70 Killed in Orgy of Bombings, Kidnappings
Shiites Consult Sistani on Iran/Mahdi Army Strategy
Ankara Conference on Kirkuk: Kurds disinvited
So there is no sign yet that the guerrillas and militiamen in Iraq are lying low in fear of a new US offensive. They set off numerous bombs all over the capital, targeted Kurds in Mosul, and bombed other cities, massacred dozens, assassinated people, fought firefights with government forces, etc. etc.
McClatchy and the Reuters wire service report political violence in Iraq on Monday. Some of the incidents:
* Police found 30 bodies in Baghdad on Monday. These are victims of sectarian violence and often show signs of torture.
*In Baghdad, guerrillas set off roadside bombs in Rustamiya, Karrada, Khadraa, Jadiriya, Nidhal and Saidiya, killing at least 9 persons, including several policemen, and wounding many others.
*In Baghdad, guerrillas captured 5 mechanics in al-Jadida and are probably holding them for ransom. Assailants also kidnapped Professor Abdul Karim al-Janabi from a technical university in downtown Baghdad.
*11 bodies were brought to the morgue or found by police in Baquba. Baquba also saw clashes between Sunni Arab guerrillas and Shiite Iraqi troops, which left 6 dead. Baquba has a Sunni majority but a Shiite government.
*Guerrillas in Mosul set off a huge car bomb at the HQ of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, killing 5 and wounding 28 persons. Mosul is a largely Sunni Arab city. It is coveted by Kurdistan nationalists, and the Arabs are said to have forced 70,000 Kurds to flee the city. Arabs and Kurds are also contending over the nearby oil city of Kirkuk.
*In Kirkuk, guerrillas set off a car bomb near the HQ of the Turkmen Front Party, killing 2 persons and wounding 5. Militants also detonated a car bomb near the house of the owner of an automobile dealership, wounding 11 persons.
The Bush administration put pressure on the Shiite leadership of Iraq to 1) cut itself off from Iranian influence and 2) disarm and marginalize the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. Shiite leaders have been going to Najaf to consult with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in hopes of settling these issues before US troops do it for them.
If Bush's consultations with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan and with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim in Washington in recent weeks had those two goals as their center, imagine how disappointed Bush must have been to learn that subsequently Iranian intelligence operatives were visiting the compound of al-Hakim and advising him on the cabinet reshuffle sought by al-Maliki.
And, it is likely that al-Maliki will tip the Mahdi Army to lay low rather than disbanding and disarming it. It is among his few pillars of power. There is no evidence that Grand Ayatollah Sistani can persuade the Sadrists to disarm. The hard line Sadrists complain that Sistani is "the silent religious authority" whereas Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (d. 1999) had been the "speaking religious authority." Al-Sadr had organized the Shiites of Sadr City, East Baghdad (pop. 3 million) in the mid to late 1990s, establishing widespread cells under Saddam's nose. The idea that the US can waltz into this densely populated slum with its folk traditions and turn people away from Sadrism and its paramilitary component (the Mahdi Army) just strikes me as extremely unlikely. Al-Sadr's son Muqtada now leads his movement.
On another contentious front, the Global Strategy Institute is holding a conference in Ankara, Turkey, on the future of Kirkuk. Invited were the small Turkmen parties, the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, the Shiite Fadhila or Virtue Party, members of the Kurdistan Provincial Council, etc. Conspicuously absent were the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which al-Zaman reports in Arabic was a deliberate snub! These Kurdish parties desire to annex Kirkuk province to the Kurdistan Regional Government, a provincial confederacy that now comprises Irbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniya. Because Kirkuk is a petroleum area, and because the Turkmen and Arabs of this province desperately do not want to become citizens of Kurdistan, this plan is controversial. A referendum is scheduled for late 2007 on the future of Kirkuk, which the Kurds can probably win because they have flooded into the province and are probably now a slight majority.
The Turkmen, Sunni Arab and Shiite speakers at the conference reject the referendum and the annexation of Kirkuk to Kurdistan. Because the Turkish government sees itself as a protector of the Iraqi Turkmen, who are linguistically and culturally close to the Turks, the fate of Kirkuk and of its Turkmen are vitally important to Ankara. As if there weren't enough wars in Iraq, this confrontation over Kirkuk could turn into yet another.
Comments at the conference:
Salih Mutlak, Sunni secularist National Dialogue Front: The referendum on Kirkuk should be nation-wide, not just in one province.
Karim al-Ya'qubi (Shiite) of the Virtue Party: conflict in Kirkuk could spill over into the rest of the country.
Khalid Uthman (Sunni fundamentalist) of the Iraqi Islamic Party urged that the opinions of all of Kirkuk's major groups, and of its neighbors, be taken into account.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/16/2007 12:30:00 AM
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6 Comments:
There is just so much to learn.
My reference map of Iraq shows the Governate around Kirkuk as "At Ta'mim." Seems everyone refers to it as "Kirkuk" now. Is there some story behind that change ?
Everyone now calls the political subdivisions "provinces." But a few years back they were called "governorates" or "governates" or "muhafazat." Why has this changed ?
The President presents his “New Way Forward” at http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/78567.htm.
He has conceded that the war cannot be won militarily, and agreed with the critics who say that the solutions to the underlying political causes of resistance, sectarian strife and instability must be political solutions.
So look halfway down this website for the political and economic changes that are supposed to improve the situation there.
The main changes that are supposed to help us win the war are changes the Iraqi government has to make to themselves. So the President believes that winning this war is mostly out of our hands, and that there is not much that we can do to affect the outcome. Interesting.
The most important actions the President wants the U.S. to take on the political front appear to amount to meddling by an outside foreign power, the U.S. government, in the internal workings of the so-called Iraqi national government. Boosting some favored national Iraqi politicians over others. We all know what that does to the credibility of those candidates.
The most interesting changes that the President is directing under the new strategy concern U.S. efforts to foster political accommodation outside Baghdad. These efforts will work through Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT’s) to use U.S. political, security, and economic resources at the local level to “open space” for moderates.
PRT’s look to be pretty important to the “New Way Forward.” Helpfully, the website http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c3212.htm offers 2 fact sheets explaining how these teams work. Not as helpfully to the US effort in Iraq, these teams are not really there to facilitate reconstruction or development. The purpose of these teams, read between the lines, is to put a kindler, gentler civilian face on the brutal military occupation, and meddle with local politics by favoring selected local politicians. These teams are the new point of the spear for the Emperor, softening from rule by US military officers to rule by US bureaucrats and diplomats.
Professor Cole and this blog are still not doing their job. Apparently the President still does not understand that the thing that drives the insurgency isn’t who represents the commander of the foreign occupation, or who they choose for their puppet Iraqi “advisory councils;” it is the basic fact that there is a foreign occupation. Please, people, type louder.
The President rhetorically asked, "if my plan is so bad, why don't you suggest something better." Folks, now is the time to rally behind "Model Communities." We can't fix all of Iraq's problems with one silver bullet solution, like a new way forward. But we can fix one village or neighborhood at a time, and the only way to beat this insurgency is to win the hearts and minds of its supporters and footsoldiers and leaders at the local level.
Listening to diverse Arab television sources last night, it seems Syria would welcome some sort of recognition or reapprochement with the US if we would only give them an opportunity.
In the meantime, it seems Condie is pitching a new Pal solution to ensure that JR gets the legacy he wants, that of PeaceMaker in the ME. Amazingly, it seems, again from Arab and Iranian press reports, that the current idea is for the Pals to have a temporary state with temporary borders and temporary governance.
I am unsure what this would achieve except to give the illusion that the Pal problem is solved.
From her statements, it seems clear that Condie, in offering the Pals a state, has no intention of establishing a true sovereign nation, but rather some sort of bantustan status for Gaza and the sections of the West Bank that are not colonized.
I wonder if this Global Strategic Institute is a Turkish entity, or related to CSIS?
Kurds have in fact flooded into Kirkuk and Kurdish authorities have used a certain amount of coercion to convince former residents to return. However, many Kirkukis remain in Suleymaniya and Erbil. Over the last two decades they have started businesses and integrated in their new communities. Many also continue to live in the collective towns near the major cities, and there are even public buildings between Suleymaniya and Taslujah that displaced from Kirkuk occupied in the early 90's, and continue to occupy. Their living conditions are poor, but there are jobs in Suleymaniya.
My point is that the ethnic balance in Kirkuk is not a totally artificial creation of the Kurdish Parties - hundreds of thousands of Kurds were forced out of Kirkuk, and although many have returned the numbers would be still higher if Kirkukis returned from the major cities and from collective towns like Bineslawa, Kasnazan, Tasluja, where significant populations remain. One of the more contentious issues is the Kurdish insistence that displaced Kirkukis be allowed to vote. This actually reflects their inability to convince fairly substantial numbers of displaced to return.
Turkey's position in this conference is akin to having a conference on the status of Jerusalem and disinviting the Palestinians. As in the I-P conflict, the broad outline of a solution is fairly clear. At-Tammim province needs to be redrawn so that the Kurds administer rural areas in the north and east (Shwan, Qadir Qaram) that are not currently disputed and have always had strong Kurdish majorities. Kirkuk itself needs to have some form of international protection in the short term and a longer period of time to determine its final status. Regardless of the final status, the Kurds are owed a percentage of the oil revenue from the province.
Areas to the south and west that are predominantly Arab (i.e. Hawijah) should be reincorporated into a redistricted Salahaddin governorate administered by whatever central government eventually forms.
Turkmen-dominated communities like Tuz Khurmatu and Taza can decide whether they want to join the KRG or join Salahaddin governorate.
A war can be avoided as long as there is dialog and a hope of some equitable solution in which undisputed Kurdish areas of the province are incorporated into the autonomous region, and the status of the city itself is negotiated openly with international security guarantees no matter which side - the Kurds or the Iraqi Government - end up with control. Most importantly, the KRG's share of oil revenue has to be guaranteed internationally.
This will probably not happen. The Turkish government needs to understand that the alternative is really very bleak - the radicalization of the Iraqi Kurds will lead to sustained, popular support for the PKK on both sides of the border (not the case now), and instability in the huge Kurdish diaspora in Europe. If Iraq or Turkey are to be stable, the Kurds need to have some minimal degree of satisfaction.
Very interesting update by the NYTimes' John Burns just now in a half hour phone conversation with Warren Olney at KCRW. Podcast available later for those who missed it. Particularly interesting was the al-Maliki-Bush relationship, al-Maliki's tenuous hold on leadership and al-Hakim's relationship with Iran. US hasn't got much to look forward to. No win followed by no win followed by ignominy.
http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp
I know a couple of Turks who fear that Kurdish nationalism will break up Turkey which made up of somthing like 16 different ethnic groups alone. Imagine Asia Minor broken up into a dozen 'Basque regions'; only the inevitable spread of salafism would cause untold damage to Europe and perhaps would precipitate the need for a conflict on a scale not seen since WW2, in that region alone.
The Turkish generals wont allow that; and will raize Kurdish Iraq before they allow the emboldening of seperatists within Turkey.
Does Bush realise what sort of world he is making? Not even his father was THIS insane.
'Surge'; as if the word alone will repair the damage that has been done. Maliki is Bush's last hope; and he is only second in Dawa; a weak party. Bush is appeasing his real enemies; the Saudis and attacking the ones who can bring him a way out. 'Unresticted' means more US atrocities, and the fact that once more the elites in D.C have allowed themselves to be marginalised by Fox News only proves WHY the US is going to lose Iraq. No guile; only complience and pretence. And the Saudis will be laughing allong with the Brits and French; since at the lowest political cost to themselves they have either profited; spread Sunni islamic extremeism or made political capital. Even the Germans look like peaceniks now; and considering their past Bush really had to do allot to outshine that horrific tale.
This will either end with millions more dead; raped; shafted (once more in the Shia case); or else Bush's shame. Why should we let Bush choose his way out, Bush should be forced to take the shame of ending this. Then tried for war crimes; just like Saddam.
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