Analysis: Provincial Elections in Iraq

The pressure of following President Obama's first days in office and events such as Gaza has pushed Iraq to the background. It shouldn't, as the country is entering a critical phase with Sunday's provincial elections. For all the vaunted success of the "surge" and the nominal US handover to Iraqi sovereignty, the country is still in "violent semi-peace". There are still bombings and killings on a daily basis, albeit much reduced below the levels of the last three years, and certain areas such as Mosul and Kirkuk are especially tense.

Robert Dreyfuss, one of the most provocative observers of Iraq, offers this analysis of the elections: "If [the process doesn't] go smoothly, and if the elections don't result in gains for parties that were shut out of the political process in 2005 -- especially among Iraq's disenfranchised Sunni bloc -- then it's very likely that violence will increase once again. It's even possible that many Sunnis will return to armed resistance, and some of them will rejoin Al Qaeda in Iraq.



Iraq's Election: What to Watch For

On Saturday, January 31, Iraq will conduct its first elections since 2005, when Iraqis went to the polls to select both their national parliament and provincial councils. This time, the election will decide only the provincial councils in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Still, the election is likely to be a turning point for Iraq. Which way it turns -- toward greater democracy, or toward further instability and a return of violent resistance -- depends on what happens on Saturday.

It's not a pretty picture. The elections promise to be marred by violence, fraud, intimidation, vote-buying and bribery, bloc voting by tribes and ethnic constituencies, and undue influence by Shiite clerics.

If things don't go smoothly, and if the elections don't result in gains for parties that were shut out of the political process in 2005 -- especially among Iraq's disenfranchised Sunni bloc -- then it's very likely that violence will increase once again. It's even possible that many Sunnis will return to armed resistance, and some of them will rejoin Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Viewed most broadly, the election is a test of the ability of Iraq's ruling coalition to cling to power despite having presided over a catastrophic collapse of Iraq's economy, social services, and utilities, and despite widespread public perceptions that the ruling parties are guilty of vast corruption, mismanagement, and rule by paramilitary force through party militias. The four ruling parties are the two Shiite fundamentalist religious parties, the Islamic Dawa party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and the two Kurdish separatist parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). According to many sources I've interviewed, including Iraqis involved in the elections, large numbers of Iraqis view all four ruling parties with disdain. They are blamed for their inability to provide basic services such as electricity, health care, fuel, water, and trash collection, all of which are intermittent at best and nonexistent at worst. They are blamed for their mismanagement of the economy, and especially Iraq's oil, and for the unemployment rate that is estimated at 50 percent. Under ordinary circumstances, all four parties would suffer massive repudiation at the polls. But these are not ordinary circumstances.

The election is also seen as a referendum of sorts on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose Dawa party is a powerful player in Saturday's vote. Although Maliki's Dawa has split and split again -- it is down to a miniscule six seats in the 275-member parliament, after schisms -- it benefits from Maliki's heavyhanded use of political power as prime minister. Despite Dawa's history as a secretive, cell-based and cult-like religious movement with obscurantist Shiite views, Maliki is drawing electoral support from Iraqis who view him as a strongman, sort of a Saddam-lite ruler, and he has recast himself as a nationalist. He's built a fiefdom in the Iraqi army, shifting and reappointing generals who support him, in a naked effort to turn the army into Dawa's private militia. He's used a pair of security organizations that report directly to the prime minister's office to carry out arrests and intimidation of rival politicians and parties, especially against Muqtada al-Sadr's allies. He's constructed paramilitary "tribal councils" in provinces all over Iraq, lavishing tens of millions of dollars in government funding on these organizations, which are in fact nothing more than outright arms of Maliki's office. And he's using the Iraqi government's state-owned media openly on his behalf.

Here's what to watch for on Saturday:

First, can the religious parties hold on? According to many accounts, liberal, nationalist, and secular Iraqis believe that the population at large is disenchanted with Dawa, ISCI and the Sadrists. Will that result in gains for parties of a distinctly secular approach, especially the party led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite who has broad appeal to many nationalists and Sunnis? Or will the built-in advantages of Dawa and ISCI, who control the media and the government, allow them to continue as dominant forces?

Second, will the Sunnis gain power in the provinces where they are either dominant or strong? In 2005, the Sunnis boycotted the vote, and only about 2 percent of Sunni Arabs voted at all. That led to a victory for the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), a fundamentalist religious party of Sunnis tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2009, many analysts expect that the IIP will be decimated. Since 2003, the IIP has cooperated with the United States and with the Kurdish-Shiite ruling alliance, so if the IIP is knocked out, expect a more militant, more nationalist force to take its place. Many of the former resistance groups, the Awakening movement, and Sunni tribal parties have formed parties for the Jan. 31 election.

Key battles will be in Mosul, capital of Nineveh province in the north; in Baghdad, the capital and a province of its own, with nearly one-fourth of Iraq's population; and Diyala province, a mixed area northeast of Baghdad.

In Nineveh province, because the Sunnis boycotted the last vote, the provincial council is controlled overwhelmingly by Kurds, who are a small minority in Nineveh, confined to eastern Mosul city. The Kurds are angling to suppress the Sunni vote, and they've even armed a Christian militia. By all accounts, though, the Sunnis ought to seize control of Nineveh. If they don't, an angry and violent resistance movement is likely to emerge in the north.

In Baghdad province, now controlled by ISCI and Dawa, there's a chance that nationalist parties, Sunnis, and secular parties can win a large number seats on Baghdad's 57-seat council, and if they make the right alliances -- say, with Sadrists -- they could oust ISCI and Dawa in the heart of the country. But Baghdad has been ethnically cleansed, and many Sunnis have been displaced. It's not clear if displaced Iraqis will be allowed to vote, or if so, for whom. If the Shiite religious parties maintain control of Baghdad, again it's possible that there will be a violent reaction from former insurgents and elements of the Awakening movement.

In Diyala province, where Sunnis and Shiites are more balanced, the outcome up for grabs. Sunni and Shiite enclaves are walled off, violence is endemic, candidates can't easily campaign or promote their parties, and the results will make no one happy. It's a tinderbox.

There is also the question of outside support. Iran is undoubtedly pouring money into support for its allies, including ISCI. To a lesser degree, Saudi Arabia is probably supporting some Sunni parties and possibly some secular parties as well. Turkey is suspected of backing the IIP. And it's hard to believe that the CIA isn't giving cash to back favored candidates.

Meanwhile, the election will be incomplete because there is no vote in disputed Tamim province, whose capital of KIrkuk is claimed by expansionist Kurds. The problem in Kirkuk is so explosive that the Iraqi government decided to put off elections there altogether. And there are no provincial elections in the three Kurdish provinces in the north, which are increasingly seen as part of a separatist, independence-minded zone -- something that both Sunni and Shiite Arabs reject.

Obama on Top of the World: The Afghanistan Muddle

Latest Updates: Obama on Top of the World (23 January)

We ended yesterday's updates in confusion over the "gobbledy-gook" statement of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Afghanistan which promised "more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically within three to five years", implying that the Bush Administration had no such goals such as ensuring Afghan security, fighting Al Qa'eda, and delivering services to the Afghan people.

Where we saw cause for concern, Robert Dreyfuss, who asked the question that led to Gates' response, sees hope. For him, the statement points to a "stalemate" within the Obama Administration over the number of US troops to be sent to Afghanistan in 2009, with Gates and the military pushing for a doubling of the US presence from 30,000 to 60,000 but Obama favouring a smaller but unspecified amount. This "opens a window -- yes, it's a small one -- for opponents of expanding the Afghan war to persuade the White House that it's not a good idea".

In his analysis, Dreyfuss posts the transcript of his exchange with Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the opening statement by Richard Holbrooke, the President's envoy to Afghanistan:


I had a chance today, at a news briefing at the Pentagon, to ask Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, about plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan. I pointed out the contradiction between President Obama's campaign pledge to add "two or three brigades" of troops and the US commander's determination to add 30,000 troops, two or three times as much as Obama had promised to add.

Significantly, in their answer, Gates and Mullen stressed that no decision has yet been made about adding troops. That's important, because it opens a window -- yes, it's a small one -- for opponents of expanding the Afghan war to persuade the White House that it's not a good idea.

Here's the transcript of my exchange with Gates and Mullen:

Dreyfuss: During the campaign, President Obama said that he would, when elected, send perhaps two to three additional brigades of troops to Afghanistan. Lately, actually since the election, we've heard talk about as many as 30,000 troops -- significantly more than that -- going to Afghanistan. Have any decisions been actually made, pending this review that the president has talked about, in terms of how many American forces might go to Afghanistan this year?

Gates: No final decision has been made. Part of -- part of what the president made clear was that they intend to look at Iraq and Afghanistan holistically. And so I think part of the -- one of the things that the president will expect before making decisions is what the implications are not just for Iraq, but for Afghanistan. And I expect, as I say that, to be part of those decisions to be forthcoming pretty soon.

Do you want to add anything to that?

Mullen: I -- I really wouldn't add a lot except to say that these are the level of forces that the commander has asked for. So again, we've looked very carefully at how to do that. There have been some recommendations that have been made up the chain of command, but no decisions yet.

And consistent with what I said before, I think a very deliberate process now, but rapid as it can be, to both recommend and have the president make this decision -- these decisions.

Dreyfuss: Are there detailed plans that you've already seen for what these 30,000 troops would do -- in other words, where they would be deployed specifically in terms of what provinces and cities, and what their tasks would be? Or is it just a ballpark estimate about what these --

Mullen: No. I -- consistent with how the commanders on the ground have acted for years now is when they come forward, they come forward and have a very clear plan of what they want the forces to do. And that's certainly the case here as well.

It's clear to me that even though Gates and Mullen say that no decision has been made, they are pushing for the additional troops. And it seems pretty clear that Obama has decided to add at least some troops to the mix.

Another reporter asked if the new administration has any idea of what its goals in Afghanistan are. "What is our end state? When are we done there?" she asked.

Here's Gates' complete answer, which, you'll notice, was framed in terms of the commitment of "three to five years" for even the limited goals he outlines:

I think one of the -- one of the points where I suspect both administrations come to the same conclusion is that the goals we did have for Afghanistan are too broad and too far into the future, are too future-oriented, and that we need more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically within three to five years in terms of reestablishing control in certain areas, providing security for the population, going after al Qaeda, preventing the reestablishment of terrorism, better performance in terms of delivery of services to the people, some very concrete things.

So I think that that's -- that's a starting point. But you know, the president, I think, has referred -- I think referred last night to the need for a comprehensive assessment on Afghanistan. And what we have -- you know, I mean, we have a -- we have a NATO campaign plan. We have an RC [Regional Command] South campaign plan. We have a commander's campaign plan. We have General Petraeus's study. And we have the Afghan review that was conducted in the last administration at the White House.

So I think all of these pieces will be inputs into the -- into the review that this administration will take in terms of determining what those nearer-term goals should be and how we get to where we -- where we can achieve them.

Meanwhile, across the river, at the State Department Hillary Clinton was introducing Richard Holbrooke, her hawkish adviser, as her special envoy for Afghanistan (and Pakistan). Holbooke was looking at "long-term," not short-term goals, in Afghanistan, though he avoided saying anything of substance, really. It's his job to pull together all elements of US policy for a coordinated strategy in the war in Afghanistan and spilling over into neighboring Pakistan. Here's what Holbrooke did say:

We know what our long-term objective is. I hope I will be able to fill out the mandate which Secretary Clinton has mentioned: to help coordinate a clearly chaotic foreign assistance program, which must be pulled together; to work closely with General Petraeus, CENTCOM, Admiral Mullen, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General McKiernan and the command in Afghanistan, to create a more coherent program.

If our resources are mobilized and coordinated and pulled together, we can quadruple, quintuple, multiply by tenfold the effectiveness of our efforts there.

The Times, meanwhile, carries a lengthy piece by Dexter Filkins today on the vast areas of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban, without any US or NATO presence to deter them. An excerpt:

The Taliban are everywhere the soldiers are not, the saying goes in the southern part of the country. ...

The general [Brig. Gen. John W. Nicholson] is going to get a lot more troops very soon. American commanders in southern Afghanistan have been told to make plans to accept nearly all of the 20,000 to 30,000 additional troops that the Obama administration has agreed to deploy. ... The commanders here call the current situation "stalemate," meaning they can hold what they have but cannot do much else. ...

It is perhaps in Kandahar, one of the provincial capitals, where the lack of troops is most evident. About 3,000 Canadian soldiers are assigned to secure the city, home to about 500,000 people. In a recent visit, this reporter traveled the city for five days and did not see a single Canadian soldier on the streets.

The real point is that it's a stalemate. Obama has pledged to carry out a top-to-bottom review of Afghan policy. If that takes a month, or three months, or six months, so be it. There's no need to rush more troops there just because the generals want them.