March 17, 2012
By Mohammad Akef Jamal

There are many issues that cannot be overlooked in Iraq today, as they are key to the future vision of the country.

These issues are also important when assessing development opportunities for Iraq after decades of wars, economic embargoes, and occupation.

It may also be appropriate in this context to ask a few fundamental questions that will lay the ground towards approaching these issues, which have become a source of anxiety for Iraqis.

Does the US army withdrawal mean that Washington has given up the gains it achieved by occupying Iraq? Has Iraq gained complete sovereignty? Is Iraq on the road to recovery given the problems it inherited from the former regime, and the additional problems brought about by the occupation? And does Iraq stand a real chance of rising once again domestically and regionally?

The US military pullout from Iraq in December placed the country’s political blocs in a new era of local and regional challenges.

Internally, Iraqi political blocs have to prove their capacity to make sovereign decisions; moreover, they have to develop the country’s institutions and place them in responsible and capable hands. They also have to erase the negative legacy of the fallen, totalitarian Baath regime and a decade of occupation which distorted many aspects of public life in Iraq.

On the regional front, Iraq’s leaders have to rebuild the country and restore it to its deserved position in the Middle East political balance, as a result of its important geographic location, its population density, its history and economy. This mission will be achieved only after the success of the first mission.

Positive outlook

The ability of Iraqi political blocs to approach these two challenges depends to a large extent on how they tackle 1) US-Iraqi relations; 2) regional relations; and 3) the political balance in Iraq.

It is the duty of all blocs to work with dedication. These blocs have to forget the past and overcome all the pain that was endured, to re-build the country despite all the serious handicaps that make the mission almost impossible.

Provided there is stability, Iraq’s huge oil wealth and the country’s human resources are guarantors of success, while the continuation of instability and corruption will lead to failure.

Once US forces withdrew from Iraq in December, a number of negative issues surfaced, such as the huge deterioration in the country’s security, and the escalation of internal conflict leading to the accusation that Iraq’s Vice-President Tarek Al Hashemi was a terrorist.

There is still no agreement between them to attend a national conference which was called by President Jalal Talabani four months ago to clear the air.

Iraq is passing through one of the most dangerous phases in its history. Politically demonising the other has become a regular feature. Everyone is cautious, as demonisation of political foes prevails throughout the Iraqi political spectrum. The absurdity of the whole issue is that these methods are not only used between members of clashing political blocs, but also by competing members of the same coalition.

Paying high price

The general features of the Iraqi political map have not changed since the transitional government of former prime minister Ebrahim Al Ja’afari in 2005; the same situation recurred during the first, second, and third elections conducted in Iraq after the fall of the Baath regime.

A number of these blocs also succeeded in leading ethnic and sectarian groups because of the absence of a national programme.

It is not far-fetched to assume that the Arab Spring’s first building block was laid in Iraq. America’s invasion of Iraq was the first marketing of its freedom, democracy and human rights slogans, intended to rebuild the Middle East on new foundations, in line with US policy.

The US has paid a high price for this. Hence, it is unlikely to give up its pre-eminent status in Iraq. US-Iraqi relations will not be an obstacle in the path of Iraq’s development.

Leaders of most of Iraq’s political blocs have strong ties with governments of neighbouring countries. And it is in these countries that Iraqi leaders find financial or political backing. And when necessary, these countries also provide shelter for these politicians.

This gives these countries an opportunity to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs. Their role is not a positive one.

It is sad to see these setbacks limiting Iraq’s ability to develop. And it is even sadder to see that Iraqis are unable to produce a new leader who can rise up to the expectations of the country, despite the total failure of the present leaders of the political blocs.

Dr Mohammad Akef Jamal is an Iraqi writer based in Dubai.
Gulf News

March 22, 2012
Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

As post-revolution Libya looks ahead, Iraq looms as a perilous example. After 42 years of dictatorship, Libya, like Iraq in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein, needs more than wishful thinking to become a vibrant democracy. It needs organised state-building in Tripoli – and realistic policymaking in Western capitals.

Successful transitions depend from the start on factors that are still crucially missing in Libya – a relatively cohesive leadership, an active civil society, and national unity. Without these, Libya will most likely fail to find its footing and, much like post-Saddam Iraq, suffer from persistent political division and volatile civil disorder, in addition to a multifaceted array of geopolitical pressures.

Avoiding that outcome presupposes a strong political center. But, from the start of the uprising in February 2011, Libya has been politically atomized. It lacks the sort of civil society that could have led the uprising and planted the seeds for post-authoritarian politics, as was the case in Tunisia and (more problematically) Egypt.

Libya’s transition was arguably further impeded by NATO’s intervention, as the rapid shift from a spontaneous popular uprising to an elite-led and externally supported movement prevented the revolution from following the linear course seen in Tunisia and Egypt. Thus, despite substantial international support, the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) still lacks the level of consensus needed to form a viable government.

The NTC has suffered regular internal disputes, and its membership and functioning are shrouded in secrecy. Last July, the Council’s military leader, Abdul Fatah Younis al-Obeidi, was assassinated under ambiguous circumstances. Then, in November, the NTC’s military prosecutor named its own former deputy prime minister, Ali al-Issawi, as the prime suspect. The conflict and opacity surrounding the case are telling signs of the country’s political fragility since Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi’s demise.

Libya should take note of how Iraq’s post-Saddam transition has featured ceaseless power struggles and infighting. In 2010, Iraqi political leaders’ machinations – personal, as well as tribal and sectarian – left the country without a government for 249 days.

Today, Libya appears set to undergo similar struggles, owing mostly to the presence of powerful political actors outside the NTC. The 20,000-strong Tripoli Military Council, for example, which controls the capital, has been consistently independent of the NTC, and forced out its first foreign minister, Mahmoud Jibril.

The rival Tripoli’s Revolutionists Council, meanwhile, has warned that it would unseat any incoming government should its demands for representation not be met. The NTC also faces pressure from Libya’s Berbers, who comprise 10 per cent of the population and have already taken to the streets to denounce the new political arrangements and to reject any system that does not accommodate their culture and language.

This dissension may well be compounded by two additional factors. The first is major cities’ competing sense of entitlement to the fruits of the revolution: Misurata, where Gaddafi’s body was displayed; Tripoli, which hosted the liberation ceremony; and Zintan, which is holding Gaddafi’s son, Saif Al Islam el-Gaddafi, prisoner. And all of them, like most Libyans, share the unrealistic expectation that their newfound freedom will somehow solve their socio-economic woes.

The second complicating factor is that political power now lies in the hands of competing militias. The internecine rivalries that began in earnest last November between fighters from Zawiya and Warshefana, and among Tripoli’s various factions, will be difficult to defuse, as the thowar (revolutionaries) have refused repeated calls by the NTC to disarm. Tripoli is in danger of becoming like Baghdad circa 2005, with different groups controlling turf and instituting a clientelist neighbourhood political economy.

Inter-urban competition and the militias’ defiant independence are all the more worrisome because Libya is awash in weapons, with unguarded caches, abandoned stockpiles, looted ammunition depots, and thousands of shoulder-fired heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles.

Meanwhile, the aims of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Arab League, NATO, and Qatar, all of which have played a role in Libya’s transformation, are unlikely to be the same. In other words, external pressures, too, are likely to pull Libya in several different directions, which will only further delay an autonomous and sustainable state-building process.

Gaddafi left behind a booby-trap. The collapse of authoritarian rule created a security vacuum with no functioning state apparatus, making Libya highly exposed to international influence, often in the service of corporate interests. To avoid repetition of the costly mistakes made in Iraq, Libya will require adroit leadership that can elaborate a compelling new national vision with which to unify competing authorities, rein in undisciplined militias, and minimise the country’s strategic vulnerability.

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Geneva Center for Security Policy and a visiting professor at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

© Project Syndicate/Europe’s World
Source: Khaleej Times

March 25, 2012
By Mayada Al Askari

Why is Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki so keen on the Arab Summit to be held in Baghdad?” was a question I heard several times over the past few weeks.

Robert McNamara, former US defence secretary had said: “Don’t answer the question they asked,” adding with a smile, “Answer the question you wish they’d asked,” I would widen the question’s scope to include all Iraqis along with their prime minister. I would easily ask: Why are all Iraqis very keen on the upcoming Arab Summit to be held on time in Baghdad, come rain or shine?

Why are Iraqis actually buying Arab countries’ flags and decorating their stores and homes using these flags? And since when did this country develop such Arab sentiments?

My answer would be that Iraq never lost its Arab identity or orientation but nine years of blood and tears are enough to make anyone lose their compass and orientation.

Speaking to Gulf News, Iraq’s official government spokesman Dr Ali Al Dabbagh added another important factor saying that the Iraqi government and people do believe that the summit will be a successful and special event as it is taking place amid the Arab Spring.

True, this summit is especially important because Arab leaders will sit together and discuss the best way to approach their people and make peace with them.

Al Dabbagh also touched upon a very important chord when pointing out that it is unrealistic for Arab issues to be discussed in international gatherings while Arabs do not meet to find an Arab solution and an Arab way out of the quagmire.

Iraq is also keen on discussing the situation in Syria, but an important development has in fact taken place at the Iraqi government level.

The Iraqi government does not want to take a unilateral stand regarding Syria and the events taking place there.

Rather, they are seeking to be a part of a unified Arab stand on the country, which in my opinion is an indicator of the seriousness of the Iraqi government in making purely Iraqi decisions without being affected by Iran regarding this important issue.

Thus Arab hesitation regarding Iraq and its problems with other Arab nations, Iraq’s political schism and Iran’s influence in its politics are no longer an issue, simply because Iraq — its government and people — know that living outside the Arab environment will make them a fish out of water!

In the beginning there was ambiguity on who would head the summit — Al Maliki or Iraqi President Jalal Talabani — who, according to the country’s constitution, must represent Iraq at the upcoming summit.

Talabani being a Kurd cast many doubts, however, the Iraqi government soon put the record straight and announced that although Talabani was a Kurd, he is the head of an Arab country. End of discussion.

Other Iraqi factions also do not wish to see Al Maliki’s coalition succeed.

Sadly, the secular yet Sunni-backed Iraqiya List headed by Dr Eyad Alawi is lobbying against the summit. Iraqiya List says that Iraq is not ready to host the Arab Summit in Baghdad as the country’s politicians are divided and won’t represent the country with one voice which in turn will weaken the country’s position.

High security

The controversy here is that even those who voted for Al Iraqiya are excited and enthusiastic about Iraq heading and hosting the summit. Iraqi Sunnis are known for their pan-Arab sentiments and any positive step towards returning to the Arab world and becoming a vital part of it will be welcomed at that level.

Again we return to Iraq’s internal politics and clashes on this point, as Al Maliki’s making the summit successful will mean that his faction has won against others and that a once Iran-allied bloc has finally won the acceptance of the Arabs. On the security level, the Iraqi government is working itself to the bone to ensure the safety of those attending the summit.

The recent blasts around the country were a vicious reminder of what Iraq has faced over the years. However, Al Qaida was unable to carry out more blasts in Baghdad and resorted to other governorates around Iraq, not because it did not want to raise hell in Baghdad but simply because it was not able to do so.

Iraq which has spent at least $450 million (Dh1.7 billion) in preparation for the summit that was supposed to be held on March 29 last year has recently received 400 armoured vehicles to transport senior foreign officials.

A hundred aircraft will also patrol Baghdad’s skies during the summit and a curfew will start on Sunday — officially — but Baghdad’s Kharkh and Rasafa parts have been cordoned off since March 21.

Iraq, a founding member of the Arab League, has not hosted a regular Arab summit since November 1978, but an extraordinary summit was held in Baghdad in May 1990, just months before Saddam Hussain’s invasion of Kuwait.

Since then, Iraq has gone through 13 years of crippling UN sanctions, a major war in 2003, and nine years of blood and hardships. It has a mega oil income that it is unable to administer and has become a country without a real identity.

It is time for Iraq to come home.
Source: Gulf News

April 18, 2012
By Gordon Robison

As international negotiators gathered in Istanbul over the weekend for talks on Iran’s nuclear programme the diplomatic drama begged a very basic question: what do the Americans want?

To be very blunt and undiplomatic about it: is Washington involved in these talks because the Obama administration hopes to avoid military action in Iran? Or because it needs diplomatic cover for an attack that is more or less inevitable?

A sense of high drama surrounded the meeting. It has been 15 months since Iranian officials last sat across the table from representatives of the inelegantly named “P5+1″, meaning the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany. Also in attendance was the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, whose spokesman told reporters the session took place in a “positive atmosphere,” indicating that “there is a desire for substantive progress.”

The fact that the two sides agreed to meet again next month is, indeed, a good sign. So is the announced location for the next round of talks: Baghdad. Prior to the Istanbul session Iran said it wanted the next round, if it happened at all, to be held in what Tehran regards as a more neutral venue.

This seemingly small concession on the P5+1′s part has significant symbolic value. It was not so long ago, under George W. Bush’s administration, that Washington essentially took the position that no talks could begin until Tehran conceded everything in advance. So agreeing to a venue change may not be a big deal in and of itself, but it speaks to a desire to make things work – or at least to keep them moving. Not much, but it’s something.

For Barack Obama, with just over six months to go before a presidential election, Iran now looks like the worst sort of foreign policy problem.

It is an issue whose emotional ‘hot buttons’ (Iran, nuclear weapons, a threat to Israel) are calculated to touch the nerves of many voters who otherwise lack interest in foreign affairs. Worse, it is an issue with a seemingly simple solution (military action) that is widely embraced by voters and politicians of both parties, but widely rejected by people with real knowledge of the Middle East’s complexities.

Mixed messages

So Obama, having declared an Iranian nuclear capability unacceptable, is hemmed in on one side by politicians of all stripes urging him to get on with attacking the place, and on the other by both his own innate caution and a foreign policy establishment (led by the US military) that sees bombing Iran as, at best, a temporary fix likely to make things worse in the long run. It has become commonplace, especially on the American left, to see in all this a replay of the Bush administration’s march toward war with Iraq in the autumn and winter of 2002-03.

That comparison is not, however, as valid as it might seem.It was hard to watch the Bush administration nine years ago and not conclude that it was itching for a war in Iraq and merely going through the motions of seeking peace. The administration’s efforts at the United Nations in late 2002 were visibly grudging and accompanied by a huge military build-up in Kuwait. It was obvious that the Americans were getting set to invade.

In private, as we now know from sources both British (the Downing Street Memo) and American (Richard Haass, then the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, writing in his 2009 book War of Necessity, War of Choice) that the decision to invade Iraq was, to all intents and purposes, made long before the rest of us even began paying attention.

In contrast, while it is clearly possible to accuse Washington’s current crop of politicians and foreign policy wonks of sending mixed messages, it is also pretty clear that the Obama administration is trying to avoid attacking Iran.

Which is not to say that an attack might not come anyway. A misunderstanding in the Gulf or elsewhere might escalate into shooting. The war party might win out in Washington, especially if Iran were to make some overt move toward building a nuclear weapon. Perhaps most worrisome, Israel might attack on its own, pulling the United States into the conflict whether it wants to be there or not.

It is indicative of the low expectations surrounding the Istanbul talks that an agreement simply to meet again counts as a success. What remains to be seen is whether talks alone will be enough to keep the US-Iran non-relationship from heading toward war, despite the best efforts of some of the Obama administration’s critics in Congress, the Republican party and the media. 2012 is not a re-run of 2002. Not yet, at least.

Gordon Robison, a longtime Middle East journalist and US political analyst, teaches political science at the University of Vermont.
Source: Gulf News

April 22, 2012
By Shakir Noori,

Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, is a man of few words. Over the years as Iraq lurched from one destabilising crisis to the next he remained focused on his home front, consolidating his power base and let the other veteran and more senior Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani enjoy the national limelight as president of the country.

Lately, however, Barzani has been speaking rather loudly of the need to ‘save’ Iraq from what he sees as Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s efforts to monopolise political power, paving the way for a return to dictatorship. In an interview with the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat, given on his return to Arbil after a visit to Washington DC, Barzani said he was calling a meeting of Iraqi leaders in an effort to find “radical solutions and a specific timeframe to resolve the present crisis”. If the meeting failed, he warned, “we will resort to other decisions” — a less than thinly veiled hint at secession.

The official spokesman of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Ministry of Peshmerga (Kurdish armed forces), Jabbar Yawar, was more forthright: “In spite of all outstanding differences between Kurdistan and the federal government, we will not use force to solve problems. However, we are ready to cut off the hands of anyone who attacks our territory, even if it is the Iraqi army.”

With such near war-mongering postures tensions have remained high between Iraqi Kurds and Al Maliki, a Shiite. The two biggest bones of contention remain the distribution of the nation’s oil wealth and the festering bad blood over the Kurdish decision to give shelter to the fugitive Iraqi Vice-President Tareq Al Hashemi, a Sunni, accused of running a death squad. He initially went to Kurdistan after fleeing his own government’s base, Baghdad, in December.

It is evident that the Kurdish problem, brutally suppressed by Saddam Hussain, will not go away easily. The Americans knew this well and forged special relations with the Kurdish leadership and these have assumed greater importance in the post-occupation period, even as Washington’s influence declined in Baghdad. Al Maliki’s hold on power is abetted by the rising influence of Iran in Iraqi politics.

The ‘strategic partnership’ between Washington and Arbil protects the interests of both the US and the Kurds. But with the US troops no longer on the ground the Kurds have felt for the first time they are without protection directly from the US. Barzani’s recent official visit to Washington as head of the government of Kurdistan was meant to address some of these fears.

The Kurdish leader urged the Americans not to allow the emergence of a ‘new dictator’ in Iraq. He insisted during an interview with Al Hurra television that “even if the whole world agreed on Al Maliki, we will refuse him”, while insisting that “our relationship with Iraqi Shiites will not be affected. He returned with an assurance that “the US is committed to our close and historic relationship with Kurdistan and the Kurdish people, in the context of our strategic partnership with a federal, democratic and unified Iraq.”

Biggest beneficiaries

While the Kurds acknowledge that the Americans saved them from Saddam, to many observers the US action was driven less by altruism and more by commercial interests as an ‘investor’ in the oil-rich province. US officials have been quoted in Foreign Policy magazine as saying the US has clear cut plans to make strategic profit-driven investments in the northern Iraqi province.

This explains the appointment of a high-ranking diplomat to head the US Consulate in Arbil. US ‘support’ to Kurdistan includes intelligence training programmes for security forces, including open channels for information exchange. The Kurds have by far emerged as the biggest beneficiaries of the conflict that consumed Saddam. Washington has contributed towards developing a constitution that has diluted the powers of the central government, while being with the Kurdish region, which received 17 per cent of the annual Iraqi budget allocation or nearly $11 billion (Dh40.4 billion) in 2012. It also received additional payments, including the allocation of $560 million to fund international oil firms.

All this has not gone unnoticed. US observers have questioned the gains from this ‘special relationship’ and warned that the alliance could send the wrong message in Iraq and across a region that has endured generations of Kurdish separatist struggles. The danger of igniting similar passions among the Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Iran and Syria cannot be ignored.

Nationalism and ethnic pride runs deep in the veins of the Kurds. Barzani was born on the day his party KDP was founded in 1946 in the “Kurdish Republic of Mahabad”, an ill-fated attempt at secession that was brutally crushed by the Shah’s army. Barzani has often said: “I was born in the shadow of Kurdish flag in Mahabad and I am ready to serve and die for the same flag.” He is not going to easily forget those sentiments.

Shakir Noori is a writer based in Dubai.
Source:Gulf News

May 7, 2012
By Adel Safty

At a recent fund-raising dinner for US President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign a woman interrupted the president’s speech and shouted: “No War against Iran.” Obama paused and, retaining his composure, shot back: “No war has been announced, young lady.” The audience erupted in sustained applause. It is true that no conventional war has been announced, but nonetheless, a new form of warfare is being waged, unannounced. And that is cyber warfare.

Although the Iranians seem to be more at the receiving end of cyber attacks, the situation is fluid and changeable, with unpredictable consequences.

Israel and western powers led by the United States have accused Iran of breaching its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). They specifically accuse Iran of using nuclear energy to develop nuclear weapons in violation of the NPT. Iran rejects the accusation and claims that its nuclear power plants are developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, which is allowed under the NPT.

The dispute grew into an international crisis, partly as a result of the urgency given to it by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his successful lobbying of Obama. With Netanyahu threatening war, and Obama orchestrating punitive sanctions against Iran, and agreeing not to exclude the use of force to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the crisis seemed headed for a bloody confrontation. The drums of war were getting louder every day, and American officials spoke of their expectation that Israel would attack Iran sometime between April and June.

The deadlock was broken earlier this year when Iran suddenly agreed to resume suspended negotiations with the group of 5+1 (USA, Russia, China, France, England, and Germany). The meeting took place last month in Istanbul. By the assessment of the principal participants, the talks went well and the parties are now scheduled to meet later this month in Baghdad. The optimism which enveloped the Istanbul talks was partly caused by an Iranian fatwa (a religious edict) declaring nuclear weapons an evil which Iran would never embrace.

More recently, another encouraging assessment — or possibly a sign from an insider — was given by Hussain Mousavian who served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Mousavian described the forthcoming meeting between Iran and the group of 5+1, as representing a ‘historic opportunity’ to settle the dispute between Iran and the six world powers.

Perhaps even more remarkably, Israel’s military chief, Benjamin Gantz told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week, that he did not believe that Iran would develop nuclear weapons. He also stated that the diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, is beginning to bear fruit. Significantly, Gantz described the Iranian leadership as ‘very rational.’ On all three points Gantz expressed a position at odds with the views publicly expressed by Netanyahu. It is noteworthy, though, that the positive prospect for a diplomatic solution to the crisis has not diminished the pre-occupation of the parties with cyber warfare.

I argued in a previous column that the successful cyber attack mounted against Iranian nuclear installations marked the beginning of a new form of warfare. And that some of the implications of cyber warfare included its ability to reduce gross conventional military inequalities between enemies; and this made the US vulnerable to cyber attacks from smaller countries that otherwise would not have dared to challenge Washington militarily.

Moreover, the success of the cyber attack by a worm named Stuxnet, which damaged and disoriented Iranian nuclear installations, may have given Iran a motivation to intensify its cyber warfare capabilities and a reason to prepare a counter-attack against the USA and Israel, which Iran holds responsible for the cyber attacks.

Such unsettling implications prompted the American congress to hold hearings, last week, titled “Iranian Cyber Threat to the US Homeland.”

Response feared

Representative Dan Lungren (Republican) of California pointed out that a 2008 report by an American security contractor estimated that Iran’s cyber-capability was “among the top five globally.”

On May 1, the Tehran Times reported that on April 22, Iranian oil installations were the subject of another cyber attack. But that the Iranians were able to detect and contain the damage before the computer ‘weapon’ wrecked havoc on the Iranian oil infrastructure.

Moreover, the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology said in a statement dated April 29, that it had been the subject of another cyber attack but that it had repelled the attack and no vital information was lost.

The provocative nature of such repeated cyber attacks gave rise to growing concern among American law makers that Iran may have been provoked enough to contemplate a response.

Lungren told the congressional hearing that he hoped that the Iranian leaders would be deterred from launching a cyber attack against the US by the knowledge that the American response would be ‘overwhelming.’

As far as could be determined, deterrence seems to be working, for now. But for how long can the Iranian leadership resist the pressure to respond to cyber attacks against their country’s vital infrastructure?

In his testimony before Congress, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the congressional committee that Iranian leaders may have crossed the point of no-return and are now willing to consider a cyber attack against the United States. The most salient question now, he concluded, is to ask if we are ready for an Iranian cyber attack.

In the final analysis, however, only a diplomatic solution to the crisis can avert the disastrous consequences of conventional war and the unpredictable results of cyber war. A diplomatic solution is not only the better option, it is the only option since the alternative, namely various forms of warfare, can only delay, but not remove, the underlying cause of the dispute.

Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor and Special Advisor to the Rector at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His book, Might Over Right, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky, and published in England by Garnet, 2009.

Source: Gulf News

May 11, 2012
By Marwan Kabalan

The arrest warrant, issued by the Interpol at the request of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, against Iraqi vice-president and prominent Sunni leader Tareq Al Hashemi is seen by many in the region as a recipe for a another bloody civil war in Iraq. It is also interpreted as a further demonstration of how influential Iran has become in Iraqi politics.

On the eve of the US withdrawal from Iraq at the end of last year, Iran and its local allies, rushed to exploit the vacuum Washington left behind and consolidate their influence in Iraq. Iran seems determined not to miss a historic opportunity to turn Iraq from a long-time regional foe into a junior ally. Should this happen, and it is in fact happening, Iran would then be able both to secure its western flank and use Iraq as a base from which to project influence in the wider Arab world. This would come only if Iran’s foes in Iraq are purged and its friends are made powerful enough to rule Iraq unchallenged.

Leading these efforts is pro-Iran Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri Al Maliki, who is increasingly becoming an authoritarian leader. Ever since he became prime minister in 2006, Al Maliki has been working to consolidate his power inside the army, the security forces, and intelligence services, mostly through purges and through the creation of loyal parallel security agencies. When he returned to the premiership in 2010, following nearly a year of intense political wrangling over electoral results, Al Maliki accelerated these efforts to establish full control over the political, security and economic affairs of the country. The makeup of the current cabinet clearly illustrates Al Maliki’s prowess; he holds the positions of acting defence minister, interior minister and minister of state for national security. But in order for Al Maliki to effectively wield his influence in each of these arenas, he needed to remove whatever tenuous influence Iraq’s Sunnis maintain.

Following the fall of Saddam Husain’s regime in 2003, Iraqi Sunnis chose to resist the change brought by the US invasion. They boycotted the 2005 parliamentary elections and opted for armed resistance against the US occupation and the puppet government it installed in Baghdad. By doing so, they have effectively allowed Shiite factions to garner disproportionate power in parliament. When Sunnis tried to re-enter the political scene in 2010, they did so under the banner of Al Iraqiya, a centrist political bloc with heavy Sunni representation. Though Al Iraqiya won the largest number of seats in the 2010 elections, Al Maliki and his Shiite allies manoeuvred to deny it an electoral victory. In the early stages of its formation the government half-heartedly promised Al Iraqiya various appeasements, but it did not take Al Maliki long to begin purging the government of Sunni power. He refused to integrate Sunni Awakening Council members into the security apparatus and used the Shiite-led Justice and Accountability Commission as a vehicle for targeting Sunnis and former Baathists.
Fierce response

The Sunnis, who have no energy assets or autonomous territory, tried to loosen Baghdad’s grip with their own autonomy drive — first in the mainly Sunni Anbar and Salahuddin provinces and then in the more ethnically mixed Diyala province. The autonomy push in Diyala province came about through Sunni-Kurdish collaboration. This gave some indication that the Sunnis and Kurds were finding reasons to align against a more significant Shiite threat.

Al Maliki’s response was fast and fierce, however. He declared the province’s proclamation illegal and launched a major political offensive against high-level Sunni officials. He urged parliament to pass a vote of no-confidence against Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al Mutlaq, who described Al Maliki in an interview as “worse than Saddam Hussain”. At the same day, Al Hashemi was escorted off a plane at the Baghdad airport and two of his bodyguards were detained on terrorism charges. Al Hashemi was permitted to fly to Iraqi Kurdistan, but an arrest warrant was issued against him alleging that he had commissioned assassinations of Iraqi political and security officials, including a plot against Al Maliki himself.

Iran’s position is crucial to the outcome of this crisis. Al Maliki may have strong political ambitions of his own, but his actions clearly align with Iran’s strategic interest in consolidating Shiite control in Iraq. With Iran emerging as the most influential foreign power in Iraqi politics, Sunni Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf, fear that Iran might just be about to reshape the political map of the region in its favour. This will force them to do whatever it takes to prevent this probability. Al Maliki’s sectarian policies along with the increasing polarisation between the two banks of the Gulf — Arab and Persian — Iraq might very well slide back to a full-fledged civil war that would be incomparable with the 2006-2007conflict.

Dr Marwan Kabalan is the dean of the Faculty of International Relations and Diplomacy at the University of Kalamoon.
Source: Gulf News

May 29, 2012
By Mohammad Akef Jamal

The roots of Iraq’s present political conflict lie in the 2010 elections. But in reality, the problem started since the establishment of the country in the 1920s. Almost a century has passed, but these conflicts have not been resolved.

The problems between different Iraqi blocs are numerous and varied. However, the most dangerous of them is the conflict between the government in Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdistan government. Some say that it is a conflict between Kurds and Arabs though Iraqi governments prior to 2003 saw it as a form of Kurdish mutiny.

Kurds consider the conflict as a struggle for gaining their legitimate rights in their land.

Iraqi governments, in both the monarchy and the republican eras, tried to resolve the conflict through force. The results were devastating as the clashes depleted Iraq’s human and financial wealth. The struggle also obstructed Iraq’s development plans and contributed to undermining its national security, leading to interference from neighbouring countries.

Iraq’s political atmosphere was never devoid of dangerous tensions, but after the downfall of the Baathist regime, it has entered a new phase that is threatening to destroy the foundations of democracy.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is at the centre of these developments, and has been targeted by many. He has clashed with fugitive vice-president Tareq Al Hashemi, deputy prime minister Saleh Al Mutlaq, chairman of Al Iraqiya bloc Eyad Allawi, president of the Kurdish province Masoud Barzani and Sadrist leader Muqtada Al Sadr. Al Maliki is probably having problems with those in his own Al Dawa party.

Political survival

It is difficult to see Al Maliki emerging unscathed from these conflicts as all these forces are closing in on him in a joint attempt to get him out of office.

Playing on the interests of the US and those of regional powers, which served him well in recent years, will not ensure Al Maliki’s political survival, as finding a substitute is not very difficult.

The opposition has lately become more influential and has begun to take the initiative.

It recently held a meeting that was also attended by Al Sadr. A memo was sent by those who met in Arbil to the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), giving them two weeks to reply and threatening a no-confidence motion if they failed to comply. The two weeks went by, and another meeting was held in Najaf. The INA was given another week to choose a new prime minister.

Members of parliament threatening to go ahead with the no-confidence motion against Al Maliki constitute a majority in the house. However, whether or not they actually go ahead with this decision is not guaranteed. Each lawmaker has a number of issues that decide his or her position, and some of those are personal and related to re-election. Other factors that may influence the decision may relate to the power vacuum Al Maliki’s dismissal may create.

The INA expressed its backing for Al Maliki as a reply to the Arbil ultimatum. It also pointed out that it does not mind instituting reforms if Al Maliki can continue as prime minister.

In the midst of all this, the prime minister decided to turn the tables and transform the struggle into a conflict with the Kurds.

Al Maliki, accompanied by ministers from the federal government arrived in Kirkuk on May 8 to hold a cabinet meeting. His visit was preceded by military forces, who had orders to drive away any militia.

The struggle has become extremely tense.

Kirkuk drama

Al Maliki chose Kirkuk as a battleground so as to announce from an Iraqi city that includes every component of Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups that the demand of the Kurdish province to include Kirkuk is unacceptable to his government. And that the Constitution’s item 140 — relating to Kirkuk determining its future — is not applicable.

Thus, Al Maliki decided that the differences, and the mechanisms to solve them, will not be settled through the constitution. He was also very clear about freezing it until the end of his tenure. All this will serve Al Maliki’s opponents, who accuse him of being autocratic.

Al Maliki’s shortsightedness is dangerous as it contravenes the strategic alliance between the State of Law and the INA.

Al Maliki is pushing towards a military a showdown with the Kurds at a time when they are stronger than ever before — locally, regionally and internationally.

He is betting that his dangerous step will break the opposition alliance against him, as he thinks he will be seen as fighting a national battle. He is also betting on other smaller alliances with those who have already walked out on Al Iraqiya.

Al Maliki’s statements about freezing the constitution raise concerns about his seriousness regarding democracy in Iraq. Talking about freezing the constitution is akin to a coup against the political process in Iraq. It is like declaring a state of emergency, wherein the government does what it pleases.

Dr Mohammad Akef Jamal is an Iraqi writer based in Dubai.
Source: Gulf News

May 29, 2012
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD
Exclusive Article

(Democracy at Work: To re-visit the wounds of the Abu Ghraib)

“Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted with Cattle Prods, Burned by Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq? They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for BBC Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.
The prison guards stand over their captives with electric cattle prods, stun guns, and dogs. Many of the prisoners have been ordered to strip naked. The guards are yelling abuse at them, ordering them to lie on the ground and crawl. ‘Crawl, motherf*****s, crawl.’
If a prisoner doesn’t drop to the ground fast enough, a guard kicks him or stamps on his back. There’s a high-pitched scream from one man as a dog clamps its teeth onto his lower leg. Another prisoner has a broken ankle. He can’t crawl fast enough so a guard jabs a stun gun onto his buttocks. The jolt of electricity zaps through his naked flesh and genitals. For hours afterwards his whole body shakes.

Lines of men are now slithering across the floor of the cellblock while the guards stand over them shouting, prodding and kicking. Second by second, their humiliation is captured on a video camera by one of the guards.

The images of abuse and brutality he records are horrifyingly familiar. These were exactly the kind of pictures from inside Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that shocked the world this time last year. (Deborah Davies, “Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons” 03/28/2005)

Linked to the US Presidential election campaigns, the hurriedly called this week’s Chicago Conference of the sixty or so participating leaders is no joke but had its spill-over reasoning to view:

• That President Obama is actively politicking about the recalls of the troops from the war zones something he promised to do four years earlier,
• Accelerating the number game like the stock markets that counts in an election campaign – Obama’s standing in public perception to be converted by the hourly paid American opinion experts
• Deflect on negative imagery that Mitt Romney- the Republican candidate is creating to beat Obama
• To enlarge Obama’s failing image into worldview that he is actively engaging the global leaders to find amicable solutions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Iran and lot more – the stage acting – the fuzzy pretension of doing something for the global audience.
• Nothing concrete could have emerged because America, its leaders, its economy and not to talk of the most powerful military-industrial complex making difference in the election campaigns, all are for continuous warfare, not for peace
• Some of the dummy global leaders more so from Europe and Asia, got opportunity to divert public attention from the home-grown financial disasters and austerity measures for being non-productive and incompetent to deal with any major issues facing their people – much unemployed and raising voices of REASON against the transitory leadership. Pictures with Obama could make them see different games in varied perspectives – all linked to opinion making at home and abroad. Opinions are not the facts or truth but simple ideas without substance of reality.
• At least, Obama and his invited colleagues wanted to be seen politically active not sitting dummies like the Arab-Muslim leaders, consuming fatty dinners and unable to talk anything worth of moral or intellectual reasoning and most authoritarians specialize in doing nothing for their own people
• The staged drama – tragedy spells out its own rationale that none of these conferences will contribute to address the real world problems in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and Iran as they were not intended to tackle any problems except uttering lies, deceptions and pretensions and making bogus statements to mislead the global citizenry. After all, it is an election year in America – the former superpower now financially defunct country under the austerity measures of 14 trillion dollars or more (borrowed and used from the unknown future) that does not know what is next in waiting in all the crises situation, it engineered to support its war economy and including its replacement in global politics by another nation or group of productive Asian nations.
• The unraveling impacts and tragic consequences of wars do not end with paper declarations or political statements as to when the invading armies are to be withdrawn. Wars leave scars for generations to be victimized emotionally, politically, intellectually and anything else that can be imagined in human terms of unknown disasters. Long after sixty years of the 2nd World War, the Europeans and others have not recovered its dehumanized consequences of their own perpetuated insanity and barbarity for no obvious purpose of rationality except borders, flags and a primitive sense of pride and nationalism. In the 21st century politics, America is leading in all of these stone-aged qualities to be the lost Empire without being an Empire.

Wars are planned and orchestrated by the few, the privileged ruling elite; the humanity becomes the targeted victims of the few for global hegemonic governance. Throughout the ages, the conscientious mankind searched for ways to undo the war and strive for peace, the real aim for the establishments of international institutions. But now the global institutional capacity to deal with peace and conflict management appears in ruin with the continued onslaught of the American led so called War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Realizing the eminent defeats by the handful forces of Talaban, the allies are gathered to make their presence known for propaganda purposes to the beleaguered people of Afghanistan and global audience. Talaban fighting the intruders are not the foreigners but people of the land. The US, British and others paid agents are foreigner mercenaries fighting in a foreign land, culturally unknown and unconquerable by their armed forces. Piety and peacemaking vis-à-vis aggression and wickedness cannot be combined as credible attributes in ones mindset and one human character. Now, the issue is, how conveniently, the aggressors want to redefine their strategic role and ambitions in Afghanistan as peacemakers as if they have achieved the goals of their aggression. Imagine, Adolph Hitler while occupying France and continuing bombing of London, wanted to organize a peace conference. Would it have been a logical discourse for the French and British people to talk peacemaking with the aggressor? Bush and Hitler had lot in common as both claimed to have the divine support for their mission. Both tried to destroy the living humanity but fell in disgrace and met ultimate defeats.

A week earlier, Talaban spokesman while talking to the BBC reporter in the Arab world, made it clear that they believe in peacemaking but all the foreign forces must leave Afghanistan. The same logic that French and British politicians would have implied to Hitler. Could the facts of human life be changed, be it Iraq, Afghanistan or the occurrences of the 2nd World War?

The people of Iraq and Afghanistan need change for peace and normalcy. The change can only happen if the US led occupying forces after the withdrawal would compensate the victim nations and rebuild their essential social-economic and humanitarian infrastructures destroyed by the ferocious wars. The same formula used at the end of the WW2. The same legal principle is needed that the aggressors be brought to legal and political accountability in an international war tribunal such as Nuremberg tribunal after the end of the WW2. E. H Carr, the famous historian, had emphasized that history has learning role for the future. Those who defy the logic of learning were lost without a trace.

The aggressors have succumbed to public opposition and will withdraw most of their combat forces by 2014. In other words, the invading armies have been defeated by the mujahideens and are unable to carry out any further brutality in those regions. Would the aggressors tell the humanity, when would they end the continued wars? So that the victims could think openly and plan for change and peaceful transfer to making of their own future. This is the issue that the current gathering of the sixty or so nations at Chicago avoided to discuss. The assembly was not for peacemaking but for prolonging the failing war efforts. The leaders wanted to discuss aftermath of the 2014 withdrawals and strategic arrangements with the Afghan government for training and rebuilding, a typical western materialistic scenario to help the impoverished nations. Recall that Karazi shall end his presidency in 2014, so what is the legitimacy of talking beyond that time span? The aid gimmick is an attractive illusion to entrap the needy nations and exploit their resources for the good of the occupying forces. The US and Britain survive on borrowed money from the future generations as their own financial institutions have collapsed and so are the political powerhouses and working agencies. But the aid’s long term purpose is to create more beggars and poverty and dependent nations asking for external aid and to survive on borrowed future and resources. The discussion developmental aid and withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan sends a clear signal of defeat and prospective surrender to the Talaban fighting for the freedom of their homeland.

Future must be anew, not the repetition of the past. Future making does not lie with the aggressors nor with the failed international institutions, it is with the will and resolve of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to oust the aggressors and recover their homes and habitats for rebuilding their lives and human dignity. Taken at their face value what Commander Bush claimed at the time that the US led forces went to Iraq and Afghanistan in pursuit of freedom, liberty and justice for the people. Instead they planned and developed the institutions of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Belgraham prison in Afghanistan. Facts speak for themselves. All you need to do is to see the outcomes, the triumphs of the American version of liberty, human rights and justice, the horrifying photos of the prisoners are easily available through the internet, speaking their own language of the American-British civilized achievements in the Arab-Islamic world. Mr. Karzai, the self-made president of Afghanistan does not have any vision or sense of reality that he will not be the president after 2014. So what nonsense he is talking about to have strategic alliance with the US forces beyond the 2014? Mr. Karzai or others in attendance, the Arab-Muslim staged puppets do not represent the interests and priorities of the Muslim Ummah. The people of the Islamic world view them all as pan on the global political chessboard being financed, supported and kept in office to undermine the future of the people of Afghanistan and the Muslim world. They are seen as part of the problem, not part of any workable solution.

Afghan landscape tells its own story with millions uprooted from ancestral homes and forced to go to foreign countries in search of protection and mere human survival. The aggressors do not wish to see the problem, that they are the real problem, not otherwise. How soon the aggressors would leave Afghanistan, nobody can tell. The ancient and civilized people of Iraq and Afghanistan know it well who are the peacemakers and who are the aggressors. The aggressors appear desperate to quit but the Chicago conference seems to indicate that urgent necessity but intellectually confused, morally corrupt and with high rates of self-suicidal deaths US-British militarily apparatus exhausted, and not sure how best to get out of the terrible mess they have created for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and the whole of the humanity. At the Chicago gathering, Obama stated “a responsible end to the war”, but failed to define what he meant after being in office for four years and failing to honor all of his previous election promises and now killings of several thousands of innocents in Pakistan by drone attacks and displacing millions in Afghanistan’s continued warfare. Does President Obama enjoy the credibility to be taken seriously for any statements or promises for the future? Recently, a Malaysian international legal tribunal has issued the judgment and declared George Bush and Tony Blair as responsible for crimes against the humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan. Would the Western world’s responsible legal authorities take the necessary action to implement the verdict of the international tribunal? A century earlier C.E, M. Joad (Guide to Modern Wickedness), captioned the human tragedy in these words:

“….Human nature is at least in part wicked and in part foolish, how can human beings be prevented from suffering from the results of their wickedness and folly? ….Men simply do not see that war is foolish and useless and wicked. They think on occasion that it is necessary and wise and honourable, for war is not the work of bad men knowing themselves to be wrong, but of good men passionately convinced that they are right.”

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja shares interests and expertise in global security, peace and conflict resolution and in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking, Lambert Publishing, Germany, 5/2012).

The article is contributed to pkarticleshub.com