Informed Comment

Feldman: Iraq will be an Islamic Republic at Odds with the West

Noah Feldman, an independent consultant to the Coalition Provisional Authority and to President Bush has [written a report]* to the White House casting severe doubts on the likelihood that Iraq will emerge as a Western-style democarcy with separation of religion and state and a foreign policy stance friendly to the West. Al-Zaman’s London office appears to have seen a copy of the report, and summarizes it today. Feldman, an NYU professor of law, says that after observing the situation there he is convinced that the Iraqi constitution will enshrine Islam as the religion of state and Islamic law as the basis for national law, that the new regime will refuse to recognize Israel, and that it is likely to be antagonistic to the West. Feldman said that the outcome is likely to contradict all the prognostications made before the war, that it would establish a pluralistic, secular democracy. Feldman, a Democrat, was appointed to consult on constitutional issues because he also has a degree in Islamic Law from [Harvard]. But his report, if al-Zaman summarizes correctly, has ended up demolishing the rhetoric of the neoconservatives who hyped the war last spring and who predicted that a new democratic Iraq would lead a wave of democratization in the region.

(*It now appears [10/31/03] that he did not in fact write a report to this effect, though oral remarks of his with the same purport appeared in a Telegraph interview.)

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IGC sees Foreign Fighters supported by Baathists

Sources in the Interim Governing Council told al-Zaman that there is evidence that between 200 and 400 foreign fighters, from Sudan, Yemen, Palestine and even Chechnya, are responsible for suicide bombings in Iraq, and that they receive logistical support and help from a network of Baath loyalists. What I can’t understand is, if Baath loyalists have such good logistics, and given that there are thousands of them, why it is useful to put so much emphasis on a couple hundred foreign volunteers. Iraq’s 400,000 strong army had a lot of people in it who knew how to rig a bomb. It is not clear that outside volunteers would necessarily be as well trained, for the most part.

The foreign fighters thesis had cold water poured on it the day before yesterday when US military sources told the Washington Post that satellite photos and other surveillance of the border to not show any infiltration of fighters from Syria. They thereby dared contradict Bill Safire, of the New York Times, who loudly proclaimed that the resistance to the US is all Syria’s fault. But then, Safire has an axe to grind, whereas US officers on the ground have a need to gather accurate intelligence. If you put resources into patrolling the Syrian border when it is unnecessary, you leave yourself open to attacks from other quarters that really do pose a threat.

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Thai Prime Minister threatens pull-out of Troops

The Thai prime minister said Wednesday that the 447 Thai troops at Karbala would be pulled out of the country if they appeared to be in danger. Most of them are medics and engineers, and they are under Polish command. UPI reported, “Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told the panel that while Thai soldiers were safe, he would not allow them to risk “mortal danger.”" I’d say that the coalition of the willing is pretty shaky if troops are only being supplied on the condition that their safety be guaranteed. Since Karbala has become more dangerous in the past month, the Thais may well follow through. Attacks on Bulgarian troops in Karbala have also provoked heated discussions in Sophia about whether they should be withdrawn. With the collapse of the deal to bring in the Turks, and the increasingly dim possibility of troops coming from South Asia, the Bush administration now risks the pull-out of the little contingents supplied by countries like Thailand if the security situation does not improve. In a separate development, Kenya formally declined to send troops without a stronger UN resolution; one member of the Kenya parliament asked the government to save the country from a “US dictatorship” by refusing to assist it in Iraq.

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Sistani Representative Wounded in attack in Karbala

Shaykh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala’i was wounded in the head and five guards were also wounded when assailants tossed hand grenades and fired machine guns at him as he left the shrine of Imam Husayn in the holy Shiite city of Karbala late on Wednesday. Al-Karbala’i is the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Two weeks ago, fighting broke out between Karbala’i's guards and the militia of a supporter of Muqtada al-Sadr, who wanted to take over the shrine. On the other hand, some Shiite leaders appear to have been targeted by Sunni Arab radicals. It is unclear who was behind Wednesday’s attack. Al-Karbala’i is being treated in the hospital. Sistani has complained that the ongoing violence in Iraq is made possible only by the lack of security in the country and the massive amount of arms in the hands of militias, and has called on the occupying authorities to disarm the militiamen.

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One US Soldier Killed, 7 wounded; Deputy Mayor of Baghdad Assassinated

Tuesday: Guerrillas fired from a rooftop into the main US military base in Tikrit, wounding at least one US soldier from the Fourth Infantry Division. Guerrillas detonated a car bomb near a police station and a school in Fallujah on Tuesday, killing four Iraqis. Late Tuesday, eight enormous explosions were heard in the southern area of Fallujah. Guerrillas subjected a US military convoy near Mosul to small arms fire but there were not US casualties. Guerrillas launched three mortar shells at the Jadriya district, across the Tigris from the CPA palace HQ. No word yet on casualties.

Monday: Guerrillas launched a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Baghdad on a US convoy that had stopped to disarm roadside bombs, killing one US solider and wounding six others.

Sunday: It was revealed that Baghdad Deputy Mayor Faris Abdul Razzaq al-Assam was assassinated in Baghdad. Al-Zaman says six gunmen opened fire on him as he sat in a coffee house, after having returned from the international donor’s conference in Madrid.

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Iraq War Death Toll: 8,700 Iraqi Troops, 3,400 Iraqi Civilians

A new study by The Project on Defence Alternatives, based on field hospital data and US government reports, finds that approximately 13,000 Iraqis were killed in the US attack of March-April. A little less than a third of the dead, 3,400 or so, were noncombatants (i.e. persons who did not take up arms against the Anglo-American invading forces).

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Iraq’s Christians Meet, ask for own Province

A conference of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians met in Baghdad Monday, and came to two principal decisions (al-Zaman). They decided to seek a province of their own in Ninevah, near Mosul (a district that also has many Kurdish villages alongside Christian ones). And they decided that Iraqi Christians should be known as Chaldeassyrians instead of as Chaldeans and Assyrians, so as to stress the unity of the Iraqi Christian community. Iraqi Christians are estimated at 3.5 percent of the population. Nestorian Christians in the Middle East who spoke Syriac or Aramaic or used them in their liturgy were called Assyrians. (Nestorians had tended to stress the humanity of Jesus and rejected the phrase “mother of God” for Mary because it compromised that humanity). A group of Assyrians in Cyprus and Iraq broke from Nestorian doctrine in the 1400s and became Uniates, one of a number of Eastern churches admitted into communion with Rome. They allowed to keep their own liturgy rather than adopting Latin (the Chaldeans use Aramaic, the language of Jesus). Pope Eugenius IV called this new Assyrian Uniate Catholic group the “Chaldeans.” The rest of the Nestorians in the region continued to be called Assyrians.. About 80% of Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans or Uniate Catholics. The conference is urging that they unite into a single group, which I presume means that the Chaldeans are willing to see the Nestorian Assyrians as coreligionists rather than as heretics.

Chaldeans complain that they were given no representation by the US on the Interim Governing Council (there is an Assyrian member).

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