Posted by Damozel | According to the Iraqi leaders, "[s]ectarian animosity is entrenched in
the structure of their government," so the Bush Administration and the
Congress need to lose the "political reconciliation" benchmark. (Washington Post) To the extent that this has been made a marker of success in Iraq, it's something of a setback. But it was always a bit unreal wasn't it? "This is a struggle about power," said Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih---as if any other kind existed. (Washington Post) Just deciding to be "reconciled" isn't going to be sufficient.
"[A] prominent Shiite cleric and parliament member, said any future reconciliation would emerge naturally from an efficient, fair government, not through short-term political engineering among Sunnis and Shiites...."Reconciliation should be a result and not a goal by itself," he said. "You should create the atmosphere for correct relationships, and not wave slogans that 'I want to reconcile with you.' " (Washington Post)
But, I hear you say, if they can't stop the sectarian quarreling and bring the country together, what can they do? Here's what they propose as a more pragmatic goal.
Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.)
In the meantime, things are not going at all well for the Maliki government. Nearly half the politicians in cabinet positions---i.e., the half that don't happen to be Shiites like Maliki----have left their posts. The Shiite faction led by Maliki are unwilling to share power with the others, according to those same others including the Sunni vice president, Mr. Hashimi. (Washington Post)
According to WaPo, the whole idea of political "reconciliation" has "always been short on specifics." The struggling factions, on the other hand, are all too specific about what it means to them.
To Sunnis, it tends to mean Shiites will release their grip on decision-making, allow them greater influence in the government, crack down on militants regardless of their sect and promote peaceful cooperation between politicians. Sunnis demand the release of thousands of prisoners who have never been charged, the purging of all militiamen from the Iraqi security forces and influence in military decisions.
To Shiites, reconciliation is a process fraught with risks that Sunni "supremacists" will attempt to seize their former position of authority over the majority Shiites. Many Shiites believe that reconciliation requires punishing those who, during Saddam Hussein's government, ruthlessly killed and repressed Shiites and Kurds.(Washington Post)
According to a Shiite official, the same people who were killing Iraqis under Saddam Hussein in the name of the state and in the name of national security are doing it now with the insurgents.".(Washington Post)
Is the situation hopeless?
Hashimi, the Sunni vice president, recently drafted what he calls the "Iraqi National Compact," a 25-point statement of principles that condemns all types of extremism and sectarian discrimination.
Hashimi's statement calls for candid dialogue among Iraq's various factions. On Sept. 27, he met with the country's most respected Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a rare and symbolic gesture that underscored the possibility of cooperation across the sectarian gap. Hashimi said Sistani expressed support for the national compact while requesting minor editing of the document.(Washington Post)
But the government set up by the US may not be capable of bringing about unity. In 2003, the U.S. government (a/k/a "The Bush Administration" "handpicked" a 25-member demographically accurate Governing Council). Now they're in a state of deadlock, since this structure "prioritizes a politician's ethnic or set background above experience or ability...The system makes selecting Iraqi ambassadors or cabinet ministers an exercise in horse-trading subject to bitter disputes."(Washington Post)
Unlike, say, picking a supreme court justice or a new Attorney General. And I'm not trying to be flippant over the grave situation in Iraq, but simply to point out that human nature, and indeed democracy itself, isn't built on unity but on the will of the majority. (Washington Post)
Which is pretty much what the aforementioned Kurdish Prime Minister said. ""Iraq cannot be ruled by this notion of a national unity government, because that has been a recipe for paralysis...We need a government of majority, comprising the moderates, representing the key communities of Iraq and delivering to its constituents, and willing to take on the extremists." (Washington Post)
That's always the hope---that the majority consists of persons of moderate views because the danger otherwise is that the majority will band together to oppress the minority. At any rate it seems clear that the hope that these representatives----who, it goes without saying, are even more bitter and more deeply divided than the Democrats and Republicans---are going to reach any form of agreement is increasingly dim.
I don't know the answer but I continue to hope that the Iraqis will achieve a semblance of democracy. I don't understand even as little as the Bush Administration seems to understand about Iraq's rival factions, but I want to see them succeed. Such a success would redeem America's adventure in diplomacy through enforced regime change, though---and this is a distinction intelligent people should really start to make---it wouldn't redeem W's misleading Congress into war in the first place. Whatever his personal goals for imposing democracy on the world, nothing will ever justify the way in which he brought them about.
I don't know enough even to know how much hope there really is for Iraq. In their Iraq report back in July, the Brits' Iraq Commission put a lot of emphasis on the importance of national reconciliation and suggested that achieving this would require the help of the UN as well as Iraq's neighbors (including Iran). Back in July, Baroness Jay, one of the Commission's members, wrote in The Independent:
[W]e need to internationalise the situation in Iraq. This doesn't mean blue helmets on the ground, but using the diplomatic skills and neutrality of the United Nations. There must be an urgent international political effort under UN auspices, but backed by the US and the EU, which involves Iraq's neighbours. All parties, including the neighbours, must commit to a binding international treaty respecting Iraq's territorial integrity.
The US Iraq Study Group last December suggested a new diplomatic offensive in which the Bush administration has only latterly shown interest. The UK government, with much better diplomatic channels in the region, should take a lead.At the same time, a new high-level UN envoy should be appointed to facilitate political reconciliation inside Iraq. After the assassination in 2003 of its key diplomat, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 150 others, there are questions whether the UN can or would want to play a greater role in Iraq. But since that tragedy, its experience has been used: the UN-brokered agreement on the timing of elections and then the interim government for Iraq in 2004.
The UK must do more to protect the most vulnerable communities. The two million refugees who have fled Iraq, the one million refugees expected over the next year and the two million Iraqis displaced within Iraq represent the biggest refugee crisis since 1948. We have a moral duty to tackle this humanitarian tragedy, and it is in our own interest to prevent what could become a longer-term breeding ground for terrorism and insecurity in the region. The size of the refugee problem is already threatening the political stability of Syria and Jordan. The UK should give greater support to the UNHCR to develop and implement a strategy that meets the needs of the refugees and displaced people....(Independent)
Baroness Jay argued that "with the UN's help"---mark that---Britain, with its experience in Northern Ireland---mark that a well could "do a lot in Iraq."(Independent) She also suggested that there may be a moral imperative for them to do so. But she warned that building peace there would be the work of "years." This was the sunniest view to emerge from the Iraq Commission.
Lord Ashdown was a lot blunter and way more pessimistic.
We committed the cardinal sin of these interventions, which is to have ridiculously overambitious aims; to re-create Washington in Baghdad, to recreate a fully-functioning western-style democracy in a Middle Eastern country." (BBC News)
The Iraq Commission recommended troop withdrawals as and when feasible (with no set deadline), but without much apparent hope that the situation would be resolved within the time set for it by, say, the U.S. Congress. They had some other specific recommendations that were different from the Bush Administration's. But, you know, the Bush Administration had its own plan for achieving stability in Iraq.
Anyway, fingers crossed....
RELATED BN-POLITICS POSTS:
Meanwhile, in the UK, One of the Iraq Commission Chairs Offers the PM This Guidance.
Note to Congress and Especially to My Fellow Democrats: There are No Easy Paths Out of Iraq.Britain pulls away; Bush presses forward---Democrats push back.
LINKS
After thousands of years of hate and conflict in Iraq, it was unrealistic to expect any short-time unity. They have no governing body now, so the US should ask a coilition of oil companies to form a corporation to manage petroleum resources in Iraq and distribute earnings to three provinces dependant on the peace that each can attain within their own area.
Posted by: Yer | October 09, 2007 at 10:06 AM