VOL. XLVI
No 17
The Political Scene (28 April 2003)
Iraq’s Shi’as have been flexing their political muscles, causing the Americans to warn Iran not to interfere. The Americans have also rejected a French suggestion that sanctions should be suspended rather than removed. Palestinian leader Yasir 'Arafat and his prime minister designate, Mahmud 'Abbas, have finally agreed on a cabinet.
Iraq’s Shi'as Flex Muscles
Although the war now appears to be conclusively over, in political terms the situation on the ground remains far too fluid to even begin to guess what kind of phoenix might emerge from the ashes of Ba'thist Iraq. The American civilian administrator, former general Jay Garner, has arrived in the country and has been received coolly in Baghdad and warmly in the Kurdish enclave in the north. (Mr Garner told the Kurds on 23 April that “you can be a model for your brothers and sisters in the south.” This was perhaps not the happiest example he could have chosen, since the two main Kurdish opposition groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, have over the last decade taken advantage of the “safe haven” established by the US under northern no-fly zone to indulge in sporadic battles against each other.) Mr Garner emphasized time and again that “our purpose here is to create an environment …where we can have a democratic process where Iraqis can choose their own leaders and …Iraq has a government that represents the free, elected will of Iraq.” Yet it is legitimate to question whether the Americans are in fact prepared to follow this process to its logical conclusion, since in the last week it has become clear that Iraq’s Shi'as are well organized and determined to play a role proportionate to their numbers (some 60% of the population) in whatever political structure emerges from the present anarchy – and that the Americans are very wary of what this might mean.
The Shi'as exercised their new found freedoms by turning the 22 April pilgrimage to the shrine of the Imam Husain – the Prophet’s grandson – in Kerbala south of Baghdad into a massive demonstration of political muscle. And while a consistent theme of the demonstrations in Kerbala was opposition to American occupation, the leader of the most prominent Shi'a opposition group, Tehran-based Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), appeared to go out of his way to address American concerns in an interview with Reuters on 23 April. “There is no doubt we are going to cooperate with all sides and forces that have relations with the Iraqi issue,” he said. “Among these sides are America, Britain, the UN the EU, Arab and Islamic states.” Moreover, in addition to offering to cooperate with the Americans, Ayatollah Hakim sought to play down the possibility of an Iranian-style Islamic government in Iraq, saying that “we cannot make a comparison between the Iraqi and Iranian people…the characteristics of the Iraqi people are different to those of the Iranian people. We should not make a copy of the Iranian revolution and establish it in Iraq…It is not very necessary for the Iraqi regime to be in the hands of religious people. It all depends on the will of the Iraqi people.”
US Warns Iran
Presumably his Iranian hosts encouraged – or did not prevent – the Ayatollah from making such conciliatory noises, and it might be thought that given the scale of the task facing the Americans in Iraq, they would welcome assistance from any quarter, particularly one so close and so influential among Iraq’s Shi’as. But Iran is, of course, part of the “axis of evil” and can do no right. The Americans’ response was therefore to warn the Iranians against interfering in Iraq, with White House spokesman Ari Fleischer saying on 23 April that “we have well known channels of communication with Iran and we have made clear to Iran that we would oppose any outside interference in Iraq’s road to democracy.” (Mr Fleischer evidently does not regard the American invasion and occupation of Iraq as outside interference.) He added that “infiltration of agents to destabilize the Shi'a population would clearly fall into that category.” Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi replied the next day by warning US troops patrolling the Iraq-Iran border that “we are going to defend our frontiers; the red line passes along the line of our borders.“ He also dismissed Mr Fleischer’s reference to Iranian infiltration as “baseless”, saying that the Badr Brigade (SCIRI’s armed wing) “is an Iraqi movement and does not include any Iranian. Every Iraqi has the right to be in Iraq and play a role in determining the future regime of Iraq.”
Meanwhile ambiguity surrounds the status of another potential US-Iranian flashpoint, the heavily-armed Iraq-based Iranian opposition group the People’a Mujahedeen. The Americans announced on 22 April that they had reached what was described as a cease-fire agreement with the group, but according to Mujahedeen spokesman Mohsen Nadi the next day, “the forces of the mujahedeen will stay with their arms and that was the substance of the agreement. We have been, are and will continue to fight the fundamentalist regime… our combat and our war is only aimed at toppling the mullah’s regime in Iran in order to establish democracy and for peace and stability in the whole region. The mutual understanding and agreement that was reached between us and the US forces was based on this.” So far, there has been no further explanation from the Americans as to what the cease-fire agreement involves, and, as far as can be made out, no denial of Mr Nadi’s remarks either, which suggests that the Americans may be contemplating using the Mujahedeen as a stick with which to beat the Iranians. If so, however, they run the risk of finding themselves on their own list of state sponsors of terrorism, as the Mujahedeen are formally categorized by the State Department as a terrorist organization.
France Proposes Suspension Of Sanctions: US Unforgiving
At the UN, the Americans’ campaign for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq is continuing to run into legal objections from Russia and, to a lesser extent, France. The Russian position, as stated by UN ambassador Sergei Lavrov on 22 April, is that “the full and final verification that there is no trace of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq is necessary for total lifting of all sanctions,” and “the only way to verify this is to have inspectors in Iraq to see for themselves and report to the Security Council.” Mr Fleischer countered on the same day “that the US and the coalition have taken on the responsibility for dismantling Iraq’s WMD” and that “the regime is now history. The sanctions should become history too. The UN has at its disposal the ability to lift sanctions forthright if they so choose. The president hopes they will.” The Americans received some help from an unexpected quarter on 22 April when French UN ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, in what was widely seen as a conciliatory gesture, said that “the lifting of sanctions, which is, I think, the objective of us all, is linked to the certification of the disarmament of Iraq. Meanwhile we could suspend the sanctions and adjust the oil-for-food program with the idea of phasing it out.” But the Americans were in no mood for half measures, particularly French-sponsored ones, and Mr Fleischer brushed the proposal aside on 23 April, saying that “with the regime gone, the US position is economic sanctions are no longer necessary. The sanctions should be lifted, not merely suspended.” Indeed, if the vindictive tone of statements by US officials is anything to go by, it looks as if relations between Washington and Paris will suffer from the fallout from the invasion of Iraq for some time to come. Secretary of State Colin Powell was uncharacteristically blunt on 22 April when he answered “yes” when asked whether France would be punished for its anti-war stance, adding that “we have to take a look at the relationship. We have to look at all aspects of our relationship with France in light of this.” And after Mr Powell spoke with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin the next day, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher noted that ties have been badly damaged by “serious and difficult” differences and added: “Understand that we did have these disagreements, understand that they were serious and difficult and that that has consequences for the future. There is obviously an effect on the relationship, on how we look at things, how we evaluate things and how we look at things we might want to do as we move forward.”
'Arafat And 'Abbas Compromise
It was announced on 23 April that Palestinian Authority President Yasir 'Arafat and Palestinian prime minister designate Mahmud 'Abbas had finally managed to reach a last-minute agreement on the composition of Mr 'Abbas’s proposed cabinet. The main bone of contention between the two Palestinian veterans had been Mr 'Arafat’s opposition to the appointment of Muhammad Dahlan to the Interior Ministry, and the compromise eventually arrived at deprives Mr Dahlan of the title, while appearing to leave his powers largely intact. Mr ‘Abbas himself will now act as Interior Minister and Mr Dahlan will run policing and internal security under him as State Minister for Internal Security, while Mr 'Arafat will retain ultimate authority over intelligence and general (ie national) security. However, this agreement does not necessarily mean that the appointment of the Palestinians’ first prime minister is a done deal, since Mr 'Abbas’s cabinet must still be approved by the Palestinian parliament, where Mr 'Arafat’s Fatah party is in the majority. However assuming Mr 'Arafat manages to keep the party in line, it will then be time for the unveiling of the “road map” to peace devised by the Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) – and to find out just how much muscle the Americans in particular are prepared to put behind it. With the pro-Israeli hawks in the ascendant in Washington, the omens are not good. Israel has already listed 15 points it wants changed in the road map, and Mr Fleischer appeared to be clearing the way for the Israelis to talk the project to death when he said on 23 April that “in the end it is up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to work together on agreement under the terms of the road map.”
Charles Snow
