The author is a British Army officer currently serving in Iraq

I've been lucky (if that really is the word!) enough to spend a period of several months in Iraq recently, a fact not particularly remarkable in itself, but one that has in terms of my politics turned me from someone who was an interventionist to reject almost competely the idea that Army should be sent practically anywhere outside of the NATO countries, or on any mission except that of self defence. This post is about the factors that have turned me from an interventionist to an isolationist. I have choosen to split them into two parts; firstly to deal with those structures that that exist within Iraqi society that arise to defeat peace and the universality of western values, and secondly how our own moral incoherence within our own society defeats our attempt to spread those values elsewhere.

After much consideration, I believe that the easiest way for us to comprehend modern Iraqi society is through the prism of our own medieval one. Now in Iraq, as then in England, warring factions, tribes and families divide the nation into a patchwork of regional and local alliances which are constantly changing. Out of this, several loyalties do stand out over and above local family alliances; one is religion, the other arguably is ethnicity. These should not be overstated though. Before Christmas there was an attempt by two local families (of the same religious faction) to inter marry. Sadly, the latter day Montagues and Capulets ended up having a shoot out at the wedding in which 16 people died. Due to the collapse of industrial society under the UN sanctions regime (unemployment is as high as 80% in a local town) there has been an immense strengthening of tribal and familial structures within Iraqi society; individuals in times of need have turned to their relations for protection and sustenance. The knock on effect of Tribalism, as well as intracable violence, is that meaningful economic development which demands the common availablity of so called 'public goods' has been set back many years. Another is that public office is a matter of family connection rather than democratic process.

Religion is of an importance here that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a westerner many hundreds of years on from the Reformation, the Enlightenment and Gallileo et al to really comprehend. One example, the festival of Ashura, will be sufficient to illustrate the point: During Ashura Shiite Muslims parade in the streets in mourning for the defeat of their faction at the battle Kerbala. So far, so understandable - after all, there are parades in Ulster to mark a victory hundreds of years ago. The picture changes when you discover the literal bloodiness of Ashura - men, and some children, scourging themselves bloody with chains and cutting their scalps open in penance and remorse. Then you have to remember that the battle of Kerbala was in AD 680, over a thousand years ago. When mention is made of timetables for withdrawal from a stable and peaceful Iraq, we should bear in mind that there has not been peace here between Sunni and Shia for literally (for once the cliche is correct) more than a thousand years. Our occupation has done little more than temporarily set the scales in favour of the Shias and Kurds for a while. When we leave, and in fact even before we have left, the religious struggle has resumed.

A great deal of time could be spent analysing the history of the area currently known as Iraq, and I have not even properly examined the role of the Kurds, a linguistically and ethnically seperate people, in the mix of ancient dislikes and feuds. Their drive for the control of the oil rich Kirkuk region and with it independent statehood is yet another reason why continual infighting is the almost inevitable destiny of this region.

However, all my arguments and evidence may be summarised in the following way: Democracy, nationhood, western values are as much an accepted mind set as they are a process. Western values are irretriveably associated with licensciousness here, and I believe that democracy and nationhood arise largely organically from within a society which either legitimises or rejects each stage of national cohesion internally before moving to the next - just look at our own history. Democracy is more than just parties and ballot papers. It is a free press, it is the rule of law, it is the loser's acceptance of legitmate defeat without recourse to violence, it is the idea that the word of the people rather than the word of God governs the nation, it is the idea that as much as you may dislike another persons view you will uphold their right to say it, it is office for the worthy and popular and not your brother's uncle. All these things and more are conspicious by their absence in Iraq. There is no evidence whatsoever that the wider habits of democracy have entered or entrenched themseleves in the the political or mental architecture of Iraq, and in fact history points in the other direction.

Similarly, nationhood is more than cartography and a flag, and in any case the Iraqi national flag does not fly in the districts that make up 'Kurdistan' - the Kurdish flag does. A lot can be said about what might constitute a workable polity or nation. Some of the most unlikely combinations and hotchpotches have ultimately proved to be successful states - Germany for example - while others have collapsed. In our case I believe that we have to recognise that 'Iraq' is really three nations, or at least three distinct areas. It was historically governed so by the Ottomans for far longer than the nation of Iraq has existed. By creating one nation of them after World War One we established the basis for what could have been a successful national project if the distribution of the immense national oil wealth to pay off various interest groups had been carefully managed. Just for a moment in the 1970's the oil price hike made it look as if that might be possible. Sadly that has failed. Along with it I would argue that entire concept of 'Iraq', and with it our intervention based on our post European enlightenment preconceptions of society, democracy and nationhood, has failed too.

I don't wish to be too scathing about our presence here or even the justifications for it. We have after all lifted the oppression from the Shias and Kurds for a while, and bought an abhorrent man and much of his regime to trial. I see our invasion not so much as 'illegal' or vainglory or about oil but as being a rather tragic mission impossible. But the great public anger that exists over our reasons for embarking on this war and what has happened since serves as a reminder that as much as Arab tradtion directly militates against the success of our misson, the uncertainties and contradictions within our own society about the nature of conflict have also indirectly undermined our efforts.

General Sir Rupert Smith recently published a book called 'The Utility of Force' which I would highly recommend to anyone interested generally in foreign policy. In it he states that while public interest in security is largely focussed on the morality of the use of force, and debate of whether an action is seen to be 'legal' or not deems it a success or failure in the public eye. While the use of force for immoral ends should not be allowed, morality and legality are still insufficient paradigms within which to understand the true 'utility' or meaning of force. This misunderstanding has led to the Armed Forces' need to be seen in the media eye as the 'Good Guys', which has in turn led to their involvement in primarily humantarian projects such as nation building rather than their core mission of closing with and destroying the enemy. This undermines their basic utility and makes the success of their missions far less likely.

Being with 'The Good Guys' and against 'The Bad Guys', and being for 'Peace' instead of 'War' is a comfortable place to be as the multitude of celebrities and Hollywood lovies who opposed President Bush in more or less those terms goes to show. But into runs into this old problem: What do you do if you come across someone who disagrees with the peace and the human rights that you believe are universal and is prepared to do so violently? Are human rights truly universal? If so, do we have to moral courage to say so and match our words with deeds - or is that another form of western oppression? Previous western societies were in no doubt about their moral purpose and superiority, but modern society (probably correctly) does not share their righteousness. The logic of moral relativism leads us in my view never to deploy our forces to enforce our values outside our own borders - a coherent political and moral decision even if you don't agree with it. Naturally our consciences are stirred by images of human suffering in other parts of the world, but we quail at the idea of directly taking on the gunmen and criminally corrupt regimes that have bought nations into anarchy, partly for fear of our own losses and partly for fear of being labelled imperialists.

How we deal with violent opposition to democracy, human rights and western values is something that I believe our society has not yet entirely worked out yet. Even when that opposition, such as a challenge to free speech, occurs amongst the immigrant communities within our own borders we are uncertain of how to respond. Until we have resolved that debate in favour either of moral relativism or the universality of our values we should think carefully before employing our forces abroad in pursuit of them.

The examples used in this piece are specific to Iraq and recent events such as the Danish cartoons furore. However, I believe the arguments can be extended to almost any region in the Third World and plenty elsewhere too.

In summary, I would argue that nation building on western model doesn't work - the failure of Operation 'Restore Hope' in Somalia should have been warning enough. The values that we hope to entrench are the product, even in our own nations, of centuries of gradual progress, discarded and adopted ideas and experiments, the slow accumulation of consent, and legitimacy and patterns of social behaviour. To roll into a country with a millenia of countervailing tradition on the back of a military invasion and say: 'This is democracy, prosperity will follow on just round the corner.' is foolhardy and has proved to have been so. To make things worse, as much as our Army and Government proclaim the spread and universality our values, it is very clear to onlookers that our own society is far from in full agreement about how or even if it should be done. Our Army should go home and stick to doing what it does best until society decides properly if, how and where it should be used.