Arab League Troops for Iraq?
Al-Hakim Rejects Tyranny of the Minority
Rumors are flying in Cairo that the US is asking Arab countries to send troops to Iraq to prepare the way for a US withdrawal. This quest is said to underlie the mission of Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney to Egypt and other Arab states beginning Sunday.
Khalid Mahmud of al-Sharq al-Awsat reports from Cairo [Ar.] that the Arab League denied that US ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone broached, during his meeting on Saturday with Secretary-General Amr Moussa, the possibility that it might send troops to Iraq to help achieve order and stability. Moussa's chief of staff, Hisham Yusuf, said that although Iraq and the Lebanon-Syria crisis had been discussed, the issue of troops for Iraq was not raised.
He said that it seemed unlikely that Arab League members would seriously consider sending peacekeeping troops to Iraq. A precondition would be a formal invitation from the Iraqi government backed by a consensus of the political forces in Iraq. There would also have to be a United Nations Security Council resolution specifying the nature of the mission of these troops, their rules of engagement, and how long they were to remain in Iraq. He pointed out that similar plans were floated last summer but had never amounted to anything, and reminded us that Arab League members would not be willing to have their troops under US command.
An American source told SA that Washington wants to encourage the evolution of Arab plans for peace keeping in Iraq, and noted that Yemen had at one point floated such a plan. SA writes, "The veil was drawn back on American efforts to encourage some Arab states to form an Arab intervention force in Iraq on the model of the Arab peace enforcing units that were formed from several Arab countries under the leadership of Syira during the civil war in Lebanon.
Some observers said that Arab publics would angrily reject this prospect.
[Cole: Egypt and Yemen are appropriate for this,whether they follow through or not. But it seems a little unlikely to me that the Shiite government will want them.)
Guerrillas in Ramadi killed a US Marine.
Reuters reports security incidents on Saturday:
" BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed two policemen and injured four other people when it blew up next to a police patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen assassinated Hadi al-Wa'ili, a Shi'ite cleric who led prayers at the Mehdi mosque in the mixed Baghdad neighbourhood of Hurriya, police said."
Here is what Shaikh al-Waeli said in April, 2003, after the fall of Saddam and the killing of returned Shiite cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei:
' "We do not want an opposition coming from abroad or a proxy American government with Iraqi puppets," said Hadi al-Waeli, the imam of Al Mahdi Mosque in Baghdad's Kadhemah district. "The Iraqis who lived and suffered in Iraq have more rights to power than those who came from abroad and do not enjoy any leverage," he said. '
Al-Waeli lost that argument, since it is the long-time expatriate politicians who dominate the new government, and though it is not exactly a puppet of the US, it is close to Washington. Now he has lost his life altogether, in the violence and chaos that the invasion brought to his country.
Shiite clerical leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, whose party is only a little short of an absolute majority in the new parliament, is objecting to the sort of national unity government that might reduce the prerogatives of the majority. Al-Hakim will have to ally with the Kurds to get a president elected, which requires a 2/3s vote in the first round. But his Shiite fundamentalist coalition increasingly looks as though it can find small partners to achieve a slim 51% majority of 138 seats in the 275-member parliament. The Risaliyun or the Mission Party, appears to have gained two seats. It is a Sadrist group and will vote with the United Iraqi Alliance of al-Hakim, which is said to have 129. Some 15 seats have gone to small parties that might be wooed by the UIA to make a majority. It would only need 7 MPs to form a simple majority.
Huda Jasim of al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.]: Lively political jockeying is going on in Baghdad in the expectation that the final tallies in the Dec. 15 elctions will be announced in the near future. A source in the United Iraqi Alliance [Shiite fundamentalist] says he expects his coalition to provide the prime minister, and that the president will be a Kurd-- though the Sunni Arabs will compete for that post. He said that virtually the only issue over which negotiations will be held is the distribution of cabinet posts among the parties. The official spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, Alaa Makki, said, "The issue of altering some articles of the constitution, on which political blocs and parties have agreed, is a duty from which there is no escape." He said that there could be "no going back on" the undertaking enshrined in article 140 of the constitution, providing for its amendment.
Salih Mutlak of the National Dialogue Council [Sunni Arab Nationalist] rejected the taking of any political direction that would leave the constitution as it is, without essential changes in it. He warned of the danger of a partition of Iraq if a refusal to amend the charter is the unalterable position [of the non-Sunni Arab parties].
Ali al-Adib of the Dawa Party said that preliminary negotiations of the Shiite UIA with the Kurdistan Alliance had focused on creating a sort of balance in the new parliament. He said it was expected that it would be necessary to make a coalition among virtually all the blocs in parliament, so as to set a new political methodology that might push Iraq toward a new path of stability and security.
Several sources said that the UIA plan to create new provincial confederacies (on the model of the Kurdistan Regional Government) in the deep South and the middle Eurphrates will be an obstacle to the formation of the next government.
They also said that although they want a government of national unity, it may not be possible to form one. The outstanding issue will be distribution of cabinet posts. The United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite fundamentalists who won more or less won the election, wants the portfolios of Interior and Defense. But some leading Sunni Arab personalities have their eyes on those positions, as well.
Salih Mutlak of the secular, largely Sunni Arab National Dialogue Council said Saturday that he had been offered the post of vice premier if he would accept the results of the Dec. 15 elections. (This story sound phony to me; there is not yet a government or prime minister to offer him such a post, and the Sadrists [puritanical Shiites], a major bloc within the UIA, have said that they would not stand for it.
Sources in the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party and the National Accord Front [Sunni fundamentalist] said that the only highly contested issue in the negotiations will be over changes in the new Iraqi constitution.
Iraq's economy is a huge mess and is likely to stay that way for a while, is how I read this piece in the Guardian Observer. One alarming piece of information for which I have independent confirmation is that the hospitals still don't have enough of some medicines, and even keeping some patients hydrated is a problem. If anyone has any idea of who can get medicine or money for medicine reliably to the hospitals, I would appreciate knowing about it. Can the International Red Crescent/ Red Cross help here?
A British firm warns that some 25% of work on Iraqi electicity and other infrastructure has been undone in recent months by attacks by the guerrilla movement. It further warns that all such infrastructural repairs may be undone if the US ceases funding the effort, as it has announced it intends to.
It cannot possibily be a good sign that Iraq is having to import over 120,000 cartons of eggs from Iran. After all the famous "gaps" in history-- the missile gap, the WMD gap, etc., now we have . . . the chicken gap?
This article examines the general hostility Iraqis have shown toward the pet US project of privatizing the economy. (First there needs to be an economy to privatize, folks. See above.)
The chief judge in the Saddam Hussein trial has submitted his resignation. He had been widely criticized for failing to keep the proceedings from becoming a soapbox for Saddam.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/15/2006 12:30:00 AM
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Concerning the ICRC presence in Iraq and what she can and can't achieve there is an interesting interview here.
This interview with the ICRC's delegate-general for the Middle East and North Africa, Balthasar Staehlin, was first published in the newspaper, Al-Hayat on July 17.
Here is the lead : "Following deliberate attacks on its personnel, the ICRC has been forced to reduce its presence in Iraq. It continues, however, to visit those held in connection with the conflict and, in collaboration with the Iraqi Red Crescent, it provides emergency assistance to those caught up in the violence."
For a good example illustrating the situation vis-a-vie Iraqi forces and hospitals see Saving Private Ali.
It cannot possibily be a good sign that Iraq is having to import over 120,000 cartons of eggs from Iran. After all the famous "gaps" in history-- the missile gap, the WMD gap, etc., now we have . . . the chicken gap?
Why is it that the situation in Turkey, which is having a massive and yet atypical (compared to the Asian experience) outbreak of "avian flu", and the situation in Iraq are being treated as two totally separate and unrelated stories?
Not only do the two countries share a long border, with massive but largely unregulated traffic between them, but even if a halt was somehow put to all human commerce and travel along the border, whatever brought the virus to Turkey will, or more likely already has, brought it into Iraq as well.
The fact that this remains unmentioned seems to fall into what can most politely be described as wishful thinking: if we don't talk about it maybe it won't happen.
As if the Kurds would ever permit an Arab League peacekeeping force!
I don't see where 2/3 will be a magic number for anyone when the election results are final. The Shiite and Kurd coalition may fall short of that number, but it's only relevant for amending the constitution, which they don't want to do anyway. If the Shiites and Kurds want to accommodate the Sunnis, by making changes that may have been promised to the Sunnis, isn't it reasonable to expect the Sunnis to join them and make it unanimous?
The only objective I see here is getting to 51% (138 votes). I am keeping an eye on Allawi, because he's the only one with an effective military backing him (ours). Could Allawi cut a deal with the Kurds and Sunnis? Reuters gives three Sunni parties 54 votes; the two major Kurdish parties 57 votes; and Allawi's National List 25 votes. That adds up to 136, with 6 unallocated. Only two more would be needed for a Sunni-Kurd-Allawi coalition.
The Kurds are Sunni Muslims, right? But their nationalist aspirations exceed their religious zeal. If Khalilzad continues his "promise them anything" diplomacy, he can suggest that Americans will tilt aganst Turkey to help the Kurds achieve a homeland in both countries having as much autonomy as possible without independence. All they have to do, along with the Shiites, is share some of the oil money with the Sunnis. The Shiites can't be that unhappy with such an arrangement; they can proceed with a similar autonomy in the south. Allawi would have to give them a fair share of the ministries.
Arizonia:
The 2/3s for the presidential council is important because 1. promises could be extracted in the course of those negotiations and 2. who the vice presidents are will matter a very great deal.
The Kurds are unlikely to ally with the Neo-Baathists of the National Dialogue Council or Allawi's list, and the Sunni fundamentalists of the National Accord Front. Sunnism has nothing to do with it, and the fact that Kurds are also Sunnis is completely irrelevant. Many of them are Naqshbandi Sufis and abhor the Salafism of the Arabs. Many of them are actually Socialists (Americans may be suprised to find that religion doesn't explain everything.) Ethnic nationalism and semi-autonomy or independence are much more important to them.
Moreover:
1. The Kurds don't like Baathists, to say the least, and the NDC and some Allawi list politicians are way too close.
2. The Kurds are fighting the Sunni Arabs and some Sunni Turkmen for Kirkuk.
3. The Sunni fundamentalists are viewed as having ties to groups like Ansar al-Islam, the deadly enemy of the secular Kurdish parties.
4. The main thrust of the Sunnis is to get rid of the provision for provincial confederacies and to go to a centralized government. They say they will exempt Kurdistan. But the Kurds are nevertheless frightened of centralization and will think it is safer to have the principle enshrined in the constitution so as to make sure it isn't taken away by administrative fiat.
The UIA only needs 7 of the seats apportioned to the small parties to get a majority and is, as a relatively united group, far closer to that than an unlikely hodgepodge of ex-Baathists, neo-Baathists, Sunni fundamentalists and Kurds!
Outflanking the Shiite majority was Allawi's pipe dream. I do not find it a plausible scenario at this point.
I wonder if there has been informed comment on the advantages of partition of Iraq to the furtherance of US goals of regional dominance? It would seem the US would encourage and is encouraging partition, but i can't recall having seen such an essay here.
thank you
I admit ignorance about the personalities and politics involved in forming possible Iraqi coalitions. My underlying assumption is that Iraqi politicians are about as corrupt as those in the United States, where the Abramoff money interests and the Reed/Norquist money interests have no problems as bedfellows. What I am trying to understand is when a simple majority rules, and when a super-majority is needed, in relation to organization of the government (not amendment of the Constitution).
From my reading of the Iraqi Constitution, only 51% of the delegates are needed to elect the President, after the first ballot; and then only 51% of them are needed to approve the Cabinet:
>>Article 73:
First: The President of the Republic shall name the nominee of the Council of Representatives bloc with the largest number to form the Cabinet within fifteen days from the date of the election of the president of the republic. . . .
Fourth: The Prime Minister-designate shall present the names of his Cabinet members and the ministerial program to the Council of Representatives. He is deemed to have gained its confidence upon the approval, by an absolute majority of the Council of Representatives, of the individual Ministers and the ministerial program.<<
("Bloc" is not defined, and appears nowhere else in the document.)
Am I correct that the more powerful position is Prime Minister, not President? The President seems mostly to have rubber-stamp duties.
Hello Mr. Cole,
Could you please comment on the topic of Iranian internal politics? How are the Iranians reacting to the threat of sanctions? How are the internal relations between Ahmedinjad and the rest of the govt?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the topic.
Regarding the Guardian report on the state of Iraq's economy, I wonder if Juan Cole or anyone else here would care to comment on how it compares with Paul Bremer's recent optimistic assessment: "The International Monetary Fund reports that per-capita income has doubled in the last two years and predicts that Iraq's economy will grow 17 percent this year. No wonder registration of new businesses has jumped 67 percent in the last six months."
I think the Brookings Institution has also said some positive things recently about Iraq's economic performance, and I'm wondering where the truth lies.
Some of Bremer's assessment strikes me as deceptive spin. For example, he writes: "As for Iraq's economy, at liberation it was flat on its back: The World Bank estimated that in 2003 the economy contracted by 41 percent. Now Iraq benefits from an independent central bank and a new currency whose stability is a remarkable indicator of confidence." I think it's selective interpretation at best to talk about the economy contracting in Iraq in 2003 without mentioning that that was the year the country was invaded, its cities bombed and looted, etc. I also wonder whether the economic growth he's describing is plausible, given that Iraq's oil production actually declined in 2005. However, I'm not an expert in economics. Can anyone recommend a good overview of the Iraqi economy that doesn't cook the books?
Two thirds, or one half, continued ... the following paragraphs appear near each other in a Council on Foreign Relations web page updated December 19:
The prime minister, once approved, has thirty days to nominate a cabinet, which comprises approximately thirty ministerial portfolios and includes the two deputy prime ministerial posts. The cabinet, whose makeup will not necessarily reflect the ethnic breakdown of parliament, must be approved by a simple majority. . . .
Because the cabinet’s executive officers require two-thirds parliamentary approval, many of the main political leaders will need to set aside ethnic and ideological differences to make political deals and form coalitions.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9437/forming_a_new_iraq_government.html?breadcrumb=default
The same page refers in one place to the Iraqi Accordance Front, and in another to the Iraqi Accord Front.
"the chicken gap?"
One explanation is that the local authorities know that they cannot handle bird flu so they are discouraging the individual ownership of chickens. I personally see little recognition of the Iraqi bird flu problem.
"Migrating wild birds, often seen as a carrier of the virus, are due to start arriving soon at Lake Ducan in Kurdistan in northern Iraq."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR256211.htm
I also wonder whether the economic growth he's describing is plausible, given that Iraq's oil production actually declined in 2005.
I have been wondering whether American aid is actually responsible for most of the observed growth, as opposed to internally generated economic activity. As I understand it, unemployment and inflation are quite high (there is 40% unemployment even in the Shia provinces, according to the British MoD poll) and most of the jobs being created are in the public sector, the military, and the police. According to the Iraq Index, the total GDP of the country is $29 Billion, so 17 percent growth would be around $5 Billion. We could easily be providing almost all of this, through payments to police and national guard units and government-funded reconstruction programs. So the question isn't whether it is plausible for such "growth" (read: welfare) to be reported, but whether it says anything at all about what is happening to Iraqi society.
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