In an apparent bid to divide Shiites and Sunnis on the eve of Sunday’s parliamentary election, guerrillas on Saturday morning set off a bomb only 900 feet from the shrine of Imam Ali (which has the sort of place in the hearts of Shiite Muslims that the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome has for Catholics).
If the Sadrists succeed in rallying the Shiite masses to vote as an act of defiance toward the US military presence and the complaisance of the al-Maliki government, it could change the political landcape.
The USG Open Source Center translates a guide to the main party coalitions in the March 7 elections in Iraq:
As early voting begins in Sunday’s national elections, Iraq has been beset by bombings: the toll from three suicide attacks in Baquba on Wednesday is now 33 dead and 42 injured, and a suicide bomber has killed three and injured 15 today at a Baghdad polling station.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that it has gotten hold of an American intelligence document detailing undue Iranian influence in Iraq and in the Iraqi elections. The document says that Ahmad Chalabi and Ali al-Lami, influential members of the ‘Jusice and Accountability Committee’ in charge of purging Baathists from public life, met repeatedly with Iranian officials last fall. Among those they met were Qasim Sulaimani, head of the special forces Jerusalem (Quds) Brigade and the Iranian foreign minister. US Commanding General in Iraq, Ray Odierno, charged that Iran was behind the campaign to disqualify over 500 alleged Baathists from running in Iraq’s March 7 parliamentary, and this document seems to lend some credence to the allegation.
With national elections in Iraq on Sunday and Juan Cole writing, “The greatest danger of these [latest] political maneuverings is that they may reignite guerrilla and militia violence in Iraq, and possibly impede the scheduled withdrawal of the US military,” Newsweek’s Twitter team makes everything simple:
In 6 words, tell us your thoughts on the state of democracy in Iraq. Reply @Newsweek, or email your entry to sixwords@newsweek.com
Journalist Tom Ricks, author of two high-profile books on the US and the Iraq War, featured this comment on his blog from Nir Rosen, who has been notable for his reportage from Iraq. I found it illuminating for several reasons:
1. Rosen offers a pragmatic, rather than wish-driven, assessment that Iraq will not return to sectarian war. That prediction, which is being hotly debated amongst Iraq specialists, is one of the key issues behind and beyond the forthcoming Iraqi national elections on 7 March.
2. Don’t confuse this, however, with “democracy”, which is likely to be the superficial headline in much press coverage. Democracy promotion was never the goal of the Bush Administration when it invaded Iraq, and it is not the primary concern of the Obama Administration, either. This episode is power politics.
3. And an irony: Rosen’s assessment highlights that the US military is largely a bystander in this process. There will continue to be a running argument as to whether the vaunted “surge” of 2007/8 created the space for a measure of stability and security, but those matters are now in the hands of Iraqis. Not sure, however, that Ricks will appreciate this point even as he posts Rosen’s thoughts: he is one of the spokesmen for the US military’s current push to delay and even break President Obama’s declared date for withdrawal of American forces.
It’s been frustrating to read the latest hysteria about sectarianism returning to Iraq, the threat of a new civil war looming, or even the notion that Iraq is “unraveling.” I left Iraq today after an intense mission on behalf of Refugees International. My colleague Elizabeth Campbell and I traveled comfortably and easily throughout Baghdad, Salahedin, Diyala and Babil. We were out among Iraqis until well into the night every day, often in remote villages, traveling in a normal Toyota Corolla. Our main hassle was traffic and having to go through a thousand security checkpoints a day. Stay tuned for our report next month about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq (which deserves more attention than political squabbles) and the situation of Iraqis displaced since 2003. Stay tuned for my own article about what I found politically as well. And finally stay tuned later this year for my book on the Iraqi civil war, the surge, counterinsurgency and the impact of the war in Iraq on the region.
UPDATE 0915 GMT: Here is what, in today’s power politics, is what the rhetoric of “liberal intervention” props up. Thomas Ricks declares, alongside Friedman’s piece in The New York Times, “Leaders in [the US and Iraq] may come to recognize that the best way to deter a return to civil war is to find a way to keep 30,000 to 50,000 United States service members in Iraq for many years to come.”
Seven years after the 2003 war and the violence and disorder that followed, Iraq has moved on to other political conflicts and issues. Yet, for some, this will always be a case of returning to the scene to construct victory or to build the excuse for absolution. War must become liberation, crime must become justice, tragedy must become redemption.
One of those who persists is New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. This morning Friedman, who used his “liberal” drum to bang loudly and incessantly for the 2003 invasion, opens his column:
From the very beginning of the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the effort to build some kind of democracy there, a simple but gnawing question has lurked in the background: Was Iraq the way Iraq was (a dictatorship) because Saddam was the way Saddam was, or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq was the way Iraq was — a collection of warring sects incapable of self-rule and only governable with an iron fist?
Entries (RSS)