Fw: Patrick Cockburn: Iraq - the Beginning of the End

Iraq: the beginning of the end
The state created by Britain after the First World war may be passing away

Sunday, 11th December 2005, by Patrick Cockburn




Iraq is disintegrating as a united state. The election for the National
Assembly this week may mark the point of no return. "A Bosnian solution to
the Iraq crisis is now on the agenda," says Ghassan Attiyah, a veteran Iraqi
commentator. The election is decisive because the Shia and Sunni Arabs and
the Kurds - the three main Iraqi communities - show every sign of voting
along ethnic and religious lines. Secular and nationalist groups looking for
support beyond their own community have their backs to the wall.
The US and Britain have presented so many events in Iraq over the past
two-and-a-half years as spurious turning points for the better that the
critical importance of the election for the 275-member national assembly on
Thursday is being underestimated outside Iraq. The old unitary Iraqi state
created by Britain after the First World War may be passing away.
The verdict is not quite in. There are forces for unity as well as for
disintegration. But since the fall of Saddam Hussein, it is the latter
forces which have proved to be the stronger. Iraqis are beginning to talk
about partition as a likely outcome of the crisis. This has already happened
in Kurdistan. The Kurds, a fifth of Iraq's 26 million population, already
have quasi-independence, with their own government and armed forces. An
Iraqi Arab has difficulty getting a hotel room in Arbil, the Kurdish
capital.
Iraqi Arab leaders largely accept what has happened in Kurdistan, if only
because there is nothing they can do about it. Adnan Pachachi, a former
foreign minister and nationalist, said: "Everybody recognises that the Kurds
can have their separate state. There is no difference of opinion on that."
Mr Pachachi says the real threat to Iraq is that the Shia in southern Iraq
may create their own super-canton. Iraqi Shia and Kurds voted for this
overwhelmingly when they approved the new federal constitution in a
referendum on 15 October. Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the most powerful
Shia party - the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) - is
intent on creating a Shia super-region, with most of the powers of an
independent state, in the nine Shia provinces. This is half of Iraq's 18
provinces. A further four provinces are effectively controlled by the Kurds,
leaving only a rump of five provinces patchily under the control of the
government in Baghdad.
"Central government could end up being a few buildings in the Green Zone,"
said an Iraqi minister. "The US and Britain are working desperately to stop
it." He pointed out that the Kurdish government had recently signed a
contract with a Norwegian oil company to drill for oil. Under the new
constitution the Kurdish and Shia super-regions will own new oil reserves
when they are discovered. This will give them economic independence.
Iraq is ruled by a coalition of the Kurds and the Shia parties, which
triumphed in the January election. The Sunni Arabs boycotted the poll then,
but are likely to vote next Thursday. The US and Britain would like to see a
leader like Iyad Allawi, the prime minister in the interim government in
2004-05, and deemed to have nationalist credentials, do well. Mr Allawi is a
Shia who was once Baathist before he became an opponent of Saddam. His slick
advertising on television promotes his appeal as a tough leader with
something to offer Iraqis from all three communities.
But he is also the prime minister who assented to US troops assaulting the
Sunni city of Fallujah and the Shia holy city of Najaf last year. Last
weekend he was chased from the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf by worshippers
pelting him with shoes. He said they were trying to assassinate him. He has
tried to cultivate Sunni voters. They may like his nationalist opinions, but
they will probably vote for the Iraqi Accord Front, the alliance
representing the three biggest Sunni groups.
Ahmed Chalabi, deputy prime minister in the government, is also being
squeezed. He fought the last election as part of United Iraqi Alliance, the
coalition of Shia parties backed by Shia clergy. This time he will fight it
on his own. His greatest appeal will be to voters who have a sense of their
Shia identity but are secular and dislike clerical rule.
The winners of the election are likely to be the Shia United Iraqi Alliance,
the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front and the Kurdistan Coalition List. The US and
Britain would like to see a coalition government created. But this is also a
recipe for inactivity because ministers and officials hold their jobs as
representatives of their communities. It is almost impossible to fire them
for incompetence or corruption.
All the institutions of the state are becoming fiefdoms of one community or
another. When Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, took power all
previous employees of his office were fired. Bayan Jabr, the interior
minister from Sciri, has been turning his ministry, which has 110,000 men
under arms, into a Shia stronghold. Sunni military units have been
dissolved. The Badr Organisation, the militia of Sciri, has infiltrated the
paramilitary police commandos whom the Sunni see as licensed death squads.
Badr is not the only militia growing in strength. If they control the police
commandos then the Mehdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr has much of the
police force in Baghdad. The US has tried to keep control over the defence
ministry but army battalions are Shia, Sunni or Kurdish. Out of 115
battalions reportedly only one is mixed.
The ability of the US and Britain to determine the fate of Iraq is growing
less by the month. The US is trying to reach out to countries such as Egypt,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which it was ignoring two years ago. There is no
more talk of changing the Middle East. British troops have largely withdrawn
to their bases around Basra. The Sunni will take part in the election but
will continue to try to end the occupation.
Iraq will still remain a name on the map. Baghdad will be difficult to
divide, though it is largely a Shia city. Most Iraqi Arabs say they would
like to be part of a single country. But the most likely future is for Iraq
to become a loose confederation.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

"Corporations make great underware.
But dont let them make your government"

Victor C Forsythe October 2005
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