Middle East Economic Survey
VOL. XLVII
No 23
07
The Political Scene (7 June 2004)
The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) has dissolved itself following the nomination of an interim government to take power on 30 June. The US has submitted a revised draft resolution on Iraq to the Security Council.
Iraq’s New Interim Government
After several days of complicated behind-the-scenes maneuvering between the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the now defunct Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), which dissolved itself on 1 June, and UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Iraq now has a caretaker government in waiting to which the Americans can hand what they describe as sovereignty come 30 June. Easily the most dramatic development in this process came on 28 May, when the IGC preempted both the CPA and Mr Brahimi by nominating Ayad ΄Alawi, a Shi΄a IGC member and founder of the secular Iraqi National Accord, to the key post of prime minister, a decision which clearly came as a surprise to UN spokesman Fred Eckhard, who said “it’s not how we expected it to happen.” White House spokesman Scott McClellan appeared equally surprised, saying that the IGC is “one of many groups that have made some recommendations to Mr Brahimi” and that “Mr Brahimi has not put forward, to the best of my knowledge… final recommendations for the interim Iraqi government.” Nonetheless, the IGC had clearly been careful to choose a candidate acceptable to the US, since Dr ΄Alawi is known to have developed good relations with the CIA during his years in exile, and the CPA did not appear to be unduly unhappy with his appointment. The next step was to choose a nominee for the largely symbolic presidency, with the post eventually going to tribal leader Ghazi al-Yawar on 1 June. (The presidency may be mainly ceremonial, but Mr Yawar immediately distanced himself from the Americans by declaring pointedly that “we the Iraqis look forward to being granted full sovereignty through a Security Council resolution.”) At the same time Barham Salih of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was appointed deputy prime minister, while Ibrahim Ja'fari of the Shi΄a Da΄wa party and Rowsh Shways of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) were appointed vice presidents. Finally, on the same day Dr ΄Alawi presented a 33-member cabinet, all but two chosen by Mr Brahimi. According to reports from Baghdad, the cabinet, which includes six women, contains fewer IGC members than the IGC members would have liked and no representatives at all of Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC), once the preferred party of the Pentagon neoconservatives. Mr Chalabi’s eclipse therefore appears for the moment to be total – but not necessarily permanent.
Presenting the new government, Dr ΄Alawi made it clear that coalition forces would remain in the country, saying “we need the presence of multinational forces to defeat the enemies of Iraq. I call on the US and Europe to protect Iraq.” (As far as security is concerned, Mr Yawar raised some eyebrows when he suggested on 3 June that former Ba΄thists could be recruited to rebuild the Iraqi security forces. “Reconciliation means reorganizing the social forces, especially those that were in the old regime,” he said. “Reconciliation… does not mean depriving our country of the qualifications and expertise of those who did not commit crimes.”) Dr ΄Alawi also indicated that “we want to deal with the unemployment problem, we want to deal with the currency problem and we would like to increase productivity, including electricity and the sewage and water networks.” And, as Mr Brahimi pointed out on 2 June, the new government will have to work out its relationship with coalition forces outside the framework of the UN. “There are multiple discussions that need to take place directly between the foreign troops that are here and the government,” he said. “There are practical problems that are going to arise. And from a legal point of view, the authority will be in the hands of the Iraqi government. How does that translate to what the troops do on the streets of Baghdad?”
All in all, the new government is clearly going to have its work cut out for it to persuade ordinary (and cynical) Iraqis that it is up to a task the Americans have been unable to perform in the last 14 months with 135,000 troops in the country. However, Dr ΄Alawi’s prospects were given a boost on 3 June when Iraq’s senior Shi΄a cleric, Ayatollah ΄Ali al-Sistani, gave a cautious welcome to the new government in a statement describing it as a step in the right direction, even if it lacks “electoral legitimacy.” The ayatollah said that “the hope is that this government will prove its worthiness and integrity and its firm readiness to perform the mammoth tasks it is burdened with,” citing as key goals security, basic services, the organization of free and fair elections and a new UN resolution granting Iraq full sovereignty, and adding that “the new government will not have popular acceptance unless it proves through practical and clear steps that it seeks diligently and seriously to achieve these tasks.”
US Revises Security Council Resolution
The revised draft resolution on Iraq presented to the Security Council by the US on 1 June still authorizes coalition forces to “take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq.” But it does go some way towards meeting the objections of, inter alia, France and Russia, principally in making the mandate of those forces finite rather than open-ended – it will expire “upon completion of the political process” outlined in the resolution, ie after a constitutionally elected government takes office sometime in late 2005 or early 2006. (The draft also says that the transitional government scheduled for January 2005 can ask the Security Council to withdraw the foreign forces whenever it wants. But since it also stipulates that meeting this request would require a new resolution, the withdrawal would be subject to US veto.) But this concession was not enough on its own to meet French and Russian concerns. According to French President Jacques Chirac on 2 June, “you could describe the current draft resolution as a good basis for discussions, but it still needs improvements” aimed at “affirming and confirming the full sovereignty of the Iraqi government, notably in military matters.” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov sounded even more dubious when he said on 3 June that “we still have many reservations, and that is why we need to continue serious work. The new resolution must spell out a transition to a new, and I must underline a principally new, stage of regulating the Iraqi crisis – from an occupation to a democratic government. That is why the resolution must clarify the main parameters of the democratic peace process, and of international assistance to Iraq after the occupation ends.” However, on the same day the US and UK received a helping hand from a somewhat unexpected quarter – Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari. He said in New York that “the current draft regarding the nature of the sovereignty and the terms of reference of the government etc. is quite adequate” and that “we strongly welcome and encourage the positive text of the present draft resolution.” He went on to stress that “any premature departure of international troops would lead to chaos and the real possibility of a civil war in Iraq,” but that Iraq “must have a say in the future presence of these forces and we urge that this be reflected in the new resolution. He also said that the Iraqi government’s view should be taken onto account on “some major offensive military operations that will have political and security implications on the country as a whole.” But that was some distance away from either setting a deadline for the withdrawal of foreign forces or demanding an Iraqi veto on coalition military operations – and at MEES press time on 4 June the question was whether the French and Russians would accept Mr Zebari’s enthusiasm for the draft or would decide to be more royalist than the king.
Charles Snow