Middle East Economic Survey
VOL. LII
No 16
20
Political Comment (20 April 2009)
Iran is going to present the P5+1 (the US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany) with a new package of proposals "to resolve Iran's nuclear problem." In Iraq the Sunni Sahwa movement is contemplating a political alliance with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition. Egypt and Hizbollah are having a flaming row.
Iran To Present Package In Nuclear Talks
Both Iran and the US have been active in the latest moves towards thawing relations that have been frozen for thirty years. Iranian state TV reported on 13 April – the same day that the New York Times reported that the US was considering dropping the Bush-era demand that Iran should halt uranium enrichment immediately upon entering into negotiations with the P5+1 – that Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, had told EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Iran “welcomed dialogue between Iran and the six countries on constructive cooperation.” Also on 13 April State Department spokesman Robert Wood repeated that “we’ve made very clear we would be willing to meet Iran without preconditions…we’ll just see whether Iran is willing to take up that offer.” (Questioned the next day as to whether this meant the administration had dropped the demand to halt enrichment, Mr Wood would only say that a halt was “our ultimate goal.”) He added that “we welcome the fact that they are interested in having a dialogue…Iran needs to show the international community that its nuclear program is a peaceful one. Right now the international community is very sceptical about that.” And on 15 April Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that “we have prepared a package that can be the basis to resolve Iran’s nuclear problem. It will be offered to the west soon,” adding, somewhat cryptically, that “this new package will ensure peace and justice for the world. It respects rights of all nations.” That sounds like a fairly tall order, and it remains to be seen whether the package will be enough to allay the international community’s suspicions about Iran’s nuclear activities, let alone to “ensure peace and justice for the world.”
Sahwa Considers Political Alliance With Maliki
Despite the recent upsurge in violence in and around Baghdad and in Mosul in the north, the commander of US forces in Iraq, Gen Raymond Odierno, remains confident that the US will complete its withdrawal from Iraq by the 31 December 2011 deadline set by President Obama. Speaking on CNN, Gen Odierno acknowledged that “there are still some elements that are able to conduct some very serious attacks,” but, when asked to grade on a scale of one to ten how sure he was that the US would meet the 2011 deadline, replied “as you ask me today, I believe it’s a ten we will be gone by 2011.”
Gen Odierno’s optimism may to some extent be grounded in a potentially significant development – a nascent political alliance between the Sahwa (awakening) movement, the Sunni militia recruited by the Americans to fight al-Qa'ida, and Shi'a Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition, which came out ahead in January’s provincial elections. On 12 April the head of the Awakening Conference, Sahwa’s political arm, Shaikh Ahmad Abu Risha, suggested that the time for militias has passed, saying “we are a political…not an armed group” and that “the prime minister’s initiatives have been positive…If we want a unified Iraq, we must work in that direction, on unifying Sunnis and Shi'ites to build one country.” Politics being what it is, the question was what the quid pro quo for the Sahwas’ amenability might be, and the answer was not long in coming. According to government spokesman 'Ali al-Dabbagh on 14 April, “it has been decided to give 80% of Sahwas civilian jobs in the Iraqi government ministries and institutions, while the other 20% of them will be transferred to the security forces.”
Egypt Attacks Hizbollah
The smouldering row between Egypt and the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hizbollah over Egypt’s role during the Israeli assault on Gaza last December has abruptly burst into flames after the Egyptians arrested 49 people they claimed were connected to Hizbollah on 8 April and accused the group of planning attacks inside Egypt. In response, Hizbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah denied any such plans and said that one of the detainees was a member of Hizbollah and ten others were trying to supply military equipment to Gaza. This evidently touched a nerve of sorts with the Egyptian authorities, who unleashed a barrage of vituperation in the state-owned daily al-Gomhouriya, calling Shaikh Nasrallah (inter alia) “a bandit and veteran criminal who killed your own people…a criminal who knows no repentance.” Worse still, “I say to you what every Egyptian knows, that you are an Iranian party.”
Charles Snow