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America ponders cutting Iraq in three
9.10.2006
By Sarah Baxter 8.Oct |
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An independent
commission set up by Congress with the approval of
President George W Bush may recommend carving up
Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according
to well informed sources.
The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the
former US secretary of state, is preparing to report
after next month’s congressional elections amid
signs that sectarian violence and attacks on
coalition forces are spiralling out of control. The
conflict is claiming the lives of 100 civilians a
day and bombings have reached record levels.
The Baker commission has grown increasingly
interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite,
Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only
alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and
running” or “staying the course”.
“The Kurds already effectively have their own area,”
said a source close to the group. “The
federalisation of Iraq is going to take place one
way or another. The challenge for the Iraqis is how
to work that through.”
The commission is considered to represent a last
chance for fresh thinking on Iraq, where mass
kidnappings are increasing and even the police are
suspected of being responsible for a growing number
of atrocities.
Baker, 76, an old Bush family friend who was
secretary of state during the first Gulf war in
1991, said last week that he met the president
frequently to discuss “policy and personnel”.
His group will not advise “partition”, but is
believed to favour a division of the country that
will devolve power and security to the regions,
leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in
charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the
distribution of oil revenue.
The Iraqi government will be encouraged to hold a
constitutional conference paving the way for greater
devolution. Iran and Syria will be urged to back a
regional settlement that could be brokered at an
international conference.
Baker, a leading exponent of shuttle diplomacy, has
already met representatives of the Syrian government
and is planning to see the Iranian ambassador to the
United Nations in New York. “My view is you don’t
just talk to your friends,” he said last week. “You
need to talk to your enemies in order to move
forward diplomatically towards peace.”
His group has yet to reach a final conclusion, but
there is a growing consensus that America can
neither pour more soldiers into Iraq nor suffer
mounting casualties without any sign of progress. It
is thought to support embedding more high-quality
American military advisers in the Iraqi security
forces rather than maintaining high troop levels in
the country indefinitely.
Frustrated by the failure of a recent so-called
“battle of Baghdad” to stem violence in the capital,
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, said
last week that the unity government of Nouri al-Maliki,
the prime minister, had only two months left to get
a grip. Rumours abound that the much-admired
ambassador could depart by Christmas.
Khalilzad’s warning was reinforced by John Warner,
Republican chairman of the Senate armed services
committee, on his return from a visit to Baghdad.
“In two to three months’ time, if this thing hasn’t
come to fruition and this government (is not) able
to function, I think it’s a responsibility of our
government internally to determine: is there a
change of course we should take?” Warner said.
Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state,
have resisted the break-up of Iraq on the grounds
that it could lead to more violence, but are thought
to be reconsidering. “They have finally noticed that
the country is being partitioned by civil war and
ethnic cleansing is already a daily event,” said
Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on
Foreign Relations.
Gelb is the co-author with Senator Joseph Biden, a
leading Democrat, of a plan to divide Iraq. “There
was almost no support for our idea until very
recently, when all the other ideas being advocated
failed,” Gelb said.
In Baghdad last week Rice indicated that time was
running out for the Iraqi government to resolve the
division of oil wealth and changes to the
constitution.
Many Kurds are already hoping for their own national
state, while the Shi’ite Islamist leader Abdul Aziz
al-Hakim is pressing for regional autonomy. The
Sunnis are opposed to a carve-up of Iraq, which
would further deprive them of the national power
they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein and could leave
them with a barren tranche of the country bereft of
oil revenue.
Many Middle East experts are horrified by the
difficulty of dividing the nation. “Fifty-three per
cent of the population of Iraq live in four cities
and three of them are mixed,” said Anthony Cordesman
of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and
International Studies, who fears a bloody outcome.
Baghdad is a particular jumble, although ethnic
cleansing is already dividing the population along
the Tigris River, with Shi’ites to the east and
Sunnis to the west of the city.
America may have passed the point where it can
determine Iraq’s future, according to Cordesman:
“The internal politics of Iraq have taken on a
momentum of their own.”
Gelb is under no illusions about the prospects of
success. “Everything is a long shot at this point,”
he said.
timesonline co.uk
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