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Iraq squares up to US
military
By Aaron Glantz
WASHINGTON - One of the first orders of
business for the new Iraqi government under
Kurdish leader President Jalal Talabani and
Shi'ite Islamist Ibrahim Jaafari (still to be
confirmed as premier) will be to strike a deal
with the United States military over the terms and
conditions of its 150,000-troop-strong presence in
the country.
A United Nations Security
Council resolution authorizing the occupation ends
in December. After that, the occupation will be
technically illegal. Chris Toensing of the
Washington-based Middle East Research and
Information Project says the Shi'ite United Iraqi
Alliance, which won the most votes in January's
election, has already abandoned its election
promise to demand a timeline for US withdrawal.
"Right now, the United States is the
protector of the United Iraqi Alliance," Toensing
said, noting that the US military had promised to
protect whatever government was elected.
This week on Capitol Hill, the Senate
Appropriations Committee considered adding US$80
billion more for US operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan, bringing the total emergency monies
for the two wars to $210 billion.
"That's
the structure," Toensing said. "Now the big danger
is that relationship will become entrenched, even
though the Iraqi side will not be really happy
with it, but they will perceive that they will
have no other choice if they want to stay in
power."
Toensing expects the US military
to become tightly linked to both the armed wings
of Shi'ite religious parties and Kurdish
peshmerga (Paramilitary) under the new
government, since both support large-scale
crackdowns on the largely Sunni insurgency, taking
more prisoners and secretly locking them up in
prisons like Abu Ghraib with minimal oversight.
"I couldn't get close to the prison when I
was there two weeks ago," Democratic Senator Dick
Durban of Illinois told IPS. "Members of Congress
who go there are not allowed to leave the Green
Zone so I couldn't get close to it."
International human rights groups have
also been barred from visiting US-run prisons in
Iraq. Amnesty International's Washington lobbyist
Jumana Musa says it is unclear what this latest
government will mean for the more than 10,000
Iraqis in US custody. Most of them have never seen
a lawyer and have never been charged with a crime.
"There is the creation of something that
is supposed to represent the rule of law," she
said, but added that it is unclear how much
authority the new Iraqi government will have over
detainees.
"What does this mean?" she
asked. "Do they face justice in the Iraqi system?
Are they in US military custody, in which case
they would face justice through a military
tribunal? Are they going to face justice? Are they
going to be held indefinitely? We don't know the
answers to any of these questions."
Beyond
that are the substantive differences between the
two factions. Shi'ite political parties want
Islamic law to form the basis for government, a
move rejected by Kurds who want autonomy and
control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Ken Livingstone is the chief executive
officer of the consulting company Global Options
Inc and a leading neo-conservative thinker. "When
they craft a constitution, which is the first
effort that is going to be made by the new
parliament, they've got to have checks and
balances. Without those checks and balances
they're probably going to end up with a majority
Shi'ite state that is going to create an Islamic
republic," he said.
Livingstone says he
doesn't trust the Shi'ite religious leaders who
placed first in January's election in Iraq. He
likened their election to Adolf Hitler's in
Germany, telling IPS sometimes people come to
power through legitimate elections who later need
to be "dealt with".
Like many neo-cons, he
also believes Iraq will eventually be fractured
with an independent Kurdistan emerging in the
north. "The Kurdish self-determination is
something that they have had for more than a
decade and we should recognize it's a reality,"
Livingstone said.
Then, he says, Kurds who
feel oppressed by governments in Iran, Turkey and
Syria could move to an independent Kurdistan in
Iraq rather than destabilizing their own
ethnically diverse countries.
Livingstone
isn't the only prominent Republican to say the
dissolution of Iraq and the creation of Kurdistan
is desirable. His view is shared by Henry
Kissinger, who wrote two years ago that a "breakup
into three states is preferable to refereeing an
open-ended civil war".
(Inter Press
Service) |
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