Understanding The Recent Changes In Iraqi Political Dynamics
Roger Owen Al-Hayat - 01/05/08//
Events in Iraq are moving dramatically again. But, at least as far as people in America are concerned, there is remarkably little attempt to analyze the fundamentals of the present situation in terms of structure, context and possible trajectories. Here is what I tell my students at Harvard University.
You have to begin with the context. This is provided, first, by the assumption of an American military withdrawal from most parts of the country in the next year or two. And, second, by this October's provincial elections. That the Americans are on their eventual way out no one in Iraq can doubt. Yet no one also knows how this will be achieved, and, more to the point, how their military power might be deployed before they go. One obvious possibility is that they will continue to support the fledgling Iraqi army in a series of further operations against Moqtada al-Sadr's militia in Baghdad.
As for the provincial elections, as everyone who remembers the previous ones in 2005 well understands, local power over the police, the administration and local resources will go to whichever party is deemed to have won the most votes. The importance the parties attach to control over these assets can be seen from the continuing struggle, and associated assassinations, which has being going on in the south over the past couple of years, as well as from present attempts to prevent the Sadrists from making important electoral gains in October.
It was with this in mind that the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, made his recent attempt to use the national army to disarm the Sadr militiamen in Basra. And although many commentators seem to have labeled it a failure, the fact that, first in Basra and now in Baghdad, the Americans have weighed in on the army's side suggests a future pattern of cooperation which while strengthening the army's combat effectiveness will also have sent a message to Moqtada al-Sadr
himself about the dangers he will face if he tries to use his militias to
expand his own political power.
Recent events have also simplified political calculations to some quite
considerable extent. For one thing, the numbers of significant national
political actors, excluding the Kurds, have been reduced to four, all of them with armed forces at their disposal. These are the central government, the movement of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council with its Iranian-supported Badr Brigades and the leaders of the so-called Sunni Concerned Citizens Movement with up to 100,000 men under arms. For another, central power, having leaked away to the provinces for the last few years, is beginning to return to Baghdad again, encouraged by the growing size of both
the national army and of the government's oil-based financial reserves.
Put all these factors together and you can see the beginnings of a deal in which the leaders of the main forces just outlined believe it in their interests to come together to run the country as a shared concern. It will not be easy, but with an American withdrawal on the cards, accompanied by the prospects of the national election in November 2009, the outlines of a possible sectarian power-sharing agreement must be apparent to all.
Whether Moqtada al-Sadr himself now sees it in his interests to join in remains to be seen. You can certainly make the case that he will want to use his present popularity and power to win as many of the provincial administrations as he can before joining any future coalition from a position of even greater strength. But you can also argue the opposite, that the combined forces against him - the American backed national army and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades -
now appear strong enough to necessitate a partial retreat on his part lest his enemies take the further dangerous step of trying to ban his party from the provincial elections entirely.
Then there are the Iranians to consider. The fact that they were so quick to negotiate a truce between the rival forces fighting in Basra suggests that they have an obvious interest in preserving Shi'i strength the better to achieve what must certainly be their most important goal, a united, Shi'i-dominated government in Baghdad. Whether they also believe that such a government should contain the Sadrists remains a moot point. No doubt there are many different counsels in Teheran including those who urge a wait and see policy as far as al-Sadr's own future is concerned before making a final decision. He remains,
after all, the leader of most significant national, anti-American and,
potentially anti-Iranian armed force in Iraq, even if his hold over many of his followers may have been seriously weakened by recent events.
I have often argued that, whether they intended to or not, the American and British occupiers have forced Iraq into a pattern of political sectarianism with many similarities with Lebanon. To work, it needs cooperation among the sectarian leaders at the top, a prospect that has become more of a possibility as a result of al-Maliki's actions in Basra.
Yet, like Lebanon, there are many obstacles to permanent agreement even after the exit of the major occupying forces. Neighboring states can continue to exercise a powerful influence from outside. While internal actors, like Hizbollah, like al-Sadr's Mahdi's army, are able to play a positive or a negative role by turns, cooperating with the other sectarian parties where they feel it useful, but determined at all costs to hang on to their militias for self-defence and on the grounds that they are needed to protect the country from dangerous enemies outside.
You don't have to be a Max Weber to understand the importance Iraqis attach to the notion that governments seek a monopoly of violence. If you are powerless you may welcome it. If it appears threatening, you will seek to offset it with military power of your own. Iraq has now reached one of those turning points where, with a large number of its citizens beginning to welcome the appearance of a strengthening national army, the problem of either disarming or
incorporating the sectarian militias has at last reached the political table.
Even if there is still no consensus as to how it can most properly be
addressed.
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