Middle East Economic Survey
VOL. XLVII
No 40
4
The Political Scene (4 October 2004)
King 'Abd Allah of Jordan does not believe it will be possible to hold elections in Iraq if things go on as they are. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has suggested some kind of international conference to help the electoral process along. The Syrians have agreed to help the Americans out in sealing the Iraqi frontier.
Election Schedule In Doubt
Against the background of escalating violence in Iraq, King 'Abd Allah of Jordan has joined the growing ranks of sceptics who believe that unless the security situation can be brought under control, it will not be possible to hold national elections as planned by the end of January. The king told the Paris daily Le Figaro on 28 September that “it seems impossible to me to organize indisputable elections in the chaos we see today. Only if the situation improved could an election be organized on schedule,” and that “if the elections take place in the current disorder, the best-organized faction will be that of the extremists and the result will reflect that advantage.” He added that partial elections – as suggested last week by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld – would only isolate Iraq’s Sunnis and create divisions in the country, and that “with such a scenario, there is no chance the situation will improve.”
The evidence that the security climate in Iraq is deteriorating rather than improving is so overwhelming that even US Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to admit on 26 September that “it’s getting worse, and the reason it’s getting worse is that they are determined to disrupt the election.” Nonetheless, he expressed the belief that “what we have to keep shooting for, and what is achievable, is to give everybody the opportunity to vote in the upcoming elections, to make the election fully credible, and something that will stand the test of the international community’s examination.” Mr Powell insisted that the election “has to be seen as a comprehensive, full, free and fair…in order to get the kind of credibility that we want it to have,” but the man in charge of making this actually happen sounded considerably less sanguine. According to the US regional commander, Gen John Abizaid, “elections will occur in the vast majority of the country. I can’t predict 100% that all areas will be available for free, fair and peaceful elections. I assume that there will be certain areas of the country that will have to be fought over in order to have the elections take place.”
Powell Suggests International Conference
If security is to be restored throughout the country so that comprehensive elections can be held, the government/coalition is going to have to regain control of the areas that have been more or less conceded to the insurgents – Falluja, Ramadi, Samarra and parts of Baghdad itself – and according to Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Sha'lan on 29 September, “you wait and see what we are going to do. We are going to take all these cities in October” (which means October is shaping up as an interesting month). However, despite confident assertions such as these, it is clear that the Americans are beginning to wonder whether the elections can take place on schedule and are casting about for ways to ensure that they do – and one of the ideas under consideration is some sort of international conference, although at the moment it is less than clear where and when such a conference will be held or who might attend it. The proposal first surfaced when Mr Powell told the New York Times on 25 September that the US and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad 'Allawi “are planning to have a regional meeting consisting of all the leaders of Iraq and the G8, we hope some time in October. That’s what Prime Minister 'Allawi wants, and it’s going to be his meeting.” According to the report, the meeting, whose purpose would broadly speaking be to smooth the way to the January elections, would group foreign ministers from the G8, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait “and other nearby countries.” Mr Powell explained the next day that “it will be a conference in the region…so that all of Iraq’s neighbors can sit with Prime Minister 'Allawi and discuss why it is in the interest of the whole neighborhood for there to be a stable Iraq with an elected government…that is no threat to any of its neighbors.” By 29 September, according to Mr Powell, “we think it is probably going to the held in the latter part of November,” with Cairo “one of the leading candidates” for the venue.
To say the very least, for the US to sit down at a conference table to discuss Iraq’s future with, inter alia, Iran and Syria is an intriguing – not to say bizarre – prospect, and one that the neoconservatives in Washington definitely did not have in mind when they embarked on their Iraqi adventure. However, should the conference eventuate (which appears by no means certain), the Syrians and Iranians will probably turn out to be models of cooperation compared to the French, who have their own ideas about what should be discussed and by whom. According to French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier on 27 September, “the situation in Iraq is one of chaos with general insecurity even in the Green Zone. This chaos runs the risk of destabilizing, of drawing in the whole region, I have compared it to a black hole. We have to get out of this black hole, this spiral of violence, and launch negotiations and the political process.” To do so, the withdrawal of foreign forces “is an issue which should be on the agenda of such a conference, if we want it to take place.” Moreover the conference should include “different communities and countries of the region as well as all (Iraqi) political groups, including those that have chosen the path of armed resistance.” Mr Powell reacted to these comments on 29 September by claiming that Paris had informed him that “Michel was not in any way suggesting that talking about the withdrawal of US forces was either a condition of the conference or necessarily an agenda item for the conference.” As for the participation of members of the armed resistance,” I don’t think my colleague ever suggested that it would be a conference that would include people who are actively fighting against the government. If people laid down their arms and now want to participate in the conference, it would be up to the Iraqi interim government to decide who should represent the Iraqi people.”
US-Syrian Thaw Continues
The thaw in the gelid relations between Washington and Damascus that began when Mr Powell met his Syrian counterpart in New York on 22 September appears to have carried over into two days of talks between US and Syrian officials in Damascus on 28 and 29 September. According to Mr Powell, “a number of understandings have come out of this meeting with respect to commitment with the Iraqi interim government and the coalition and the Syrians to stop illicit activity across the border and to take a number of other measures that would enhance cooperation, sharing of information, sharing of intelligence.” Mr Powell added the caveat that “what really matters is action and not just an agreement,” but said that “the fact that the Syrians, the Iraqi interim government and the multinational force, to include US generals, actually sat down in Damascus to go over these matters, I think we should say is a positive step forward.”
If the Americans are going to solicit Syrian assistance both in sealing the frontier and conducting elections, it might be thought polite – not to say prudent – for Washington to offer the Syrians some sort of quid pro quo. Far from doing so, however, the US has continued to belabor Syria over its role in Lebanon and in particular its compliance with the 2 September Security Council resolution calling for “the strict respect of Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence.” When asked on 29 September about the report on Syria’s compliance with the resolution which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was scheduled to present on 1 October, Mr Powell replied: “I hope it’s a tough report. I hope it’s a report that makes it clear that the international community is expecting more compliance than we have seen so far.”
Charles Snow