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A
Bosnia Option for Iraq |
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: The American Interest | Volume 2, Number 3, January -
February 2007 |
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A Bosnia Option for Iraq
9.1.2007
By Michael E. O'hanlon & Edward P. Joseph |
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In light of the
difficult and deteriorating situation in Iraq, we
need to consider new options in the event that
current efforts cannot soon turn current security,
political and economic trends around. A Bosnia
Option for Iraq focuses on the controlled
realignment of population groups in order to
minimize communal violence and set the stage for a
stable political settlement--what might be termed a
“soft partition” of the country (but with retention
of a confederal structure, together with equal
sharing of oil revenue on a per capita basis among
all groups). This memo briefly reviews current
circumstances and then outlines a Bosnia option for
Iraq.
The Current Situation
The Iraq mission is failing. The Baghdad security
plan of this past summer, which we viewed at the
time as a last gasp to rescue the situation, has not
reduced the violence. The political process is
virtually stagnant, with the al-Maliki government
drawing little Sunni Arab support, Shi‘a leaders
unable or unwilling to control their militias, and
no progress on key constitutional disputes over oil
resources and other crucial matters that were
supposed to have been settled by now. The Iraqi
economy shows some bright spots but, on balance,
infrastructure performance is no better than under
Saddam, unemployment remains high and private sector
investment low, and the middle-upper-class brain
drain is accelerating as Iraqis with means flee what
they see as a failing state.
If the situation does not stabilize soon, the
political momentum for throwing in the towel could
become irresistible. However, those who urge
precipitous withdrawal minimize the risks of a
devastating civil war that could roil the broader
region, allow al-Qaeda to claim victory and herald a
worldwide display of U.S. failure. Whatever our
mistakes, we have been right on the core point: We
must work with our Iraqi allies to create a stable,
cohesive state that does not attack its neighbors,
massacre its minorities, collude with al-Qaeda or
develop WMD. But at present we have no credible plan
for achieving even these relatively modest goals
(let alone the ultimate goal of creating a
multi-ethnic democracy). Several new tactics,
including a countrywide jobs-creation program and a
rehabilitation plan for former low- and mid-level
Ba‘athists, can help. However, new tactics are no
longer likely to be enough.
The Bosnia Option
Paradoxically, the explosion of sectarian violence
and the onset of Balkans-style ethnic cleansing in
much of Iraq may suggest an avenue toward stability.
If the Iraqi government, with U.S. assistance, helps
Iraqis relocate to parts of the country where they
feel safer, violence can be dampened and the
groundwork laid for a political solution. A model
that can work for Iraq comes from Bosnia and its
neighbors.
The war in Bosnia ended only after as many as
200,000 civilians died and half the country’s
population had either been expelled or fled from
their homes, leaving the country a patchwork of
ethnically homogeneous pieces. NATO airpower, a
reinforced UN contingent and the military successes
of Muslim and Croat armies were critical elements
leading to the 1995 Dayton Accords. But Dayton could
not have been negotiated had not ethnic relocations
already occurred, creating definable and mostly
defensible territories. As the UN stated in the
seminal “Srebrenica Report”, “there is no doubt that
the capture of Srebrenica and Zepa by the Serbs made
it easier for the Bosniacs and Serbs to agree on the
territorial basis for a peace settlement.” Only
after considerable ethnic consolidation was it
possible to negotiate and then implement land swaps
among Serbs, Croats and Muslims, creating a map that
a decade later is still in place while the country
remains, however unhappily, at peace.
In a disintegrating Iraq, our goal should similarly
be to create militarily defensible sub-regions. That
will stanch the violence and, in time, a unitary
state could be preserved--to share oil revenue,
conduct foreign policy, maintain certain national
institutions, and hold out hope for a more cohesive
Iraq in the future.
Ethnic relocation is very distasteful and hardly
free from risk, but if carried out as government
policy it can occur with less trauma than in the
Balkans. Indeed, with Sunni death squads and Shi‘a
militias now attacking even hospitals, there may be
no alternative. As the Balkans demonstrated,
competitive campaigns of ethnic cleansing can
unleash an uncontrollable, self-sustaining dynamic.
More than 500,000 Iraqis have been displaced since
Saddam fell, and that number is rising fast.
Citizens of Baghdad, ground zero for the country’s
violence, are increasingly fleeing their homes. To
stem the vengeful sectarian spiral, we should assist
in a more humane process of relocation, providing
alternative housing and jobs for those who leave
their homes.
This approach worked in war-torn Bosnia. As a UN
peacekeeper there, one of us (E. Joseph)
co-ordinated the movement of several thousand Muslim
women and children from the Zepa enclave in July
1995. The evacuation occurred after General Ratko
Mladic and his Serb forces had seized the “safe
area”, contemporaneous with the slaughter in nearby
Srebrenica that left more than 7,000 Muslims dead.
The UN decision to participate in moving Muslims out
of Zepa was controversial, so much so that the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees refused to assist.
But that agency’s officials did not witness the
shrieks of terror from the huddled Muslim women as
Serb jeeps rolled by--a sound that erased any qualms
we had about the propriety of our mission.
The same approach is now needed in Iraq. If U.S. and
Iraqi forces cannot protect civilians, there is
little moral dilemma about facilitating their
movement to safer areas. Indeed, doing so can help
defeat the jihadists and former Ba‘athists who are
intent on causing an overall collapse of the
government. This plan could help preserve that
government, and it can save lives.
Operational Considerations
Facilitating voluntary relocations is difficult to
time correctly. If done too soon,
government-assisted relocations could codify an
ethnic segregation process that most Iraqis do not
inherently desire. It could even encourage some
militias to accelerate violence against minorities
within their neighborhoods in the belief that it
would be relatively easy to drive people from their
homes if they knew that new jobs and houses awaited
elsewhere. If done too late, however, much of the
killing that we hope to prevent would have already
occurred (as in Bosnia). This is why the Bosnia
Option needs to be discussed now, even if it might
not be implemented for several more months as we try
to salvage success from the current strategy.
The key--and the most challenging part of an ethnic
relocation policy--is to get the parties to
informally accept it. With an informal understanding
among belligerents, ethnic relocation can be less
traumatic and destabilizing. For example, the vast
majority of Croatia’s Serbs were expelled during two
military operations (in May and August 1995) that
had at least tacit acquiescence from Belgrade.
Without minimizing the trauma to the Serbs (indeed,
the Croatian commander will be tried in the Hague
for alleged war crimes), the fact is that they
suffered nothing like the calamities of Muslims
forcibly uprooted from Serb-held parts of Bosnia.
Likewise, thousands of Serbs left western Bosnia
after the war, without violence, as part of land
swaps agreed between Croats and Serbs at Dayton.
Obtaining agreement in Iraq will require not only
rapprochement among some key Sunni and Shi‘a
leaders, but a constructive role by the Kurds, who
are already ensconced in relative security in their
own territory. Kurds see the oil-rich, multi-ethnic
town of Kirkuk as both the capital of their
longed-for state and a symbol of their oppression at
the hands of Saddam Hussein (who engineered mass
Sunni migration to Kirkuk while expelling Kurds).
Thousands of Kurds have already returned to Kirkuk,
heightening tensions. The upsurge in sectarian
warfare has emboldened the Kurds and their backers
to advance a partition/independence agenda. U.S.
pressure on the Kurds (whose territory has been used
as a base for Kurdish separatists in Turkey) could
encourage them to cut a deal on Kirkuk’s oil while
earning greater Sunni cooperation on property swaps
in the town. Progress on ethnic movements in Baghdad
and Kirkuk could establish the basis for more
ambitious land swaps similar to those in Sarajevo
and western Bosnia that were a crucial prerequisite
for attaining peace in Bosnia.
The Bosnia Option outlined here is more realistic
than various plans for Iraq’s formal partition that
have been advanced. Any attempt at formal partition
would provoke a dispute over oil, Baghdad and Kirkuk
without the prerequisite of a modicum of sectarian
security. It would also make the eventual emergence
of a unitary Iraqi state impossible. The Bosnia
Option, on the other hand, would help establish
preconditions for a viable Iraqi federal state.
How would the policy go forward? After informal
agreement is secured, Iraqi officials could identify
those areas of high minority vulnerability. With
assistance from Coalition partners and other members
of the international community, the Iraqi government
would offer new houses and jobs to those who wished
to move voluntarily, as well as protection for them
as they left their homes for a different region.
Houses left behind would revert to government
ownership, to be offered to individuals of other
groups in what would largely become a swapping
program. There are already examples of Iraqis
swapping houses on their own. With safeguards for
security, the Iraqi government could form property
commissions--as have already been formed in Kirkuk--to
facilitate matches and avoid swindles. We estimate
that it would take less than one year to accomplish
the bulk of the mission, after which prospects for
stabilization and an eventual drawdown of U.S.
forces would greatly improve.
Implementation Optics
We might not want U.S. forces to participate
directly in what some might see as sanctioning a
form of segregation, even though it would be more
accurately described as protecting people as they
started new lives. Even so, there is an argument for
NATO carrying out this mission under its own banner,
with multinational units aiding in the protective
effort. (Iraqi forces could be inadequate to the
task, since some could wind up taking sides in any
battles that occurred.) This would not require large
additional numbers of Coalition troops, but it would
change the optic of the relocation mission for the
better.
If NATO leadership cannot be gained, then mixed U.S.
and British units could identify select Iraqi units
to assist in certain movement operations. The
composition of these Iraqi Army units would reflect
the ethnic mix of areas where movements would occur.
Since most operations would be small scale, units
could be of relatively small size. U.S. and British
officers could tap only those units that have proven
their fidelity in combat. For example, in movements
of Sunnis from a Shi‘a neighborhood, a select Shi‘a-dominated
army unit would provide perimeter security, while a
Sunni unit would provide close protection for those
departing. The reverse would be the case in
movements from Sunni to Shi ‘a neighborhoods.
Under this plan as well, police forces within Iraq
would become more effective over time as their
ethnic homogeneity, association with militias and
limited competence levels would become less severe
problems. They might still perform their jobs of
preventing crime in a mediocre way, but they would
be less prone to fuel sectarian violence since they
would be working primarily among their own people.
- - -
We must not wait for slaughter in Iraq to reach the
exhaustion point before finally confronting the
reality of mass ethnic movements. Facilitating
ethnic movement is not risk free, and it is no
panacea. But it may soon become our only option
short of condemning Iraq to years of Bosnia-like
fratricidal violence and divisions that are both
disastrous and permanent.
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