Middle-class life in Iraq sucks quite a bit

From the NY Times:
Middle-Class Family Life in Iraq Withers Amid the Chaos of War -- by Sabrina Tavernise

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 1 - From her bedroom window, Nesma Abdul-Razzaq, a 43-year-old homemaker, has watched insurgents fire grenades from a patch of grass near her garden. Frequent patrols of American tanks rattle the glass. A bullet has pierced a pane.

"You can't live in safety if you cooperate with either side," she said in the bedroom of her house, deep in insurgent-controlled western Baghdad. So when American troops offered to pay for the use of the roof last month, she politely declined.

"What would I say to the neighbors?" she said.

Two and a half years after the American invasion, the violence shows no sign of relenting, and life for middle-class Iraqis seems only to be getting worse.

Educated, invested in businesses and properties and eager for change, the middle class here had everything to gain from the American effort.

But frustration is hardening into hopelessness, as families feel increasingly trapped by the many forces that are threatening to tear the country apart.

Insurgents fight gun battles on their streets. Sectarian divisions are seeping into their children's classrooms and even their own dinner table discussions. Their secular voices are barely audible above the din of religious politicians and the poorer Iraqis they appeal to.

The daily life the middle class describe is an obstacle course of gasoline lines, blocked roads and late-night generator repairs.

In these families' homes, the talk is mostly about leaving. "For Sale" signs dot the gates of the houses on their block. But gathering children and extended families is proving difficult, and many families, potentially the most skilled builders of democracy here, are bracing themselves for a future that appears to them increasingly under siege.

Over the past year, insurgents have come to control large swaths of western Baghdad, including Khadra, the area where Mrs. Abdul-Razzaq lives with her husband, Monkath, and their two boys, ages 9 and 12, in a spacious two-story house. Their bedroom window looks out on elevated highways that are the main arteries into the capital from the north and west, where insurgents have built no-go zones.

Four times in recent months Mrs. Abdul-Razzaq has seen men, sometimes in masks, tramping across her outer lawn, lifting rocket-propelled grenade launchers to their shoulders. Once, several men shot at an American convoy from behind a funeral tent near her house. American troops often come to look for attackers. They have searched her house six times.

Southwest in Amariya, the area that borders the dangerous airport road, street battles between insurgents and the Iraqi police have been so intense that the two main grocery stores were badly damaged and have closed. Residents must now find food elsewhere.

"We call it the Sunni Triangle," Mrs. Abdul-Razzaq said smiling, a reference to the tribal area northwest of Baghdad where insurgents have used violence to oppose the occupation since 2003.

As a result, she and her sons have been largely confined to the house. They no longer go to parks or for walks. They watch more television. After six children from the boys' school were kidnapped, the family arranged for a driver to deliver the boys to and from school. The kidnapped children were returned after their parents paid ransoms.

Even as the neighborhood deteriorated, Monkath Abdul-Razzaq - a 46-year-old mechanical engineer and a secular Sunni - held out hope for a better life here. He said he had felt that the January election was important for Iraq and had ignored commands of religious Sunnis not to vote. On election day, when men near his house warned residents not to go to the polls, Mr. Abdul-Razzaq sneaked out of his house to vote.

Like many Iraqis, Mr. Abdul-Razzaq said, he despised Saddam Hussein. His uncle was in prison for four years. As an officer in the Iraqi Army, he saw five of his friends executed for treason in 1983 during the war with Iran. But he also enjoyed benefits from his connection with the military, securing contracts for spare parts after he quit. Still, Mr. Hussein's fall was a cause for celebration, and he had high hopes for his future here.

But the rise of the religious parties in the past seven months has sapped Mr. Abdul-Razzaq of his remaining hope. The middle class is largely secular, and most of its members are put off by the religious parties that appeal to the poor Shiite masses on the one hand and to embittered Sunnis, who lost their status after the American-led invasion, on the other. Mr. Abdul-Razzaq voted for a Shiite because the candidate was secular.

The religious Shiite government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari, Mr. Abdul-Razzaq said, is pursuing an agenda that favors religious Shiites, driving a wedge deeper into the dangerous divisions in Iraqi society.

"The Americans put us in a ridiculous situation," he said. "They came to Iraq and all the religious parties came with them. The religious man in Iraq is like a fox."

He and his wife have talked of leaving; at least three "For Rent" signs are posted on their block. Ms. Abdul-Razzaq's best friend, a Christian who lived in the house across the street, moved to Syria with her family last month.

But leaving is expensive, and money is tight. Last month, for the first time since the war, Mr. Abdul-Razzaq sold nothing in his spare parts shop. Income from a building he owns helped pay the bills.

"I am very worried," he said, sweating after his third trip in two hours to fiddle with a generator on the roof. "No power. No peace. Do you think this is life? It is hell."

Downstairs, his wife was clearing lunch dishes. "In these two years I've learned to be patient," she said. "To be brave."

Across town in a quiet area of central Baghdad, a family of merchants knows a lot about leaving. Dhia al-Din, 70, a Shiite, presides over three generations spread over two houses. In all, five of eight grown children and their families live abroad, and he lives much of the year in Jordan. He spoke on the condition that his family name not be used. He has received two death threats. One son escaped a kidnapping and left Iraq with his family this month.

He has the means to go, but the migration is scattering his family, and slowly erasing his life that he had carefully built up over decades.

"I lost my money, my hotel, my lovely working with the people," he said, his voice breaking. "My family, it is disappearing."

Then he added in a tone that was only half joking, "It's all because of the Sunnis."

His wife, Samira, a Sunni, shot back, "Why are the Sunnis always blamed?"

The two have been married for 50 years, and the difference in sects never seemed to matter. But recently, new questions have come up. A 9-year-old grandson was asked at school last month whether he was Sunni or Shiite. Then, Rim, a 24-year-old niece, had her engagement broken off by her fiancé's parents because she is Sunni.

"She cried and cried," said her mother, Hana, sitting in a large living room with her hands folded in her lap. "Even if they come back, I will never give my daughter to them."

The blow has driven her daughter to feel her Sunni identity even more intensely, she said. That, in turn, has caused a problem with an uncle, Husham, who was in prison under Mr. Hussein and is now working as a senior official in the Jafaari government. Another family member jokingly introduced him to a visitor as "the Shiite extremist." Rim stopped talking to him when he had made disparaging comments about Sunnis.

"He should not talk about Sunni like that," she said, her eyes looking straight past him. "He hates Sunnis."

Later, over lunch of okra, lamb and eggplant, Samira and one aunt were alone in their nostalgia for the past. Mr. Hussein, they said, was at least able to keep the electricity on.

Dhia al-Din shot back angrily, "They slaughtered us like sheep."

His son motioned to the people gathered at the table and said, "It's a little Iraq."

In Mansour, a neighborhood on the safest edge of western Baghdad, close to the heart of the city, the members of the Abbas family move quietly through their daily rhythms in their large house.

Salwa Ibrahim bakes wedding cakes in her kitchen. Her husband, Ali Abbas, sells sporting goods from a storefront next door. His older brother, disabled from birth, watches television in a back room.

Until recently, the family lived largely sheltered from the violence. But insurgents have now gained a stronger foothold in the area, with some renting houses that empty out as families move away.

Last month, the family had just left a nearby kebab restaurant when a car bomb exploded right outside, killing 2 and wounding 20. Last week insurgents held hostages in a house a few blocks away. A battle raged for four hours, until American helicopters arrived and fired at the house.

Ms. Ibrahim listened, horrified, from her kitchen, as the area erupted in gunfire and people on her street were unable to reach their houses.

The family members feel comfortable in their home, but fear the approaching violence. Mr. Abbas said he had had thoughts of leaving, but with 10 people, including his brother, he had all but discounted that option.

"We're a huge family with a disabled person," he said, sitting at his kitchen table. "It's not an easy job."

(Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedy contributed reporting for this article.)