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Iraq, the likely scenarios - a range of
views
8.3.2007 |
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March 8, 2007
Following are a range of views on what Iraq will
look like in the coming years.
ADNAN AL-DULAIMI, KEY FIGURE IN IRAQI ACCORDANCE
FRONT, MAIN SUNNI POLITICAL BLOC IN PARLIAMENT
"Whoever monitors events feels Iraq will worsen
every day. The hope for reform is small because
violence is escalating. One of the most important
solutions is to create a real balance in government
institutions, especially in the Defence and Interior
Ministries, and to work on dissolving (Shi'ite)
militias. If the government can manage this, Iraq's
problems would be solved.
If the current security plan succeeds Iraq will move
in the right direction. If it fails, Iraq is doomed
to even worse."
TOBY DODGE, IRAQ EXPERT, QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF
LONDON
"Iraq is basically a failed state ... with a huge
security vacuum that militias and criminals and the
insurgency have stepped into. I see no evidence the
security vacuum is going to be filled by anyone else
but the militias. So I think that for the next six
to seven years the civil war is going to get much
worse as U.S. public patience declines and
disappears. My best bet is that the next U.S.
president, somewhere toward the end of his first
term, will pull U.S. troops out or draw them down
basically to focus on the Green Zone (government
compound) and Camp Victory (the main U.S. military
base in Baghdad).
I think the civil war will be contained within Iraq
... (But) through proxies, Iraq will become the
frontline in a regional power struggle."
AYAD JAMAL-EDDINE, SECULAR SHI'ITE CLERIC AND
LEGISLATOR.
"Not all scenarios are bad. We are living in a
Saddam-free era and that is in itself a good thing.
The amount of freedom available is huge and that has
turned this era into chaos. We are witnessing a new
Iraq that is under construction. There is no doubt
the country is on the edge of civil war. It is on
the edge of sectarian and ethnic division.
Unfortunately, the laws introduced in these four
years are reinforcing this problem."
JOOST HILTERMANN, IRAQ EXPERT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS
GROUP
"The most likely scenario is a failed state, with a
moderately stable Kurdish region for some time and
chaos in the rest of Iraq, where various parties,
groups and criminal gangs will battle each other
over turf, power and resources. This could play
itself out in two ways: One, the civil wars raging
throughout Arab Iraq will be contained through U.S.
redeployment to the borders and a U.S. effort to set
up a regional security framework that will help
neighbouring states from falling to the urge to
intervene; and two, the civil wars will spill over
into neighbouring states, and the misfortunes of
some groups will prompt intervention by their
patrons, thus triggering a regional war between
principal players such as Iran and Saudi Arabia."
ADNAN AL-UBEYDI, IRAQI RESEARCHER
"I think in four years time there will still be a
lot of violence. It may even get worse. I'm
generally pessimistic about the future ... I don't
think Iraq can return to centralisation. I don't see
the southern (Shi'ite) provinces retreating from
their right to a federal region and losing out after
all the sacrifices and violence they have suffered
(under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni).
BING WEST, CORRESPONDENT FOR THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY,
FORMER U.S. MARINE, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE UNDER RONALD REAGAN
"In Baghdad, there's a good chance (new U.S.
commander) General (David) Petraeus will quell the
ethnic cleansing, while the murderous bombings of
the Sunni extremists continue. In Anbar, the tribes
will join the Marines in fighting the Qaeda
extremists. In 2008, substantial withdrawal of U.S.
troops. In 2009, regardless of who is the new
president, a U.S. advisory corps continues, together
with a force to strike al Qaeda. Lacking a
sanctuary, the insurgents will be ground down. The
U.S. press no longer puts Iraq on the front page,
and it churns on relatively unnoticed, like
Afghanistan. There will be no easy or quick exit."
CHARLES TRIPP, AUTHOR OF BOOKS ON IRAQ, SCHOOL OF
ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
"My prediction for Iraq would be a larger version of
the Kurdistan region: i.e. powerful figures paying
lip service to representational life, but running
fairly effective and ruthless intelligence, security
and patronage systems within their own recognised
spheres of influence, having reached - through
terrible bloodshed - an agreed division of the
spoils. This seems to me what is going on at the
moment. The recent agreement on division of the oil
revenues seems to confirm it, as do aspects of the
violence and the so-called "security plan" presently
unfolding." (The two main political parties in Iraqi
Kurdistan fought a bloody civil war in the 1990s.
They have since formed an alliance)
Reuters
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