The Future of Iraq

Re: # 20
that is why I find it astonishing that the US admin thinks it could do it in 4 years. It needs a much more longer term thinking - its not a short term thing.

Maybe something like the Shia democracy (I donot want to use the other word here for obvious reasons ;) )should be the option here.

Who knows, Crystal ball gazing is best left to the people who can do it!

#11 Posted by HP

you are right. At that moment in 2002, it was Plan Rumsfeld all over. March in, kick saddam out, put in chalabi, put in some vague governing federal structure and walk out bearing bottles of shaat al arab water. Now look where they are!

#10 Posted by Ranjit

Well, an orderly transition. I presume along the lines of India and Pakistan? well, it wasnt orderly at all, and in any case, there are way too many parties involved who are against it. Outside Iraq, Turkey is against it, Syria is against it, most of the Arab lands are against it. Iran is ok with it but not with kurdistan coming into play. Internally, you dont have a hope in hell of convincing the sunni, yazdi's to do this, not the baathists, not the al queda buggers, not the tribal chiefs. The SCIRI might be willing to do so, but again, i dont think the mahdi army guys would like it..... And even if it was possible right after the invasion, it most certainly is not right now. And the UN, Arab League or even OIC dont have the troops, money, will or guts to step in to drive something like partition down the throats of the various groups.

#9 Posted by TahirQazi

Tahir Sahib, thank you for your comments. I agree with you wholeheartedly about the Kurd question being more than just Sunni. The history of kurdistan is a long and frequently shameful one. (see an old essay of mine here, http://www.flash-bulletin.de/2003/eSeptember22.htm#5). Oil is indeed a factor in the iraqi imbrogilo and you have identified it as such.

#8 Posted by Folio on July 24, 2007 7:50:22 pm
There are no more Nehrus in this world to save us from the tyranny of the likes of George Bush. Alas!

Folio sahib(a), i wouldnt go as far as that, my friend. The tryanny of dubya bush can be rejected, and has been. Let me give you two particular examples. Turkey told Dubya to take a flying jump when they wanted to create a northern front for Iraq. Similarly, India told Dubya to take a swimming leap when they came around asking for troops and stuffies. Even iran is doing that. And none of these countries, during the time that they showed the finger to USA, has had charismatic national leaders like Nehru, Tito, Ataturk, or Khomeini. But these countries have institutions (threadbare, dusty, leaking, corrupt) but institutions none the less which allowed pretty average leaders to be confident that the country was behind them. Once that confidence is there, they could show the proverbial finger. Compare that to other countries whose leaders do not have an institutional structure, who are unable to rely whole heartedly on the country, they buckle under the pressure and trynanny of king george!

Re: # 15

Beady boss,

As 4 showing the finger....King jong Il had been actually showing the dick to Bush....& All American Prezs!

Indiscrimante bombing of Lebanon was uncontested.....occuption of Iraq (though I am happy abt the flattening of Taliban) is another concern....there's nobody in this world to speak, at least.......

The idea of Nehru lingers.....the brightest Kashmiri son of modern India............

& the voice of Sunil Khilnani comes to my mind.

#2 Posted by KaalChakra

I am afraid without leaders who can draw the nation together, it will be impossible for Iraq to live on as an independent entity. Take Yoguslavia, India and Pakistan for example. Nehru and company managed to draw india together and developed institutions. Yoguslavia under tito tried to do the same but he didnt manage to develop institutions which could overpower the ethnic chasms and we all know about Pakistan. So while the importance of leaders can be debated, in the case of Iraq, I would say that it is absolutely vital that some form of national leadership (outside the sectarian/group/religious aligned leadership) emerges for it to survive.

#1 Posted by iron_mask

no, nothing new, my friend. This has been said before and I am sure will be said even more going forward. Just couple of points, you need to think about how the Yazdi's and the fast diminishing number of christians fit into this picture.

Secondly, within the sunni's, you have the tribal structure, the international jihadi networks, and the secular ex baathist structure, broadly speaking, there are many more fissures.

I spoke with couple of senior G3's here in London who had rotated out of Iraq, and listening to them was absolutely bizarre. These chaps are using latest organisational mapping software to determine how and where to deploy funds (usually cash out of the back of a hummer) and i saw one printout. In one province, ANBAR, they had more than 60,000 people to whom they were distributing cash. Each of these guys were supposed to be identified as a "stakeholder". That's how far down the divisions go! So the theorising has a point, the theory is being applied on the ground, the results are for all of us to see.

Re: # 13
precisely the point beady - the divisions are deep. And the reason, if I could borrow (or steal) from kaalChakra and Dash_dot (respectively)

Yatha Raja Tatha Praja

If you can trust the king you can trust the people. If the king is a slime ball, some of it will sublimate to the people.

You need a process of a complete cleansing of the stables - starting with the minds and attidues - otherwise everything else will be cosmetic.

#10 by Ranjit

By having homogenous partitions, the Iraqis have a fighting chance to be democratic in each of these partitions.

Are you sure it will happen? Because closer home not too long ago, the justification used was the same, but it didn't work at all except in the case of India.

Interestingly, no one was concerned about Iraq’s future in 2002 or even before that but after the US forces have destroyed that country inside out, we are talking about Iraq’s future.

Foreign intervention of the kind of magnitude that Iraq saw would destroy any country’s future. In the 90s the US destroyed the future of a country in Eastern Europe and that one country now perhaps is three countries. The US destroyed the future of a country right in front of our eyes and now we are debating its future without discussing what the US intervention based on lies did to it. More important than the country Iraq itself, are the people of Iraq. What is their future? The Iraqi Middle class has pretty much left the country and is now holed out in refugee camps in Syria and other neighboring countries.

Every plan that the US had for Iraq had failed before it got any traction. Surge hasn’t worked, the Maliki kind of democracy hasn’t worked, the friendship with the Shias hasn’t worked and now claims of friendship with the Sunnis wont work.

Strangely, after four years of presence, the US claims that the Alqaeda is more powerful in Iraq than it ever was during the Sadam regime. The tacit acceptance of failure by the US admin and the US military is astonishing.

Iraq will have a future when the US gets out of there. With such an inept admin in the White House, the question of US future perhaps is more appropriate.

"If Iraq falls apart into three parts, the Shia, Sunni and Kurd parts, then the Middle East is going to go up in flames"

This is a cliche that is repeated ad nauseum by the media. Why cant there be an orderly partition of Iraq into three countries? If that country is such an artificial entity, just break the damn thing up into its natural pieces. At least they will stop suicide bombing each other and random killing of 30-40 people every day. Then the UN and NATO can send in peacekeepers to manager their borders. The populations in the mixed areas can be transferred in or out in a systematic manner under international supervision. By having homogenous partitions, the Iraqis have a fighting chance to be democratic in each of these partitions.

Lets look at the issue of foreign intervention in a post partition Iraq. To begin with, Arabs have zero unity. Iraqi sunnis, will not want to be taken over by Syria or Jordan who belong to different tribes. Similarly the Iraqi shias are arabs and not persians. They have no natural desire to unite with Iran. They may form an alliance like Nepal and India but thats about it. If Iran attacks the Shia part or Turkey attacks the Kurd part or Syria attacks the Sunni part, then the NATO forces and United Nations peacekeepers will step in. In fact, these peacekeepers can not only manage the borders between the 3 new states, but also the borders with their better known neighbors.

Lets face it - Iraq is just like Yugoslavia where croats, serbs and bosnians were fighting like cats and dogs. They were separated and given well defined borders under the Dayton Accords. That stopped all the violence that we routinely saw in Sarajevo. We certainly didnt see Russia or Turkey or any other neighbor step in and take sides in any broader conflict, mainly because of the presence of the UN peackeepers and NATO troops.

If Bush had one tenth of the IQ that Clinton had, he would have got this done years back. Instead he is wasting lives and treasure trying to create a secular democracy amongst these barbarians.

Dear Bhaskar:

Interesting article indeed.

I did not look at the divide in Iraq with as much emphasis on sectarianism as you did. May be your vantage point is valid. My reservation is based on the idea that the conflict in Iraq (if one places primary emphasis on ‘sectarianism’), does not predict the misgivings of Kurds even though they are mainly Sunnis. Along this line of reasoning, they should have allied with Sunnis if sectarianism were the root-cause of conflict. One has to change the yardstick from sectarianism to regionalism to explain Kurd issue.

Anyways, I had written about Iraq issue some months ago that the CHOWK staff decided not to publish for whatever reason. It was published as featured article on "Axis of Logic" and some other places. I am taking liberty to copy and paste it below for sharing with you. Like always, thanks.

Tahir Qazi
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Iraq
Fight for "Black-Blood" of Global Economy in Iraq
By Tahir M. Qazi, MD
Jan 13, 2007, 17:22

Hidden behind the smoke of firing guns and chaotic scenes in Iraq is the greedy face of Multinational Corporations and their political patrons, who have been waiting to make a killing in the oil fields of Iraq. Oil exploration and extraction used to be a state enterprise of Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule. With Saddam Hussein through the gallows, one obstruction is cleared.

Oil, the "Black-Blood" of Global Economy, is an Iraqi natural resource. But the draft legislation is on the table to be presented to the Iraqi parliament to sign it into a law. It is currently being termed as "Hydrocarbon Law". This law will allow oil-hawks to take a bigger bite out of the energy resource in the war ridden and collapsed state of Iraq. It is going to be called Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). Common practice for investments is to offers rights for extraction for 10-15 year whereas in case of Iraq it may be up to 30 years. Until the costs of a project have been recovered oil companies would be allowed to keep 70% of the profit. Elsewhere 40% would be a standard. Once the costs are recouped the companies' share falls to 20%, which is still double other comparable agreement.

There were prophetic voices in the world alarming about greed for oil when WMD-danger was being moved as an argument for invasion of Iraq. British and the US high officials, at that time, had vehemently denied any intentions of controlling Iraqi oil. Tony Blair went to the extent of saying that Iraqi oil should be put into a trust fund to be run by UN for Iraqis. Obviously, it seems that the promises made before the war have been conveniently forgotten.

There are vast oil reserves in many parts of the world. Iraq has about 115 billion barrels, the second largest in the world. Despite the present violence there, it appears to be most promising for future profits. Elsewhere there are hindrances like tight controls of states, limitations on extraction of oil as in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez, and high cost of drilling out of North America etc. These are few factors for looking at huge oil fields in Iraq where the oil geological stratum is not too far deep under the surface. It will translate into the lowest cost of extraction in the whole world.

In a scenario where cost of extraction remains the same as the selling price is not a viable business strategy, to state the obvious; projections in case of Iraq are that there will be high yield with good profit margins. Oil corporations have always been aware of this fact. This fact alone makes the core of US Middle East foreign policy that was turning progressively hawkish against Iraq over the decades, partly due to the absence of polarity in the world that former Soviet Union provided and partly due to Saddam Hussein's nationalism-based opposition to opening oil fields to private corporations for extraction of oil.

Fast forward to the present; the US did not anticipate such a stiff resistance in Iraq against the most powerful military in the world. It has made the US rethink the course by which private oil companies could be offered security in the future Iraq. While Saddam's fate from tribunal to gallows was fast moving towards its destiny, counseling and consultancy for draft of legislation that is soon to be presented to the legislative body, was being provided by the US to Iraqi administration to ensure opening oil fields well before such recommendations appeared in the Baker-Hamilton Commission Report on Iraq (Recommendations 62 & 63).

The importance of this fact alone can be understood by the fact that the Baker-Hamilton Report frequently talks about the US interests and specifically refers to oil on second page of its opening, "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves".

Nonetheless, the draft bill that has been obtained by Dow Jones Newswire Service and also widely published by The Independent newspaper details some interesting key elements that can help foresee the future of Iraq.

There was one bill passed by the Kurdistan Regional Government in December claiming rights to oil of the region. What is interesting is that the Hydrocarbon Law currently under consideration by Iraqi administration precludes any regional control of oil and stipulates control from Baghdad.

It sows the seed of future conflicts because the Kurdish authority has already signed agreements with several small oil and gas companies, including U.S.-based Calibre Energy Inc., Norway's Det Norske Olje Selskap, and Turkey's Petoil and has signed memoranda of understanding with Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Canada's Heritage Oil Corp., and the U.K.'s Sterling Energy PLC.

The part of Iraqi hydrocarbon law, the way it has come open to the media that describes Baghdad's control of oil has important implications for the future: It means Iraq will not be divided into three regions as has advocated by many including presidential candidate for 2008 Joseph Biden, Senator from the State of Delaware. Since Baghdad wishes to maintain control on oil, there is a good possibility of friction between center and Kurdistan and a civil war that has engulfed Baghdad may spread towards northern areas of Iraq.

If a favorable deal is reached between Baghdad and Kurdistan, it will serve as precedence for southern Shiites who will find it hard to stay alienated from control unless special guarantees are offered to them, which in turn would not fare well with Sunnis, located in central Iraq.

In short, according to an old adage, "There are no friends in oil politics, only enemies and competitors" rings true in the case of Iraq also. Such fears validate predictions that the US would fight viciously to stay in Iraq and that the black-blood of industrial civilization is firmly in the grips of capitalism for the foreseeable future. It also measures willingness of the US to trade human blood for its greed for oil.

[This article is dedicated to my niece Sarah Choudhry, with love.]
Authors e-mail: tahir.qazi@yahoo.com

© Copyright 2007 by AxisofLogic.com

There are no more Nehrus in this world to save us from the tyranny of the likes of George Bush. Alas!

Hmmmm, Dash_Dot, I would be only guessing here. I know nothing about Arab culture as such.

Is there any Islam which is not Arabic ideology or Arabic Emperium? Ofcourse! Iranians aren't very fond of the Arabs at all. The Turks, the Malaysians, the Indonesians, the Black Muslims, and the European Muslims all do whatever they do without paying yearly tributes to the current Arab regimes or without entirely giving up their own cultures.

But I also don't believe that any of these are stable or not ill-fitting in their respective contexts. None of them is viable or durable in the least. Only time will tell whether that is true or not.

Islam will become clearly distinguishable from Arabic ideology and Emperium when (1) Islam can be known for sure without people caring for the fine points of Arabic language (say, local translations of the Quran become popularly accepted as authentic), and (2) the practices, preferences, and histories of Arabic men and women stop beign relevant to defining Islam for the masses.

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Why did Islamic civilization flourish in all those places? I can speculate based on basic facts.

Islam is centrally concerned with the acquisition and maintenance of temporal power in the hands of the Islamically righteous Muslim men, with Muslim women as their primary support mechanism. And it is concerned about the centralization of that power.

It's byproducts are stability, uniformity, and Islam's own version of justice. (this is all theory, in practice, no ends are ever fully achieved)

WHEREVER and IF creativity and rich cultural/intellectual traditions are ALREADY present, the above (stability, uniformity, and some framework of justice) can create an environment for strong civilizational efflorescence to the extent basic Islamic framework is not directly contradicted.

Well, that's my speculation. Subject to complete and total revision. Would love to know your views.

#5 contd

what we are seeing today is the advance of "arabic ideology" not the islamic civilisation as we have known for "sadiyon". This is the Arabic Emperium which the likes of little zeemax and co are trying to impose on the world.

Just a thought I could be wrong, what are your thoughts on this.