VOL. XLVI
No 36
The Political Scene (8 September 2003)
The assassination of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has removed a moderating influence from the Iraqi political arena. As the violence continues in Iraq, the US has made an ideological U turn and is seeking the intervention of the UN, as well as military assistance from Turkey.
Hakim Assassinated
The assassination of the most prominent Shi’a politician in Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), in a 29 August car bomb attack in Najaf in which more than 80 others died was a double blow for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA): not only did it remove from the scene a prominent Shi'a advocate of religious moderation and cooperation with the Americans (and a counterbalance to anti-American Shi'a firebrands such as Muqtada al-Sadr), but it also raised the grim specter of sectarian violence between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shi’as - and even, some would say, of conflict between Shi'a factions, depending on who was responsible for the attack. The Shi'a religious leadership, or Hawza, on 31 August attributed the assassination to an unholy alliance between Saddamists and Sunni extremists from al-Qa'ida, saying “we have learned of the arrest of a group of Saudis and others, including Sunni Salafi elements from the al-Qa'ida network…as well as a number of fedayeen of the leader of the ousted regime.” (If that is true – and a 1 September tape purportedly from Saddam Husain denied any involvement – it would appear to mean that the US invasion of Iraq has actually created the alliance between Saddam and al-Qa'ida which it was supposed to destroy.) The Sunnis, for their part, did little to contribute to domestic tranquility when a spokesman for the Sunni Council of Ulema, Shaikh 'Abd al-Salam al-Kubaisi, on 2 September accused Shi'a radicals of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Karbala and Najaf. Shaikh Kubaisi claimed that the Shi'as “have taken over the al-Hamza mosque, our only one in Najaf, and the Hasan bin 'Ali mosque, our only one in Karbala,” adding that “emptying Najaf and Karbala of the Sunni presence is a grave phenomenon akin to ethnic cleansing and the Balkanization of Iraq.” Moreover the shaikh went on to accuse Iran of encouraging Shi'a radicals when he said that “we had a minimum of coordination with Muqtada Sadr, but he changed about 40 days ago after a meeting with Khamenei in Iran. Iran has entered the Iraqi scene. It looks badly on meetings between Shi'ites and Sunnis.”
US Asks The UN To Help…
The Americans would probably be all too happy to blame their problems on Iran (which may be why Shaikh Kubaisi mentioned the Iranian connection), but the fact is that even with 140,000 troops in the country the CPA has been unable to prevent atrocities such as the mayhem in Najaf and the 19 August car bomb attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad – and whoever is behind these attacks shows no sign of relenting. So the publication on 3 September of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report suggesting that the Americans may be forced to more than halve the number of troops in Iraq in six months’ time came at particularly sensitive juncture. According to this report, the US will not be able to sustain its present occupation force without increasing the overall size of the military, ending other overseas commitments or rescinding troop rotation rules. In more specific terms, the report says that US forces currently in Iraq will have to start withdrawing next spring and the army lacks the fresh troops to replace them all. As a result, if the army relies exclusively on its active duty units and some reserves, it will be able to maintain only 38,000 to 64,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely, at a cost of up to $12bn annually. Alternatively, the Pentagon could draw on the Marine Corps, special operations units and the National Guard to raise the sustainable occupation force to 106,000 troops at an annual cost of up to $19bn. And even if the administration decided to mobilize two more army divisions in addition to the present ten, at a cost of $19bn, the sustainable troop level in Iraq would rise to only 129,000, costing $23-$29bn annually.
If the Americans are to soldier on in Iraq alone, they are clearly going to face some fairly stark military and economic choices, “coalition of the willing” or not, and the CBO report illustrates graphically why there has been so little talk of late in Washington of further military adventures in Iran and/or Syria. It may also be one reason why the administration let it be known – via unnamed “senior officials” – on 2 September that President Bush had decided to seek a new Security Council resolution “that will encourage even broader participation from the international community, the UN and the Iraqi people” (for which read the financial and military assistance of other countries). According to another official, the draft resolution “defines further the vital role the UN can play, how both the coalition and the UN can support the Iraqi political process and how others can make military contributions.” The next day, Secretary of State Colin Powell identified two key features of the new resolution. Firstly, the authorization of a multinational force under unified command to contribute to “the maintenance of security and stability” in Iraq. The US “will remain the commander of the unified command and there will be an element in the resolution that calls upon the US as the leader of the military coalition to report on a regular basis to the UN.” And secondly, the resolution endorses the 25-member Governing Council appointed by the Americans as “the principal body of an interim Iraqi administration” which is charged with providing “a timetable and program for the drafting of a new constitution for Iraq and for the holding of democratic elections.” The UN special representative for Iraq, meanwhile, will focus on “the facilitation of the national dialogue and consensus building, on the political transition process, and assisting the Iraqi interim administration to rejoin the international community.”
The Americans should perhaps not have been surprised that the French and Germans, who opposed the American invasion of Iraq in the first place, reacted warily to Washington’s generous offer to share the financial and military burdens of the resulting occupation. French President Jacques Chirac said on 4 September that the draft resolution “appears some way from the principal goal, which is the transfer of authority to an Iraqi government as soon as possible” and that “we are still a long way from a situation” where France could vote in favor of it.” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed, saying that “in truth I think the same as he does, that the proposal does not go far enough, that it’s not dynamic enough.” Mr Powell dismissed these objections airily by saying that “I think the resolution is drafted in a way that deals with the concerns that leaders such as President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder have raised in the past. If they have any suggestions, we’d be more than happy to listen to those suggestions.” All the signs are that the Americans will have a fair amount of listening to do in the Security Council, and that they are not going to like what they hear.
…And Wants Turkish Troops
Turkey, as the only Muslim member of NATO, is high on the list of countries the US would like to see sending troops to Iraq, and the Americans sent Gen James Jones, the supreme commander of allied forces in Europe, to Ankara on 2 December to discuss Turkish participation in peacekeeping operations. Turkish officials have on the whole been guardedly positive about joining the Americans, although Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated on 29 September that a decision might depend on which part of Iraq the Americans assigned to Turkish troops. And the whole issue was further complicated on 1 September when the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced that it was calling off its four-year-old unilateral cease-fire in its war for independence from Turkey. It was unclear whether this was what prompted Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to call on the US on the same day to crack down on PKK forces in north Iraq, saying that “we are closely following developments regarding the PKK. This issue will definitely be taken into account during the talks” with Gen Jones, and that “the US and British armed forces are currently the authority in Iraq. Therefore they have many responsibilities, particularly with respect to terrorist organizations.” Nor was it clear to what extent Turkey’s response to American requests for military assistance depended on the Americans’ taking action against the PKK. However, on 4 September Iraq’s new Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari (himself a Kurd), came out strongly against any Turkish deployment in Iraq, saying that “our neighboring countries have their own political agendas, which they could bring with them to Iraq, thus causing more instability” and that “there is a problem with the Turkish forces’ military intervention in the northern Kurdish areas, which created many problems and complications. We hope such interventions will not take place, because they would further complicate matters.” It is a moot (but interesting) point whether the CPA/American military command would be prepared to ignore the wishes of Iraq’s foreign minister if offered a sufficiently large contingent of Turkish troops to prove tempting. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher did not exactly clarify this point when questioned on 4 September: “The arrangements that exist in Iraq…are that these things get coordinated. They get coordinated with the Iraqis in the Governing Council. They get coordinated with the military. They get coordinated between militaries. I express my confidence that that can be done in an appropriate fashion should it come to Turkey being willing to provide troops.”
Charles Snow