Category Archives: ما بعد التجربة

مذكرات فكرية

ما بعد التجربة
Leave a comment
                                              دولة علي بابا
                         في تشريح سلطة الفساد والمحاصصة في العراق
(1)
                                              الفساد قضية حياة او موت
في ذاكرة الكثير من البغداديين الذين عاصروا الخمسينيات والستينيات من القرن الماضي قول مأثور ينسبونه الى أحد اشهر القوادين في مدينتهم يومئذ، وخلاصته انه دعا يوماً واحداً ممن عرف بالتشهير به في المقاهي والاسواق وطلب منه ان يكتب كلمة “قواد” على ورقة بيضاء قدمها له مع قلم حيث وما ان انتهى ذلك الرجل من كتابة تلك الكلمة البذيئة حتى وضع ذلك الديوث فوقها “نوطا”، وهي اكبر ورقة من اوراق العملة واعلاها قيمة حينئذ، وسأله باستنكار وتعجب:اين هي الان تلك الكلمة التي تعيرني بها؟
مغزى الحكاية التي يرددها الكثيرون من ابناء ذلك الجيل حتى يومنا هذا بنسخ متعددة، واضح ولا يحتاج لتفسير، وهو انك تستطيع ان تشتري اي شيء وكل شيء، وحتى بعض الناس، بالمال، وان الفلوس بامكانها ان تمحوا اية لطخة قد تتعرض لها سمعتك او شرفك، بل ان تقلبها الى فضيلة ومصدراً للعزة والفخر.هذا العمل يناط الان بوكالات العلاقات العامة المنتشرة في عالمي السياسة والمال وهو ما يعرف بحملات التلميع، او صناعة الصورة، او بشكل ادق بمهمة غسيل او تبيض السمعة.الا انه في “دولة علي بابا” يجري بطريقة بدائية وساذجة ومتخلفة عبر الزعيق فوق شاشات الفضائيات او التوحيل من خلال مواقع الانترنيت.
ولان هذا الفن هو من فنون الدعاية الذي يعتمد في جانب كبير منه على الايحاءات والفذلكات والتلاعب بالمسميات، فان الامر لا يحتاج  في صناعة تجميل الصورة سوى الى التفسير او الشرح اللغوي للكلمة كما وردت بالمعاجم بان القواد هو مجرد سمسار، او انه منظم للعمل او ساعي بين الرجل والمرأة البغي في بزنيس المتعة، بل بامكان مكاتب غسيل السمعة العودة الى الجذر اللغوي للكلمة وتسويق الشخص بسخاء بانه الرجل “قوي القيادة” وبذلك يقلبون الصورة ويكسرون حاجز الرفض الاخلاقي والنفسي ويوجدون حالة وهمية للتعايش بين الخسة والطهارة.
ما يجري في العراق الجديد الذي روجت له مختبرات الفكر الكولونيالي ومراكز صناعته منذ الغزو الامريكي بخصوص سرطان الفساد المستشري هو شبيه تماما بحكاية ذلك القواد حيث يصم الفاسدون والمفسدين اذانهم عن كل التقارير والمعلومات والاتهامات الموثقة بشأن فسادهم الذي فاق كل حدود معروفة ويغطون الكلام بدفاتر الدولارات، وليس بـ “النوط ابو العشرة” ، في استراتيجة انكار مزدوجة تنحو، من جانب، الى تجاهل ما يرونه مجرد ضجيج مثار، ومن جانب اخر، الى التلويح بالدولارات لشراء الذمم والضمائر لاسكات الالسن التي تتجرأ على الكشف عن فضائحهم بنفس طريقة السمسار سالف الذكر.
تذكر ابحاث علم النفس ان حالة الانكار هي السعي للتأكيد على ان ما يقال تجاه شخص ما او مجموعة او الاتهامات الموجهة له، او لهم، هي ليست حقيقية وانها واحدة من الآليات الدفاعية السايكولوجية التي يستخدمها الفرد او المجموعة حين توجه اليه، او اليهم، اتهامات غير مريحة، مما يستوجب رفضها والاصرار على انها غير صحيحة، بالرغم من وجود ادلة دامغة.وتتنوع حالات الانكار من انكار الحقيقة برمتها او انكار المسؤولية عنها او انكار النتائج المتحققة منها والتأثرات او التقليل من شأنها.
ان اسوء تجليات حالة الانكار هي في الافكار والافعال التي تعزز مشاعر الثقة بالنفس والاقتناع بان ليس هناك اي حاجة لتغيرالسلوكيات لدى الفرد، وهي حالة تجمع كل حالات الانكار المذكورة وغيرها كي تصل باصحابها الى الاصابة بالوهم وخداع الذات وغيرها من اضطرابات التفكير مما يؤشر الى مخاطر محتملة جمة على المستويين الشخصي والاجتماعي.
غير ان الاساليب الدفاعية هنا تنطوي ايضا على حالات هجومية، كما هي  في الحروب وفي الالعاب الرياضة، مما يستوجب في حالات الانكار السياسي التعرض للمنتقدين او موجهي الاتهامات، مثلما في حالة الاتهامات بالفساد توجيه (تلفيق) اتهامات مضادة، مثل العجز عن اثبات التهم او تبيان الحقيقة، او الانحياز وعدم الموضوعية، او العمالة والخيانة، وكل ما من شأنه تسخيف الاتهامات والحط من شأن اصحابها بهدف بث الشكوك لدى الجمهور وايقاف الجدل الدائر بشأنها، او تحويل وجهة النقاش الى قضايا اخرى ثانوية، او حتى مختلقة للتغطية على قضايا الفساد.
ويتطلب الهجوم المضاد عادة تكتيكات ووسائل دعائية تتلاعب بالحقيقة مثلما يتطلب اجراءات على الارض لحرف الانتباه عن الهدف الاساسي.ولعل اهم وسيلة يجري استخدامها هنا لطمس الاهتمام بقضية مواجهة الفساد في العراق باعتباره اس البلاء المحاولة المتعمدة لجر الناس للسجال الطائفي بهدف تغير مسار النقاش العام عن بلوى الفساد  واللجوء الى الارهاب كوسيلة مصممة لا لدفعهم فقط بالشعور بالخطر الدائم وانما تشجيعهم ايضا على الانخراط في الصراع  كي يجري الهائهم نهائيا عن قضايا الفساد ومكافحته.
ما يجري الان في العراق هو حملة منظمة من كل الجماعات التي استولت على الحكم للتلاعب لاشاعة اجواء الاحباط واليأس في نفوس العراقيين وكبح نضالهم ضد الفساد والمفسدين مثلما يجرى ضد المتظاهرين منذ اكثر من عامين وضد الناشطين في الحملة الوطنية المطالبة بالغاء امتيازات النواب وقبل ذلك تخريب عمل هيئة النزاهة وتعطيل جهود القضاء في محاسبة الفاسدين، بل وافساد ذات المؤسستين اللتين ينبغي ان تكونا الحصن الاخير للعدالة والدفاع عن المال العام وحقوق الناس.
ان كل ذلك يهدف الى فرض الصمت على ممارسات حيتان الفساد وبالتالي ترسيخها كمنهج للحكم بالرغم من انف كل عراقي وخاصة اولئك الذين يجاهرون بالكشف عن قضايا الفساد عبر مختلف الوسائل.وفي سبيل ذلك فان هذه الجماعات لا تعمل على التنصل من المسؤولية فقط، وانما محاولة الافلات من العقاب والاستمرار في عمليات النهب المنظم للثروات الوطنية مع الاحتفاظ بما قامت بنهبه خلال السنوات الماضية والتي مكنها من وضع يدها على كامل مصادر الثروة في البلد وتحويله الى ضيعة لهم وللابناء والاقرباء والاصحاب.
الرسالة التي يريد ان يبعث بها الفاسدون في “دولة علي بابا” لمن يتجرأ على فضح ممارساتهم هي نفس رسالة استخفاف ذلك الديوث وكل الفاسدين في كل زمان ومكان، وفي كل مهنة وميدان: اذهبوا واشربوا من ماء البحر او اضربوا رؤوسكم في اول جدار يقابلكم، فنحن لانبالي، بل ولن نهجع حتى نشفط أخر برميل من النفط  ونمتص اخر دولار في خزائن البنك المركزي ثم نعود الي حيث كنا منعمين بحساباتنا في البنوك العالمية وبشركاتنا وعقاراتنا وقصورنا التي تنتشر في كل قارات العالم.
هي رسالة تحد اذن لكل الجهود الرامية لمقاومة الفساد مما لا يترك اية استجابة لها غير رفض الاذعان لنهج التجاهل واحتقار ارادة الشعب، ولمحاولات استلاب الحقوق الشرعية للناس او استحلال ثروات الوطن، وامام نوايا الانتقام والثار التي تغذي تلك النزعة التدميرية للفاسدين.ان اتساع الحملات الجماعية المنظمة والفردية في التصدي لفساد زمر الحكم في العراق، رغم قلتها ومحدوديتها، تعني ان هناك ادراكا متناميا بان مهمة محاربة الفساد هي قضية حياة او موت للعراقيين، فلا أمن ولا استقرار ولا تنمية ولا كرامة ولا حرية ولا عدل ولا مستقبل في ظل غول الفساد.
في الحلقات القادمة سنتناول كل هذه القضايا من خلال تجربة الحكم في “دولة علي بابا” منذ نشوئها كمشروع قبيل الغزو الامريكي عام 2003 الذي اسس لها مستعرضين الافكار والمفاهيم والاشخاص والدول والاجندات والاستراتيجيات التي وقفت وراءها ثم التطبيقات العملية لمنهج “مغارة علي بابا” من خلال سياسة النهب المنظم للثروات العراقية التي ادت الى فشل تجربة اعادة بناء الدولة وستؤدي بالنتيجة، ان لم يتم  التصدي لها وكبح جماحها، الى انهيارما تبقى من اسس الدولة العراقية وتفكيك تام لبنية المجتمع العراقي.
*
ما بعد التجربة
Leave a comment
Sectarian attacks spur Iraqis to flee again

As sectarian violence in Iraq once again spikes, Iraqis seeking shelter in exile face an ever-precarious future, writes Salah Nasrawi

Abu Fatima fled Iraq for good to Turkey last month after militiamen believed to be Shias killed his father-in-law and a brother-in-law and threatened him and his three children. Turkey’s political uncertainty baffled him, but the country still provided a safe haven to him and his family of five.
But like thousands of other Iraqi refugees and asylum seekers in Turkey, his safety comes at a high price: Abu Fatima’s family is trapped in limbo. Iraqis cannot get work permits. They do not speak Turkish and their children are having trouble enrolling in schools.
In addition, they have to wait in long queues for opportunities to be resettled in a host country or risk paying traffickers huge sums of money to smuggle them across the sea to Greece and then into Europe.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ankara has set a date in summer 2015 for an interview to assess Abu Fatima’s case. Now he, his children, wife and mother have little more to do than just wait and survive.
They were sent to a little town outside Ankara for temporary lodging and meagre handouts until their refugee status is determined. After they receive recognised status it is unclear how long they would wait until a host country will accept them.
“Winter is at the door and I do not know how can we cope with the severe cold here, in bad housing and with little money,” Abu Fatima said.
Abu Fatima was stuck by the scourge of sectarian polarisation in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003 largely because of his name. He was named after a prominent historical Sunni figure abhorred by Shias and who they consider an enemy to their revered Imam Ali and his dynasty.
Extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide have long been targeting people based on their names and sometimes tribal or provincial affiliation.  
Over the past decade, Abu Fatima (he declined to use his real name) and his family were displaced internally many times, fleeing for their lives. During the full-blown sectarian war that erupted following the US invasion, Abu Fatima spent two years in hiding for fear of being killed. When he came out of hiding he moved to new places and forged a new identity in the name of a legendary Shia hero.
But recent sectarian violence and the killings of his in-laws and threats against him and his children forced them to consider leaving the country for good.
Nearly two years after the US pulled out its last combat troops from Iraq, the country remains deeply violent and divided. Thousands of Iraqis have fled their homes in recent months amid a new wave of sectarian violence that threatens to spark once again mass displacement internally and abroad.
Daily bombings and other attacks have been targeting mosques, funerals, markets and schools. Nearly 1,200 people were killed in Iraq in September, according to the government.
So far this year, some 6,000 civilians have been killed according to the United Nations and news agencies’ reports, though the figure could be a gross underestimation, as it does not include unreported violent death cases.
Hundreds of people were killed this week in a series of explosions across Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. The majority of the attacks targeted Shias, including pilgrims and primary school students.
All attacks bear the hallmark of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a terror group affiliated to Al-Qaeda, which has vowed to topple the Shia-led government and establish a Sunni-led state in Iraq.
In what appeared to be tit-for-tat attacks, blasts have also hit Sunni neighbourhoods, including bombings of cafes and mourners attending funerals. Sunnis, including mosque imams and worshipers, have also been targeted for assassination.
In grim testament to the instability now roiling Iraq, decomposed bodies are routinely discovered in streets in Baghdad and elsewhere, sometimes with the dead bodies handcuffed and blindfolded. Some of the victims appear killed by gunshots to the head.
Residents in many mixed towns or neighbourhoods have been receiving flyers on their doorsteps signed by well-known Shia militias telling them to leave or be killed. In Basra, the displacement leaflets said they come in retaliation for the killing of Shias in Sunni-populated areas.
The violence has reinforced fears that Iraq is sliding back into the full-scale sectarian war that peaked after the bombing of the Shia holy shrine in Samaraa in 2006. The death toll exceeded 3,000 a month for nearly two years following that attack.
Refugee agencies and officials believe that the new type of sectarian warfare that has gripped the country is forcing thousands of Iraqis to seek refuge either inside or outside Iraq.
Last month, UNHCR disclosed that since the beginning of the year, bombings and rising sectarian tensions have displaced some 5,000 Iraqis — with people mostly fleeing from Baghdad into Sunni dominated provinces such as Anbar, Mosul and Salaheddin.
UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming told journalists in Geneva that reports received by UNHCR suggest that up to 160 families from Basra and Nassiriya were displaced to Salaheddin and Anbar and 57 families from Baghdad arrived in Babylon.
A smaller number of families have also fled from various provinces into Kerbala, Najaf and Wassit. Those displaced so far include Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Shia Shabak, Turkmen as well as Shia Arabs, she said.
On Saturday, the local government in Diyala said at least 100 families, believed to be mostly Sunnis, have fled their homes in the province in recent weeks after receiving threats or direct intimidation.
Iraq’s religious minorities, including Christians, Yazidis, Subis (Mandaeans) and Shabaks, have also been targeted for attack and threats. There have been several deadly attacks against Iraqi Christian families this year in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk.
While many Christians who left their homes due to threats and killings sought shelter in areas under Kurdish control around Mosul, in the cities of Dahouk and Irbil, others fled Iraq completely.
This recent displacement adds to the more than 1.13 million internally displaced people inside Iraq who fled their homes to escape intense sectarian violence from 2006-2008.
Some half a million of those internally displaced people are now squatting in slum areas or in public land and buildings with no access to electricity, running water, schools or sufficient job opportunities.
Services provided by the Ministry of Immigration and the Displaced, set up to look after the internally displaced and Iraqi refugees abroad, remain inadequate and unsustainable.
Last week, Immigration Minister Dindar Al-Douski acknowledged that the failure of the government to secure jobs for refugees is blocking their return.
Iraq tops other countries in terms of refugees and migrants.
In 2011, the UNHCR estimated the number of Iraqis living in neighbouring countries at about 2.5 million, including some 1.2 million to 1.4 million in Syria alone. After the war in Syria, which started in 2011, many Iraqis there either returned home or sought shelter in other countries, fleeing violence again.
It is hard to determine the exact number of Iraqis seeking refuge abroad but as of December 2012, there were 126,142 Iraqi refugees registered with the UNHCR in neighbouring countries, and an unknown number of unregistered refugees.
Those figures underscore the difficulties of Iraqi refugees seeking to find safe havens in foreign countries, with the US and other Western countries — their preferred destinations — now refusing or slowing entry to Iraqi refugees.
Many Western countries are increasingly becoming unfriendly to Iraqi refugees and more unwilling to allow them to settle permanently, while the United States has introduced new security measures restricting immigration possibilities for Iraqis fleeing bloodshed and persecution.
Under pressure from lobbying groups, the US Congress last week passed a law resuming issuing special visas for Iraqis who risked their lives by working with the US army and associated agencies during the 2003-2011 occupation. The programme expired earlier this year with an estimated 2,000 applications still in the bureaucratic process.
The special visa has allowed more than 12,000 Iraqi contractors, interpreters and others who assisted in US efforts, and their family members, to move to the United States since 2007. The goal was to resettle them in the United States faster than the oft-protracted general refugee process might allow.
However, Iraqi refugees’ plight is worsening as their numbers grow and the reluctance of host countries to receive them increases.
Even many of those who made it to the United States and other Western countries are living in poverty because hosts are increasingly unfriendly and ever more unwilling to allow them to settle permanently.
As sectarian violence spirals it is unlikely that refugees fled past carnage in Iraq will be able to return anytime soon.
“If I go back, I will be killed, if not instantly, it will be the next day or the next week,” said Abu Fatima who insists that he prefers living in limbo in Turkey and “waiting forever” to be resettled in a third country than returning home.

ما بعد التجربة
Leave a comment

Implications for Iraq?

There are good reasons why Iraqis should not celebrate the new Iranian-US rapprochement, writes Salah Nasrawi
Iraq’s Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was quick to welcome a landmark telephone call between US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday, hailing the overture as a breakthrough in ending the tension between the two countries while offering Baghdad’s help to advance Iranian-US relations.
Al-Maliki’s celebratory remarks came just hours after the disclosure of the first direct contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 34 years. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Iran nearly a year after the Islamic Revolution that toppled US ally shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
Al-Maliki’s enthusiasm contrasted sharply with the scepticism expressed by Iran’s Sunni Arab neighbours who have been dismissive in their response to the drive by Washington to mend fences with a country whose regime they believe embraces expansionist ambitions.
“It is a victory for everyone. The fruit of peaceful solutions will be reaped by all in the region and around the world,” Al-Maliki said in a statement on Saturday. “It will reflect positively on the region’s chronic disputes and provide an example for their resolution,” he said.
In the first high-level US-Iranian contact since the Islamic Revolution, Obama held a 15-minute telephone conversation with Rouhani to discuss bilateral relations and Iran’s nuclear programme.
The call followed intensive diplomacy and the exchange of goodwill gestures after Rouhani was elected in June. The two leaders have agreed that their foreign ministers will follow up talks between the two countries.
Many Americans were scornful of the US policy shift, however, and criticised their president for taking seriously what they called Iran’s deceptive policy.
Some US politicians have warned that the move cold be a sign of desperation for a deal with Iran, which is offering only rhetorical “heroic flexibility” in foreign policy but maintaining a hardline stand on its nuclear programme.
Unsurprisingly, Iran’s other Sunni Arab neighbours, who have traditionally been worried about the Shias rise in the region, remained suspicious of the new development.
While Sunni Arab governments have remained tight-lipped on Obama’s move, the media has received the thaw in Iranian-US relations with alarm, expressing fears that Obama’s charm offensive will only buy Iran time to continue its march towards building a nuclear weapon and further strides in its endeavour at regional expansion.
Saudi Arabia and some other Sunni-dominated Gulf countries share fears about a shift in the regional balance of power towards Iran and its allies, such as the Iraqi Shias and the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah.
“Obama’s hastiness begs the question: is the US-Iranian crisis about the nuclear dossier alone? What about the other issues which concern Washington’s allies, whether Arabs or Israelis? And what about the Iranian expansion in the region,” asked Saudi columnist Tarek Al-Humaid in the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat paper on Sunday.
One of the main concerns of Sunni Arab governments is that Iran will now adopt a broader agenda and will be able to use Iraq as a springboard to assume hegemonic control over the Gulf region.
The Iranian-US presidential telephone call and Al-Maliki’s supportive approach have rekindled the debate about Iran’s influence in Iraq, which has been on the rise since the ouster of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein more than 10 years ago. 
For many Iraqi and Arab Sunnis, the real victor in the 2003 war between the US and Saddam’s Iraq was Iran, a country which only three decades ago fought a bloody war with Iraq that cost the two countries some one million casualties.
Last week the US magazine The New Yorker shed new light on Iran’s influence in Iraq, which it described as reshaping the Middle East, giving details of the role played by Qassem Suleimani, one of Iran’s most powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards commanders, who handles his country’s security and political dossiers about Iraq.
The magazine disclosed how Suleimani, in charge of Iran’s Al-Quds Force, an elite division of the Guards, has been instrumental in shaping Iraqi politics, engineering post-Saddam governments and masterminding militias.
It reported that as the American occupation had faltered, Suleimani had begun an aggressive campaign of sabotage and had even been instrumental in helping Al-Qaeda to enter the war by providing it with protection.
Suleimani also began sending his own forces into the country as advisors and ordering attacks on American soldiers and even Iraqis, the magazine said.
This had spelled the end of US influence and the beginning of the Iranian dominance of Iraq, The New Yorker said. Many Iraqis now refer to Suleimani as Iraq’s real ruler, and no one has rejoiced about the recent US overture more than Suleimani.
Shortly before the news of the Obama-Rouhani telephone conversation broke, Suleimani boasted that Washington’s “willingness to negotiate with Iran is a result of the Iranian people’s resistance and steadfastness”.
“They [the Americans] spent $3 trillion in Iraq, but they were forced to withdraw in humiliation,” he said. “All the wars in the region have ended in Iran’s victory.”
Iran’s influence in Iraq has been evident through its footprints in the country’s political, economic and cultural landscapes. Its resolve to increase its influence in Iraq, including by building a military and security alliance with the Shia-led government, has been telling.
Just last week, Iran concluded an agreement to boost defence cooperation with Iraq. Iran’s Defence Minister Hussein Dehqan, who signed the agreement with his Iraqi counterpart Saadoun Al-Dulaimi, expressed Iran’s readiness to help equip and strengthen the Iraqi armed forces.
“The Iranian government and nation are prepared to expand cooperation with Iraq at a strategic level in all areas,” said Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani.
Last year, the then Iranian minister of defence, Ahmed Vahidi, and Al-Dulaimi signed a document of bilateral cooperation.
Since the US withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011 Iran has moved to bolster its economic ties with Iraq. In July, Iran’s vice president for international affairs, Ali Saidlou, acknowledged that during this period his country had tripled its trade with Iraq to $12 billion.
Iranian goods dominate Iraqi markets. Tens of thousands of Iranian-manufactured cars roam the streets of Iraqi cities and most food stuffs are Iranian.
In July, Iran concluded a landmark energy deal with Iraq to sell the country some 25 million cubic metres of natural gas to fuel its power plants via a new pipeline. The deal will make Iran a major player in Iraq’s energy future.
Iraq’s purchases of Iranian goods now offset Iran’s losses in international trade because of the Western embargo, imposed in an attempt to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear programme.
Along with political, military and economic relations, the growth of cultural and religious interactions speaks volumes about the rising Iranian influence in Iraq.
Iraqi leaders have been turning to Iran for help to resolve disputes. Iran was instrumental in assisting in coalition-building negotiations to form governments in post-Saddam Iraq, for example.
Last month, Iraq’s parliamentary speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi travelled to Tehran, reportedly to seek Iran’s help in forging new political coalitions ahead of next year’s elections.
In a multilateral setting that is not conspicuously stage-managed, the Iraqis should understand that the Iranians are not after an agreement on their country’s nuclear programme.
Instead, they are after a grandiose deal with the United States that would empower Iran to become more of a regional superpower. Unfortunately, Iraqi leaders do not seem to be aware of the looming dangers if their country becomes hostage to broader Iranian ambitions.
Al-Maliki’s presumption that the Iranian-US rapprochement will help Iraqis to find peace between its feuding communities is too easy, if not misleading. 
Rather than taking some of the poison out of the Sunni-Shia split in Iraq, an Iranian-US deal could inflame the regional sectarian conflict and Iraq could become the deciding factor in the battle for influence in the region.
Writing in the Saudi-owned Al-Hayat newspaper on Saturday, Saudi commentator Jamal Khashoggi urged the Gulf countries not to panic because of the Iranian-US conciliatory statements and to have confidence in themselves.
“What we need is some focussing and planning to identify who our strategic allies are and what our lasting interests are,” Khashoggi wrote, a commentator who is close to the Saudi royal family.
He quoted former head of Saudi intelligence Prince Turki Al-Faisal as saying that “Iran is only a paper tiger.” The gist of his remarks was that Saudi Arabia was ready to use its money and influence to resist Iran’s influence in Iraq and throughout the region.
By contrast, Tehran sees Obama’s approach as an opportunity to convince the Americans that better relations with Iran would help America deal with a host of other problems, including Syria and Gulf security.
“What is necessary for the two sides [Iran and the United States] is that they have common objectives and not competing objectives,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif told ABC News this weekend.
Iraq needs leaders with the vision to deal with the consequences of the disorder that might result from a bipolar system that could come about if the Iranians succeed in cutting a deal with the Americans, or if that system is challenged by regional actors.

Without concrete measures to end the country’s lingering ethno-sectarian conflict and political and security deadlock, however, Iraq will remain vulnerable to a variety of domestic, regional and global challenges, including the possibility of an Iranian-US détente.
ما بعد التجربة
Leave a comment

Doubts over Iraq’s peace plan

Even before the fanfare has died down, Iraq’s new peace plan has turned into a damp squib, writes Salah Nasrawi
A document for peace signed by Iraq’s rival politicians last week suggested that there were signs of a thaw in the tense relationships between the country’s feuding communities. Taken at face value the document, officially known as the Social Peace Initiative, amounted to a signal that Iraqis might be finally ready to work together. 
However, a closer look at the situation in the war-weary country shows that peace is still far from the streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, as the violence spirals and the country’s sectarian and ethnic factions remain deadlocked in a lingering government crisis.
To many Iraqis, the initiative, proposed by the Shia group in the government, seemed to be a last-ditch effort to prevent the country from sliding inexorably towards a disastrous all-out sectarian war.
Iraq is now struggling with the worst wave of sectarian violence in years, with almost daily bombings reminiscent of the bloody scenes witnessed during the civil unrest after the US-led invasion in 2003.
The bombings have been targeting mosques, funerals, markets and the country’s security forces. More than 4,000 people have been killed in Iraq since April, including 804 in August alone, according to the United Nations.
Only this week, car bombs ripped through Baghdad, part of a series of explosions across Iraq that left hundreds dead and triggered calls for revenge from the families of the fallen.
On Saturday, two suicide bombers detonated explosives among mourners in a Shia part of Baghdad. The police said that more than 70 people had been killed and more than 100 wounded.
The bombings came hours after Sunni insurgents launched a suicide attack on a police headquarters in the city of Beiji and a police convoy station in Mosul, killing nine policemen and wounding 24 others.
On Sunday, a blast hit Sunni mourners attending a funeral in the Dora district of Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 35 others.
In recent weeks, the number of targeted assassinations by gunmen with silenced weapons has also increased, including shootings in houses and the killing of entire families.
In another grim testament to the chaos now roiling the Iraqi capital, dozens of decomposing bodies were found piled up in abandoned areas in Baghdad and elsewhere last week.
On Thursday, the corpses of 10 unidentified young men were discovered in an abandoned building in eastern Baghdad. The victims had been killed by gunshots to the head, and all the dead bodies were handcuffed and blindfolded.
Iraq has recently witnessed incidents of sectarian cleansing, including killings at false checkpoints, executions and people being driven from their homes, neighbourhoods and cities.
Dozens of families belonging to a key Sunni tribe were forced to leave their homes in the southern provinces of Basra and Nasiriya this month.
These attacks and the wider intimidation campaigns against the Sunnis bear the mark of Shia militias that have been dormant since the bloody days of the 2006-2007 civil war but may now have reawoken.
The Sunnis say the militias are being backed by Iran.
Haidar Al-Mullah, an outspoken member of the mainly Sunni Al-Iraqiya List, said that Assaeb Ahl Al-Haq, one of the Shia militias, was linked to Iraqi Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s Daawa Party and that members of the militia had been holding cabinet identity cards when they carried out the attacks.
In reply, Al-Maliki has accused foreign countries of “hatching conspiracies” and “stirring up sedition” in Iraq. In a speech in Nasiriya on Saturday, Al-Maliki specifically mentioned Saudi Arabia as being responsible. 
Many Iraqis now regard the tit-for-tat violence as a curtain-raiser for Iraq’s next round of sectarian strife.
Reports have recently surfaced to the effect that three Shia militias plan to join ranks to counter the Sunni insurgency and that the Shia-led government has given its blessing to the new single force, tasking it with protecting Shia neighbourhoods.
Other reports have suggested that the government is secretly building three new army battalions whose Shia soldiers are being trained in counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare.
The violence in Iraq has escalated steadily since the last US troops pulled out of the country in December 2011.
Tensions spilled out onto the streets in December, when tens of thousands of people started a protest across the country’s Sunni provinces, demanding an end to what they perceive as the marginalisation of the Sunni sect.
The Sunni-Shia political and social divide has undermined a power-sharing pact forged after the elections in 2010 between Iraq’s Kurds, Shias and Sunnis.
For months, the Iraqi government has been stalled amid internecine conflicts.
The civil war in neighbouring Syria, which has contributed to the resurgence of sectarian tensions across the Middle East, has also exacerbated discontent in Iraq’s minority Sunni population.
Now the question is whether the new initiative will be able to bring about a lasting solution in the violence-ripped country and in particular whether it will be able to find a solution to the Shia-Sunni divide.
The violence is largely sectarian and has been fuelled by many complicating factors, including the political deadlock in Baghdad.
The Initiative, sponsored by Iraqi Shia Vice President Khudair Al-Khozaei, contains a number of components, including measures “to confront the militias and terror groups and to dry up their resources”.
It also states that signatories will set up a follow-up committee that will suggest measures to solve the problems of former members of the former ruling Iraqi Baath Party, which ran the country under former president Saddam Hussein.
Such people were banned from public service after the Shia empowerment following the ouster of the Saddam regime.
The initiative says that this committee should make recommendations to ensure equal opportunities in public-service jobs and to combat corruption in the government.
However, the deal is flimsy because it will be very hard to enforce, critics describing it as merely “ink on paper” and warning that its prospects are bleak. 
Some believe that the plan is designed to boost Al-Maliki’s credentials ahead of the elections in 2014. They describe it as a smoke-screen to portray the Sunnis as stalling on reconciliation, allowing Al-Maliki to present himself as the defender of the Shias.
The initiative comes two weeks before an expected trip by Al-Maliki to Washington, where he is expected to be urged by the Obama administration to bring about reconciliation with the Sunnis.
Al-Maliki hopes to convince the US administration to give the green light to billions of dollars worth of US arms sales to Iraq that his government has requested and has supported by portraying Al-Maliki as a peace-maker.
Few Sunni leaders have signed the document, however. Prominent Sunni leaders such as Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutleq have refused to sign, arguing that the plan is a whitewash.
Some have even said it will only inflame sectarian tensions.
All previous national reconciliation efforts between Iraq’s ethno-religious communities, seen as imperative to stemming the country’s sectarian violence, have failed.
The polarisation and turmoil that have afflicted Iraqi politics and society have grown out of a number of underlying problems that have not been addressed.
Unless genuine efforts are made to convince Iraqi Sunnis to buy into a power-sharing agreement, it is hard to believe that the current levels of internecine fighting will come to an end.
A few of the plan’s elements, including de-Baathification and the release of Sunni detainees, have been implemented, but nothing of substance has come of them.
In his speech in Nasiriya, Al-Maliki renewed his rejection of such demands, saying that a “sea of blood” still separated his government from the Sunnis, whom he described as a “deviated and straying faction”.
Speaker of the Iraqi parliament Osama Al-Nujaifi promptly fired back by accusing Al-Maliki of backtracking on the Initiative. “This is the last nail in the coffin of the Peace Initiative,” Al-Nujaifi said in a statement on Sunday.
Given that the Iraqi factions care more about controlling state resources and power than they do about solving the crisis in the country, the peace plan has grossly underestimated the mismatch between Shia expectations and Sunni grievances, and it is therefore more likely to prolong the crisis than resolve it.
Conflict over the shape of the future Iraqi polity can only be resolved by the negotiation of a new social contract, and this seems to have thus far eluded the country’s political class.
ما بعد التجربة
Leave a comment

Electoral uncertainty in Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan is bracing itself for crucial elections next week that could reshape the political landscape, writes Salah Nasrawi
Voters across the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq are going to the polls for parliamentary elections on Saturday amid mounting tensions, uncertainty and allegations of irregularities.
The elections are expected to determine the future of Kurdistan region President Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which is facing one of the biggest challenges to its long-time grip on power, also threatening the party’s “strategic alliance” with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
The balloting also comes amid a controversy over Kurdistan’s draft constitution, which has been put on hold because of a dispute with the main opposition parties over political and democratic reforms to the region’s government.
The elections will be held in three Iraqi provinces that are under the control of the Kurdistan Region government to choose a new legislative council for the next four years.
Some 2,803,000 people are eligible to vote to send 111 representatives to a fourth Kurdish parliament. More than 1,000 candidates, representing 30 political lists, are standing in the elections.
Presidential elections that were scheduled to be held simultaneously with the parliamentary polls were delayed after Barzani accepted an extension of his term in office for two more years, passed by the outgoing parliament in July.
The Kurdish Region government, which is led by a coalition between Barzani’s KDP and Talabani’s PUK, is struggling with lingering power, resource-sharing and land disputes with the Baghdad government, as well as a constitutional crisis and a regional dynamic that includes an influx of Syrian refugees.
But at the top of the pre-election agenda is the stability of Iraqi Kurdistan.
As Iraqi Kurds gear up for the polls, accusations of manipulation by the two ruling parties and vote registration flaws have been rampant.
One of the major concerns of the opposition parties is the potential for voter fraud, with tens of thousands of dead people still registered to cast ballots.
The opposition has repeatedly demanded that Iraq’s Independent Electoral Commission removes the names of thousands of people whom it claims have died since the electoral roll was renewed in 2005.
According to the opposition, some 179,000 names of dead people are still registered as eligible voters.
The opposition also claims that there are thousands of duplicate or inaccurate names on the electoral roll, mostly in areas under Barzani’s party’s control. It fears that the KDP will use the irregularities to rig the vote in its own favour.
Like in the rest of Iraq, there has been no census in Kurdistan for years, and officials at the electoral commission say that it received the names of eligible voters from the Ministry of Health.
The opposition parties also accuse the two ruling parties of abusing state resources, such as the government-controlled media and security forces, to swing results and help their candidates win the election.
Allegations of a lack of impartiality by the electoral commissions in favour of these candidates have also been reported.
KDP and PUK officials, however, deny any accusations of electoral malpractices. 
Meanwhile, the election campaigns, kicked off on 29 August, have been marred by violence triggered by the tension and exchange of blame.
On Saturday, gunmen opened fire on a PUK campaign gathering in Suleimaniya, killing three people and wounding several others. A man and a woman were killed in two separate election rallies also in Suleimaniya last week.
The Kurdish media reported on Monday that at least 18 people had been believed killed during the election campaign. The government blamed the violence on “anarchist and irresponsible elements.”
At least one candidate was arrested in Erbil while campaigning in the city centre, accused of disturbing public order.
Since the beginning of Iraqi Kurdistan’s parliamentary election campaigns, attacks on journalists have also increased.
The Metro Centre to Defend Journalists, an NGO, reported on Sunday that there had been 18 reported attacks on journalists by party supporters since the campaigning started.
The election campaigns feature familiar themes such as the monopoly of power by the two ruling parties, corruption, nepotism, human rights and press freedoms abuses, and the mismanagement of the region’s resources.     
But people are also raising concerns about the future of the self-ruled region, which remains vulnerable amid growing instability in Iraq and raging Middle East conflicts.
Given the Kurds’ traumatic history, much of Kurdistan’s stability and prosperity seems to now depend on how its nascent political system will be able to overcome the challenges of political diversity and draw a common map for its people to move forward.
The elections will be a crucial test of whether Iraqi Kurds will be able to move towards that goal of building a shared future in what has been touted as an oasis of democracy and prosperity in violence-ripped Iraq.    
Since the Kurds established their autonomous region after an uprising against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1991, the region has been governed by the two ruling parties, which have shared power according to what they have termed a 50/ 50 partnership agreement.
Iraq’s post-Saddam constitution, which was endorsed in 2005, declared Kurdistan to be a federal region with an autonomous parliament and government.
Since then, the KDP and PUK have formed a common bloc in the parliament and the government, even though they have stayed separate as entities, each with its own security forces.
While the KDP’s political support remains strong in Erbil and Duhok, Kurdistan’s third major province Suleimaniya is the stronghold of the PUK. The two areas are divided by linguistic, political and social differences.
Both parties arose out of the years of resistance that the Kurds have put up against successive Iraqi governments since the modern Iraqi state came into being in the 1920s.
Though their agreement might have brought stability to the troubled region, many Kurds believe that the partnership formula has divided Kurdistan into two separate fiefdoms, splitting power and revenues among Talabani’s and Barzani’s families and cronies.
In the last election in 2009, the two parties won 75 seats altogether, giving them an absolute majority in the parliament.            There is no question about whether the KDP will get more seats than the other parties this time around. Instead, the question is whether it will maintain its partnership with the PUK, which has decided to run in the election separately. 
Various estimates suggest that the KDP will maintain a lead in its strongholds of Erbil and Dohuk and will probably receive 30 seats.
The PUK, meanwhile, is expected to lose some of its 29 seats in the outgoing parliament.
Its standing has been shrunk by the prolonged absence of its leader, Talabani, who is believed to be in a coma since he was admitted to a German hospital in December after suffering from a stroke.
Moreover, the two parties’ dominance of Kurdistan’s politics is now being strongly contested by a new reform movement that is bent on jettisoning the government in next week’s elections.
The new party, Goran, or Change, was formed shortly before the 2009 elections on an anti-corruption and pro-reform platform, and it surprised observers when it received a quarter of the votes.
Now the party expects to increase the number of its seats considerably. It hopes that it can form a coalition with the smaller opposition parties that are expected to win some 20 seats. 
Most of Goran’s members are former members of the PUK, who left in protest over Talabani’s mishandling of the party, the corruption of his family and closest aides, and his partnership with Barzani. 
On Saturday, Goran’s leader, Noswhirwan Mustafa, promised a big election victory which he said would enable the party to form a government.
“The era of scaring people and buying their votes has ended. These were practices used by despotic and failed governments,” he told an election rally.
“This election will be like a court of Justice that punishes the bad and rewards the good,” he said. “Our next move is to be in power.”
This might seem to be just rhetoric, but it has been enough to put the two ruling parties on notice. While the KDP seems ready to fight tooth and nail not to fall back, top PUK members now say that their party will rejoin the alliance with the KDP after the elections.
Yet, even if Goran fails to break the monopoly of power held by the KDP and the PUK, it has succeeded in giving Kurds an alternative to Barzani’s and Talabani’s autocracy that has dominated Kurdish politics for more than half a century.
Next week, the only thing that will matter will be whether the KDP and the PUK have a joint majority of the seats in Kurdistan’s new parliament.
If not, it will be a historic turning point for change to Kurdistan’s, and probably Iraq’s, political landscape.