Torturegate, G8, and the Greater Middle East

The Wall Street Journal's revelation of White House counsels' memoranda permitting what most people would consider torture-- on the basis of the president's position as commander in chief in wartime-- is among the most chilling things we have seen from a Bush administration not lacking in chills for civil libertarians. It seems clear from the anger expressed by senators like Joe Biden in the hearings addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday that they now suspect Bush himself authorized the Abu Ghuraib torture routines. And, they are helpless to do anything about it.

The revelations about the torture memos have cast a cloud over Bush's presentations at the G8 summit in Georgia. Since the Bush centerpiece at that conference was supposed to be promoting democracy in the Middle East, the Torturegate revelations pointed to US feet of clay. Wire services noted Bush's complete failure with Middle Eastern leaders at the summit:

"In an effort to demonstrate engagement with Arabs on the issues, Mr Bush invited the leaders of a number of Islamic countries to attend a lunch on Wednesday with G8 leaders, at their own expense. But leaders of some key nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, turned down the invitation, and Qatar was purposely snubbed because of administration anger at al-Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war. Ms Rice cited scheduling issues as the reason Morocco and Egypt - one of the effort's harshest critics - will not appear."

That sounds pretty sad.

With regard to the memos themselves, As usual, Josh Marshall is on the case. And, Billmon has an amusing treatment of the hypocrisy of Mary L. Walker, the US Air Force general counsel who led the team of lawyers that wrote the torture memos. (She claims to be a Christian. On the other hand, we cynical lefties should remember that it was Christian soldiers who blew the whistle on Abu Ghuraib, out of stricken consciences.)

A Republican Congress is most unlikely to impeach George W. Bush, even if it does become clear that he is the torturer in chief and that Lynddie England is not the mastermind behind Abu Ghuraib. But he could be prosecuted, even after leaving office, for breaking US law against torture.

United States Code Title 18. Section 2340. Definitions

As used in this chapter -
(1) ''torture'' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) ''severe mental pain or suffering'' means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from -
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) ''United States'' includes all areas under the jurisdiction of the United States including any of the places described in sections 5 and 7 of this title and section 46501(2) of title 49.

Section 2340A. Torture

(a) Offense. - Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction. - There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if -
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
(c) Conspiracy. - A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

As Steve Rendell noted in a piece a couple of years ago,

' Citing Title 18, Section 242 of the United States Code, legal writer Karen L. Snell notes (The Recorder, 10/31/01): "The use of pressure tactics, including torture by proxy, not only renders evidence obtained inadmissible in court. It's also a crime. And it is not just the person who physically or mentally assaults a suspect who is guilty. Any person who aids, abets, counsels or conspires to commit such acts is a criminal." '

UN Resolution Passes Unanimously
Sistani the Big Winner; Kurds Furious

The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a new resolution on Iraq granting legitimacy to the caretaker government of Iyad Allawi. The resolution gives the new Iraqi government substantially more sovereignty than had been envisaged by the US in the initial draft, and the Bush administration essentially compromised in order to have an achievement for the election season.

The resolution will make it easier for the Allawi government to gain the Iraq seat at the UN and at organizations like the Arab League. It also constrains the US from undertaking major military actions (think: Fallujah) without extensive consultation with the Iraqi government, and establishes a joint committee of US and Iraqi representatives to carry out those discussions. This military "partnership" was substituted successfully for a stricter French proposal that the Iraqi government have a veto over US military movements in Iraq. Still, the language went far beyond what the US had wanted.

That the US and the UK had to give away so much to get the resolution shows how weak they are in Iraq. The problem is that they have created a failed state in Iraq, and this new piece of paper really changes nothing on the ground (see the next news item, below).

The resolution did not mention or endorse the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) or interim constitution adopted last February by the Interim Governing Council and based on the notes of Paul Bremer. The Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had written Kofi Annan forbidding the UN from endorsing the TAL, on the grounds that it was illegitimate and contained provisions harmful to majority rule.

The Kurds on the other hand were absolutely furious that the UN did not mention the TAL, which they see as their safeguard against a tyranny of the Arab majority. It stipulates that the status quo will obtain in Kurdistan until an elected parliament crafts a permanent constitution next year this time, and that the three Kurdish provinces will have a veto over that new constitution if they do not like it. The Kurdish leaders threatened in a letter to President Bush on Sunday to boycott the elections this coming winter if there is any move to curtail their sovereigny or to rescind or amend the interim constitution. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat's Shirzad Abdul Rahman reports today that the Kurdish street is anxious about the future, feeling that it has been left up in the air.

This entire process is a big win for Sistani. It is now often forgotten that the Bush administration had had no intention of involving the UN in this way in Iraq. The original plan was to have stage-managed council-based elections in May, producing a new government to which sovereignty would be handed over by the US directly. It was Sistani who derailed those plans as undemocratic. When the involvement of the UN was first broached last winter by Interim Governing Council members, the Americans were said to have been "extremely offended). It was Sistani who demanded that Kofi Annan send a special envoy to Iraq. It was Sistani who insisted that free and fair elections must be held as soon as humanly possible. It was Sistani who insisted that the UN midwife the new Iraqi government, and not the US and the UK alone. It was Sistani who insisted that the UN resolution not mention the Transitional Administrative Law.

Al-Hayat reports demonstrations in favor of Sistani on Tuesday. Likewise there were rallies for the new prime minister, Iyad Allawi.

Readers have frequently asked me for a thumbnail sketch of Sistani's political philosophy, and the issue came up on one of my lists today. I reproduce here what I wrote.

Sistani's conception of the new Iraq is that it should have an elected parliament, which will represent the will of the Iraqi people. His language on this is almost a translation of Rousseau (one might have wished for more Locke or Jefferson and less Rousseau, of course). The parliament should consist of laypersons, not clerics. And, it should be pluralistic and represent politically all Iraqis, including Kurds and Sunnis.

This elected, lay parliament is one basic element in the good society according to Sistani.

The other is the approval of parliament and its legislation by the Marja`iyyah or Shiite religious leadership. Legitimacy thus has dual roots, in the will of the people and in the approval of the clerics.

I have compared Sistani's vision of Iraq to Ireland in the 1950s. There was an elected, lay parliament. But if it took up a matter such as divorce, which affected the interests of the Church, the Bishops intervened and usually were able to get their way. Likewise, Sistani expects a majority of members of parliament to be lay Shiites, and he expects them to conscientiously heed his fatwas on social issues. These rulings, however, will be issued from the seminaries of Najaf and come from outside the government. Sistani expects to have no official post, and discourages clerics from seeking such posts. The clerical role is played out in civil society, not within the state, for the most part.

Sistani rejects Khomeini's theory of the guardianship of the jurisprudent (vilayat-i faqih) in governmental affairs. He does not want to see a faqih or supreme jurisprudent in Iraq similar to the position of Ali Khamenei in Iran. But he does speak about wilayat al-faqih fi al-masa'il al-ijtima`iyyah, or the guardianship of the jurisprudent in social affairs. The mechanism for such a guardianship is the issuance of fatwas or considered jurisprudential rulings.

Sistani would also like to have shariah or Islamic canon law form the basis for as much as possible of Iraqi civil law. Certainly he wants personal status law to be shariah for Muslims. This was the system in Iraq under the monarchy, and obviously it does create a shariah bench for clerical judges appointed by the state, where the clerics can have a voice in civil affairs. (This system was introduced in Pakistan under General Zia ul-Haq, of which Sistani is well aware because one of his key colleagues is Bashir Najafi, a Pakistani grand ayatollah).

So, Sistani is not a secularist by any stretch of the imagination. If he gets what he wants, religious law will have a vast influence on Iraqi society and politics, and women's rights will be rolled back. The ayatollahs in Iraq will have as big a megaphone as the Catholic bishops did in 1950s Ireland.

On the other hand, Sistani is not a dictator or a Khomeinist. He is much more analogous to Jerry Falwell in the US-- a major religious voice who wants to move the society in a certain direction through weakening the separation of religion and state, without himself seeking political office.

I don't actually think there is anything "immoderate" about Sistani's vision in a contemporary Middle Eastern context. It is not what the Bush administration wants, or what most educated Iraqi women want, or the Kurds (and probably most Sunni Arabs for that matter) want. Attempting to implement the second part of it (ayatollah influence on legislation and social issues) will cause trouble with the other communities, potentially. But Sistani has all along been a Najaf pragmatist. He has constantly spoken of the need to assuage the feelings of the Sunni Arabs and Kurds. He will try to accomplish as much of his vision as seems practicable, and no more. His tools are not militias, guns, and bombs, but persistent persuasion and discourse. Occasionally he may bring peaceful crowds into the streets to demonstrate for some law or policy. It is in that discursive practice that his "moderation" lies.

My estimation of Sistani's potential influence is that it is generally positive given the situation of contemporary Iraq. It is important for traditionalist and even activist Shiites to hear praises of parliamentary governance and communal harmony. His potential impact on social legislation is reactionary, of course. But even he admits that the religious Shiites are likely to form less than 50% of parliamentarians, and that it is a little unlikely that he can get everything he wants any time soon. And, he is willing to be patient about his goals, as long as they are met minimally.

The one point on which Sistani's stance raises some alarms in my mind is that he seems completely unsympathetic to Kurdish demands for safeguards as a minority, and wants to remove their veto on the new constitution to be hammered out next year this time. The potential for Kurdish-Shiite violence is substantial in the coming years.

Al-Hayat quoted Sistani's letter to Kofi Annan about the just-passed UN resolution on Iraq as follows: "It has reached us that some are attempting to insert a mention of what they call 'The Law for the Administration of the Iraqi State in the Transitional Period' [i.e. the interim constitution] into the new UN Security Council resolution on Iraq-- with the goal of lending it international legitimacy. This "Law", which was legislated by an unelected council in the shadow of Occupation, and with direct influence from it, binds the national parliament, which it has been decided will be elected at the beginning of the new Christian year for the purpose of passing a permanent constitution for Iraq. This matter contravenes the laws, and most children of the Iraqi people reject it. For this reason, any attempt to bestow legitimacy on it through mentioning it in the UN resolution would be considered an action contrary to the will of the Iraqi people and a harbinger of grave consequences."

This is the exact opposite of what the Kurdish leaders wrote to Bush.

16 Killed, 144 Wounded in Iraq Violence

az-Zaman estimates that 16 persons died in bombings and attacks on Tuesday, and 144 were wounded. Among the dead was a US soldier in Baquba and another in Anbar province. The bombings and attacks took place in Baquba (reported here yesterday), Mosul and Kirkuk. AP's estimates were somewhat lower but still depressing.

Ukrainian troops reported capturing cars full of 40 Iranian irregulars trying to sneak in to Iraq to join the Mahdi Army and defend the holy sites in Najaf and Karbala from the Americans. Ayatollah Jannati had called for such direct action recently. For the moment I am taking this report with a grain of salt, since previous sightings of Iranian infiltrators have often been proven inaccurate later on. It is not as if the Ukrainians can tell Persian from Arabic. But if it is true, it shows how wrong-headed the US was to conduct military operations in downtown Najaf and Karbala, an action guaranteed to stir up Shiites against the US.

Another bombing of the Kirkuk pipeline to Turkey hurt Iraq's oil exports.

Saboteurs are hitting power plants, according to the NYT, in hopes of destabilizing the caretaker government.

Muqtada Emerges Strengthened; Allawi calls for Dialogue

Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder argues from anecdotal evidence in Iraq that Muqtada al-Sadr has emerged from his battle with the Americans stronger than ever, despite the military defeat inflicted on his Mahdi Army.

According to ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Allawi called on Muqtada al-Sadr to resort to "the language of rational, civilizational dialogue." Allawi said on Iraqi television, "The remedy for this problem is concord among the various sectors of the Iraqi people, through a central, civilizational dialogue that depends on respecting one another's opinions. Without that we will return to the days of Saddam, and to days even darker than those." He added that there was a necessity to employ "the language of rational, civilizational dialogue in order to prove victorious. This is what we hope of al-Sadr." He added, "I had hoped that al-Sadr would resort to democratic methods through political work, and that he would mobilize the streets, the people, the channels and points of view that he needs." He added, "We have said repeatedly that this situation is transitional, and will be followed by a phase of elections. At that time, both the people and the street will put in their two bits and will elect the leadership that they want, whether it be al-Sadr or another." He expressed his sorrow that "Affairs have worked out in a way that is not correct and does not serve the iraqi people." He affirmed, "The Iraqi government will act in accordance with laws, and will not permit anything outside the law . . . Our work will concentrate on the need to respec the law and its sovereignty in Iraq . . . We will not permit any militia outside the framework of the state and of official institutions, internal security forces, and national police and army." Allawi called for strong United Nations involvement in Iraq, and for its authorized multinational force to include more Arabs and Muslims.

The "dialogue of civilizations" is a project of Iran's reformist president Mohammad Khatami. Its use shows that Allawi is attempting to put himself in the framework of reformist Shiism so as to engage with Muqtada al-Sadr, whose ideas are closer to those of Iran's hardliners. But in Iraq, it is the hardliners who are at a disadvantage, for the moment, with regard to governmental power.

I don't see how Allawi can expect Muqtada to engage in a rational dialogue if he has been excluded from running for parliament on arbitrary grounds. My common sense rule is that if you can't do something in the United States, Bremer shouldn't be allowed to do it in Iraq. There are no grounds that I can see that would prevent Muqtada from running for office in the US (he hasn't actually been convicted of any felony). If you want to draw the Sadrists into rational dialogue, let them run for office and learn to trade horses.

But it is just possible that Allawi's remarks were intended to signal to Muqtada that if he disbands his militia, he can hope to stand for parliament and perhaps even attain high office. If so, Allawi is already distancing himself from Bremer's decree on Monday making Muqtada ineligible to run for office.

A reader challenged me on the comparison to Lebanon and the idea that the Sadrists would trade horses in parliament. I replied:

The Baghdad government will have an oil income. In the past, East Baghdad has been stiffed and not given its fair share. Everything from sewerage to schools are substandard. Sadrist representatives from East Baghdad
will want to prove they can bring home that patronage. To get it, they will have to persuade Kurds and Sunnis to support them.


Hizbullah trades horses with the Phalangists all the time. Lebanon is a fair comparison to Iraq.

Black Humor

A friend in Baghdad sent me this. It is to laugh, it is to weep.

Why Did the Chicken cross the Road?

Coalition Provisional Authority:

The fact that the Iraqi chicken crossed the road affirmatively demonstrates that decision-making authority has been transferred to the chicken well in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

Halliburton:

We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost the US government $326,004.

Muqtada al-Sadr:

The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed.

US Army Military Police:

We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken rights violations.

Peshmerga:

The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill.

1st Cav:

The chicken was not authorized to cross the road without displaying two forms of picture identification. Thus, the chicken was appropriately
detained and searched in accordance with current SOP's. We apologize for any embarrassment to the chicken. As a result of this unfortunate incident, the command has instituted a gender sensitivity training program and all future chicken searches will be conducted by female soldiers.

Al Jazeera:

The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to eye-witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens.

Blackwater:

We cannot confirm any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident.

Translators:

Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.

U.S. Marine Corps:

The chicken is dead

Cole on the Lehrer News Hour

For those who like advanced warning, I will be on the Lehrer News Hour this evening discussion the new UN Resolution on Iraq.

Blast in Baquba Kills at least 5, Wounds 11;
US troops among the wounded

A suspected car bomb detonated at the gates of a US military base near the eastern city of Baquba early Tuesday. It killed one US soldier and four Iraqis, wounded at least 11, and also inflicted wounds on some US troops.

The Arabic press is reporting a string of recent assassinations, including a member of the Sunni Board of Muslim Clerics on Saturday (Shaikh Khalil al-Mashhadani), an ex-Baath official in Kirkuk, and a leader of the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Shahir Faisal Shahir) in Baghdad. The string of assassinations has contributed to a sense of insecurity and uncertainty in Iraq.

Bremer Bars Muqtada from Holding Office

The Guardian reports that US civil administrator Paul Bremer signed an order Monday banning Muqtada al-Sadr and his lieutenants from running for elective office for 3 years because of their membership in an illegal militia. Muqtada and his lieutenants rejected this decree and said that the CPA and the caretaker government had no right to make such decisions.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Muqtada's representative in Baghdad, Shaikh Abdul Hadi al-Darraji, said Monday, "The Mahdi Army does not recognize any decrees or agreements decided on by the transitional Iraqi government, insofar as we do not recognize it, because it is not an Iraqi institution, but rather was formed by Lakhdar Brahimi, who represented the powers of arrogance and the authority of the Occupation." He said that the Sadrists would never recognize any government until there was an elected one.

Darraji was pessimistic that the current truce in Najaf will hold. So too is the chief of police in that city, Ghalib al-Jaza'iri, who says that if the Mahdi Army in Najaf has not disarmed or departed by Tuesday at midnight, he will gather up 100 policemen and "finish them off."

Bremer's action in excluding the Sadrists from parliament is one final piece of stupidity to cap all the other moronic things he has done in Iraq. The whole beauty of parliamentary governance is that it can hope to draw off the energies of groups like the Sadrists. Look at how parliamentary bargaining moderated the Shiite AMAL party in Lebanon, which had a phase as a terrorist group in the 1980s but gradually outgrew it. AMAL is now a pillar of the Lebanese establishment and a big supporter of a separation of religion and state. The only hope for dealing with the Sadrists nonviolently was to entice them into civil politics, as well. Now that they have been excluded from the political process and made outlaws in the near to medium term, we may expect them to act like outlaws and to be spoilers in the new Iraq.

Mr. Bremer is bequeathing to Iraq a large number of poison pills, which will go on contributing to chaos for years after he retires to a comfortable sinecure in Washington, for all the world like Robert Clive and his bought seat in the British parliament. (Clive was the first British governor of Bengal, from 1765).

UN Security Council Vote expected Tuesday;
Sistani Weighs in Against Interim Constitution

The final details of the UN Security Council resolution, on the caretaker government to which the Bush administration maintains it will surrender sovereignty on June 30, have been worked out. The final draft will include a provision for a joint committee of high ranking Iraqis and Americans to make decisions about sensitive military operations in the country. The US had balked at giving control over the US military to the Iraqi government.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the text of which was released on Monday, in which he argued strongly against any mention in the UN resolution of the interim constitution passed by the US-appointed Interim Governing Council in February. As quoted by al-Hayat, Sistani wrote:

"It has reached us that some are attempting to insert a mention of what they call 'The Law for the Administration of the Iraqi State in the Transitional Period' [i.e. the interim constitution] into the new UN Security Council resolution on Iraq-- with the goal of lending it international legitimacy. This "Law", which was legislated by an unelected council in the shadow of Occupation, and with direct influence from it, binds the national parliament, which it has been decided will be elected at the beginning of the new Christian year for the purpose of passing a permanent constitution for Iraq. This matter contravenes the laws, and most children of the Iraqi people reject it. For this reason, any attempt to bestow legitimacy on it through mentioning it in the UN resolution would be considered an action contrary to the will of the Iraqi people and a harbinger of grave consequences."

Sistani's intervention, which appears to have been successful, has infuriated the Kurds, who see the Interim Constitution as their only real guarantee against the return of a heavy-handed Baghdad in their provinces.

Kurds Threaten Boycott

The distribution of posts in the caretaker government disappointed the religious Shiites and the Kurds, both of whom felt stiffed. The Kurds only got one vice presidency and the foreign ministry, along with a couple of other lower-profile positions (Nasrin Barwari stayed on as Minister of Public Works, which is actually potentially an important position). They wanted the presidency or vice presidency, and consider their share of government posts disproportionately small, marking them as second class citizens. The Kurdish leaders are clearly afraid that Iyad Allawi, the new prime minister, will attempt to recentralize the country under Baghdad's direct rule, and that the Americans will back him in it. They are threatening to boycott the January elections if any such moves toward centralization are taken (i.e. if the interim constitution's compromises are broken). The Kurds are also upset that the interim constitution is not mentioned in the UN resolution. As we saw above, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani forbade its mention. The interim constitution guarantees the Kurds that the status quo will not change until a new constitution is approved by an elected parliament, and further gives them a veto over the new constitution. The letter is worth reading:

"Letter from Barzani and Talabani to President Bush

04 June 2004
KurdishMedia.com
June 1, 2004

His Excellency President George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing this letter to your Excellency to present our views and concerns on the new Iraqi Interim Government, the Kurdish position and the future of the country.

America has no better friend than the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. A year ago, our peshmerga forces fought side by side with the American forces for the liberation of Iraq, taking more casualties than any other US ally. Today, Kurdistan remains the only secure and stable part of Iraq. We note that, in contrast to the Arab areas of Iraq, no coalition soldier has been killed in the area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The people of Kurdistan continue to embrace American values, to welcome US troops, and to support your program for the liberation of Iraq. Our Kurdistan Regional Government has given up many of its current freedoms in the interest of helping your administering authorities reach compromises with other Iraqis. We were therefore bitterly disappointed when your special representative advised us that a Kurd could be neither Prime Minister nor President of Iraq. We were told that these positions must go to a Shiite Arab and Sunni Arab respectively.

Iraq is a country of two main nationalities, Arabs and Kurds. It seems reasonable that the Arabs might get one of the top jobs (of their choice) but then the other should go to a Kurd.

We also believe the decision to use sectarian quotas for the top two jobs directly contradicts the Coalition’s repeatedly stated position that democratic Iraq’s government should not be based on ethnic or religious criteria, a position the US wrote into the Transitional Administrative Law.

The people of Kurdistan will no longer accept second-class citizenship in Iraq. In Saddam’s time and before, Kurds were frequently given the Vice President or deputy positions, which were window dressing without power. We had hoped the new Iraq would be different for the Kurdish people.

Ever since liberation, we have detected a bias against Kurdistan from the American authorities for reasons that we cannot comprehend. At the outset of the occupation, the coalition seized the oil-for-food revenues that had been specifically earmarked for Kurdistan and redistributed them to the rest of Iraq--in spite of the fact that Kurdistan received far less of these revenues per capita than other Iraqis and notwithstanding the fact that our region was the one most destroyed by Saddam Hussein. CPA actively discouraged the equality of the Kurdish and Arabic languages, and repeatedly tried to “derecognize’ the Kurdistan Regional Government (Iraq’s only elected government ever) in favor of a system based on Saddam’s 18 governorates. US officials have demeaned the peshmerga, calling this disciplined military force that was America’s battlefield comrade in arms, “militia”. In official statements, it is rare for the US government or the CPA even to refer to Kurdistan or the Kurdish people.

We will be loyal friends to America even if our support is not always reciprocated. Our fate is too closely linked to your fortunes in Iraq. If the forces of [un?]freedom prevail elsewhere in Iraq, we know that, because of our alliance with the United States, we will be marked for vengeance. We do ask for some specific reassurance for this transitional period so as to enable us to participate more fully in the interim government. Specifically, we ask that:

The Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) be incorporated into the new UN Security Council Resolution or otherwise recognized as law binding on the transitional government, both before and after elections. If the TAL is abrogated, the Kurdistan Regional Government will have no choice but to refrain from participating in the central government and its institutions, not to take part in the national elections, and to bar representatives of the central Government from Kurdistan.

The United States commit to protect the people and government of Kurdistan in the event insurrection and disorder lead to a withdrawal from the rest of Iraq.

The Coalition carry through on commitments to reverse the Arabization of Kurdish lands and move forward to settle the status of Kirkuk in accordance with the wishes of its people, excluding settlers but including those ethnically cleansed by Saddam Hussein.

The oil-for-food revenues unfairly taken from Kurdistan last year be restored in the entirety, and that Kurdistan receive its per capita share of the $19 billion in reconstruction assistance appropriated by the Congress.

The United States support our plans to own and manage Kurdistan’s natural resources, and in particular our efforts to develop new petroleum resources in the Kurdistan Region, where the previous regime sought to block all exploration and development that might benefit the Kurdistan people.

The United States open a consulate in Irbil, and that it encourage other coalition partners to the same. For the people of Kurdistan, it is vital that we maintain our direct links to the outside world and not solely dependant on a Baghdad where we are not considered fully equal citizens.

The United States and the United Nations state clearly that the use of ethnic and confessional criteria for the selections of the interim government does not set a precedent for a future Iraqi government, and that Kurds are eligible for the posts of Prime Minister and President.

If ethnic criteria are to be used to exclude Kurds from the top two positions in the interim government, we think it fair that Kurdistan be compensated with a disproportionate share of relevant ministries in the interim government.

Mr. President, we know that these are difficult days for all of us who believe the cause of Iraq’s freedom was worth fighting for. The Kurdish people continue to admire your confident leadership, your vision of a free Iraq, and your personal courage. We are certain that you will agree that Kurdistan should not be penalized for its friendship and support for the United States.

Sincerely yours,

Masoud Barzani
Kurdistan Democratic Party

Jalal Talabani
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan"

Dissolution of Militias Announced

Transitional PM Iyad Allawi announced Monday that nine militias would be dissolved. Their members would receive pensions or would be merged into the police or new Iraqi military. This announcement should be seen as a pious hope rather than as a political reality. I can't say how many times I have reported here plans for the dissolution of the militias. The article I am linking to even openly acknowledges that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is not completely on board with this plan yet. I am sure there are wrinkles with regard to the Kurdish peshmerga, as well. The bottom line is that until a new Iraqi military can be reconstituted, the militias will be a reality on the ground.

The article also reports a mosque explosion in Kufa, apparently the result of Mahdi Army stockpiles accidentally exploding.

Bush in Italy

A reader writes from Italy:

"The Italian administration's scare tactics about the June 4 anti-Bush demonstrations reached the US media. All the world believed them. The center-left political leaders decided not to participate and abandon the scene to the crazies. Roman residents stayed home: subway traffic was down 60%, car traffic was so light that it seemed like a Sunday in August, parking was available because everyone moved their cars far from the parade route. They didn't even bother to hang their peace flags from their windows. Some store owners closed.

Bush's cortege probably didn't see a single Roman resident the whole day, just official participants.

It would have been a good day for a jail break or a bank robbery, because much of the available law enforcement resources in the country were in Rome.

According to the authorities, there were 6-7000 demonstrators; according to the organizers, about 200,000. Not more than a few dozen crazies, who of course got most of the media attention. The whole scene was quite peaceful, which is why you probably didn't see anything at all on English-language media. The few provocative acts got a measured and professional response from the police.

The government called the demonstration a flop. The opposition, that was elsewhere, tried to take credit for its obvious success.

Il Manifesto outright accused Berlusca of wishing for violent demonstrators. Many people suspect that some of the trouble in Genova was deliberately provoked by phony crazies working for the police. So in one sense it was a flop, because Berlusca didn't get the urban warfare that he warned about that would have discredited the entire opposition."

Iraqi Electoral Commission Announced

Nathan J. Brown of George Washington University writes:

"On 31 May, Bremer signed an order creating an Iraqi electoral commission. The order was not published until today, and then only in English.

The electoral commission order gas several interesting features:

It is based very much on the the interim constitution (TAL), which I therefore assume is not being quietly buried. Unlike many of Bremer’s orders, it is explicitly for the transitional period. The body does not look like it is designed to survive past 2006, but it seems designed to oversee all elections until then (i.e. not merely the election of the Assembly in December/January, but also the referendum over the constitution and the first elections held under the permanent constitution, I think).

Oddly, there seems to be some sloppiness in drafting. The “definitions” section explains what references to the elections and the parties laws mean—but there are no such references to either of these laws in the body of the law. This may suggest, however, that the CPA is intending to rush out such laws. At least it was probably planning to do so when part of the law was drafted. If it does in fact issue such laws, they may be regarded as having questionable legitimacy both domestically and internationally.

The omission of a party law is problematic given the fact that the electoral commission is granted the authority to oversee the registration of parties. Without a law (or perhaps only with the Ba`thist-era law), it is not clear how this function will be carried out.

The omission of an electoral law is also problematic. Unless the CPA issues one in the next three weeks, the legislative framework will have to be issued by the interim government (or, less plausibly, by the electoral commission). It is not clear whether either body has the authority to issue laws, and Sistani and others have made quite clear that they don’t want the interim government to be issuing laws that have any permanent effect. American officials have used more qualified wording to the same effect. So that may mean that the electoral framework is likely to be a series of “regulations” rather than laws. Such a step would raise some legal difficulties since a regulation cannot supersede a law, and there are Ba`thist-era laws on the books in this area.

Some of this confusion over the legislative authority of the interim government may be clarified in the UN Security Council resolution (though I doubt it, since earlier drafts said nothing on the subject of legislation). It might also be clarified by the annex to the TAL that was supposed to govern the interim period. But I’m not sure that the annex—referred to in the TAL and promised since last March—is getting anywhere. There was some work done on a draft, but that was done by the IGC and CPA—with the dissolution of the IGC, it’s not clear that anybody is working on this (especially since the IGC member taking the lead on the annex was apparently Adnan Pachachi).

While the whole matter of the legislative basis for elections is very murky, as I read it Perelli is taking the lead here in designing a system. But it’s unclear to me how her recommendations will be legally enacted. The question may not be that important since nobody has questioned her actions thus far. But if she comes up with a plan that somebody in the interim government does not like, this could get very complicated.

The Administrator—that is, Bremer—has an extensive appointment role on the electoral commission. But it was Perelli who announced the members last week. It is not clear if Bremer formally enacted her recommendations or not. There are also roles for the UN and—very oddly—the IGC. I think that means that the CPA did NOT expect the IGC to issolve itself with such alacrity. Bremer signed the order the day prior to the dissolution of the IGC. Presumably the required consultations with the IGC had already been completed, but that means they were done prior to the issuance of Bremer’s order requiring them.

Bremer also has issued a series of enactments on some other subjects—one allows him to appoint a chief advisor to the National Assembly of Iraq. What Assembly, you may ask? The one that doesn’t exist yet—not the interim body that Ibrahimi proposed, but the provisional parliament/constituent assembly. It may make sense to set up an office to help make preparations for the Assembly, but I would guess that the intent is to have an American-appointed advisor in place so that the US can assist in setting up the administrative and research arms of the Assembly.

Finally, Bremer also issued a money-laundering law with a significant anti-terrorism component.

Nathan J. Brown"
http://home.gwu.edu/~nbrown

28 Killed, 88 Wounded in Iraq on Sunday

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat estimates that bombings, drive-by shootings and other acts of guerrilla violence took 28 lives in Iraq on this weekend, and left more than 88 wounded.

A car bomb outside a US base killed nine Iraqis and wounded 30; 3 US troops were among the wounded. Mahdi Army insurgents in East Baghdad attacked police stations on Sunday. In one instance they took the station, commanded the police to depart, and then planted explosions and blew the station up. This tactic was a new development in the 'war of the police stations' that has been being fought for the past two months.

13 were killed and 10 wounded in a car bomb blast at a police station at Musayyab on Saturday. Guerrillas using explosives and small arms fire virtually destroyed the police station.

There were also explosions near Kirkuk, in Taji, and in Kut (the latter accidental).

Also, four Blackwell USA private security guards were killed in an attack near the airport by guerrillas. Threse security guards got away.

Because the security guards, who are most often former soldiers, are dressed in civilian clothing and drive civilian vehicles, and because the guerrillas consider them prime targets, they have come to endanger a lot of ordinary Westerners in Iraq. Guerrillas often attack the latter thinking they are the former. They whole idea of using hundreds or thousands of private security guards (some would say mercenaries) in Iraq should be rethought.

Iranian Hardliners and Iraq

Informal Irainian volunteers have come forward in the thousands for suicide bombings against the Americans in Iraq. They say, however,that they await the command of Supreme Jrisprudent Ali Khamenei. Ayatollah Jannati had also preached strongly against the US and the UK last Friday. He is not in the exective really and is not supported in these sentiments by the elected president, Khatami. Now on Monday news comes that Iran may recognize the new Iraqi government. It is as though the place suffers from multiple personality disorder. (Even worse than that of the Bush administration).

Reagan's Passing

I did not say anything yesterday about Ronald Reagan's death. The day a person dies he has a right to be left alone.

But yesterday is now history, and Reagan's legacy should not pass without comment.

Reagan had an ability to project a kindly image, and was well liked personally by virtually everyone who knew him, apparently. But it always struck me that he was a mean man. I remember learning, in the late 1960s, of the impact Michael Harrington's The Other America had had on Johnson's War on Poverty. Harrington demonstrated that in the early 1960s there was still hunger in places like Appalachia, deriving from poverty. It was hard for middle class Americans to believe, and Lyndon Johnson, who represented many poor people himself, was galvanized to take action.

I remember seeing a tape of Reagan speaking in California from that era. He said that he had heard that some asserted there was hunger in America. He said it sarcastically. He said, "Sure there is; they're dieting!" or words to that effect. This handsome Hollywood millionnaire making fun of people so poor they sometimes went to bed hungry seemed to me monstrous. I remember his wealthy audience of suburbanites going wild with laughter and applause. I am still not entirely sure what was going on there. Did they think Harrington's and similar studies were lies? Did they blame the poor for being poor, and resent demands on them in the form of a few tax dollars, to address their hunger?

Then when he was president, at one point Reagan tried to cut federal funding for school lunches for the poor. He tried to have ketchup reclassified as a vegetable to save money. Senator Heinz gave a speech against this move. He said that ketchup is a condiment, not a vegetable, and that he should know.

The meanness was reflected, as many readers have noted, in Reagan's "blame the victim" approach to the AIDS crisis. His inability to come to terms with the horrible human tragedy here, or with the emerging science on it, made his health policies ineffective and even destructive.

Reagan's mania to abolish social security was of a piece with this kind of sentiment. In the early 20th century, the old were the poorest sector of the American population. The horrors of old age--increasing sickness, loss of faculties, marginalization and ultimately death--were in that era accompanied by fear of severe poverty. Social security turned that around. The elderly are no longer generally poverty-stricken. The government can do something significant to improve people's lives. Reagan, philosophically speaking, hated the idea of state-directed redistribution of societal wealth. (His practical policies often resulted in such redistribution de facto, usually that of tossing money to the already wealthy). So he wanted to abolish social security and throw us all back into poverty in old age.

Reagan hated any social arrangement that empowered the poor and the weak. He was a hired gun for big corporations in the late 1950s, when he went around arguing against unionization. Among his achievements in office was to break the air traffic controllers' union. It was not important in and of itself, but it was a symbol of his determination that the powerless would not be allowed to organize to get a better deal. He ruined a lot of lives. I doubt he made us safer in the air.

Reagan hated environmentalism. His administration was not so mendacious as to deny the problems of increased ultraviolet radition (from a depleted ozone layer) and global warming. His government suggested people wear sunglasses and hats in response. At one point Reagan suggested that trees cause pollution. He was not completely wrong (natural processes can cause pollution), but his purpose in making the statement seems to have been that we should therefore just accept lung cancer from bad city air, which was caused by automobiles and industry, not by trees.

In foreign policy, Reagan abandoned containment of the Soviet Union as a goal and adopted a policy of active roll-back. Since the Soviet Union was already on its last legs and was not a system that could have survived long, Reagan's global aggressiveness was simply unnecessary. The argument that Reagan's increases in military funding bankrupted the Soviets by forcing them to try to keep up is simply wrong. Soviet defense spending was flat in the 1980s.

Reagan's aggression led him to shape our world in most unfortunate ways. Although it would be an exaggeration to say that Ronald Reagan created al-Qaeda, it would not be a vast exaggeration. The Carter administration began the policy of supporting the radical Muslim holy warriors in Afghanistan who were waging an insurgency against the Soviets after their invasion of that country. But Carter only threw a few tens of millions of dollars at them. By the mid-1980s, Reagan was giving the holy warriors half a billion dollars a year. His officials strong-armed the Saudis into matching the US contribution, so that Saudi Intelligence chief Faisal al-Turki turned to Usamah Bin Laden to funnel the money to the Afghans. This sort of thing was certainly done in coordination with the Reagan administration. Even the Pakistanis thought that Reagan was a wild man, and balked at giving the holy warriors ever more powerful weapons. Reagan sent Orrin Hatch to Beijing to try to talk the Chinese into pressuring the Pakistanis to allow the holy warriors to receive stingers and other sophisticated ordnance. The Pakistanis ultimately relented, even though they knew there was a severe danger that the holy warriors would eventually morph into a security threat in their own right.

Reagan's officials so hated the Sandinista populists in Nicaragua that they shredded the constitution. Congress cut off money for the rightwing death squads fighting the Sandinistas. Reagan's people therefore needed funds to continue to run the rightwing insurgency. They came up with a complicated plan of stealing Pentagon equipment, shipping it to Khomeini in Iran, illegally taking payment from Iran for the weaponry, and then giving the money to the rightwing guerrillas in Central America. At the same time, they pressured Khomeini to get US hostages in Lebanon, taken by radical Shiites there, released. It was a criminal cartel inside the US government, and Reagan allowed it, either through collusion or inattention. It is not a shining legacy, to have helped Khomeini and then used the money he gave them to support highly unsavory forces in Central America. (Some of those forces were involved after all in killing leftwing nuns).

Although Reagan's people were willing to shore up Iranian defenses during the Iran-Iraq War, so as to prevent a total Iraqi victory, they also wanted to stop Iran from taking over Iraq. They therefore winked at Saddam's use of chemical weapons. Reagan's secretary of state, George Schultz, sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad twice, the second time with an explicit secret message that the US did not really mind if Saddam gassed the Iranian troops, whatever it said publicly.

I only saw Reagan once in person. I was invited to a State Department conference on religious freedom, I think in 1986. It was presided over by Elliot Abrams, whom I met then for the first time. We were taken to hear Reagan speak on religious freedom. It was a cause I could support, but I came away strangely dissatisfied. I had a sense that "religious freedom" was being used as a stick to beat those regimes the Reagan administration did not like. It wasn't as though the plight of the Moro Muslims in the Philippines was foremost on the agenda (come to think of it, perhaps no Muslims or Muslim groups were involved in the conference).

Reagan's policies thus bequeathed to us the major problems we now have in the world, including a militant Islamist International whose skills were honed in Afghanistan with Reagan's blessing and monetary support; and a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which the Reagan administration in some cases actually encouraged behind the scenes for short-term policy reasons. His aggressive foreign policy orientation has been revived and expanded, making the US into a neocolonial power in the Middle East. Reagan's gutting of the unions and attempt to remove social supports for the poor and the middle class has contributed to the creation of an America where most people barely get by while government programs that could help create wealth are destroyed.

Reagan's later life was debilitated by Alzheimer's. I suppose he may already have had some symptoms while president, which might explain some of his memory lapses and odd statements, and occasional public lapses into woolly-mindedness. Ironically, Alzheimer's could be cured potentially by stem cell research. In the United States, where superstition reigns over reason, the religious Right that Reagan cultivated has put severe limits on such research. His best legacy may be Nancy Reagan's argument that those limitations should be removed in his memory. There are 4 million Alzheimers sufferers in the US, and 50% of persons living beyond the age of 85 develop it. There are going to be a lot of such persons among the Baby Boomers. By reversing Reaganism, we may be able to avoid his fate.

Sistani Meets Muqtada; Ceasefire Taking Hold

Fighting continued Saturday in East Baghdad. A roadside bomb killed two US soldiers and wounded two others. Mahdi Army militiamen attacked a police station and the police were supported by US troops in returning fire. They killed at least one militiaman.

In contrast, Najaf began returning to normal on Saturday, as Mahdi Army militiamen made themselve scarce except at the shrine of Imam Ali. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani met with Muqtada al-Sadr and commended him for his cooperation in ending the crisis, which had plunged the Shiite shrine cities into fierce combat with the American military. Sistani had earlier declined to meet Muqtada, and the two had earlier made no secret of their disdain for one another. Reuters speculates that the meeting demonstrates Muqtada's substantial increase in stature as a result of the American attempt to arrest him.

The US military announced that the Mahdi Army had been defeated. While this assertion is technically true, it is not an accurate assessment of the situation. The Mahdi Army is just Shiite slum boys with guns. They may have melted away in the face of US firepower, but they aren't really gone. They just went home and stored their guns in the basement. They could come back out at any moment, which is a problem for the caretaker government.

Al-Hayat says that there may be a loophole in Iraqi law that will permit the caretaker government to back off trying to arrest Muqtada. Other Iraqi sources suggest that Mahdi Army fighters will be integrated into the police and army and an attempt will be made to convince the Sadrists to become an ordinary political party.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is talking seriously about attempting to bring back elements of the Baath Army, saying that dissolving it was a huge error.

5 US Troops Killed, 5 wounded
New Accord in Najaf

Five US troops were killed and five wounded on Friday while patrolling near East Baghdad (Sadr City) when their humvees were rocketed. It seems likely that they were targeted by the Mahdi Army, which US troops have been fighting for the past two months.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: A new accord was accepted by the US military in Najaf on Friday, which allows the Iraqi police to take over security duties there and in Kufa. In return, the Mahdi Army is supposed to stop carrying arms publicly within two days. A similar deal was announced last weekend but went nowhere. The US military and the Mahdi Army has been engaging in heavy firefights in Kufa all this past week during the so-called truce.

Shaikh Jabir al-Khafaji stood in for Muqtada al-Sadr in reading his Friday sermon at the mosque in Kufa. Muqtada said, "I announce that I wash my hands of this government until the Judgment Day, since the people reject it." He added, "It is necessary that our governments be elected in accordance with Islamic law. The Iraqi people will never accept a government appointed on behalf of an Occupation Authority. I do not imagine that any rational person or any high religious authority will accept such an appointment." The Washington Post quoted Muqtada's statement as adding, "There is no freedom or democracy without independence."

In Sadr City at the al-Hikmat Mosque, Shaikh Nasir al-Sa'idi preached to hundreds of worshippers, saying: "The media are preoccupied with the surrender of the keys of authority to the Iraqi government. But the reality is that this government was appointed, not elected. It is a mere copy of the Interim Governing Council with a new title." He added, "It is a government that does not represent any of the holy warriors who struggled in Iraq. We find no names in it from the ranks of the holy warriors." In response to criticisms that have been made of the Mahdi Army, he said, "The Mahdi Army is lifting up the heads of the Shiites, and is defending the holy sites, as well as land and honor. But we find unfortunately that there are those who speak of it in this or that way. But they prefer to remain hidden and they fear death. We announce that we are innocent of terrorism and the terrorists. When the holy sites and red lines are violated, are we the terrorists or are the aggressors terrorists?" The WP quotes him as saying, as well: "If the new government wants to show its good intentions, it should demand [that the] occupation . . . pull out from Iraq; this is the demand of all Iraqis . . . The case is not a Sadr case, or a Mahdi Army case. It is a general case. Defense does not need a fatwa. The assignment is general. We must fight."

In Najaf, according to al-Hayat, Shaikh Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji attempted to preach the Friday prayers sermon at the mosque attached to the shrine of Ali. Al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has been critical of Muqtada. On Friday, he launched an attack on the Shiite authorities in Iran for having remained silent about Muqtada's activities. At that point an uproar erupted in the mosque, with the Sadrists bitterly objecting, and al-Qubanji was forced to get down from the pulpit without finishing.

The "Shiite House," or the collectivity of Shiite tendencies and political personalities, has been negotiating in Najaf with Muqtada, including Ahmad Chalabi. They called on Najaf governor Adnan al-Dhurufi to make Najaf police available to police the city in the stead of militiamen. (This call ignores that of 4000 security and police forces in Najaf, all but 100 went over to Muqtada when the insurrection began in early April.) In a statement it also called on the American Occupation Forcs to cease invading homes and imprisoning persons in Najaf and Kufa.

Meanwhile, UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Friday that he thought the Sadrists and other groups that oppose the US occupation should be allowed to participate in the advisory assembly to be called in July.

Despite the poor security conditions, Dr. Mahdi Hafidh, the minister of planning, told ash-Sharq al-Awsat Friday that unemployment had fallen to 28% from highs last year after the fall of the regime of 50-60%. He said that inflation had also fallen, and that the value of the dinar had risen on expectations that the caretaker government can lead the country to turn a corner.

Al-Haeri's Conditions

ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Old-time al-Da`wa leader in exile, Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri, issued a statement Friday from Qom, Iran, on the caretaker government in Iraq. He said there were 6 things it needed to do to demonstrate its patriotic credentials and gain acceptance. These were

1. To recover complete sovereignty that is unconstrained and the return of Iraqi wealth to the country from any other hands.

2. Safeguarding the unity of Iraq's land and people

3. The government must enroll itself in providing security and opportunities for a good life to the people.

4. It must defend general liberties, within the limits set by divine law, and must offer all citizens the opportunity to participate in the political process.

5. It must immediately conduct a census, in order to put an end to the disputes over the relative strength of the ehtnicities that make up united Iraq.

6. It must create an atmosphere conducive to general elections and give all citizens equally the opportunity to participate in shaping their future.

Al-Haeri is a Khomeinist who attempted to dissolve the al-Da`wa Party into Khomeini's Party of God, and he has said numerous extremist things in the past year. He initially authorized Muqtada al-Sadr to be his representative in Iraq, but the two are said to have a cooler relationship now. His stated concern for democracy in this statement is disingenuous, since what he means by "within the limits of the divine law" is that a top cleric like himself should actually rule, and act as a brake on democracy, as in Iran.

The situation in Iraq acutely threatens Israeli security

From Friday's Daily Star

By Juan Cole

Friday, June 04, 2004

As the American public gradually wearies of the Iraq crisis, some have begun worrying that the war could blow back on the US by creating the conditions for anti-American terrorism. Israel, however, is much closer to Iraq and is likely to suffer from Iraqi instability much more acutely than will the United States. Ironically, among the strongest proponents of war in Iraq were Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his neoconservative supporters in the US. Have they, however, actually weakened Israeli security?

The biggest threat Israel faces is not from conventional armies but from the asymmetrical tactics of Palestinian national liberation movements. The derailing of the Oslo peace process by the hard-line policies of Sharon and the Palestinian intifada has encouraged suicide bombings. This, in turn, has discouraged international investment in Israel and has made it less likely that immigrants to the country will actually remain there.

Although Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory in May 2000, the radical Lebanese Shiite party, Hizbullah, has not been mollified. It is estimated to have some 5,000 armed fighters, and they have pursued attacks against Israeli forces to compel them to withdraw from the Shebaa Farms, a sliver of Syrian territory that Israel annexed after the 1967 war.

Any thorough assessment of the impact of the Iraq war and its aftermath on Israel's security environment must, therefore, closely examine its likely effect on the conduct of asymmetrical warfare. Although it is often alleged (without much evidence) that Saddam Hussein gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and so encouraged asymmetrical warfare, it is not clear that he actually posed a danger to Israel. The Palestinians who have been willing to kill themselves to end the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were not driven by economic considerations.

Saddam never did anything practical to help the Palestinians. At some points, as in the late 1980s, he reportedly made behind-the-scenes overtures to the Israelis to arrive at some sort of a deal. He did not allow Palestinian radicals to launch operations against Israel from Iraq. By the late 1990s, Iraq had no nuclear or biological weapons program, and had destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles. Its ramshackle army had virtually collapsed before the American invasion in 2003.

If it is hard to see how Baathist Iraq posed any real threat to Israel, it is not so difficult to see a menace in the current instability. The bungling of post-war Iraq by the Bush administration created a weak and failed state. Armed militias, many staffed by former Iraqi military men with substantial training and experience, have proliferated. The US chose to ally itself with such groups as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose 15,000-strong Badr Corps paramilitary was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian feeling is strong among several major Iraqi ideological groups and currents. The more radical Shiites, who generally follow the theocratic notions of Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, routinely chant and demonstrate against Israel. They vehemently protested the Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, last March. Worse for Israel, the assassination drew a denunciation even from the moderate and cautious Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who wields enormous moral authority over Iraqi Shiites.

These Shiite movements had been suppressed by Saddam Hussein's regime, but have now organized and armed themselves. They have also reestablished their historical links with Lebanese and Iranian Shiites. It is inevitable that most Iraqi Shiites will side with their Hizbullah coreligionists against Israel, and it seems likely that Iraqi Shiites will get rich enough from Iraqi petroleum sales in the future that they will be in a good position to bankroll Lebanese Shiite radicals.

Sunni Arab fundamentalists deeply sympathize with the Palestinians and with Hamas, and those in Iraq have deep historical inks with fundamentalists in Jordan and Palestine. Iraqi cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi were on the truck route from Amman to Baghdad, and so came under the influence of the Salafi movement, which is popular in Jordan. Secular Arab nationalist groups also universally sympathize with the Palestinians, and those in post-Saddam Iraq are no exception.

Whereas Saddam Hussein's dictatorship ensured that such populist currents were kept firmly under control, they are now free to organize. An Iraq in which armed fundamentalist and nationalist militias proliferate is inevitably a security worry for Israel. If even a modicum of normality and security can be returned to Iraq, its citizens will be able to benefit from the country's petroleum reserves. That private wealth can easily be funneled into aid for the Palestinians and for Lebanese Shiites.

Israel's security interests are best served by peace with its neighbors, which can only be achieved by trading land for peace with the Palestinians. Ariel Sharon's aggressive near annexation of almost half of the occupied West Bank and his indefinite postponement of any Palestinian state have created unprecedented rage and violence. The anger has spread throughout the Muslim world, including Iraq. The promotion by the pro-Zionist right of twin occupations - in the West Bank and in Iraq - has profoundly weakened, not strengthened, Israeli security.


Juan Cole (www.juancole.com) is a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan and author of "Sacred Space and Holy War" (I.B. Tauris, 2002). THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in agreement with Agence Global