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Kingdom at crossroads

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Kingdom at crossroads

Speculation in Saudi Arabia is growing over who will succeed the ailing King Abdullah, writes Salah Nasrawi

For more than two weeks now Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz has been battling for his life. As the days pass, there is growing concern surrounding the inevitable power struggle between members of the Saudi royal family.

Abdullah was admitted to a military hospital in the capital Riyadh on 31 December for medical tests. A statement from the court two days later said the king was suffering from pneumonia and needed help breathing.

Though the statement described the condition of the 91-year-old monarch, whose health has been in decline for years, as being stable, international attention has focused on the expected power shift in the oil-rich kingdom.

With Abdullah hospitalised, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, who is also the first deputy prime minister and minister of defence, appears to have taken taking charge of the day-to-day running of the government.

Last week the 80-year-old prince delivered the monarch’s traditional address to the Shura Council, an advisory body whose members are appointed by the king. Salman warned that Saudi Arabia is facing unprecedented challenges resulting from several regional conflicts, but assured Saudis that their “leadership is aware of these challenges and their consequences.”

With wars raging in neighbouring Iraq and Yemen and lower oil prices casting a shadow over domestic policies, Salman sought to reassure Saudis that the government is responding to the critical position the country now finds itself in.

On 5 January, four gunmen attacked a Saudi security patrol near the Iraqi border, killing three soldiers and wounding at least three more. The daring assault was the first deadly attack on Saudi Arabia since it joined the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) militants.

Plummeting oil prices are the kingdom’s other major challenge. In his speech, Salman said Saudi Arabia will deal with the challenge posed by lower oil prices “with a firm will.” The collapse in the price of oil has raised the alarm about the prospect of budget cuts that could impact the kingdom’s policy of “buying loyalty.”

Abdullah’s failing health, the crown prince’s old age, as well as the unpredictable generational turnover in the leadership, have raised concerns about the future of the kingdom in the face of domestic and regional threats.

Abdullah assumed the throne in 2005 as the country’s sixth king and named his half-brother, defence minister Sultan, as crown prince.

When Sultan died in 2011, Abdullah named another half-brother, Nayef, the minister of the interior, as heir apparent.

The current crown prince, Salman, was appointed in 2012 after the death of Nayef in 2012. He is 80 years old and believed to be suffering from dementia.

According to Saudi tradition, and unlike in most other monarchies where sons usually inherit the throne, the monarchy passes down the line of sons of the founder of the modern kingdom, Abdel-Aziz ibn Saud, who died in 1953.

While age was the main qualification for succession, Abdel-Aziz’s older sons were sometimes passed over due to their low profile or a lack of the ability or willingness to take on the role.

As most of Abdel-Aziz’s 45 sons have now either died or are aging, the unstable and unprecedented conditions confronting Saudi Arabia today have come as the prolonged hold of this second generation comes to an end.

In March, Abdullah took Saudis and the world by surprise by naming his youngest half-brother, Mugrin, as deputy heir. In a royal decree, Abdullah also prevented Salman from rescinding the move. The successor is traditionally picked by the new king. Abdullah’s early appointment of a deputy heir left long-time observers of Saudi politics puzzled.

The appointment of Mugrin as second heir has prompted speculation about Abdullah’s intentions. Though there has been no public dissent, rumours on social media abound about strains within the House of Saud over Mugrin’s nomination, casting doubt on prospects for a smooth handover of power.

In addition to the generational problem and the imminent passing of the elder royal power-holders, there are other factors central to the Saudi succession.

The origin of the mother also plays a role in choosing a successor, as is the tradition in Arab tribal societies. While Abdullah’s mother belonged to a powerful Saudi clan, Salman’s mother was a member of the prominent Sudairi tribe and also gave birth to Abdullah’s predecessor, King Fahd, and former crown princes Sultan and Nayef.

While a remaining Sudairi, Ahmed bin Abdel-Aziz, a former interior minister, could still be considered a contender for the throne, Mugrin’s status could also be challenged because his mother was Yemeni.

All this has raised the question of why Abdullah chose Mugrin as deputy crown prince and sidestepped the Allegiance Council, an official body tasked with choosing the crown prince. Some rumours have suggested the move was designed to pave the way for Abdullah’s eldest son, Mitab, to become crown prince after Salman dies or abdicates.

Abdullah promoted Mitab to minister of the National Guard in 2013 and made him a member of the cabinet. The National Guard is a formidable force in Saudi Arabia and is larger and better equipped than the regular army.

He also appointed another of his sons deputy foreign minister and two other sons provincial governors of the capital Riyadh and the holy city of Mecca, moves seen as an attempt to enable his children to consolidate their grip on power after his death.

Whether Abdullah is grooming Mitab or simply trying to arrange for an orderly transition, his appointments have suggested that it is virtually impossible to assess the dynamics of the Saudi succession struggle and the kingdom’s future political evolution without analysing the role of the third generation in politics.

Whoever becomes the next Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines is likely to name his own brothers as future heirs, thereby cutting out multiple cousins from access to the throne and the political advantages it provides.

Based on this analysis there are several possible scenarios for succession in the post-Abdullah era, during which the incoming leadership could serve as the facilitator of political, social and economic changes in Saudi Arabia.

One possibility is that the succession will go smoothly, with Salman becoming the new king and Mugrin his successor, but with Salman not appointing Mitab as second deputy, a post traditionally his in the succession line.

Another scenario is that Salman may wish to nominate his own crown prince after taking the throne. He could either name his brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdel-Aziz, the youngest Sudairi who was removed as interior minister in 2012, or one of his own sons as heir apparent.

A third scenario is for both Abdullah and Salman to abdicate and for the Mugrin-Mitab plan to be implemented but with a powerful Sudairi, such as interior minister Mohammad bin Nayef, nominated as deputy crown prince. This scenario envisions that both Abdullah and Salman would agree to abdicate or would both be declared unfit by the Allegiance Council.

But many in Saudi Arabia anticipate an uneasy transition following the deaths of Abdullah and Salman. One main problem is that a fraught succession could lead to sharp divisions within the House of Saud and ignite a power struggle.

The next leaders of the country will also have to deal with serious challenges internally and externally. Inside the country they will face threats from Islamist Sunni militants. There is a high risk of attacks similar to the assault on the border with Iraq, or the November attack on a Shia mosque in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, which killed five people.

They will have to cope with increasing Shia resentment against exclusion and discrimination. In recent months, clashes between the members of the Saudi Shia community and security forces in the Eastern Province have left many people, including policemen and activists, dead.

Tensions rose in October when a Saudi court sentenced the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir Al-Nimr to death for encouraging “foreign meddling” in the kingdom, “disobeying” its rulers and taking up arms against the security forces.

Significant drops in revenues due to sliding oil prices have forced the government to cut spending. The state budget for 2015 has registered a $39 billion deficit and the growth forecast for 2015 is expected to be down to 2.5 from last year’s 3.6 per cent.

Though the government has said the deficit this year will be covered by its huge foreign reserves, the financial pressures will force Saudi Arabia to cut back on salaries, wages and allowances, which contribute to about half of budgeted expenditures.

That could spark resentment among low-income families, who make up a majority of the population and are increasingly struggling to make ends meet.

Ostensibly, there is common agreement between Saudis and Saudi watchers that the succession of either Salman or Mugrin will go forward. In the long run, however, the emerging leadership faces the problem of managing the transition of power to the new generation.

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Grand bargain in Iraq?

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Grand bargain in Iraq?

The choice for Iraq now is either to continue a costly war or to embrace an historic compromise, writes Salah Nasrawi

Soon after he took office in July, Iraq’s Shia prime minister, Haider Al-Abadi, vowed that his security forces, working together with Shia militias, would beat the Islamic State (IS) group “in record time.” IS has seized large swathes of land straddling the border between Iraq and Syria.

Al-Abadi, whose predecessor Nuri Al-Maliki’s policy of excluding Sunnis gave rise to IS, promised he would end Sunni marginalisation and bring back peace to the war-torn nation through a programme of national reconciliation. He pledged to include Sunni tribes in the fight against IS and reintegrate disgruntled Sunni groups into national politics.

At first glance, Al-Ababdi’s declared way of battling the group may seem no different from US President Barack Obama’s strategy of putting Iraqi forces in the lead in the fight against IS while providing them with air cover, weapons and military advice.

Ultimately, the United States hopes that after winning the war against IS and regaining the lost territories Sunni tribes and parties will be given responsibility for policing their areas. The US plan also envisages a sort of self-rule for the Sunni provinces of the country after IS is defeated.

But the two approaches seem to sharply differ on some fundamental points, and it is hard to see if either one of them will be successful.

The US plan aims to create a local Sunni force that will take charge of security in the territories regained from IS and operate in coordination with provincial authorities. The force, to be called the National Guard, will be formed from disfranchised Sunnis, including loyalists of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and other insurgents.

The Shia-led government, meanwhile, has called for the suggested units to be part of a cross-sectarian force controlled by Baghdad. It has also planned to give official recognition to the Shia militias that have joined in the fight against IS.

In essence, Iraq’s Shias are not prepared to help drive out IS from Sunni areas in order then to give them back to the Baathists and other Sunnis who have been fighting the government. Many Shias also envision the new force as being a potential Sunni army that could threaten their power.

The Iraqi Kurds, who maintain their own Peshmerga forces, are also openly hostile to any plan to allow Arab troops to share policing of the oil-rich Kirkuk province and other disputed areas captured amidst the IS-triggered chaos. On the contrary, the Kurdish Peshmergas have been occupying areas which they have taken back from IS.

Another key difference is the role of Iran in Iraq. While Washington has excluded Tehran from the US-led international coalition against IS, the Shia-led government in Baghdad relies heavily on Iran in its war against IS. Shia leaders insist that Iran’s role in fighting IS is indispensable.

Bitter as the reality may be, Iran-affiliated militias are doing the most to fight IS militants on the ground in Iraq. Iran is the most important supporter of the Baghdad security forces, providing the Shia-led government with weapons, intelligence and advisors. Propaganda pictures of the commander of Iran’s elite Al-Quds Force and a key player in Iraq, Qassem Suleimani, posing in battle against IS is clear-cut evidence of an Iranian-led coalition in Iraq.

Paradoxically, this means that there are two military alliances now fighting in Iraq, each with different goals and divergent agendas. The question now is not which one has a better chance of succeeding, but simply if the victory over IS will help the pill go down more easily in the Sunni provinces.

There is simply no getting round the fact that when the dust of this war settles, Iraq’s Sunni-dominated provinces will still have the vote.

As the past seven months have shown, the Sunni population has little motivation and many reasons to turn against IS, particularly in the absence of a viable and acceptable alternative.

Most Sunnis do not trust the Shia-led government, and they are sceptical about reaching a genuine power-sharing deal with Shia political groups. Also, the areas under the IS group’s control are predominantly tribal, and increasing social and tribal bickering and hostility is more visible than any unified enmity to IS.

Such a complicated situation also makes it much harder for any force from outside, such as the US-led international coalition, to retake areas from IS, owing to the difficulty of filling the void and forming new alliances with local communities.

On a larger level, Iraq is going through a crisis that is not simply one of a war against terrorism but also of the ethno-sectarian-based regime that the US occupation authority created after the invasion of 2003.

The Shias and Kurds are still haunted by Saddam Hussein and his brutal rule. The Sunnis, on the other hand, have developed a culture of insurgency driven by feelings of alienation in the post-invasion era that ended 80 years of Sunni rule in Iraq and led to the subsequent empowerment of the Shias.

In this political crisis, both the ends and means of the state have become objects of immediate struggle. A situation like this puts all the parties to severe tests of national identity, power and resource sharing, along with leadership and political adaptability.

Therefore, aiming solely at defeating IS, with the ultimate goal of bringing stability to the country, seems not only to be politically naïve but also counterproductive. The Sunni insurgency was of course a necessary condition for the rise of IS, but it was not only the security vacuum that allowed IS to exploit the situation.

Since the US-led invasion, Iraq’s Sunnis have felt excluded and marginalised. A lasting power-sharing agreement between the two Muslim communities has failed to materialise. This is why even if there is a military strategy that will defeat IS, the question remains whether or not Iraq can go back to being a unitary nation when there is no formula for a balanced and sustainable power-sharing.

Today, Iraq is really made up of three enclaves separated by geography and sectarian and ethnic identities. While the Kurds have taken advantage of the IS crisis to consolidate their semi-independent region, the gap between the Shias and Sunnis is growing wider, highlighting the negative trends that have served as a catalyst for the implosion of Arab-dominated Iraq.

Beating IS is unlikely to end this trend. To avoid Iraq’s collapse requires a much larger effort than the government or the outside world have so far pledged. Iraqis have to heal the wounds left by Saddam’s brutal legacy, the sectarian-based system orchestrated by the US occupation, and the blind rage and violence it has triggered.

In recent weeks the government has been talking about national reconciliation. Vice-President Ayad Allawi, entrusted by President Fouad Massoum to coordinate such efforts, announced on 21 December that he had outlined a blueprint for reconciliation, though past reconciliation attempts have failed dismally.

The Iraqis have reached a dead end in resolving their ethnic and sectarian disputes. The only alternative left is to fight a long and costly war that will end with the break-up of their country. But partitioning Iraq is not a solution as it will create three small, weak entities which will end up being annexed by their powerful neighbours or becoming their protectorates.

In a situation like this a historic compromise has to be found in order for all the communities to subdue competing sectarian and ethnic resentments, forestall the escalation of the conflict and fend off a Balkans-like scenario for the country.

It is now up to the Shias to make an offer the Sunnis cannot refuse. The Kurds should stop exploiting the Shia-Sunni divide to advance an independence that will be resisted by Iran and Turkey. The Sunnis should also shelve unrealistic demands and accept a generous autonomy that would link them with the Shias and the Kurds in developing a national identity broad enough to give them equal power in the country.

To help secure the long-term stability of Iraq and reunite its people, such a proposal would need to go beyond the immediate communal and regional agendas. It would have to be a grand bargain for a new Iraq.

This grand bargain would need to be a genuinely historic deal that would allow the rival communities to put their egos aside, abandon their past prejudices and seize the chance not only to save Iraq from IS, but also to preserve their country, one of the oldest in human history, for themselves and future generations.

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Arab media crisis

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Arab media crisis

Four years after the region’s democratic uprisings, the Arab media are still beset by troubles, writes Salah Nasrawi

Until a few weeks ago the Qatar-based TV channel Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr was beaming anti-Egypt programmes, including labelling president Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi the leader of a military coup that toppled former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi who was supported by the gas-rich Gulf emirate.
However, on 22 December the network announced that it was closing down the service, which was launched to provide live coverage of Egypt after the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The channel would “stop broadcasting temporarily until suitable circumstances in Cairo; that is, after obtaining the necessary permits in coordination with the Egyptian authorities,” a statement read by a newsreader said before the screen went blank.
Qatar was seemingly bowing to pressure by Saudi Arabia and Egypt’s other allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) who have demanded an end to Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Jazeera’s anti-Al-Sisi broadcasts. Most Arab media have historically been under government supervision and control, but the closure of the Al-Jazeera affiliate has showed that some can hardly be described as independent.
The democratic uprisings in 2011, which further divided the Arab world, also increased polarisation in the media. From civil wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen to transitions in the rest of the Arab countries it has been an extraordinary four years in the Arab media. Across the Arab world journalists are now paying the price for the political and social turmoil. The number of journalists who have lost their jobs or been intimidated or imprisoned has been staggering.
Dozens of anchors, newscasters and journalists have lost their jobs in the Arab media in recent years, caught up in rows over editorial interference. Souhair Al-Qaisi, an Iraqi anchor on the pan-Arab channel Al-Arabia, quit her job in November in protest over the channel’s coverage, for example. She wrote on her Facebook page that she was leaving her programme The Fourth Bulletin because the network’s editorial policy towards Iraq and its war with Islamic State (IS) terrorists was “unfair.”
“As a proud Iraqi and Arab, I have to stand with my beloved Iraq which is suffering the crimes of these merciless gangs,” she wrote.
Some journalists who have left their jobs have found work later elsewhere, or have been transferred to other posts, like Al-Qaisi who was moved to MBC, a mainly entertainment channel of the Saudi-owned network. Others have not been so lucky and have been keeping up an aggressive job search.
The Arab media, long suffering from low ratings in world standards, are now in deep crisis because of decades of state control, government interference, censorship, and weak professional standards. Private investment in recent years has not added much value to media performance due to structural problems and the absence of media independence and freedom.
The Arab Spring, which raised hopes and aspirations for democracy, underpinned the vital role of the media in political reform and social change in stagnant regimes. Although expectations were high that the series of revolutions that toppled various autocratic regimes would bring more freedom to Arab journalists, the democratic setbacks that followed have adversely impacted the media.
Pessimists are now saying that the freedom of the media in the Arab world is in retreat. They note that Arab state-owned, or controlled, media, which have for decades been tools designed to “guide” the public or “shield” them from bad news, are now back in business, abandoning their role of news gathering, reporting and analysis. Through targeting mainstream audiences many governments are finding effective ways to use the state-run media to help themselves stay in power.
Independent and privately owned media, the fruits of decades of struggle by Arab journalists and activists, are becoming so polarised around ideological, religious, sectarian or business agendas that they have been contributing to the chaos. Though expectations were once high that they would help to provide audiences with a variety of choices, the independent media have often turned into instruments depriving them of alternative points of view.
The maintenance of government hegemony and the polarisation of the private-sector media have impeded the badly needed restructuring of the media sector and hampered the transition towards liberal democracy. Various assessments of the post-uprisings Arab media indicate that there is a dire need for overhauling the constitutional and legal framework that governs the media and the access to information and media freedoms to make them more consistent with international standards.
Reforms should enshrine the principles of media pluralism and diversity, including financing and ownership transparency, critics say.
Media in crisis: The problems of the media are abundant across the Arab world. Egyptian journalists who enjoyed a short period of press freedom after the 25 January Revolution are now reverting to the self-censorship they practiced under Mubarak’s rule, for example.
While journalists in the state-owned media are facing tightening limitations, their colleagues in the privately owned media face strict editorial policies by their owners and editors. In November, hundreds of journalists objected to a pledge by newspaper editors to refrain from publishing reports critical of the government. The pledge imposes near-blind support to the state in its publications. Dismissals, banning from work and even arrests are becoming increasingly common.
In Iraq, the Iraqi Media Network, set up after the ouster of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003 to function as a public-service broadcaster modelled on the BBC, has turned into a government mouthpiece. A boom in new privately owned outlets has also failed to provide diversity, and these are instead being used to reflect sectarianism and help fuel divisions. Some 200 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq over the last 12 years.
In Libya, an explosion in the number of television as well as radio and print outlets has been testimony to demands for information and self-expression after decades of the rule of former Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi. Yet, the new unrestricted media landscape has often increased the political and ideological distance between communities, making them more divided.
Tunisia is a more hopeful example. The Tunisian media, once restricted to those who supported the authoritarian regime of former president Zein Al-Abdine Ben Ali, have rapidly expanded since his fall in January 2011 as restrictions on media ownership were removed and the old regime’s system of filtering disappeared. Since 2011, the country’s public media abandoned its former red lines and new vibrant print and broadcasting outlets emerged. However, Tunisia’s media must wait for the country to pass the test of the transition to democracy to see if they stand on solid ground.
Criticism also abounds of pan-Arab outlets backed or owned by government funds or wealthy Gulf families such as the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia channels for their failure to produce accurate and balanced news content. Once these channels were heralded as vehicles for a freer Arab media and instruments for political change, but today they are often seen as platforms for a tense form of rhetoric that could increase divisions among the Arabs.
A large part of the Arab media’s problems is structural. Years of state ownership and government control have crippled the media, and laws and regulatory measures, and even authoritarian tendencies in the media itself, have had a negative impact on the work of Arab journalists. While governments vary in their regulation and control of the media, the owners of most private Arab media are entrepreneurs who have political ambitions and use their outlets to promote agendas or as conduits for lucrative business.
One reason for the chaos has been that the Arab media have few democratic traditions or intuitions. While an independent media is essential to democracy in society, democracy inside the media itself is also the key to ensuring editorial independence. On all levels, from owners and managers down to editors and journalists, the Arab mainstream media are lacking in democratic traditions.
Another key problem in the Arab media has been the absence of diversity. The Arab mainstream media generally fail to reflect political and social diversity in the communities they serve and target. The majority of the mainstream media lack innovative approaches to the challenges of the region. The Arab media do not embrace the diversity of their countries’ cultures in their programming, and most of them see the Arab world as a place where non-Sunni Muslims and non-Arabs only appear rarely in the audience.
The malaise of the Arab media, however, goes beyond politics. It reflects a growing crisis of professionalism and a lack of ethical standards that media-related institutions have failed to address over many decades. Closer attention should be paid to bring about democratic changes in the media’s structure, ownership and regulations. There is a growing demand for training on the principles of professional journalism and universal ethical standards.
If anything good can be said to have come during these difficult years it has been the social networks that have kept up an elevated level of information dissemination to make up for the limits of the mainstream media. Fast-growing and aggressive new media have been opening new horizons for citizen journalism with more people now encouraged to act as whistleblowers and inform on local wrongdoing. Comments on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and by email and text are now forming a large segment of Arab public opinion.
The other piece of good news is that the Arab media still exercise influence despite all the hurdles and restrictions. They may not be the fourth estate that many would have liked to see, but neither do they seem to have lost their ability to influence politics and events.
During a visit to Egypt in October, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir lamented that Arab governments now had a limited ability to muzzle the media, for example. “People used to follow the religion of their kings,” he said, quoting from an old Arab saying. “Now they follow that of their media.”

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Oil vs Kurdish independence

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Oil vs Kurdish independence
Iraqi Kurds pinned high hopes on oil to fulfill their independence dream. Too bad oil is undermining it, writes Salah Nasrawi
Iraqi Kurds have always argued that they have nothing to lose by fighting for independence but the chains of Iraq’s Arabs. For decades, they have been waiting for, and sometimes trying to create, the right moment to go their own way.
When Kurdistan started extracting oil after gaining autonomy following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 hopes were high among Kurds that lucrative revenues would be used to build an independent economy and consequently help them to break away from Iraq.
This year as the Kurdistan Region Government started selling its crude independently it cut off most of its ties with Baghdad and started preparing for the day when Kurds will erect the political barriers that would separate them from Iraq.
With an estimated reserve of 45 million barrels and initial export of some 320,000 bpd, to be raised to one million bpd next year, in addition to huge gas reserves, the KRG was hoping to generate finance and laying economic foundations for Kurdish independence.
But a sharp drop in oil prices in recent weeks with market forecasts for cheaper crude for years to come has pushed excitement to leave Iraq to ebb. The sudden slide in prices and fear of revenue decline has prompted a different scenario and forced Erbil to handover its oil to Baghdad for sell.
The trend should be familiar in oil geopolitics. History repeats itself and oil shows again it’s a double edged sword.
Last week Baghdad and Erbil announced that they reached a deal to end a lingering oil and budget dispute. Under the agreement the KRG will sell 550,000 barrels of oil a day, including 300,000 from Kirkuk province, through the Iraqi state-owned Oil Marketing Company (SOMO).
In return, the government of Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi will start sending Kurds’ about $17 billion which is their share in the national budget, and an additional $1 billion for weapons and salaries for the Kurdish Peshmerga force. The agreement should end a year long crisis when the government of former Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki ordered a freeze on the KRG’s share of the national budget over an oil dispute after Erbil started selling its crude independently.
While Al-Abadi’s government put a vague statement saying that the agreement “has established that oil belongs to all Iraqis”, the deal was immediately declared as breakthrough by Kurdish leaders. Some Kurdish politicians even celebrated the deal as consent by Baghdad to Kurds’ claims to Kirkuk and other disputed areas.
There are not enough details to confirm if the deal is a breakthrough. It is only a one year agreement that will cover Iraq’s 2015 state budget and clearly states that exports will be made through SOMO’s facilities in Ceyhan, in Turkey.
As expected, disagreements emerged soon. Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said the Kurdish government would still be able to sell its oil after it delivers the amount of oil agreed on in the Baghdad agreement, according remarks published by Kurdish media outlet Rudaw.
Iraq’s oil ministry, however, denied that and insisted in a statement Sunday that the government will consider further oil sales as illegal. Some Iraqi lawmakers wanted the deal to be put for debate in the parliament, a proposal rejected by Kurdish MPs.
Moreover, the deal reignited resentment among Shia in the southern provinces which produce the bulk of Iraq’s oil. They complain that their provinces are badly neglected even though they contribute a significant amount of oil wealth to the national coffers. Angry politicians in Basra renewed calls to turn their province into an autonomous region.
There are even more controversies surrounding the deal. Some Iraqis have pointed to complacency by some Shia political groups. Though the deal was endorsed by the government it was negotiated by Minister of Oil Adel Abdel Mehdi whose Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council maintains close ties with the Kurdish leadership. Before the US invasion, exiled SIIC leaders, including Abdel Mehdi, worked side by side with the Kurdish parties in the opposition fight to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Abdel Mehdi had earlier reached an understanding with the KRG which allowed Erbil to receive an initial $500 million from Baghdad in return for the KRG starting to pump oil to SOMO’s Ceyhan export terminal. That understanding has apparently opened the way for new deal.
Facing these charges the SIIC did not shy away from acknowledging complacency. “If Kurds take 100,000 barrel of oil they have given us the rule of Iraq,” SIIC spokesman Baligh Abu Galal told Dijla television station. Without Kurds, we (Shia) could not have been empowered to rule Iraq. We are strong because we rule Iraq,” he said in a rare acknowledgment of the marriage of convenience that was part of the founding principles of the post-US invasion Iraq.
Still, the question that arises is not how the new deal was reached but why it happened now. Kurdistan has battled for years to secure exporting its oil away from Baghdad’s supervision. It defied all efforts by the federal government to control the crude’s flow. The KRG is already entangled in a legal battle, including a court case in Texas filed by Baghdad to stanch the Kurdish crude exports. In response, the KRG has filed an appeal to overturn the Iraqi request.
In June, following the advances made by the Islamic State terror group and its seizure of several Sunni-dominated cities in northern and western Iraq, Kurdish Peshmergas captured Kirkuk and huge swathes of territories bordering Kurdish Region, taking advantage of the collapse of the Iraqi security forces.
Kurdish officials vowed that they will never give the territories back to Baghdad. Kurdistan Region’s President Masoud Barzani called on the Kurdish parliament to prepare a referendum on independence. Kurdistan also has been pushing the United States and other foreign countries to give the Peshmergas direct military aid, rather than having them received through Baghdad.
In October, the KRG unveiled plans to find funds through foreign loans against future oil revenues. Though it had justified the loans to deal with financial difficulties created by the blocking of its budget by the Al-Maliki’s government, the measure was apparently intended to achieve independent financial institutions.
If any, all these measures show that the vigorous strategy followed by the KRG is to break away by showing that Iraq’s federal system is not working. Even after Baghdad and Erbil reached agreement on oil and the budget KRG officials continued their defying and provocative statements.
On Sunday, speaker of Kurdistan parliament Youssef Mohammad Sidiq told the Turkish Anatolia News Agency that the region will proceed with plans to hold a referendum on independence if “the Baghdad government fails to acknowledge Kurds’ rights.” Barzani’s deputy Kusrat Rasoul said in remarks published Saturday that “Kurdistan flag will be flying over every inch of Kurdistan’s territories,” in reference to the disputed territories seized by the Peshmergas.
But one must look beyond rhetoric in the fraught relations between Baghdad and Erbil to figure out if Iraqi Kurds will keep their bid for independence on high gear or they will concede to the bitter political and economic realities. Contrary to the idea of a prosperous economy depicted in media-hyped images of Erbil’s construction cranes and new housing complexes, Kurdistan’s economy remains fragile.
With little industrial, agricultural, financial and communication infrastructure, landlocked Kurdistan remains highly dependent on its two ambitious neighbours, Iran and Turkey, for trade, investment and transport. The two countries are effectively financing everything from construction to oil installations and from clothing boutiques to food products.
Most villages in the Kurdistan have no electricity or running water, and the region’s overall infrastructure is lacking with few paved roads. Unemployment rate is among the highest in the region and corruption and cronyism are rampant.
It goes without saying that shortage of finance will have devastating consequences on the region’s economy which is already put on hold because of the dispute with Baghdad. This is why Kurdish leaders might have found out that going it alone isn’t any better, and maybe worse, than staying in Iraq.
While the plunge in the crude prices serves a reminder of how geopolitically significant oil prices can be, there are other dominant factors which must have influenced the Kurdish decision to agree to a deal with Baghdad that bans their independent export of oil.
A national homeland for Kurds in Iraq has always been a nightmare for Iraq’s neighbours with a detrimental impact on regional stability. It will lead to the division of Iraq on ethno-sectarian lines with a ripple effect throughout the region. If that happen, oil won’t save Kurdistan from a messy and even bloody Middle East.
By signing last week’s agreement Kurds must have realized that they will run high risks if they continue to give the independence option priority over tangible economic interests and regional stability. That could be enough reason for the KRG to try to look into a different scenario, at least for now.

*This article appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly on December 11, 2014

Iraq-Partitioning, ما بعد التجربة

Iraq’s army under friendly fire

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Iraq’s army under friendly fire

Criticism against the dysfunctional Iraqi army is well deserved. But there maybe a hidden agenda behind it, writes Salah Nasrawi

Writing in the New York Times on 6 September 2007 former American governor of Iraq Paul Bremer described the army he ordered to build following the US invasion in 2003 as “the country’s most effective and trusted security force.”

“By contrast, the Baathist-era police force, which we did recall to duty, has proven unreliable and is mistrusted by the very Iraqi people it is supposed to protect” wrote Bremer who ordered to disband Saddam Hussein’s army and replace it with the new force.

“In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision,” he concluded. When President Barak Obama decided to pull out US troops in 2011 one alibi he used to answer critics was that the Iraqi army is capable enough to fill the security vacuum.

The American assessment has routinely been challenged and experts have warned of fundamental problems with the new Iraqi army. Though the United States spent some $25 billion and several years training, the army has been fraught with corruption, inefficiency and lack of fighting skills. Its most serious problem remained sectarianism.

It took the near total collapse of the Iraqi army when the Islamic State terror group advanced into northern and western Iraq in June and captured huge chunks of land and arsenals of abandoned weapons for Washington to admit that the army it had created was nothing but a rag tag force.

In recent weeks, however, US officials started delivering their criticism to the Iraqi security forces publically. Mainstream US media have been awash with stories based on official leaks about the army’s incompetence and sectarianism, effectively ruling out the force from efforts to liberate areas taken by IS.

In a front-page report last week the Washington Post talked about “the larger decay across Iraq’s security forces and institutions.” It described them as a “deeply rooted phenomenon that undermines the country’s stability.”  “The force is also insufficient on its own to retake strategic cities such as Mosul,” wrote the paper.

Its main competitor, The New York Times, detailed “entrenched corruption” among top commanders who are involved in businesses such as selling soldiers provisions, liquor on the job or officer commissions. The paper noted that the pattern of corruption and patronage in the forces threatens to undermine a new American-led effort to drive out the IS extremists.

The Lose Angels Times, another leading US paper, joined the anti-Iraqi army chorus and in a report it concluded that the main factor behind the collapse of the army was its “rampant corruption.” It said army’s equipment and ammunition are sold by officers on the black market.

The US media blitz seems to echo similar criticism by leaders of Iraq’s Kurdish and Sunni communities who are at loggerheads with the Shia-led centeral government which controls the security forces. Leaders of both communities are now pushing for dealing with the Americans away from Baghdad, including direct weapons delivery and training.

In a series of interviews last week Kurdish politician and Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari lambasted rampant corruption and mismanagement in the army. In one interview with Reuters Zebari said “only the Sunni tribes are the ones who can deliver” in the war against IS. Also, Gen. Jamal Mohammad, chief-of-staff of the Kurdish forces, the Peshmeraga, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper last week Baghdad insistence of deliveries of weapons through its airport is delaying liberating territories seized by IS.

Sunni leaders were even more blunt and to the point. The main Sunni bloc in the parliament, the Iraqi National Forces, has appealed to Washington to send weapons and ground troops to help Sunni tribes in fight against

While frustration with post-Saddam era’s Iraqi security forces is justified, this sudden surge of US, Kurdish and Sunni criticism and complaints seem to be orchestrated to prove a point. The Iraqi government-controlled security forces are becoming a problem and the United States and its allies in the international coalition should deal directly with Kurdish and Sunni forces.

The roots of the Iraqi army’s problems lie with the US occupation which dismantled the Iraqi state and dissolved the army and built a political system along ethnic and sectarian lines. After the ouster of Saddam, Shia groups insisted that the army should be put under their control. Shia believed that ensuring security for the country’s reconstruction needs an army loyal to the central government in which they were a majority.

But during former Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s eight years tenure Iraq’s security forces became too sectarian due to his policies of exclusion and marginalization against Sunnis and staffing the army and police with corrupt cronies.

His successor Haider Al-Abadi faced the daunting task of fixing the security forces problem.

On Sunday, Al-Abadi disclosed that an investigation into corruption in the Iraqi army has revealed that there were 50,000 false names on its payroll. Known by Iraqis as “ghost soldiers”, because they do not exist while still receiving their salaries, the system has undermanned the security forces’ capabilities in facing security challenges.

Last month Al-Abadi ordered a major shakeup of the military by relieving 26 army officers of their commands and retiring 10 others for corruption and incompetence. He appointed 18 new commanders as part of efforts to reinforce the work of the military on the basis of professionalism and fighting graft in all its forms.”

Also, Al-Abadi is now trying to reform the ministry of interior and the vast police force it controls. On Monday he fired 24 senior officers, few days after removing the deputy minister who was accused of negligence and mismanagement. A plan for overhauling the force is also underway

But the question now how far can Al-Abadi go in reforming the army and police without sparking accusations that he is weakening the Shia tight grip on the security forces?

Iraqi Shia lawmakers and politicians have vehemently rejected the US-proposed mainly Sunni dominated national guard force to police the Sunni provinces. They also reject the idea of US training or supplying weapons to Sunni tribes without government approval and supervision.

Shia groups have also been resisting pressure to dispose off with the Iranian-backed Shia militias which are playing a key role in the war against IS’s by fighting alongside the security forces. In addition, thousands of Shia have volunteered since the IS made its advances in June. On Sunday, Al-Abadi ordered to pay salaries for some 21,000 Shia volunteers which the government now plans to accommodate in the national guard.

But as criticism of the army and praise to Al-Abadi’s reforms are making headlines, other aspects of the story have began unfolding.

On Monday, the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper revealed that Washington has informed a Sunni delegation that it will start training some 100,000 Sunni fighters to combat IS. The paper quoted members of the delegation which includes politicians, tribal chieftains and former insurgents that the force will also police the Sunni areas after IS’s expulsion. The delegates told Al-Hayat that the programme will be carried out without Baghdad’s consent.

If it could some how be implemented, this means Washington is creating a Sunni armed force in spite of the centeral government. With the Kurdish Peshmergas already operating independently from Baghdad, Iraqi will have three armies on the ground with the all implications and the consequences it could have in a nation enmeshed in a civil war.

The Iranians, meanwhile, seem to have their own vision, or even plans, for Iraq’s security forces. On 27 November Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a surprising statement which went largely unnoticed. “The ideology of the Basij has reached Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza and, God willing, it will reach Jerusalem soon,” he said referring to Iran’s powerful paramilitary force which works as an auxiliary force engaged in security activities.

On 30 November the Lebanese National News Agency quoted leader of Hezbollah Shia party Hassan Nassrullah as warning of plans to “create a Sunni region in Iraq” which he said with parts of Syrian territories under Sunni control would together be annexed to Jordan. “This would be the alternative Palestinian state,” he was quoted as telling Al-Maliki who was in a visit to Lebanon.

As both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue to have stakes in giving a strong political and military support to Iraqi Shia, there is much to read into Khamenei’s and Nassrullah’s apocalyptic statements and the Baghdad government’s rejection of an autonomous Iraqi Sunni force.

The mere process of having three armed forces built on ethno-sectarian lines will effectively mean Iraq is divided to three different entities. With Syria unraveling, the much talked about scenario of combining the Sunni heartland in both Iraq and Syria in a larger Sunni country could become a reality.

And that is a nightmare for Shia in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon who will be separated by the new Sunnistan.

This article appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly Dec. 4, 2014