[Peace-discuss] Needed: Iraqi boss with mo'--US seeking a way out

[Lisa Chason]

> 
> On Monday, December 8, 2003, at 06:19  PM,
> 
> >
> > The Australian    December 8, 2003
> >
> > Needed: Iraqi boss with mo'
> >
> > By Simon Jenkins, The Times
> >
> > Those who try to do the undoable must also think the unthinkable. US
> > strategists in Iraq are contemplating what they have always denied,
> the
> > search for a "strong man with a moustache" to stop the present rot. If
> 
> > the
> > result is not democracy, so be it.
> >
> > If the result is the dismemberment of Iraq, so be it. Iraq has become
> a
> > mess. There is only one priority: to "get out with dignity".
> >
> > This strategy is now being rammed down the throat of the US  
> > administrator in
> > Baghdad, Paul Bremer, by George W. Bush's new "realist", Deputy  
> > National
> > Security Adviser Bob Blackwill. He answers to National Security
> Adviser
> > Condoleezza Rice, not US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and is the
> 
> > new
> > boss of Iraq.
> >
> > The Pentagon, Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, architects of  
> > the old
> > "idealist" strategy, are in retreat. The Iraqi Governing Council,
> which
> > Bremer reluctantly created, will be disbanded. Washington must find  
> > someone
> > with whom it can do business, someone who can deliver order in return
> 
> > for
> > power. That search is Blackwill's job.
> >
> > In a nutshell, Washington has bought the old British Middle East  
> > strategy,
> > that you deal with local leaders and leave them to it. The fantasies
> of
> > Rumsfeld and of Bush's recent "world democracy" speech are at an end.
> 
> > There
> > must be no second Vietnam in Iraq. Necessity has become the mother of
> > humiliating invention.
> >
> > We shall never know if Rumsfeld's adventure could have turned out  
> > otherwise.
> > As his weapons of mass destruction vanished in the desert air, so has
> 
> > his
> > belief in a "new democratic beacon in the Middle East". That collapsed
> 
> > from
> > the minute he peremptorily tore up the State Department's Future of  
> > Iraq
> > Project shortly before the invasion and ostracised its staff.
> >
> > His faith in corrupt expatriates was crazy. His post-invasion  
> > demolition of
> > Saddam Hussein's state apparatus removed the institutions and  
> > disciplines on
> > which any government depends. The May 16 order disbanding the Iraqi  
> > army
> > created 400,000 enemies overnight and gave the Saddamists what they  
> > most
> > needed, a sea of Sunni resentment in which to swim. The wild shooting
> 
> > habits
> > and hearts-and-minds ineptitude of the US 82nd Airborne and 4th  
> > Infantry did
> > the rest. They supplied a stream of blood-feud assassins.
> >
> > What is amazing is the speed with which Washington recognises its  
> > mistakes.
> > The dubiousness of "victory in Iraq" was vividly illustrated 11 days  
> > ago
> > when Bush had to visit the country in secret and dared not leave his
> > airbase. Hussein loyalists are operating virtually at will, now even  
> > in the
> > south.
> >
> > The White House got the message. Washington sacked its first governor,
> 
> > Jay
> > Garner, within a month of the invasion. It is now effectively  
> > abandoning its
> > second within six months. Baghdad has seen three regime changes within
> 
> > a
> > year.
> >
> > The plan Washington forced on Bremer last month abandoned the  
> > Pentagon's
> > policy of steady progress towards democracy through an elected  
> > assembly. The
> > new plan was more urgent, a "transfer of power" to a provisional  
> > government
> > next July, with the hope of elections thereafter. This government  
> > would be
> > selected from the three provinces on a local "show of hands". It would
> 
> > run
> > the new Iraqi army and police force and enjoy some patronage over oil
> > revenue and $US19 billion ($25.8 billion) of aid.
> >
> > Now this plan appears also to be in disarray. After witnessing the  
> > present
> > governing council, the White House has understandably lost faith in  
> > Iraqi
> > assemblies, however chosen. Evidence of economic recovery means  
> > nothing when
> > Iraqis associate US occupation with fear and lawlessness.
> >
> > Iraq has only ever been held together by brute force. Washington is
> > grudgingly accepting the view that this is unlikely to change. A new  
> > leader
> > is needed to prevent the place becoming a global magnet for what the  
> > Arabist
> > historian Bernard Lewis calls "new causes for anger, new dreams of
> > fulfilment, new tools of attack".
> >
> > This was, after all, the view that Washington took in the 1980s when
> it
> > decided to support a certain Saddam Hussein.
> >
> > The Shia majority, long oppressed by Hussein and his Sunnis, see its  
> > hour as
> > come. Its primary allegiance is to ayatollahs who, however moderate,  
> > require
> > government to be based on Islamic law. Like all Iraqi politicians,  
> > these men
> > are playing slow at present and biding their time.
> >
> > These men include Aziz al-Hakim, chairman of the Sciri group on the
> > governing council; Muqtadah al-Sadr, heir to the heroic Ayatollah  
> > al-Sadr
> > whose face has replaced Hussein's in a million picture frames; and the
> 
> > Grand
> > Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
> >
> > They are not so close to their one-time Iranian hosts as to scare
> their
> > fellow Iraqis. They eschew the word fundamentalist and have for the  
> > moment
> > (mostly) stood down their militias.
> >
> > Blackwill's game plan must be to find his strong man from this group.
> 
> > He
> > must let the Shias decide which of them should be boss and hand Iraq  
> > over to
> > that person. Such a regime would at first embrace the minority Sunnis
> 
> > and
> > the oil-rich Kurds.
> >
> > However, it is idle to pretend that this embrace would be stable.  
> > Bremer has
> > turned the Sunnis into a mass resistance movement, armed and  
> > desperate. They
> > have no jobs or oil and increasingly see Hussein as their champion  
> > against
> > Shia domination. Their underground Baath party is a lethal saboteur of
> 
> > any
> > new regime. Baghdad could become another divided city, a place of  
> > nightly
> > horror.
> >
> > As for the Kurds in the north, they will allow no loss of the  
> > sovereignty
> > enjoyed under the "no-fly zone". Their leader, Jalal Talabani, would  
> > support
> > a Shia regime for a while. But any Shia decision, say on oil, with  
> > which the
> > Kurds disagreed would be opposed. Many Kurds have dreamt of an  
> > independence
> > which has never seemed closer than now. Sceptics are already talking
> of
> > "Kurdistan" becoming the US's "second Israel".
> >
> > For the US to try policing such a confederation is politically
> > inconceivable.
> >
> > To hold the Sunnis in subjugation to the Shias, to deter the Turks
> from
> > oppressing the Kurds, to reassure the Saudis over an Iranian-backed  
> > Baghdad,
> > would all require hundreds of thousands of troops in perpetual battle
> 
> > mode.
> > It is not on.
> >
> > The yearning for national unity and dignity may be palpable in  
> > Baghdad. It
> > was hoped that, after Hussein, the US might deliver it.
> >
> > Such unity is not in sight. Possibly if the US had purged and  
> > redeployed the
> > Baath party it might have stood a chance. They did not. Instead they  
> > are
> > turning to the ayatollahs.
> >
> > But they, or their civilian frontmen, would face intense Sunni  
> > resistance.
> > The odds would be on the Sunnis eventually demanding similar autonomy
> 
> > to
> > that enjoyed by the Kurds, perhaps with help from their  
> > co-religionists, the
> > Syrians.
> >
> > Small wonder Iraq's six adjacent states are in a state of suspended  
> > horror.
> > They see Rumsfeld's "cradle of stability" turning into anything but.
> >
> > The strongman solution cannot hold. Iraq seems ever more likely to  
> > split
> > three ways. Fragmentation has become the default mode of Western
> > intervention. It was so in Yugoslavia. It is so in Afghanistan.
> >
> > The US and Britain apparently cannot tolerate the power centres needed
> 
> > to
> > keep disparate nations in order. We may no longer divide and rule, but
> 
> > we
> > happily divide and debilitate.
> >
> > If this was the Pentagon's strategy all along, it has been implemented
> 
> > in a
> > funny way. But since realpolitik has overtaken idealism as
> Washington's
> > ruling ethos, at least an orderly break-up of Iraq should be planned,
> 
> > not
> > denied.
> >
> > In 20 years of meddling, the US and Britain have made a mess of this  
> > nation.
> > They owe it the least blood-spattered path they can fashion to  
> > whatever the
> > future has in store.
> >
> >
> > http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/ 
> > 0,5744,8094978%255E27
> > 03,00.html
> >
>