As I noted here, back on Tuesday, one of the “meta-narratives” of what’s going on in Iraqi politics these days is the contest over the validity of the election conducted on December 15.
This contest has seen two quick new developments in the past couple of days. Yesterday, Craig Jenness, the Canadian national who’s been heading the UN’s election-support team in Iraq, declared publicly, at a press conference in Baghdad, that: “The United Nations is of the view that these elections were transparent and credible.”
Well, that sure sounded definitive. Case closed, you might think?
Think again.
Today, AP’s Patrick Quinn has reported that a new international group will now be traveling to Iraq to review the elections. The new group (or indeed, perhaps it isn’t totally new?), known as the the International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE) will reportedly include two representatives from the Arab League, one member of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians and a respected European academic, acording to (apparently) a spokesman for the Iraqi Accordance Front, described as “Iraq’s leading Sunni Arab group.”
Quinn also wrote that IMIE already did some monitoring of the elections, in Baghdad, where it had been “assisted by monitors from countries of the European Union working under IMIE’s umbrella.”
He wrote that the IMIE review team,
- will travel to Iraq at the invitation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. An official for the commission, Safwat Rashid, said a review could “evaluate what happened during the elections and what’s going on now. We are highly confident that we did our job properly and we have nothing to hide.”
… The invitation to review the process and about 1,500 complaints lodged by candidates and parties was welcomed by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who said “these experts will be arriving immediately and we are ready to assist them, if needed.”
I find this interesting at a number of levels. The dispute over the validity of the election process is the main political issue, right now, that divides Iraq’s Sunni Arabs from its Shiite Arabs. Most Shiite pols (and Ayatollah Sistani) have thus far insisted adamantly that the process– which gave their main party, the UIA, a strong victory– was entirely fair, and the Sunnis have contested its fairness with equal or greater vehemence.
As I noted in a comment on this JWN post, Dec. 20, the possible divergence of views between the Sunni parties and the Sadrist trend within the UIA over the validity of the elections could indeed be a factor that prevents these two trends from taking any broader joint action in the political field… And if those two trends are unable to work together, then we might as well all say goodbye to any hopes for the survival of a single Iraqi state.
The Kurds, meanwhile, are probably just as happy as anything to see this issue dividing Iraq’s large majority of ethnic Arabs into two bitterly anatagonistic factions.
The story of the new, non-UN “international election-monitoring group” is interesting, too, for what it tells us about Khalilzad’s current strategies. He has visited both Saudi Arabia and one of the small Arab Gulf countries in the past couple of days– I forget which. (Though you’d never know about any of that if you read only the US mainstream media, whose reporting from Iraq has been really terrible over the past couple of weeks.)
Khalilzad seems to be trying hard to bring at least some of the Iraqi Sunni political class into the political tent that he’s creating in Baghdad. That’s been really difficult, and was made harder by the fact that the Sunni pols judged that the many complaints they had lodged about election fraud with the Iraqi electoral commission had not been considered with anything like enough seriousness by the commission.
I wonder, btw, why Craig Jenness was so quick off the mark to issue his apparent “certificate of a good practice” in public yesterday? Given the chaotic security situation inside Iraq before, during, and since the election, I honestly wonder on what basis Jenness felt able to render such a speedy and near-definitive judgment on the matter? But anyway, the UN’s election-monitoring unit has been in internal chaos for the past couple of years, culminating in the abrupt termination of its Director, Carina Perelli, just a few weeks ago, on charges of gross mismanagement, so it is hard to know what actual expertise the unit still retains at this point.
So anyway, Khalilzad almost certainly helped– with the aid of his hosts in the Gulf countries he’s been visiting– to cook up the plan for the “new”, and notably non-UN, election review process. My main guess is that he’s playing desperately for time… trying to find any way possible to find a way to, (a) get some credible Sunni pols into the next government and (b) persuade the UIA to let this happen.
All the very technical business about whether there was electoral fraud or not would, I am sure, be rapidly swept under the carpet if only he could find a way to bring about the political outcome he seeks. (So much for “democracy”.)
Meanwhile, many Sunni pols have been feeling deeply deceived by the thus-far-declared results of the election. And as this report from today’s al-Hayat makes clear, the militants inside the Sunni community have been quick off the mark to deride and threaten all the Sunni pols who had argued that participating in the elections could bring the Sunni community results of some serious political value.
Basically, that article (bylined Mushriq Abbas) says that since the election results have started to come out, opinion in the Sunni community has swung strongly toward the hardliners. Abbas reported that “the Partisans of the Sunna” (which he describes as close to al-Qaeda-in-Iraq) and the “Army of the Mujaheds” (which he describes as close to the “Islamic Army”) issued their first ever joint declaration that stated derisively that “The mountain of the elections labored mightily and gave birth to a mouse!” and “Those who ran after a mirage [i.e. who took part in the elections] have ended up only as chess pieces in the hands of their masters.”
The article also says that the declaration’s authors admitted that they had agreed to suspend armed operations during the period of the elections (as he describes it, this was “in deference to the popular will”) but that now, essentially all bets were off, and all mujaheds should just once again place their lives in the hands of God (i.e., resume their armed jihad.)
… So anyway, that’s just a little part of what Khalilzad now finds himself dealing with. It would be hard for anyone to be able to find a way to persuade all the different groupings and interests that have emerged inside Iraq to come to some agreement at this point. But an American viceroy, representing a government that has been responsible for inflicting massive suffering and harm on the Iraqi Sunni community continuously over the past 33 months, is probably one of the worst-placed mediators one could imagine.
I don’t think the validity of the election is a major issue. Of course it was not valid, but it doesn’t matter. Even if it were possible to prove there was no fraud, intimidation or ballot tampering (which there was), this would not solve the problem. It might even make compromise more difficult to achieve. The problem is, the minority is not willing to submit to rule by the majority. Kurdistan is clearly going to do its own thing. If it is part of “Iraq” at all, it will be in name only. The fate of the rest of the country will be decided either by combat or negotiation, or both, but not by the election results. The US government has belatedly started to realize that it is fighting a mercenary war on behalf of fundamentalist Shiite Islamic groups allied with Iran, and has started to ask itself what “victory” will mean under those circumstances. That’s what has Khalilzad scurrying around, tring to put together some sort of temporary, face-saving compromise. None of this has anything at all to do with democracy or elections.
The problem with the elections was not voter fraud or low turnout, but the very fact that the results enshrine precisely the sectarian and ethnic demarcations that make the country so difficult to unite.
Some Sunnis think they are, literally, the majority in Iraq. Another element insists that, no matter what the demographics, Sunnis should still rule. In both cases, self-delusion or chauvinism would trump the results of even the most immaculate election. Finally, there are those who are (perhaps realistically) reluctant to accept minority status for fear of reprisals and discrimination. Put these together and you get perhaps 90% of Sunni Arabs in Iraq. They will never accept a ballot that yields a Shiite victory.
Most of the Kurds simply want out, plain and simple. The rest will tolerate a federation only if Baghdad is little more than a symbol.
Within the Shiite majority, one element wants a theocracy. Another wants partition of the country and local conrol of oil revenues. The rest might accept a federation, but only if Sunnis and Kurds get distinct minority status. Any outreach concessions are likely to fall short of the others’ expectations.
It would be very difficult for any negotiator to reconcile these groups. The individual will need troops and money to coerce the outcome. Beatitudes will not placate the Sunnis from their threats of violence. Shia will need more than sermons to agree to make concessions. And Baghdad will not hold the country together if local and sectarian militias are the only police. Sorry if this disqualifies any “dream team” nominated by AFSC. Khalilzad may be the best qualified, but don’t envy him.
I think John C. summarizes the situation very aptly. Jkoch, I agree with some of what you say, but not your big conclusion, a a negotiator would need troops and money to coerce the outcome. An outcome that’s coerced would have no durability or value at all but would merely set the stage for further, most probably worse, escalations of violence down the line.
Very often, in the interests of peace and laying the basis for work towards a more egalitarian future, it is worth making some concessions in negotiations. Thus for example in South Africa the country’s previous White monopolizers of power were given the following benefits if they agreed to a one-person-one-rule political order: (1) They got to keep just about all of their existing, very ill-gotten economic possessions, and (2) They got to evade meeting any punishment for their previous gross rights abuses (crimes against humanity, indeed.)
Those weren’t easy concessions for many anti-apartheid activists to accept. But they did, and got things of great value out of the deal.
I think the Iraqi Sunnis, who are a much larger proportion of the relevant national population than the South African Whites were (11%), should probably be offered some similar kind of a deal…
No, I am not arguing only for “beatitudes” and “sermons” in pursuit of negotiations. I am arguing for strenuous, values-based talks in which the rights, responsibilities, amd fears of all parties are vigorously explored and means of resolution identified and built upon. Such negotiations need not take too long– the Iraqi parties actually do know each other, and each other’s sensitivities, fears, and desires, much better than any outsider knows them. They do probably, at this point, need some form of outside sponsorship, but any US sponsorship– whether by Khalilzad or the AFSC (which I certainly don’t advise!)– is anyway tainted and counter-productive because the US is now a part of the problem and will continue to be such so long as it tries to maintain its control over the country.
I think that faute de mieux the UN is the party best positioned to sponsor the needed negotiations.
this comment isn’t directly related to the post, but it is about iraq. i read a post you made in september 2004 about tall afar. i was in that battle. i was a 20 year old light machinegunner in an infantry platoon. please understand that this comment isn’t meant to harass anyone who reads this site or try to persuade you to follow my political beleifs. i am open minded to new ideas, and i hate extremism about anything. i’m a regular kid who just happened to spend a year of my life fighting in iraq. the absolute heaviest fighting i saw in iraq was in tall afar. beleive me there was a huge threat in that town. there was a clear enemy. that enemy oppressed the people of that town far more than we ever could. they executed anyone who worked with americans… even our BARBER! they used children to run weapons and ammunition between fighting positions. they turned the beautiful town of tall afar into a fortress. there was an average of 6 to 8 ambushes a day. large scale ambushes that were very well coordinated. the enemy had no problem ambushing us in situations that would be likely to cause civilian casualties, and usually did. days before the start of that operation the enemy shot down one of our helicopters and tried to overrun the crash site. this resulted in a six hour battle to defend the crash site and to rescue the pilots. during that day alone in tall afar i almost lost my life more than once, that’s just THAT day.
I know that very bad things happened during the operation you posted about, i was there. and it is true we tried to clear out all the civilians before the operation.. as we tried to clear them out so did the enemy. we wanted to minimize civilian deaths. i know that civilians died in that battle. and just because they didn’t evacuate when we urged them to doesn’t mean their deaths aren’t on our hands. i just don’t think you portrayed this operation correctly. yes horrible things happened, but please don’t make us out to be monsters. the operation wasn’t intended to be directed at or punish the citizens of tall afar. it was meant to clear out a legitimate threat. i think about tall afar more than daily. i remember things about it i would prefer not to remember. i have no excuse for turning off the power, but i will say that town has always had a water problem.. the pumps are on a lowground and there usually isn’t enough pressure to pump the water up to the higher ground. there is still no excuse for turning off the power/water. in our defense, after the battle we escorted construction teams and civil affairs units thru the town to fix most of their problems that they were having with the power and water. i’m not 100% certain, but i’m fairly sure that they made some progress in that. our govt pumped a few million dollars into rebuilding that town after our operation.
i’m not saying this to absolve us of responsibility for anything bad that happened during our offensive,
a word about “the source”. we understood clearly that most of the time informants would use us to settle personal feuds or use us against a group they didn’t like. it was usually pretty clear when this was going on. just because our commander said he had little understanding of the culture and the people in iraq doesn’t mean we didn’t gain some kind of understanding of it. our commander lived in a palace in mosul while we slept in bombed out buildings in our sector or dusty airbases nearby. we were the ones who interacted daily with these people. us on the lower levels who were “roaming nearby villages rounding people up” understood a bit more about the culture of the people. we didn’t understand much but we understood enough to know that our informants usually fed us garbage. when it became apparent we were being fed garbage we would usually not act on it.
i’m sorry that this has degraded into an unorganized ramble.. and i say again i’m not here to harass you or change your beleifs.
there was a huge amount of intense fighting in tall afar that destroyed many peoples houses and caused many people to flee to the desert to refugee camps. there was a clear enemy who took over the town and made it a fortress. we did fight them out. this did cause civilian deaths and destroyed families. afterwards we did do everything we could to rebuild tall afar and fix their problems with water and electricity. i’d like to say again taht i’m just a regular kid whow was a machinegunner in tall afar. i’d like to say that this comment isn’t politically motivitated, i hate politics, they’re dangerous. i’d like to say i respect your opinion, i’m just trying to show you this operation for my point of view, a 20 year old kid with a machinegun in a weird situation with only about a month left in iraq at the start of the most dangerous operation i’ve ever taken part in. if you feel like emailing me back to tell me how much you all hate me or how much of a monster i am my email address is beetlebum84@aol.com… or if you just wanna say anything at all, i enjoy discussion. thankyou.. Godbless and have a happy new year
Nick posted something quite similar to this on another thread 3 days ago, but did not engage in any followup discussion. Very suspicious behavior, Nick.
sorry…it told me that the comment window timed out so i figured it didn’t post. i came back when i again had the time so could post it again.. i guess that makes me look sort of silly but it was an honest mistake, i thought it didn’t post
Nick, it’s nice to have you back. I don’t think your behavior is suspicious or silly because I know that the comment-handling software here was on the fritz for just over a week there.
However, it’s now been fixed. (Permanently, I hope.) So the comments might still take a bit of time to post– this has to do mainly with the spam-filtering, I think. But at least folks shouldn’t be getting false error messages any more.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Nick,
You’re a good guy. Read the books about Vietnam (1-2 million Vietnamese dead). Everything you were involved in, everything you did, Americans did there. If it’s possible, read the books about America’s 10-year war on the freedom of the Filipino people 1898-1908 (20,000 US dead). Or the wars in Central America. Or the wars against the American Indians. Every one of those wars is now viewed by sane humans as morally wrong, but it seemed necessary at the time. All of our troops should read those books as part of their survival training, but then they might start asking dangerous questions, like “again?”
And if your officers ever pressure you to tell everyone when you get back home that the war is going great (Operation Homefront, as described at http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7918.shtml ), just keep telling us what you saw.
Good luck
Sorry Nick. I was overly suspicious. There’s just so much spamming and propagandizing going on these days. I’m glad you’re for real.