Gilbert Achcar’s latest despatch warns us regarding Saturday’s upcoming referendum in Iraq that:
- whether the [constitutional] draft passes the referendum or not, there will be a largely autonomous Shiite entity in Southern and Central Iraq, in control of the major part of Iraqi oil reserves and allied with Iran. When one bears in mind the fact that the bulk of Saudi oil reserves are located in the Shiite-majority Eastern province of the US-protected Saudi Kingdom, one gets to realize the full extent of what is more and more of a nightmare for Washington.
Anyway, big thanks to Gilbert for sending us yet another update. The translations and analysis that he provides here are really helpful. They provide useful background to everything the English-language MSM is telling us about the maneuverings by Khalilzad, the Arab league etc., in the run-up to the referendum.
So here, starting with a couple of pleasant little literary flourishes, are the three parts of today’s despatch:
1) Gulliver in Iraq —for how long?
US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay
Khalilzad, best epitomizes the actual status of the US occupation
of Iraq, which looks more and more indeed, in its relation to Iraqi Shiites
and Sunnis, like Gulliver among
Lilliputians and Blefuscudans (Google shows that the reference to Gulliver
with regard to Iraq is already very frequent—you know how this episode of
Gulliver’s Travels ended)
.
After having meddled very unsuccessfully in Iraqi haggling over the draft
constitution, and proved unable to convince the Shiite parties to water down
their own demands in order to get an impossible consensus, the Ambassador
is terrified at the result he could not prevent. One more time, the US is
proving to be an “apprentice-sorcerer” in the Middle East (after so many
decades of failed apprenticeship, it is high time for the US government to
quit this ambition).
From the very beginning of its occupation of Iraq, the US administration has
sought to apply the classical imperial recipe of “divide and rule.” In order
to be successful, such a game needs smart Machiavellian players: definitely
not what you’ve got in
Washington
. The result now is that, whether the draft passes the referendum or not,
there will be a largely autonomous Shiite entity in Southern and Central
Iraq, in control of the major part of Iraqi oil reserves and allied with
Iran. When one bears in mind the fact that the bulk of Saudi oil reserves
are located in the Shiite-majority Eastern province of the US-protected Saudi
Kingdom, one gets to realize the full extent of what is more and more of a
nightmare for Washington.
For those who do not know about the Saudi Eastern province, here are excerpts
from a
good Wikipedia
description:
Ash Sharqiyah, known
as Eastern Province is the largest province of Saudi Arabia, located
in the east of the country on the coasts of the Persian Gulf … It has an
area of 710,000 km² and a population of 2,886,700 (1999). …
The Eastern Province was conquered by the Saudis in 1914 on the Ottoman Empire.
It had been known as Al Hasa under Ottoman rule.
The Eastern Province is largely Shi’ite, which makes it a very dangerous
place for the ruling Sunni family to visit. Some villages are virtually no-go
areas for the security forces. The reason for this is that Shi’ites in the
country often live in bad conditions because Wahhabism is the State religion,
and shi’ites classification as kuffar [infidels] has led to the denial of
certain rights for them.
Saudi Aramco, the oil producing company of the Kingdom, is based in Dhahran,
which is located in the Eastern Province, and most decisions on oil policy
and production are made there. Saudi Arabia’s main oil and gas fields are
all located in the Eastern Province, whether onshore or offshore.
Khalilzad is trying
desperately and hectically now to negotiate some kind of last-minute compromise,
while there are more and more US statements (C. Rice recently) taking their
distances from the draft constitution. “Divide and rule” is an astute imperial
recipe when it serves as a way to keep control over a territory. But when
it messes up and leads to the most important part of this territory threatening
to acquire autonomy, free itself from the tutelage of the Empire and ally
with the latter’s bitterest regional enemy, the result has only one name:
it is a disaster.
Khalilzad is actually
trying to “limit the damage” to US interests by seeking some compromise through
which key Iraqi Sunni and Shiite forces could be “reconciled” so that some
kind of centralized Iraq could be held together, with the US as main broker/mediator—in
other words, Khalilzad is trying to rescue “operation
divide and rule.” In this endeavor, the
US
Ambassador, far from looking as a “honest broker,” is acting more and more
like a local player in Iraqi politics (which is by itself an indication of
the big failure of the Bush administration’s designs).
Khalilzad is now working openly hand in hand with Iraqi CIA-buddy
and former “Prime Minister,” Iyad
Allawi: they are conducting together Washington’s last-minute attempts,
meeting together with the Kurdish leadership, etc. On the other hand, Washington
has asked the Arab League—which is even more under US domination than the
UN is—to mediate on a parallel track. Below are some indications of the bright
results of Washington’s work on these two parallel tracks among Iraqi Shiites.
2) Khalilzad’s last-ditch proposals
Excerpted from
a report by Su’dad al-Salihi
in today’s Al-Hayat
:
Ali al-‘Adad, a member of the Central Committee
of SCIRI, told Al-Hayat
that “the US Ambassador’s initiative is actually an attempt to reshuffle
the cards, with the aim to embarrass Shiite negotiators under the pretext
of reinforcing national unity.”
He added that “the initiative included seven proposals the most important
being the creation of a Higher Commission for the revision of the constitution,
which would include representatives of the parties and discuss the constitution
and its objectives, in order to formulate amendments, lift the ban on the
participation of Ba’athists in political and
governmental instances and stop their prosecution, and limit federalism by
a law, including implementation measures and conditions.”
Al-‘Adad stated that the
UIA’s position on these proposals is “total rejection of the two proposals
regarding the prosecution of Ba’athists and federal
provinces.”
He pointed to the fact that “the adoption of a set of measures putting limitations
on the creation of federal provinces, as included in the initiative, would
make it difficult for the Shiites to set up a province in the Center and
South in the future.” As for the proposal to create a Higher Commission for
the revision of the constitution, “we are discussing the proposal and have
asked for another formulation.”
The SCIRI Central Committee member described
the initiative as “an American-Kurdish trick aiming at the creation of a
Shiite bloc led by Iyad
Allawi, the former Prime Minister and present leader of the “al-
Iraqiya” bloc, to divide the ranks of the Shiites.”
He added that “neither the US Ambassador nor the Kurds nor anybody have any
guarantee that the Sunnis will support the draft constitution,” and that
“the whole story is nothing but a trick to impede the political process and
stop the intellectual and political emancipation of the Shiites who are governing
the country at last.”
3) Muqtada Sadr and the Arab League’s “mediation”
Arab sources reported Muqtada al-
Sadr’s position on the Arab League’s interference purposely downplaying,
if not plainly ignoring, the most important part of this position that considered
any Arab troops intervening in Iraq as “occupation troops.” Here is my translation
of Muqtada al-Sadr’s
communiqué:
In the name of the Almighty,
We make two official demands to the Arab League:
First: that it formally condemns the crimes of the occupation, the terrorist
crimes against civilians and holy places and the deeds of what is called
Zarqawi.
Second: that it formally condemns Saddam’s deeds and calls for his execution
or his fair trial by honorable Iraqis [most Shiites hold in high suspicion
the judge appointed by the US occupation to try Saddam Hussein]
With these two conditions fulfilled, the Arab League will be able to intervene
in Iraqi affairs politically, not by sending troops; the latter will be considered
as occupation troops with all the consequences.
Muqtada al-
Sadr
6 Ramadan 1426 [9 octobre 2005]