[Peace-discuss] Military analysis of Iraq
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at uiuc.edu
Sat Jul 5 22:41:33 CDT 2008
[In the light of the Brecher column I just posted, the ironies here are replete.
--CGE]
From The Times
July 5, 2008
Martin McGuinness flies to Baghdad
on mission of peace and reconciliation
James Hider in Baghdad
Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA
leader, is to arrive in Baghdad this morning on a mission to help Iraq’s warring
sects to seek reconciliation, drawing on the painful past of Northern Ireland.
Mr McGuinness is paying a two-day visit to Baghdad with Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC
negotiator, and Lord Alderdice, the chairman of the Northern Irish
decommissioning body. They will meet a group of Sunni and Shia leaders to thrash
out ways to reduce violence and bridge the divide between communities.
The tentative peace process is being financed almost exclusively by an American
businessman who has been so moved by the plight of Iraqis that he has spent much
of his fortune on seeking a solution.
The talks in Baghdad are expected to be one of the most significant and come
after two private meetings in Helsinki in the past year.
“People from divided societies are in the best position to help other people
from divided societies,” said Padraig O’Malley, a reconciliation expert who has
worked in Northern Ireland and South Africa for three decades.
Mr McGuinness’s career — from IRA commander to prisoner, to senior politician in
the Northern Ireland power-sharing Government — is expected to serve as a model
that could bring in all the disparate elements of the Iraqi conflict, even those
who have had links to al-Qaeda.
“In the end the process has to be totally inclusive,” Mr O’Malley said. “There
has to be room at the table for everyone, for those you hate, those you despise,
those you would wish to kill . . . In the end you will find that indeed there
are people who have been talking to elements of al-Qaeda.”
So far that has been unthinkable: former Sunni insurgents have formed
anti-al-Qaeda units but they have yet to be incorporated by the Shia-dominated
Government, which eyes them as terrorists.
The Iraqi conflict is a complex web of shifting allegiances pitting Sunnis
against Shias, Arabs against Kurds and Americans against militias. The Shia
majority is also riven by infighting as rival militias vie for control of the
oil-rich south, and Baghdad is divided into dozens of separate neighbourhoods by
concrete blast walls and checkpoints. “In Northern Ireland, ten years after \ .
. . the two communities are more divided, residentially, than ever before,” Mr
O’Malley said. “People have decided that reconciliation to them is living apart,
peacefully.”
Mac Maharaj, a veteran South African activist who was once imprisoned with
Nelson Mandela, hoped that the meetings would allow both sides to find common
ground. “It has really provided the Iraqis with a platform to speak to each
other without factoring in outside interests,” he said.
So far, that has produced a framework of 17 principles on which all parties
agree, ranging from a renunciation of terrorism and factionalism in government
to respect for an independent judiciary. No agreement has been reached on
disbanding militias, although the parties did promise to “resolve disputes and
ban the use of arms by armed groups during negotiations”.
The success of the meetings has been in part ascribed to Robert Bendetson, a
Massachusetts furniture retailer, who produced about $500,000 (£250,000) of his
money to pay for the travels of the Iraqi delegates and the international team.
“It was just the right thing to do, seeing people’s lives and families ruined,”
said Mr Bendetson, visibly moved on his first visit to Baghdad yesterday.
Salih Mutlak, a secular Sunni and former Baathist who is attending the
reconciliation meeting, said that any progress would have to be made in spite of
the Shia-led, religiously conservative Government. “Iraqis are ready for
reconciliation but those in power are not ready. Those bent on revenge will
never have reconciliation,” he said.
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