You are now entering the Polish zone

In all the hubbub surrounding the EU referendum, the resignation of Grzegorz Kołodko, the debate over the flat-rate tax proposal and the parliamentary vote of confidence, we've overlooked one little matter: we're at war. Not only are we at war, we've been given responsibility for controlling a third of Iraq, a zone that stretches from the outskirts of Baghdad south through the central part of the country, comprising no less than five Iraqi provinces.

As the recent violent outbursts against U.S. forces in Iraq demonstrate, this assignment could prove unpredictable. What's even stranger than the assignment is the team that has come together to participate in the Polish zone. It's hard to think of a single alliance in history that has unified such a disparate crew of countries under one banner. Denmark, Norway and Holland are contributing officers; Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania are contributing regulars; Russia is sending 150 engineers and Slovakia is sending 85; Spain will be responsible for two of Poland's five provinces, and Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic will contribute troops under the Spanish flag. The Phillippines and Thailand will also operate under Polish command. If there is a pattern in there, it is hard to discern.

While there is little doubt that Poland's control of an Iraqi zone is the result of a direct reward for loyalty by the Bush administration, it would be unfair to dismiss our new-found role in the middle east as purely a political favor. Whether or not it was intentional, there is a logic to our presence in Iraq, and we would do well to exploit it. Now, you may ask, what possible strategic advantage could Poland have in Iraq, given that the country is not even able to pay for its military operation, and had to turn to the United States to finance two-thirds of the estimated $90-million bill? The advantage is not so much military as it is political. It is an advantage of experience, one that may come in handy when the time comes to rebuild a civil government in Iraq.

The Ba'athist government that ruled Iraq for more than 30 years prior to this year's war was built on a totalitarian model, not unlike the one that existed in the Soviet bloc, and though the ideology of the Ba'athists was not in any serious way communist or socialist, the application of power in Iraq followed largely the same pattern as the one that existed in the Soviet Union. There were concerted, organized campaigns against political opposition of any sort, with the attendant interrogations, disappearances and mass executions; there was suppression of religious freedom; there was total control over all forms of mass media; there was a cult of personality built around the national leader (think back to how much time coalition forces spent taking down statues and posters of Saddam Hussein in the early days of the siege of Baghdad); there was even what may have been Stalin's ugliest legacy: punishing the families of political dissidents for the dissidents' actions.

So there is an emotional and historical bond, however thin, between Poland's recent history and Iraq's. Poland has spent the last 14 years wiping away the legacy of totalitarianism. In Iraq it will be a more difficult task than it was in the communist bloc: the countries of the Warsaw pact still had functioning government bureaucracy and infrastructure after the fall of communism - Iraq doesn't. In Poland, there were political forces that could draw authority from the people and build a democratic nation. In Iraq, there is a power vacuum, and few political figures can fill more than a tiny fraction of that vacuum. The task that has been handed to Poland is neither simple nor clear-cut, but it is a task that we cannot fail to live up to. A decade and a half ago, Poland reaped the fruits of a cold war that lasted two generations, cost countless lives in proxy wars throughout the world and placed great responsibility on the shoulders of the world's most powerful democracies. Today, in Iraq, we have been given a chance to return the favor, and our deep understanding of totalitarian terror is the strength we bring to the task. Our motley coalition of nations may be laughed at in the western media, but they see only what there is to lose - we need only to look into our recent past to see what there is to gain.