Omar, a writer at the controversial war-scenario weblog “Iraq the model” today picks up on an article written by Abid Battat in Azzaman titled “Weapons smuggling booms in southern Qurna”, about a contraband trade mafia working in arms dealing in the small town, seventy-four kilometres northwest of the city of Basra.
“I've been to Qurna many times during my internship in the northern suburbs of Bsara and I heard a lot from the locals about the huge weapon business in the area”, notes Omar. “Those weapons are certainly remnants of the Iraq-Iran war. Says who? Says the dealers themselves … (except) some former military personnel think that's not the case.” Omar concludes: “So the question is, if those were weapons sent by Iran to the militias to help them carry out attacks on coalition forces like many of us already think, why would the militias sell the weapons? The only explanation I can find is that Iran is sending enough weapons and munitions to the extent that the militias can feel well armed and at the same time make some good bucks. (sic)”
Wherever the weapons are coming from, the Unites States can expect much more of this type of headache in the process of rebuilding of Iraq, and if she is to learn the crucial lessons from September 2001, she would be well advised to take them seriously this time round. For one of the reasons that the Taliban were able to build up such an arsenal of ideological and military power was precisely because of neglectful U.S. foreign policy to the region: coupled with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., illegal weapons trading was ironically being greatly facilitated at exactly the same time as Washington was busy popping corks and celebrating the demise of its ideological communist competitor.
For the U.S. to implement effective regional stabilisation however, global consensus from in particular international political regulators such as the United Nations and anti-war governments is going to have to be given liberally. Such bodies will also have to exercise some degree of trust and patience, and not come down on the next Commander-in-Chief every time the U.S. steps in with counter-trafficking measures.
The approach stems from seeing the situation from an economic rather than from apolitical perspective. The trading of contraband goods is much the same as trading in any legal goods – if effective regulatory bodies are not put in place to oversee market activities, all hell tends to break loose, and you end up with a few monopolising mass-ownership of market share. In artillery parlance, this means that one very small undetected corner of Iraq – such as Qurna – may end up amassing a sizeable arsenal without being detected on any radar. The irony may well end up coming undone however, as the very parties who contested a war with Iraq prevent any supervision of this kind of black market dynamic, but it wouldn’t be the first time well-meaning peacemakers have shot themselves in the foot by the failure in all their best intentions to understand market dynamics.
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