middle Eastern Studies, and about the fact that the anti-Israeli policy in these [departments] is enormous. And one can say that of the department of Middle Eastern languages and cultures at Columbia, that that’s true here.

According to the report, “Corigliano’s comments drew raised eyebrows but also sustained applause.” Bravo, maestro.

When this sort of complaint crops up in a midtown dinner (which, by the way, raised $700,000 for scholarships), you know that Bir Zeit-on-Hudson has a real problem. I predict it will get worse before it gets better. According to another press report, the Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC), the heart of darkness and home to such extremist luminaries as Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad, is already in the midst of a dramatic expansion. And the History Department, where Rashid Khalidi is about to become the Edward Said Professor, is also seeking to add an assistant professor. In the self-referential friend-brings-a-friend world of Middle Eastern studies at Columbia, it is Khalidi who will have the biggest say in that hire. In fact, the push for the junior slot was put off until Khalidi signed on. “If we were going to have a distinguished senior professor of modern Middle Eastern history, then [Khalidi] should play a central role in choosing who the junior person is in the field,” announced one member of the department. Does that sound like a formula for producing intellectual diversity, or like a mechanism for guaranteeing intellectual conformity?

Middle Eastern studies at Columbia, across all the departments, have functioned like a private club for more than a decade. Until the administration breaks it up, nothing will change. In the meantime, let’s acknowledge John Corigliano. The man who composed the Oscar-winning score for The Red Violin and the Pulitzer-winning Symphony No. 2 has done his alma mater a big favor. He said out loud what untold numbers of friends of the university are saying in private. This time the criticism was in a minor key. The next time, the university may not be so lucky.

UPDATE: Hamid Dabashi, the chair of MEALAC, has written an intemperate letter to the Columbia Daily Spectator, firing in all directions. Criticism of his department is denounced as “fabricated lies,” “pernicious lies,” “malicious misrepresentations,” “misguided accusations,” “insults to the dignity of my colleagues,” etcetera. It’s delightful to see this militant squirm under the heat of the spotlight.

“I find it particularly distasteful,” storms Dabashi, “that as we are honoring our alumni they can muster such rude audacity to discredit the very institution that is honoring them.” Really. The John Jay Award has two roles. In some cases, its purpose is to honor donors and friends. In others—like Corigliano’s—it is to allow the College to bask in the fame of a highly accomplished alumnus. Corigliano was perfectly within his rights to exclude a rogue department from his endorsement of today’s Columbia.

Dabashi—get this—also says he has written an “official letter” to the dean of the College, demanding an answer to this question: “Did he or anyone else from Columbia College publicly defend the good name and the dignity of my colleagues who have served generations of Columbia students honorably with the fruits of their teaching and scholarship?” That would have given the evening a splendid touch. It’s not enough that Columbia is pumping up MEALAC with new slots and resources. Dabashi expects deans to jump up in their tuxedos to defend MEALAC’s blatant excesses, against perfectly legitimate criticism.

Three times in his letter, Dabashi writes that the episode was an affront to the “dignity” of the department. “Dignity” isn’t an intrinsic characteristic of a university department: it has to be earned, and it can be lost. MEALAC’s “good name” is in serious question, and if its members want it back, they can take a first step: dump Dabashi.