Middle East Economic Survey

 

VOL. XLVII

No 24

14-June-2004

 

The Political Scene (14 June 2004)

 

In resolution 1546 the Americans now have for the first time a clear UN mandate for their future presence in Iraq, but at the cost of setting a deadline – albeit an uncertain one – for their departure.  In a victory for Iraq’s Shi'as over the Kurds, the resolution makes no mention of the country’s interim constitution. The G8 meeting in Georgia has approved an initiative for political and economic reform in the “Broader Middle East,” but one that differs in almost every respect from what the Americans originally had in mind. The Israeli cabinet has approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for a unilateral disengagement from Gaza – sort of.

 

UN Passes Iraq Resolution

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was right to describe the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of Resolution 1546 on 8 June as a “milestone” in the post-invasion history of Iraq, since it means that the international community is once again behind efforts to sort out the mess in Iraq and the US for the first time has a clear UN mandate for its future actions there. Whether it was the victory for the US and Britain it was claimed to be in some quarters is much more open to doubt, since both sides in the council were forced to make important concessions in order to arrive at a consensus. France, as the leader of the opposition (as it were), failed to obtain the inclusion of an Iraqi veto over the actions of the multinational force (MNF), whose relationship with the Iraqi government is spelled out – somewhat ambiguously – in letters annexed to the resolution from Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad 'Allawi and Secretary of State Colin Powell to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. But the US, which originally sought to keep the duration of its stay in Iraq open-ended, was forced to accept an expiry date for the MNF’s mandate and concede to the Iraqis the right to terminate the mandate before expiry date. That the Americans were prepared to do so is a measure of how much they have come to need the support of an organization they previously dismissed as irrelevant.

 

The full text of the resolution is to be found in the D section. In it, after a preamble “welcoming the commitment of the Interim Government of Iraq to work towards a federal, democratic, pluralist, and unified Iraq” and “recognizing…the importance of the consent of the sovereign Government of Iraq for the presence of the multinational force and of close coordination between the multinational force and the government,” the Security Council, inter alia:

(a)       formation of the sovereign Interim Government of Iraq that will assume governing responsibility and authority by 30 June 2004;

 

(b)       convening of a national conference reflecting the diversity of Iraqi society; and

 

(c)       holding of direct democratic elections by 31 December 2004 if possible, and in no case later than 31January 2005, to a Transitional National Assembly, which will, inter alia, have responsibility for forming a Transitional Government of Iraq and drafting a permanent constitution for Iraq leading to a constitutionally elected government by 31 December 2005.”

The Annexed Letters

As far as concerns the central and vexed issue of the relationship between coalition forces and the Iraqi government after 30 June, Mr 'Allawi says in his letter to Mr Annan that “I intend to establish appropriate security structures that will allow my Government and Iraqi security forces to progressively take on” responsibility for security. “One such structure is the Ministerial Committee for National Security,” grouping the prime minister, deputy prime minister and the ministers of defense, interior, foreign affairs, justice and finance, whose function is “to discuss mechanisms of coordination and cooperation with the MNF.” These structures “will serve as the fora for the MNF and the Iraqi government to reach agreement on the full range of fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations, and will ensure full partnership between MNF and Iraqi forces, through close coordination and consultation.” Mr Powell, for his part, says that the MNF’s remit will include “combat operations…internment where this is necessary for imperative reasons of security, and the continued search for and securing of weapons.” In order to continue to contribute to security “the MNF must continue to function under a framework that affords the force and its personnel the status that they need to accomplish their mission.” And like Mr 'Allawi to the letter, Mr Powell says that “we will work in the fora described by Prime Minister 'Allawi…to reach agreement on the full range of fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations, and will ensure full partnership between MNF and Iraqi forces, through close coordination and consultation.”

 

Sistani Wins Battle Over TAL

If the negotiations in the Security Council had been a football match, the result would probably have been described as a draw between France and the US. But there was also a football match of sorts going on about the resolution domestically in Iraq, and one that had a clear winner. On 1 June the two main Kurdish leaders in Iraq, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Mas'ud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, sent a letter to President Bush demanding the recognition of the interim constitution adopted by the defunct Iraqi Governing Council on 8 March – now known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) – as binding. “We ask that the TAL be incorporated into the new UN Security Council Resolution or otherwise recognized as law binding on the transitional government, both before and after elections,” the letter said. “If the TAL is abrogated, the Kurdistan Regional Government will have no choice but to refrain from participating in the central government and its institutions, not to take part in the national elections, and to bar representatives of the central government from Kurdistan.” The idea of obtaining UN endorsement of the TAL, which effectively gives the Kurds (and the Sunnis, for that matter) a legislative veto, was not at all to the liking of Iraq’s Shi'a majority, and the senior Shi'a religious authority, Ayatollah 'Ali al-Sitani, weighed in on 7 June with a warning that the TAL “was created by an unelected council in the shadow of occupation and under its direct impact. The matter is illegal and is rejected by most of the Iraqi people. Therefore any attempt to bestow legitimacy on this law by mentioning it in the international resolution…will have dangerous consequences.” The upshot of this confrontation was a clear win for the ayatollah, since the TAL is not mentioned at all in the resolution, and the only concession to Kurdish aspirations is the use of the adjective “federal” once in the preamble. The Kurdish reaction to this setback was surprisingly mild, with Mr Talabani saying only that “we are happy that the Security Council resolution mentioned federalism, but we regret that it did not mention the Kurdish people.” The muted tone of these comments probably means that the Kurds see the game as far from over and that the Americans’ deference to Ayatollah Sistani’s wishes has postponed rather than resolved a confrontation over the issue of Kurdish autonomy.

 

Onward To Sea Island

Flushed with Washington’s success at the UN, such as it was, Mr Bush moved on to the G8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, on 9 June only to be rudely reminded that whereas other countries have little choice but to help clean up the mess the Americans have created in Iraq, they are not prepared to sign on to other grandiose schemes for the region dreamed up in windowless think tanks on the banks of the Potomac where neoconservatives have conjured up a fantasy Middle East that bears no resemblance at all to the real thing. Specifically the other members of the G8 – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia – have proved unwilling to go along with American plans for the wholesale political, economic and social makeover of a region stretching from Morocco to Afghanistan proposed last February in the “G8 Greater Middle East Partnership” (MEES, 23 February). The original document enumerated the economic and political shortcomings of the Arab world, asserted that “so long as the region’s pool of politically and economically disenfranchised individuals grows, we will witness an increase in extremism, terrorism, international crime and illegal immigration,” and argued that the G8 should somehow promote or impose democratic and free market reforms in the region to remedy this situation – without once mentioning the role of the Arab-Israeli conflict in stoking the fires of anti-Western sentiment and distorting the Arabs’ political evolution. But, as French President Jacques Chirac pointed out in Sea Island, “there is no ready-made formula for democracy readily transposable from one country to another. Democracy is not a method, it is a culture. For democracy to take root solidly and durably in the Arab world, it must be an Arab democracy before all else.” The French president also argued that only by restarting the peace process and de-escalating the level of violence in the region will the G8 “be able to dispel the hostility towards the west which is so widespread in the Middle East,” and the other G8 members evidently agreed with these arguments, since the Middle East statement issued in Sea Island differs from the original paper in virtually every respect (including its title, which now reads “Partnership for Progress and a Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa”) – the full text is on page C4. Gone is the enumeration of the Arabs’ failings as the cause of extremism and terrorism. Instead, the G8 leaders say (rather patronizingly) that “the peoples of the Broader Middle East and North Africa…have made many lasting contributions to human civilization” and welcome “recent statements on the need for reform from leaders in the region.” They acknowledge their “special responsibility,” as leaders of the major industrialized democracies, to support reform, and accordingly “we commit ourselves today to a Partnership for Progress and a Common Future” with the governments and peoples of the broader Middle East and North Africa. However the statement goes on to say that while “regional conflicts must not be an obstacle for reforms,” the resolution of “long-lasting, often bitter, disputes, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is an important element of progress in the region.” In this regard, “our support for reform in the region will go hand in hand with our support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict, based upon UN Resolutions 242 and 338. We fully endorse the Quartet’s Statement of 4 May 2004 and join the Quartet in its ‘common vision of two states, Israel and a viable, democratic, sovereign and contiguous Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.’” Moreover the statement declares unequivocally that “successful reform depends on the countries in the region and change should not and cannot be imposed from outside.” So while the Bush administration will no doubt try to portray the G8 statement as international endorsement of its plans for regional reform, it is in fact international backing for an initiative that is almost totally different from what the Americans originally had in mind. 

 

Sharon Maneuvers On Gaza Withdrawal

It was widely reported that the Israeli cabinet had “approved” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza at its 6 June meeting, but what it appears in fact to have agreed on was to postpone a decision, since in order to placate the territorial fundamentalists in the cabinet, Mr Sharon was forced to concede a further cabinet vote on all four phases of his disengagement plan (which covers all 21 settlements in Gaza but only four of the 120 in the West Bank).  Even that was not enough to satisfy the head of the hardline National Religious Party (NRP), Housing Minister Effi Eitam, who resigned from the cabinet along with NRP colleague Yitzhak Levy on 8 June, claiming that “the cabinet decision offers Hamas a terrorist state on a plate, at the expense of the blood of the Jews.” However, on the same day the NRP decided to remain in Mr Sharon’s coalition for another three months, meaning that Mr Sharon will continue to enjoy a slim 61 majority in the 120 seat Knesset (in which the NRP has six seats). But despite all his maneuvering, Mr Sharon was by no means out of the woods in his attempt to sell his Gaza plan to a most unlikely group of buyers. After reports appeared in the press of a timetable drawn up by a government committee which envisages a withdrawal from Gaza starting in two months and completed by 1 October 2005, NRP deputy Nissan Slomiansky warned that “if the report is correct and the evacuation is to take place in another two months, the NRP faction will be out of the coalition in two weeks.” 

 

Charles Snow