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Search for least-worst option in Iraq
19.10.2006
Analysis: By Paul Reynolds |
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October 19, 2006, -
A "helluva mess" is how the former US Secretary of
State James Baker is said to have described the
state of Iraq - and the search is on for the
least-worst option for US policy makers.
One idea is to break up the state of Iraq itself.
Mr Baker's own informal bi-partisan Iraq Study Group
- requested by Congress and endorsed by President
Bush - is unlikely to go down that path, however.
And the Bush administration has ruled partition out.
The White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "In
[President Bush's] conversation with Prime Minister
Maliki earlier this week, the Prime Minister
described partition as not only undermining the
government, but also providing encouragement to
terrorists.
"We have considered partition. Again, you consider
every possible option. But we've also determined
that it is not, for a series of reasons, a wise
option for the stability of Iraq or for the region."
The Iraq Study Group appears to be shaping up to
recommend something between, as Mr Baker put it,
"stay the course" and "cut and run". It will report
in December or January, certainly after the mid-term
elections.
Mr Baker has also said: "There is no magic bullet...
it is very, very difficult."
His group's main concepts seem to be "stability
first" and "redeploy and contain", as they are
called.
The first would concentrate less on democracy and
more on stabilisation, especially in Baghdad, and on
trying to bring in nationalist (ie not al-Qaeda
jihadist) insurgents into political life and even
consulting Iran and Syria. New anti-guerrilla
tactics might be devised.
This could tie in with thinking in Washington that
there is merit in the idea of a government of
"national salvation" in Iraq.
The second would be more radical. It foresees a
possible major, phased withdrawal of US forces,
perhaps even to bases in the region from which they
could support the Iraqi government if necessary.
Looser federation
Iraqis themselves have meanwhile been involved in a
fierce debate about dividing the country up into a
looser federation.
On 11 October, there was a vote in the Iraqi
parliament approving measures developing the
provision in the constitution for more regional
groupings like the semi-autonomous rule that the
Kurds enjoy in the north.
The plan was forced through by the main Shia party
and strongly opposed by Sunni leaders. The Sunnis
know that, without oil in their region, they would
end up the poorest. They fear the growth of a
powerful, oil-rich "Shiastan" in the south.
The whole thing is likely to be put off for 18
months, during which anything could happen, but the
manner of its parliamentary passage in an atmosphere
of chaos and anger does not augur well for the
governance of Iraq.
The political background is therefore hardly more
hopeful than the dire security vacuum in which
hundreds of Iraqis are being killed in sectarian
murders.
Partition problems
The idea of partitioning Iraq is as old as the
country itself. When Winston Churchill drew the
lines of Iraq in 1921 he was putting together in one
country three old provinces of the Ottoman empire,
those of Baghdad, Mosul and Basra.
It was convenient for the British but not
necessarily so for the long-term stability of Iraq
as each province had basically differing peoples.
Unity was enforced while a strong power ruled,
whether imperial, monarchical or dictatorial (as it
certainly was during Saddam Hussein's time) but in
their absence, the constituent parts are tending to
spin off on their own.
The problem is that the populations are not that
clearly separated - and nor do they all necessarily
want to separate, though some, the Kurds, do.
Shias and Sunnis are mixed up in Baghdad and
elsewhere in the central region. One major fear is
that partition could lead to the kind of mass exodus
of populations that was seen when Pakistan split
from India.
Degrees of separation
Varying degrees of separation are suggested.
On 1 May this year, in an article in the New York
Times, Democratic Senator Jo Biden and commentator
Leslie Gelb suggested decentralisation.
"The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united
Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each
ethno-religious group - Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shia
Arab - room to run its own affairs, while leaving
the central government in charge of common
interests.
"We could drive this in place with irresistible
sweeteners for the Sunnis to join in, a plan
designed by the military for withdrawing and
redeploying American forces, and a regional
non-aggression pact."
Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia,
wants Iraq to follow the example of Yugoslavia which
was divided into independent states, Croatia among
them.
Now an advocate for the Kurds, he wants them to have
full independence. Iraq, he says, cannot be put back
together again.
"Iraq is not salvageable as a unitary state," he
wrote in the New York Review of Books in May 2004.
Baker hostile
Mr Baker himself is hostile to partition or anything
much like it.
He made this clear in an interview on ABC television
on 8 October: "The major cities in Iraq are mixed
and there is no way to draw lines between Sunni,
Shia and Kurds in the major cities like Baghdad,
Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk.
"And furthermore there are no boundaries between
Sunni areas and Shia areas in Iraq, how do you draw
the boundaries? And the minute you say we're going
to do that and make three autonomous regions, you're
likely to kick off a huge civil war."
And many Iraqis oppose breaking up the country.
The country's president Jalal Talabani is a Kurd,
who fought for years against Saddam Hussein.
In a recent BBC interview he was asked if partition
was a possible solution. He answered: "It's very
dangerous for Iraq, especially the Arab part of
Iraq.
"Baghdad, Baqouba, the mixed areas, it is not so
easy to implement this policy of ethnic cleansing.
Nor Kirkuk or Mosul. There is no possibility of
accepting such a kind of policy."
BBC
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