9
February 2004
1. "Kurdish rebel chief rails against Turkish prison conditions", former Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in a Turkish jail, again hit out at conditions inside his island prison on Saturday, saying his health was being seriously undermined.
2. "Syrian Kurdish party demands "democratic solution" for Kurds", a Syrian Kurdish party called on the Damascus government to find a "democratic solution" for the Kurds within a united Syria, in a statement received here Sunday.
3. "Turkey: Human rights defenders still targeted", despite recent legal and constitutional reforms in Turkey, human rights defenders in that country continue to be targeted for harassment and intimidation by state officials, and their activities are still restricted through a huge number of laws and regulations, a new report Turkey: Restrictive laws, arbitrary application - the pressure on human rights defenders published by Amnesty International has concluded.
4. "AKP and the rise of a new Turkish paradox", the bombs that exploded in Turkey in November have not only shaken the oldest secular Muslim country, they have also raised grave questions about Turkey’s future and its membership in the European Union.
5. "EU eyes Cyprus deal as UN bids to restart talks", EU enlargement chief, Guenter Verheugen said Friday he was confident a deal to reunite incoming EU member Cyprus could be struck after UN chief, Kofi Annan proposed resuming peace talks next week, but it remained unclear whether Turkish Cypriots would accept.
6. "Kurds blame al-Qa'ida for bombing that brought terror to tranquil northern Iraq", the Kurdish authorities said at least one of the two suicide bombers that evening was a foreigner from outside Iraq. They believed al-Qa'ida was involved, though they have not offered any evidence. One man, a Jordanian, has been arrested in the nearby city of Kirkuk, but the Kurds said they have not yet established any link between him and the bombing.
7. "Reflections on a Sovereign Iraq", by Henry A. Kissinger.
8. "Iraqi Militias Resisting U.S. Pressure to Disband", several of the biggest political parties in Iraq say they are determined to keep their well-armed militias despite American opposition to the idea.
1. - AFP - "Kurdish rebel chief rails against Turkish prison conditions":
ANKARA / 7 February 2004
Former Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in a Turkish jail, again hit out at conditions inside his island prison on Saturday, saying his health was being seriously undermined.
"Because of the very high humidity I am suffering from chronic angina," Ocalan said in a statement passed to his lawyers, who have periodic access to the former head of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which fought a war for Kurdish-self rule in southeast Turkey.
"No one could have survived in these conditions more than two years," he added. Ocalan is currently the only inmate of the island jail in the northwest of the country.
He has in the past complained of suffering from serious breathing problems which have removed his sense of taste and smell.
Kurdish activists have called on Ankara to move Ocalan to an ordinary jail from the prison island of Imrali.
Ocalan, who was captured in 1999, has previously said that if anything were to happen to him "there would be a terrible war."
In September 2003 he declared he would no longer take his daily exercise in prison in protest at the conditions.
The rebel leader was condemned to death by a Turkish military court on charges of separatism, but had his sentence reduced to life in prison after the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in 2002.
The PKK took up arms against the Ankara government in
1984, beginning a struggle which left tens of thousands of people dead.
2. - AFP - "Syrian Kurdish party demands "democratic
solution" for Kurds":
NICOSIA / 8 February 2004
A Syrian Kurdish party called on the Damascus government to find a "democratic solution" for the Kurds within a united Syria, in a statement received here Sunday.
"The Yakiti party, like all Kurdish parties in Syria, demands a democratic solution for the Kurdish cause within Syria's territorial integrity," said the statement by the secretary of its central committee, Abdel Baki al-Yussef.
He dismissed as "unfounded" accusations levelled by the Syrian authorities against Yakiti party members who are on trial for allegedly attempting to unite Syrian territory with a third state.
"Seeking to unite part of Syrian territory with a foreign state is an unfounded accusation which (the authorities) have the habit of making against all Kurdish political activists," the statement said.
More than one million million Kurds live in Syria, mainly in the north, on the border with Iraq. Some of them refused to be counted in the 1962 census to avoid military service, resulting in them and their descendants being denied Syrian citizenship.
The Kurds have also repeatedly asked that the authorities return the identity cards of nearly 200,000 Kurds that were withdrawn in 1962. The statement referred to the continued detention of the party's representative in Lebanon, Farhat Abdel Rahman Ali, saying he was arrested in December 2002 and handed over to Syrian military intelligence.
It urged the Syrian authorities to release Ali and set
free "all political prisoners" held in Syria, which opposes
Kurdish moves towards self-rule in neighbouring Iraq.
3. - Amnesty International - "Turkey: Human rights defenders still targeted":
9 February 2004
Despite recent legal and constitutional reforms in Turkey, human rights defenders in that country continue to be targeted for harassment and intimidation by state officials, and their activities are still restricted through a huge number of laws and regulations, a new report Turkey: Restrictive laws, arbitrary application - the pressure on human rights defenders published by Amnesty International has concluded.
"As old laws have been abolished, new ways have been found to obstruct the activities of human rights defenders," said Amnesty International.
The broad restrictions in law on the activities of human rights defenders give state officials many pretexts to exert pressure on such activists, including through arbitrarily detaining them, prosecuting them and prohibiting their actions.
The existence of these restrictive laws and regulations, their abusive interpretation in ways that curtail the rights of human rights defenders and the failure to implement in practice relevant legislative reforms play out in a pattern of harassment. This sits at odds, not only with Turkey's international obligations but, also with the current reform agenda that has produced positive legislative change in other areas.
"Reform is not reform until it has been fully incorporated in day-to-day practice and behaviour. It is not enough for the authorities in Turkey to change the laws; they must make sure that the police and judiciary act on the changes."
Human rights defenders are now facing a pattern of pressure, which appears to have evolved concurrent with the reform process in Turkey. Huge numbers of investigations and trials have been opened against them in recent years under various laws and regulations. While such trials usually end in acquittal or a sentence that is suspended or commuted to a fine, the effect is a form of judicial harassment designed to intimidate human rights defenders and hinder their public activities.
Turkey must take immediate steps to ensure that human rights defenders are able to carry out their legitimate actions without fear of harassment, intimidation or prosecution.
Amnesty International continues to call for a thorough
reform of law and practice to fully ensure freedom of expression, association
and assembly in Turkey.
4. - The Daily Star (Lebanon) - "AKP and the rise of a new Turkish paradox":
7 February 2004 / by Mohammed Ayoob*
The bombs that exploded in Turkey in November have not only shaken the oldest secular Muslim country, they have also raised grave questions about Turkey’s future and its membership in the European Union. Moreover, current politics reveal a new paradox: an Islamic party seeking close ties with the European Union and supporting Turkish troop deployments in Iraq as opposed to the traditionally pro-American military and the secularist, Kemalist political party increasingly lukewarm on both issues.
To understand the Turkish paradox, and the context in which extremist Islamic elements have mounted the attacks, one has to look at recent dramatic shifts in Turkish politics brought about by the rise of an Islam-based but highly pragmatic Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the gradual decline of the military’s influence. The AKP’s record in office makes clear that it is firmly committed to rooting out religious extremism, bringing Turkey into the EU fold, and developing close relations with the United States. The AKP demonstrated its commitment to the latter objective when in March 2003 it tried to get the Turkish Parliament to allow US troop deployment through Turkey into northern Iraq. That attempt failed, partly because of the government’s inexperience and partly because of strong popular sentiment against such deployment. However, the AKP more than made up for this fiasco when it pushed through a resolution in Parliament in October sanctioning Turkish troop deployment in Iraq to help keep order in the volatile Sunni triangle. This initiative was aborted when Washington had second thoughts in light of opposition from the Iraqi Governing Council.
It is interesting to note, in the context of the AKP’s pro-West stance, that the secular Turkish military establishment may have been responsible at one time for aiding and abetting the shadowy Islamist organization whose offshoots bombed Istanbul in November.
The story is rather murky. Yet there seems to be a consensus amongst Turkish analysts that the “jihadi” elements that committed the heinous acts were connected to or descended from the Turkish Hizbullah (not linked to its Lebanese namesake). This group had been armed and trained by the Turkish “deep state” the code word in Turkey for the security establishment to fight the Kurdish insurgency during the 1980s and the 1990s.
The Hizbullah originated in southeastern Turkey, the poorest part of the country, in the 1980s and spread its tentacles to the major urban centers farther west where it fought running battles with leftist political factions. Southeastern Turkey is also the area where the Kurdish population is concentrated and where the Marxist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) was waging its secessionist insurgency against the Turkish state during the same period. The strongly Islamist Hizbullah, presumably drawn largely from ethnic Turks, was ideologically and politically opposed to the PKK’s Marxist and separatist agenda.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Hizbullah adherents, armed and trained by the military, and acting as vigilantes and death squads, were responsible for killing as many as 500 PKK cadres and members of the Kurdish intelligentsia. However, with the winding down of the Kurdish insurgency and the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, the PKK threat has all but evaporated in the predominantly Kurdish areas in southeastern Turkey. This has meant that armed Islamist cadres were left without a job to do and were subsequently targeted by security agencies. Consequently, they have reverted to their original extremist agenda and have turned against the establishment that had fostered them earlier. In this sense, the Turkish Hizbullah bear an uncanny resemblance to the CIA-created and supported Mujahideen in Afghanistan who were left without a cause after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. The former have come to haunt the Turkish secular establishment just as the latter came to haunt the American establishment.
Turkey’s paradox does not end there. Many thought that once in power, the AKP would indulge in identity politics to please its staunchly religious support base. The result would be if not outright opposition to entry into the EU, at least a lukewarm attitude toward it. If anything, the AKP’s posture is exactly the opposite. The AKP has enthusiastically advocated Turkey’s entry into the EU. Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited major EU capitals immediately after the party’s victory in the November 2002 elections in order to drum up support for Turkey’s membership. On the other hand, it is the secular military that has become increasingly lukewarm toward EU membership.
It is not difficult to understand what lies beneath this paradox.
The prospect of membership in the EU, which insists on civilian control of the military, ensures that the Turkish military will be forced to fade from the political scene. Furthermore, implementing EU human rights criteria, a precondition for membership, would ensure that the security apparatus the “deep state” would be unable to coerce political elements it does not like. It is thus not surprising that the military traditionally the most secular element in Turkish society and considered to be pro-EU has become lukewarm toward EU membership, and increasingly “nationalist” (read anti-European) in its tone.
A final paradox that needs explanation is the AKP’s attempt to appease the US in the context of the war against Iraq, which was and continues to be widely unpopular in Turkey. Not only did the staunchly secular, Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) vote against US troop deployment in March, the military leadership, usually vocal on matters of national security, maintained a studied silence. Similarly, in October it was the AKP government that pushed through the deployment of Turkish troops into Iraq with the CHP lukewarm about it, and the military maintaining, very uncharacteristicaly,that this decision be better left to the political leadership.
The AKP government risked alienating its Islamic base by deploying troops against fellow Sunnis based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. It calculated that having the US on its side would lead to several gains. First, economic benefits would accrue, including IMF loans. Second, as a quid pro quo, the US would be willing to use its influence on EU members to accelerate the process of Turkish admission. Third, and above all, it would deter the Turkish military, which values its links with the Pentagon and depends on the US for weaponry and training, from creating a constitutional crisis as it had done in 1997 when it forced the Welfare Party AKP’s Islamic predecessor from power.
These apparent paradoxes should not be viewed as signs
of Turkey’s political immaturity. They are evidence of the AKP’s
intelligent reading and deft handling of the political situation in
the country.
Thus they contribute not only to securing the party’s position
in the polity but also consolidating democracy in Turkey.
*Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor
of International Relations, James Madison College, Michigan State University.
This article appeared in YaleGlobal Online, (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu)
a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and
is reprinted by permission.
5. - Vanguard (Nigeria) - "EU eyes Cyprus deal
as UN bids to restart talks":
9 February 2004
EU enlargement chief, Guenter Verheugen said Friday he was confident a deal to reunite incoming EU member Cyprus could be struck after UN chief, Kofi Annan proposed resuming peace talks next week, but it remained unclear whether Turkish Cypriots would accept.
Speaking after talks with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul of Turkey, which the EU wants to put pressure on the Turkish Cypriots, Verheugen expressed guarded optimism about a solution in time for Cyprus to join the European Union as a united island on May 1.
“My view is that the resumption of talks means that both parties have basically already agreed that there will be a settlement,” he said.
“Kofi Annan’s conditions are very clear and
my understanding was that he would not resume talks without sufficient
guarantees of both parties that his conditions are met,” Verheugen
added.
Annan this week wrote to the leaders of the two sides of the Cyprus
divide proposing a resumption of talks in New York next Tuesday.
But while Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos has indicated he can accept Annan’s invitation, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has cast doubt over whether he is ready for fresh talks.
On Friday, Denktash -- who torpedoed talks brokered by Annan in March last year, accused the international community of putting “merciless” pressure on the two Cypriot sides.
The hardline nationalist has still to announce if he will accept Annan’s invitation. He said he would make his decision after returning from Ankara to his self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) later Friday.
Cyprus, which lies south of Turkey’s Mediterranean
coast, has been divided since 1974 when Ankara sent troops into the
north in response to an Athens-engineered military coup aimed at uniting
the island with Greece.
6. - The Independent (UK) - "Kurds blame al-Qa'ida for bombing that brought terror to tranquil northern Iraq":
ARBIL / 09 February 2004 / by Justin Huggler
Fear has taken hold of the Kurdish city of Arbil. The streets empty quickly after dark. At night, there are police checkpoints every few hundred metres. Strangers are tailed by undercover police. The Kurdish north used to be just about the calmest place in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein but that has changed since a series of suicide attacks in Arbil that culminated in last week's double bombing here, which killed at least 101 people.
The Kurdish authorities said at least one of the two suicide bombers that evening was a foreigner from outside Iraq. They believed al-Qa'ida was involved, though they have not offered any evidence. One man, a Jordanian, has been arrested in the nearby city of Kirkuk, but the Kurds said they have not yet established any link between him and the bombing.
It was the biggest suicide bombing Iraq has seen in terms of casualties since the occupation began - the first to kill more than 100 - yet it came in the last place anybody expected it. The Kurdish north was, until a couple of months ago, spared the suicide bombings that have plagued Baghdad and the Sunni Arab heartlands.
Two suicide bombers detonated explosive-packed belts simultaneously in the headquarters of the two factions that, between them, control the Kurdish region: The Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Among the dead were senior figures in the Kurdish factions, and more than 200 were injured.
It was meticulously planned. Those responsible knew exactly when to strike to inflict the maximum casualties, said Sadiq Mohammed of the Kurdish Interior Ministry. The target appears to have been carefully selected at a time when distrust is flaring between Iraq's Kurds and Arabs because the Kurds are pushing for federalism, to retain the autonomy they have enjoyed for the past 12 years when the US hands over to an Iraqi provisional authority, as it plans to in the summer.
A clear image of one of the bombers was picked up on security cameras and by a cameraman. Footage has been shown on local Kurdish television and a grainy picture has been released of a thick-set young man. The Kurdish authorities claim it is clear from the picture the man is of non-Iraqi Arab origin.
This was not the first suicide bombing here. Two months ago, security guards surprised a bomber trying to set off explosives in the Interior Ministry building, and shot him dead, Mr Mohammed said. A Baghdad identity card was found on his body, but the Kurds said they have since found out he was a Saudi, though they do not say how they found out. A month later, a second attacker set off a car bomb next to the Interior Ministry building, killing one guard. No trace of the bomber's identity was found.
There has been a claim of responsibility for last week's bombing from Jaish Ansar al-Sunna, a previously unknown group. The Kurdish authorities claim the group is a front for Ansar al-Islam, the Kurdish militant Islamic group they accuse of links with al-Qa'ida, which was attacked by the US during the war.
The alleged link seems at odds with the only previous appearance of the name Jaish Ansar al-Sunna, on a list of resistance groups from the Sunni Arab heartlands who signed a recent message of defiance to the Americans. The Kurdish authorities may have an interest in presenting the bombers as foreigners, amid the tension over Kurdish demands for federalism.
The arrest of the Jordanian in Kirkuk has served to muddy the waters further. Mr Mohammed said he is not a Yemeni as earlier reported and reports that explosives were found in his hotel room were not true. The Kurds said he was arrested by American forces, not by their police.
There are parallels with the latest attacks and the car
bombing that killed Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim, the Shia leader,
along with scores of other Iraqis in Najaf in August. That was in a
calm area outside the Sunni heartlands, and inflicted a huge death toll.
There were also reports then that non-Iraqi Arabs had been arrested,
but nothing concrete ever emerged.
7. - Korea Times - "Reflections on a Sovereign
Iraq":
9 February 2004 / by Henry A. Kissinger
The self-imposed deadline of June 30 for the transfer of sovereignty from American to Iraqi authorities is often treated as marking the start of U.S. disengagement. In fact, the formal end of occupation changes the nature of the American engagement, not the need for it. It requires a new strategy for converting power into legitimacy and hence a new dimension to diplomacy.
American objectives in Iraq are often stated abstractly as if we went to war exclusively to reform the country. But we have a stake in the political orientation of Iraq, not only its internal structure. A sovereign Iraq on whose soil coalition forces will remain by agreement rather than occupation presupposes a government that is representative, secure, accepted internationally, and compatible with a peaceful world. The countries recognizing it must be brought to conduct complementary policies lest their competition rend the delicate fabric of the new Iraqi authority. The Iraqi authorities must accept the basic arrangement and not feel as victims of it lest their irredentism inflame the region.
Paradoxically, despite their pre-war disputes, the major powers’ interests in Iraq have, in fact, become more congruent. They would all be threatened _ each in its own way _ by a resurgent, radical Islam. They know that the consequences of failure in Iraq will spread across borders; they have much to gain from cooperation and much to lose from a repetition of the disputes at the outbreak of the war. If the sovereign Iraq turns radical or fundamentalist, every country threatened by terrorism or radicalized Islam will be in jeopardy. The moderate Islamic countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and even Indonesia share this perception, though some may be too intimidated to avow it. This common purpose based on a common fear could be the beginning of a new approach to international order much as was the post-Cold War order.
Under the best of circumstances, it will be a daunting task. The internal dynamics of a sovereign Iraq will be extraordinarily complicated. The American tradition seeks a guarantee against arbitrary political acts in a system of checks and balances. But there is no comparable experience in Iraq, which has been ruled autocratically for its entire recorded history. As a result, its various components do not look to their government for protection; instead they seek safety through enhancing the role of their communities, tribes, families, or faiths. The early stages of democratization thus tend to fragment the country rather than unify it. Each community seeks the maximum guarantee against domination by the others and the maximum share of power and wealth. This is why, after June 30, the security situation in Iraq may worsen _ at least temporarily _ as the various disaffected groups shift their attacks to the institutions of the new government.
This is where the frequently invoked analogy to the occupations of Germany and Japan breaks down. Germany and Japan were national states without serious separatist movements or internal guerrillas. After their defeats, they quickly came to a consensus that cooperation with the occupying power was the key to restoring their societies and international standings. Leaders achieved support by demonstrating closeness to the occupation forces.
In Iraq, none of these conditions are met. The population treats the war as a defeat for Saddam Hussein, not for the nation. Hatred of the deposed dictator does not translate automatically into support for the United States. Indeed, many Iraqi leaders seek legitimacy by distancing themselves from America. It took almost seven years for Germany and Japan to achieve full sovereignty. In Iraq, this process is sought to be accomplished in seven months.
Three major communities are striving for influence in the new Iraq. The Shia, being a majority, insist on elections whose practical effect would give them dominance. The issue for the other groups is to what purpose the Shia would use their majority, especially in light of the demands by some Shia factions for the creation of an Islamic Republic. Some major Shia leaders _ including allegedly Ayatollah Sistani _ are said to be opposed to a theological government, and no doubt many Shia are immunized against authoritarianism by their experience under Saddam Hussein. But these issues are still being contested within the Shia community by the various factions now in the process of forming themselves. Outside forces, especially from Iran, will play a significant role. The Iraqi radical and fundamentalist ayatollahs have so far sheathed their most potent weapon, the capacity to organize mass demonstrations. The future stability of Iraq will depend on whether they are waiting on showing their power for the end of the occupation or have genuinely accepted a pluralistic secular outcome.
By contrast, the Kurds, with their history of oppression by Baghdad, urge a federal system that would confine the central government to defense, foreign policy, and largely administrative functions with few, if any, enforcement powers or local governance. Kurds define self-government as only microscopically distinguishable from independence.
The heretofore-dominant Sunnis are mourning their lost preeminence. Having dominated Iraq for all of its history, they have no stake _ at least yet _ in preserving the emerging new structure. Whatever compromise emerges in the formation of a government will likely only mitigate their hostility, not dispel it. Thus, in the debate over the new arrangements, the Shia pose the challenge of the limits of pluralism, the Kurds of the limits of federalism, and the Sunnis the challenge of reconciliation.
Perhaps the single most crucial determinant for America’s role is the impact of our democratic ideals on traditional Iraqi values. Overcoming the institutionalized inequality for women, for example, will bring us into conflict with the Islamic religious establishment, whether Sunni or Shia. Thus the ultimate domestic issue in Iraq may well turn on secularization versus Islamization. And the main secularizing force in Iraq was the Baathist party, which we have ousted. Finding domestic partners in Iraq will become a principal test of American statesmanship.
Iraq’s neighbors will have their own ideas on this process. Syria can live with a secular, developing Iraq but not with a Shiite one, and it will be uneasy about a pro-Western orientation. Iran fears a strong Iraq and will resist a pro-American one. Turkey would welcome a pro-Western Iraq but be uneasy about Iraqi federalism.
Iran’s position is the most complex. It has a strategic interest in the weakest possible central government in Baghdad to forestall Iraq's reemergence as a major force balancing Tehran’s aspirations to regional hegemony. It favors federalism but fears the Kurds lest their autonomy challenge Tehran’s rule over Iran’s Kurdish population. Iran’s trump card is the majority Shia population of southern Iraq. Opinion is divided as to whether the Iraqi Shia prize national independence over religious comity. During the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, they remained loyal to Baghdad though Saddam Hussein’s terror may have played a role in this. Some suggest that since historically southern Iraq was the focal point of Shia orthodoxy, the Iraqi Shia might emerge as ideological rivals to the Tehran ayatollahs _ though surely not without establishing some sort of Islamic rule of their own, weakening the prospects for stability in the rest of Iraq.
Be that as it may, Iran is clearly in a special position to generate support in the Shia region and to hinder a consolidation inimical to its interests. But Iran will probably try to keep our frustration below a level causing us to retaliate. Its conduct in Iraq will therefore be heavily influenced by America’s ability to come together on an Iranian policy which combines firmness with a diplomatic option.
Turkey, as a NATO ally, has a significant interest in preventing a setback for the United States. And it is prepared to extend assistance in stabilizing Iraq. There are two limitations, however: the history of Turkish rule during the Ottoman Empire, and the potential conflict over the governance of the Kurdish regions. The former prevents _ or at least complicates _ Turkish participation in the security field. And Turkey has an interest in the Kurdish region not entirely compatible with American support for Kurdish autonomy. Its leaders fear similar claims for autonomy among the Turkish Kurds, representing 20 percent of Turkey's population. If Kurdish autonomy goes beyond a certain point, there is a not negligible threat of Turkish military intervention, perhaps backed by Iran.
If Iraq’s neighbors multiply complexities, the attitude of other countries opens hopeful prospects. France and Germany have had second thoughts about congenital tensions with America: Their pressure for a more rapid transfer of sovereignty under U.N. auspices is being overtaken by events. Iraq will have achieved sovereignty in a matter of months regardless of auspices, and the administration has involved the United Nations in the run-up to it. The key question for the future is how the allies deal with the emerging Iraq: Will they close ranks with the United States behind a common process, or will they use their enhanced access to the sovereign Iraqi government to begin competing with us to reduce American influence in Baghdad? Will Europe attempt to be a counterweight or a partner in charting the future of Iraq and the Middle East? Is Europe prepared to make a security and financial contribution commensurate with enhanced influence?
Paradoxically, the future of Iraq, which two years ago threatened to destroy the alliance, may turn into an opportunity to rebuild the Atlantic Alliance and, beyond that, the international order in general. Until July 1, the United States is in a position to shape the institutions of a sovereign Iraq by itself. After that, Iraqi sovereignty will give other nations an inevitable participation. And even before that, the administration is involving the United Nations to help resolve the electoral issue. A wise American policy would therefore seek to shape events before it is forced into it by the very process we have started. Specifically:_The transfer of sovereignty to Iraq must not be the beginning of American withdrawal from Iraq but the start of a new phase of a different kind of American involvement.
_Security remains essential, but the new phase may permit a gradual assumption of domestic security functions by Iraqi forces with American troops guarding frontiers, infiltration routes, and attacks by large units.
_Since the process of internationalizing the political future of Iraq will start at the latest on July 1, it is better for the United States to lead it now by involving more countries in the process in two stages: by a contact group with NATO to bring about a basis for joint allied action in Iraq, and a larger group under the United Nations to define Iraq’s relationship to the international community.
Such an arrangement is all the more important if it becomes necessary to face the ultimate challenge: it may be that like Yugoslavia, Iraq, created for geostrategic reasons, cannot be held together by representative institutions, that it will tend toward autocracy or break up into its constituent groups. While this is far from the preferred outcome, if the democracies are unable to produce democratic central institutions and unwilling to support a benevolent autocrat like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (founder of the Turkish Republic), then a breakup into three states is preferable to refereeing an open-ended civil war. But it would require firm international guidance.
This implies not an abdication of American policy to a
multilateral consensus but shaping it with strong leadership. We are
bound to have a major _ probably dominant _ voice because of our military
and financial contributions, much as we have in Afghanistan. We achieved
the important objective of removing the threat posed by Saddam Hussein
by leading a coalition of the willing. Building a new structure of peace
requires a wider basis.
8. - The New York Times - "Iraqi Militias Resisting U.S. Pressure to Disband":
BAGHDAD / 9 February 2004 / by Edward Wong
Several of the biggest political parties in Iraq say they are determined to keep their well-armed militias despite American opposition to the idea.
They contend that the militias remain necessary in light of the lack of security throughout the country.
Having had scant success so far in persuading the militias to disband, occupation officials are searching for a new policy that will help disarm the groups, whose members total in the tens of thousands, said a senior military official.
But less than five months remain until the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government, leaving the Bush administration little time to deal with what many officials here consider an incendiary problem.
In the rugged north, Kurdish militiamen called the pesh merga patrol the roads. In the south, members of the Badr Organization, a militia run by a prominent Shiite political party, work with the police to secure the cities, said the group's leader.
Iraq's instability — and fog-shrouded political future — leave the parties with no incentive to disband the militias, experts say.
"It's all a matter of confidence in the future," said Joost R. Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organization. "You're not going to give up your weapons if you think you're going to fight again in the future."
Militia leaders say the groups can help stabilize the country, something they argue that American troops have been unable to do.
Several politicians say they may push to have the Iraqi Governing Council enshrine the existence of the militias in an interim constitution due Feb. 28, with the justification that the armed groups can serve as emergency forces.
Some even suggest that American officials should transfer oversight of security entirely to Iraqi forces — including the militias.
"The issue is just like cleaning the city," said Hassan al-Amari, the leader of the Badr Organization, estimated to have at least 10,000 members. "You can't keep the city clean without the help of the people themselves."
All along, the Americans have worried that private armies like the militias could inflame a nation already divided along ethnic and religious lines. Starting in the mid-1970's, militias fought each other in the Lebanese civil war.
The major militias here are attached to parties dominated by Kurds or Shiite Arabs, who make up a majority of the population but were long excluded from real power. The other main group, the Sunni Arabs, do not have political parties with militias and fear retribution for their years in power.
"People don't like the militias," said Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy, a Governing Council member and a Sunni Arab. "They think they are going to destroy what we are building here."
The continuing presence of the militias "holds real danger," said Mr. Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. "If you give real power to these militias, how do you fold them into a big army? They might not want to join."
There are three groups the American military considers to be active militias. First, there is the pesh merga, whose 50,000 soldiers are split between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Next is the Badr Organization, a unit of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite party. Then there is the Mahdi Army, formed by Moktada al-Sadr, a virulently anti-American cleric who is Shiite.
The senior military official estimated the number of the Mahdi Army in the "high hundreds to thousands," and said its antioccupation stand "concerns us greatly." In October, members of the militia ambushed American soldiers in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum in Baghdad. Two soldiers and two Iraqis were killed in firefights.
Days later, other members of the Mahdi Army, named for a mythic Shiite imam who is supposed to reappear to lead an apocalyptic battle, reportedly fought in the city of Karbala against American soldiers and supporters of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the revered Shiite cleric.
A representative for Mr. Sadr said the Mahdi Army helps the police in Sadr City and guards institutions like mosques. "The Americans have failed to provide security, not only in Sadr City, but in all of Iraq," said the representative, Sheik Amir al-Husseini. "Sadr City has taken it upon itself to provide peace and security to the people."
The Mahdi Army's main rival is the Badr Organization, formerly the Badr Brigade. Leaders changed the name after the group's Iranian-trained members entered Iraq following the American invasion. They now call it a "humanitarian" or a "political" group, though they boast its members help the police secure the streets of large cities, sometimes with AK-47's, sometimes through intelligence gathering.
Some Iraqi police officers have accused the Badr group of assassinating former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, though militia officials deny that.
Many Shiite Arabs, led by Ayatollah Sistani, are demanding direct elections before the scheduled transfer of sovereignty on June 30. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite party overseeing the Badr Organization, said the group could help provide security at polling stations if given "special permission" by the Americans. But many people find the idea of using party militias at polling sites disturbing.
The Badr Organization is dwarfed by the pesh merga, an obvious presence in the northern Kurdish region, with their baggy uniforms and Kalashnikov rifles. They were trained to fight against Mr. Hussein's forces and to protect the no-flight zone declared by the American and British governments in 1991.
After the twin suicide bombings in Erbil on Feb. 1, pesh merga — meaning "those who face death" — set up checkpoints every couple of blocks in that city.
Kurdish leaders say they want to retain broad autonomous powers in the region, including the use of the pesh merga. Militias can be kept as reserve forces, similar to the National Guard in the United States, said Barham Salih, prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
As the Governing Council tries to define federalist powers in the interim constitution, Kurdish leaders will probably argue for the right to keep the pesh merga, especially given their memory of mass killings of the Kurds under Mr. Hussein's rule.
Mr. Amari, the head of the Badr Organization, said his Shiite party had not yet asked the Governing Council to legally approve the militias, but would do so if the Kurds and others pushed for that right. Once the country is stabilized, he said, those armed groups should be dissolved.
The two other political parties that had militias at the time of the American-led invasion, the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi National Accord, supposedly disbanded their armed groups over the summer.
The Congress's militia, numbering at least 1,000, was trained and equipped by the Pentagon, while the Accord's force was backed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
But the Iraqi National Accord now runs the Interior Ministry, which controls many of the country's security forces, including the police. The Congress retains many armed guards. A spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, Entifadh Qanbar, said "militias are very important in certain areas" and could serve as emergency forces.
"It will counter the Iraqi army, so it will prevent coups d'état," Mr. Qanbar said.
The Coalition Provisional Authority lets Iraqis keep properly licensed small arms, a policy that allows militia leaders to say their weapons are legal.
The American military has discovered illegal caches of artillery in the hands of some political parties. Last month, in the northern city of Kirkuk, considered a powder keg of ethnic tensions, the 173rd Airborne Brigade found rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortar rounds in the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Occupation officials are experimenting with absorbing the militias into national defense units. Five major parties with militias contributed about 100 people each to the formation of the 36th Battalion of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps last month. The battalion has mixed the different soldiers at the squad level.
But it is unclear how well this works. Asked to allow
a reporter to observe the battalion in action, the American military
declined, citing "operational considerations."