Author: Helena

Just a few more indicators to add to what I wrote about here Sunday…
Juan Cole posted today news from Az-Zaman that:

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has decided to send a representative to Kurdistan to discuss the differences between him and the Kurdish leadership over Kurdish desires for a loose federalism that would give them substantial autonomy within Iraq. Sistani’s spokesman said that he wanted to reduce the feelings of anxiety and being slighted expressed by the Kurdish leaders and in the Kurdish street at Sistani’s stance.

In that same post, he also noted that,

Veteran diplomat and superb Arabist Christopher Ross, who is in the Coalition Provisional Authority’s Outreach Department, has indicated a desire to meet with radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr for talks about the fate of the Mahdi Army militia. Previously the CPA had refused to deal with Muqtada directly, accusing him of having had rival cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei killed in April of 2003.
Ross’s request for a meeting may well be a sign that a more pragmatic set of officials from the State Department is beginning to take charge of such policies from the Neocon establishment that had dominated the Coalition Provisional Authority (and which had generally screwed up Iraq royally). On June 30, the real transition will be from Defense Department dominance of Iraq to State Department responsibility for Iraq.

I really like that last judgment he articulates there!
Still in the column for “indicators of useful internal contacts inside Iraq”, I see that Reuters is reporting today that:

Interim [Iraqi] President Ghazi al-Yawar, recently returned from the Group of Eight summit in the United States, said he welcomed Sadr’s recent decision to create a political party that could take part in Iraq’s first democratic elections in the new year.
“I kept on saying consistently that if I were in his shoes I would try to go to the political arena instead of raising arms,” Yawar told reporters outside the Iraqi government building.
“He has supporters, he has constituents, he should go through the political process and I commend this smart move on his side.”

In the column for “indicators of distinctly unuseful internal contacts inside Iraq”, meanwhile, is the following Reuters report:

Continue reading “Real politics inside Iraq? ~Part 2”

It is possible, just possible, that the coming weeks will see the emergence
of real internal politics inside Iraq. That is, the kind of politics
marked by realistic discussion and tough negotiating among leaders of the
country’s different major factions. That’s not to say the violence will
completely go away. But if the discussions/negotiations are serious
enough, they might be able to win out over the tendency to violence, and the
country might yet be able to hold the fair, nationwide elections that everyone–everyone!–says
they want to see before the end of January 2005.

That consensus around the need for elections is a great starting point.

I guess the precedent I’m thinking most about is that of South Africa’s
early-1990s transition from brutal minority rule to a true, one-person-one-vote
system. That transition was also marked by continuing violence that
in some areas was considerable, and indeed almost threatened the country’s
ability to hold the elections in late April of 1994. A small portion
of the bowing-out minority community (the Boer-dominated “White” community)
tried to mount a rearguard action against the move to democracy, and was
able to enlist the help of pro-Buthelezi collaborators inside the Zulu community
in order to keep the violence stoked. But that didn’t work. What
predominated in the end was the very long-drawn-out process of negotiating
the “ground-rules” for how the country’s democracy would work.

Those negotiations achieved their declared aim–which in the context of
South Africa’s extremely troubled history of inter-group relations was in
itself an enormous accomplishment. But beyond that, the negotiating
process itself established some basis of trust between communities and people
where previously there had been no trust at all. And it also helped
the very underdeveloped system of political parties within the previously
unfranchised portion of the citizenry to become better formed and more stable
by virtue of the participation of these parties in the negotiation itself.

In Iraq, it was this extremely important process of internal, inter-group negotiation
over the basics of how Iraqis would live and work together in the future that
that arrogant and silly man Paul Bremer tried to completely short-circuit
earlier this year when he summarily forced the 24 members of Iraq’s quasi-puppet
Interim Governing Council to sign onto something called the “Transitional
Administrative Law”. (For my analyses at the time, read
this
and this
and this
.)

So why am I thinking now that possibly–just possibly–we might be seeing
the start of the kind of real politics inside Iraq that might–just might–signal
the possibility of the country escaping from the present tempest of violence
in which it seems mired?

Continue reading “Real politics starting inside Iraq?”

Using its wellknown and amazingly strong capacity for effective diplomacy, the Bush administration has been able to announce that after long, very complex negotiations with “Iraq” it has been able to reach agreement with “Iraq” over who gets to command the military there after June 30th.
That wellknown “national leader” Iyad Allawi fought tooth and nail for the very best possible deal for the people he represents…
Who are?
Oops, I forgot that part. Allawi was of course actually appointed by the IGC, which was appointed by the Americans. Prior to that (and most probably, until today), he was on the payroll of the CIA.
Why on earth should the Bushies expect anyone else to take any of this so-called “news” about an American creation reaching agreement with the U.S. government seriously?