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Last Updated: Jul 4, 2009 - 8:12:32 AM |
Hundreds
of thousands of Iraqis are dead -- far more, incidentally, than even
the largest estimates of the number of Iraqis who died during 35 years
of Saddam Hussein's rule -- its social fabric is utterly destroyed, its
economy is in ruins, and its dominant political faction is in hock to
neighboring Iran.
And now what?
As we pull back, we're leaving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in
charge. Increasingly, Maliki is taking on the trappings of a dictator.
He's established a network of security agencies that report directly to
him. He's built a countrywide patronage system to bribe and pay off
tribal allies, in anticipation of 2010 elections. He's shown no
compunction against using the army, the police, and the secret agencies
he controls to eliminate rivals. He's used divide-and-conquer tactics
to outflank the Sunni-led sahwa movement, known as the Awakening or the
Sons of Iraq, driving some of them back into armed resistance and
others into sullen resentment or fear for their lives.
And Maliki, despite his protestations that he is a born-again
"nationalist," has close ties to Iran. With Iran now revealed as a
fundamentalist-run, naked military dictatorship, I expect Iran to act
ruthlessly vis-a-vis Iraq, and if he wants to stay in power Maliki will
pretty much have to go along.
A prominent Sunni activist from northern Iraq told me yesterday that
anyone who thinks about opposing Maliki in Iraq has to fear for his or
her life. The fact remains that despite the resurgence of secular
nationalism in Iraq, as evidenced by the results of provincial
elections last February, Maliki sits atop a conspiratorial little party
called Al Dawa, a fundamentalist Islamist grouping, and he is reliant
on a small, secretive clique that surrounds him. During the February
election, in order to appeal to Iraqi voters, Maliki posed as a
nationalist of sorts, but in fact he is dependent on two outside
powers. First, he's dependent on the United States, for despite his
bravado about the US withdrawal from Iraq's cities, Maliki desperately
needs American backing to remain in power, to build up his armed
forces. And second, Maliki is dependent on the good will of Iran, who
could topple him instantly if he crossed Tehran.
And Obama?
It's clear that Obama doesn't want to think about Iraq. It seems like
he's hoping it just goes away, so he can worry about Iran, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine. But Iraq's not going away.
During the campaign, Obama promised to convene an international, United
Nations-led conference on Iraq. That's exactly what he ought to do:
allow the US to step back, and let the world community step in to help
Iraq reconcile its warring factions. The goal of the meeting ought to
be to rewrite Iraq's absurd Constitution, which empowers the ruling
ethnic and sectarian parties (i.e., the Shiite religious bloc,
including Dawa, and the Kurds) who wrote it. Short of that, Iraq is
likely to explode at some point, either this year, in advance of the
2010 elections, or soon thereafter. As the US presence in Iraq shrinks,
Maliki will have less and less incentive to cooperate with any UN
effort. As it is, he'd fight it tooth and nail, and it may already be
too late.
Fixing Iraq means two things. First, it means that the world community
has to step in to empower the secular (anti-religious party)
nationalist forces that have been shut out of power by Maliki,
including both Sunni elites and secular Shiites, such as former Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi and countless others. Only they can restore a
semblance of true central government in a shattered country, make a
deal with the expansionist Kurds over autonomy and Kirkuk, the oil-rich
city in the north, and start to rebuild Iraq as a nation-state. And
second, it means that Obama has to come to an understanding with Iran
over Iraq, one that involves the full participation of Iraq's
neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, so that neither
the United States nor Iran seek to use Iraq as a battlefield for their
competing ambitions in the region.
Source:Ocnus.net 2009
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