The following is my contribution to the debate on the issue. It's not a "solution." But it could lead to a partial American withdrawal. In any case, I assume that the Kurds of Iraq have become America's new "Israel" in a sense that Washington is going to remain committed to their survival for the foreseeable future. Not a pretty picture. But we need to be realistic. Leon Hadar
Business Times - 28 Jul 2005
No easy way out in Iraq
With no military victory or political solution in sight, the US should reconsider its democratic dreams for the region
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
IF you want to draw up a Future-of-Iraq scenario you should factor in two propositions.
First, neither the Americans and their allies nor the insurgents are going to win a 'victory' in Iraq in the foreseeable future.
Second, a political 'solution' to Iraq that would maintain its territorial integrity under a central government and gain the support of the main three ethnic and religious communities is not a realistic option at this stage of the game.
Hence the need for American policymakers to consider the above as political axioms that reflect the status quo and to try to come up with an interim arrangement - again, not a stable 'solution' that a clear 'victory' could have secured - but one that will provide Iraq and its neighbours with an opportunity to bring a sense of stability to the country and begin its economic reconstruction.
Why is a military 'victory' not an option? The cliche says that for guerillas to win means not to lose. The insurgents in Iraq, a mishmash of Iraqi and foreign fighters, former Baathists and Jihadis, that enjoy the support of the Arab-Sunni community cannot be defeated through conventional military means. At this point, the Americans and their allies don't even have enough troops in Iraq to strike the insurgents with a devastating blow that could paralyse them for a few months. And most military analysts have concluded that the Iraqi troops being trained by the Americans will not be ready to do the job in the coming months or even years.
At the same time you don't have to be a great military strategist to figure out that the insurgents can continue projecting power but they are not going to defeat the US forces.
Thus, unless there is dramatic erosion in American public support, one should not expect the United States to begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq. While the Bush administration will find it difficult to mobilise public and Congressional support for increasing the number of US troops in Iraq, the opposition to the war hasn't reached a point in which the White House is going to be under pressure to 'cut and run'.
Lose-lose situation
So expect more of the same in terms of the counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq in the coming months. That means that the insurgents will not be losing, and the Americans will not be winning.
And why is a political 'solution' not available? Utilise one of those familiar game-theory models to design sets of interactions involving the Shiites, Kurds, the Sunnis in terms of their relationship with the United States, and you'll probably conclude that the presence of the American troops in Iraq will make it impossible to reach a political agreement between the three communities; but you'll also conclude that the withdrawal of the US troops will make such an accord unlikely.
In fact, the existence of the Shiite-Kurdish coalition is based on the expectations that the Americans will continue to do the fighting against the Sunnis and not on any aspirations for a unified 'Iraqi nation'. Any indications that the Americans are withdrawing or trying to reach a deal with the insurgents will not only provide momentum for the Sunnis. It will also create incentives for either the Shiites or the Kurds (or to elements in those two communities) to break-up their coalition and try to make separate deals with the Sunnis (or some elements in that community) with the US finding itself in the middle of a new conflict.
Think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and add another player or two to that game, and you can figure out why a 'solution' to Iraq will not be reached any time soon - if at all, especially if you also integrate into your calculations the responses from other Iraqis (Turkomans, Christians) and other regional players (Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria) to developments in Iraq.
Indeed, as renowned Middle East historian L Carl Brown suggested, the political reality of the Middle East resembles that of a kaleidoscope. Everything is related to everything else as the boundaries between local, national, regional, and international issues are blurred.
You tilt the kaleidoscope, and the different pieces - Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq; Sunnis, Christians and Shiites in Lebanon; Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land - change their place on the political map. A new configuration is now in place - but only for a while, until the next tilt changes the configuration once again. In a way, the US is discovering after the war in Iraq, what many outside global players as well as local and regional players have learned the hard way: It is impossible for any actor to impose their particular agendas on the Middle East.
A player with great expectations arrives on the Middle East scene, trying to make peace between rivals, spread democracy in this country or socialism in another one or attempt to use nationalist and religious banners to create a sense of unity.
But such efforts are bound to result in counter-efforts by unsatisfied players to form opposing regional alliances and to secure the support of other local players and global powers. What you intended, does not always happen in a region where 'unintended consequences' is the name of the game - not an exception to the rule.
As historian Brown puts it: 'Just as with the tilt of the kaleidoscope the many tiny pieces of coloured glass all move to form a new configuration, so any diplomatic initiative in the Middle East sets a realignment of the players.' So the best-case-scenario for Iraq that takes into consideration this balance of power on the ground and the political reality in Washington should be based on the recognition that the least costly option will be to freeze the status quo, to ensure that the kaleidoscope will not be tilted for a while as the current configuration of an Iraq divided into three mini-states - a mostly Kurdish region in the north, a mostly Shiite area in the south, and the Sunni Triangle - remains in place.
Sounds implausible? Well, consider the reality in post-war Kosovo - with its Albanian majority and Serbian minority - which has been transformed into an international protectorate, although it still remains part of Serbia.
Kosovo cannot achieve the status of an independent state - since Serbia and its ally Russia (and probably China), backing the Serbian minority in Kosovo) will oppose such a move and also because concerns that an independent Kosovo would ignite pressure for secession of the Albanian minority in Macedonia and produce momentum for the establishment of a Greater Albania in the region. At the same time, the return of Kosovo to full Serbian control is rejected by the Albanian majority and their supporters in the West, led by the US and the European Union (EU). Hence the willingness to accept the current arrangement of a 'virtual' Kosovo mini-state. The bad news is that this is not a permanent political 'solution'. The good news is that Serbs and Albanians are not killing each other and there is some effort to establish political stability and to economically reconstruct Kosovo, under the support of a relatively small number of foreign troops.
The conditions in Mesopotamia resemble those in the Balkans under which three Kosovos could emerge in Iraq. Such a scheme will not resemble the Bush administration's let's-make-the-Middle-East-safe-for-democracy fantasies, and will require that the US launch a process of diplomatic detente with Iran, one of the three major regional players in Iraq - the two other being Turkey and Syria. Hence negotiations between the US, Iran and the Iraqi Shiite leadership whose members have close political and religious ties to the regime in Teheran could lead to an agreement in which Washington and Teheran could provide security to the Shiite region under an informal Iranian-American condominium.
'Virtual' states
A similar accord between the Kurds, the US and Turkey could allow the Kurdish region to continue to maintain its political autonomy while giving Ankara guarantees that the Kurds will not demand full political independence, will share control of oil rich Kirkuk and will grant full rights to the Turkoman minority.
Finally, when it comes to the troubled Sunni Triangle, the US could encourage the members of the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria to police the country and its borders and help establish a new Iraqi-Sunni leadership. The United Nations and the EU could also provide peacekeeping troops to help maintain order in the Sunni region. As part of the arrangement, the oil resources of Iran could come under the control of an international trust which the three Iraqi communities will be represented.
The creation of three 'virtual' mini states in Iraq should be regarded as an interim arrangement that will lead to a separation of sorts between the three contending players and create conditions in which investment from the rich Arab oil states, Iran, the EU, the US and the East Asian economies could start flowing into the country, while oil will start flowing from Iraq into the global markets and American troops could start withdrawing from the country.
After a transition period of, say, five to ten years, during which Iraq would become more stable and prosperous, the Iraqi people will have an opportunity to decide whether they want to re-establish a central government or to divide the country into two or three sovereign states. By then things in Iraq would look very different than they are today and create the conditions in which everyone - Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, Americans, Iranians and Turks, and the entire international community - could win.
Leon Hadar, BT's Washington Correspondent, is also the author of the just published 'Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
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