No one should doubt that Iraq will be the
central issue in US congressional elections this
November and of the presidential election in 2008.
The war in the Middle Eastern country has wreaked
havoc with the popularity of President George W
Bush and his Republican Party. But that does not
mean the opposition is guaranteed a walk-in.
The Democratic Party has been stymied by
the perception that it has no ideas of its own to
solve the Iraq mess other than to "cut and run".
Senator Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the
party's presidential nomination, voted Yes on the
authorization to go to war in 2002 and still says
as little as possible on subject.
This
week Senator Joseph Biden offered a comprehensive plan
that
calls for the creation of separate and autonomous
regions for Iraq, leading to the withdrawal of US
troops by the end of 2008. Biden, the ranking
Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, is his party's most respected spokesman
on foreign policy.
But more to the point,
Biden is widely expected to run for president as
the nominee of the Democratic Party. By making his
plan to extricate the US from Iraq public, he
provides some cover for Democrats running this
year but, more important, helps himself in 2008.
The voters may not care that much about the
details; they care simply that the opposition has
a plan.
That might be one of the reasons
the White House quickly denounced it, thereby
establishing the fact that the plan could emerge
as an alternative between the Bush
administration's refusal to spell out an exit
strategy and Democrats' increasing demand that he
come up with an exit strategy without offering any
ideas of their own.
There is little doubt
that Biden is trying to carve a niche for his
candidacy. In contrast with Senator John Kerry,
the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 who
could do no better than present himself as the
"Bush lite" version of his Republican opponent,
Biden wants people to see him as the man with the
plan.
The Biden proposal, which the
senator depicts as the "third way", is carefully
calculated to appeal to the US experience with its
emphasis on federalism and a central government
with limited powers. Never mind that these
elements may not transfer easily to the Middle
East.
Iraq, in Biden's vision, would be
divided into three largely autonomous regions with
a viable but limited central government in Baghdad
"responsible for border defense, foreign policy,
oil production and [distribution of] revenues".
The Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnis would be
responsible for administering their own regions.
He proposes to gain agreement from the
Sunnis for the federal system by making them "an
offer they can't reasonably refuse". That offer is
a constitutional guarantee that they would receive
20% of "all present and future oil revenues",
which is based on their proportion of Iraq's
population.
US assistance for the
reconstruction of Iraq under this plan would be
based on the condition that the Iraqi government
protects minority and women's rights. In addition,
it proposes convening a "regional security
conference", where Iraq's neighbors, especially
Iran, pledge to respect its borders, "and work
cooperatively to implement this plan".
Finally, the Biden plan proposes a gradual
redeployment of US forces from Iraq by 2008 or
even earlier if feasible.
There are a
number of "sacrosanct" concepts of US democracy
that, in the view of American politicians, should
be equally sacred to the rest of the world.
Foremost is the desirability of a federal (or
federally based) democracy.
However, they
tend to forget that, when first established, the
United States was not a federal democracy as we
know it today. The great Civil War of 1861-65 was
one of the chief reasons for its emergence as a
federal democracy.
Yet a federal
government with limited power is a recipe for
disaster in Iraq. In the first place, "autonomy"
is a code word that the Kurds hope to use to break
away eventually and establish an independent
Kurdistan. Emulating the Kurdish practice, a
number of Shi'ite groups envisage the creation of
an autonomous region in the south.
The
Shi'ite aspirations, to be sure, may not be a
prelude to the integration of that region with
Iran. However, the very notion of an autonomous
southern province of Iraq would certainly be
viewed by the neighboring Arab states, as well as
Iran, as a prelude to the potential creation of
another Shi'ite country.
Obviously, Biden
has not given much thought to such an eventuality,
but the Iraqi Sunnis certainly have. That is one
reason they are fighting so hard against any
notion of autonomy and for a strong central
government as a guarantor of the integrity of Iraq
in its present borders.
Autonomy is an
effective administrative arrangement, but only in
mature states. Biden points to Bosnia-Herzegovina
as an effective example of an autonomous federal
arrangement; however, even that arrangement seems
to be working only under foreign occupation. No
one knows whether that arrangement would survive
once foreign troops are gone.
The proposal
of guaranteeing 20% of oil revenues to Sunni Arabs
is interesting. However, given the intensifying
sectarian animosity, one wonders whether the
Kurds, or even the Shi'ites, would go along with
it. It should be kept in mind that in their zeal
to have substantial, if not total, control of
their own oil revenues, the Kurds have yet to
demonstrate how far they would go to compromise on
that issue.
Another chief drawback of this
particular proposal is that various sectarian
groups in Iraq are currently operating on the
basis of two principles: "winner take all" and
"zero-sum game". The first principle drives them
to seek as many political and economic advantages
over other groups at a given time as possible,
without contemplating the implications of such
advantages on other groups.
The second
principle prevents them from cooperating with
other groups, fearing that any ground thus lost
would be converted into permanent victory by the
other groups, without offering any concessions of
their own. This is not a unique trait of the Iraqi
polity. All political entities where ethnic,
racial or religious rivalries and hatred are
intensified also manifest similar traits.
The proposal to hold a security conference
on Iraq is both timely and thoughtful. However,
Iran is not likely to give any serious guarantees
on Iraq unless the Bush administration forswears
any idea of regime change and preemptive attack on
Iran.
What the United States does not
understand - or maybe it does understand, but
refuses to admit - is that Iran has every right
and interest to influence events in its immediate
neighbor Iraq as the US itself does regarding
Mexico and Canada. If any one of those two
countries were to become hostile toward America's
interests - admittedly a very unlikely scenario -
Washington would not sit still and do nothing.
Similarly, as long as Iran respects the
national integrity of Iraq, it has every right to
influence events. Besides, aside from being its
neighbor, Iraq has many hundreds of years of
Islamic ties with Iran.
If or when such a
security conference were to take place, the US
should take special care to bring in a number of
major Sunni neighbors of Iraq, such as Saudi
Arabia, Jordan and Syria, as well as Egypt (even
though Egypt is not one of its neighbors, it
certainly is an important Arab state). The
participation of these countries would also send
clear signals to the Iraqi Sunnis that their
interests are not being jeopardized. Such an
assurance is extremely vital at this stage in the
evolution of a national-unity government.
The gradual withdrawal of US troops
appears reasonable. However, the proposed date is
highly contingent on what happens in that country
between now and 2008. In the most optimistic
scenario, the Iraqi security forces would become
strong and effective, and the US forces would
start leaving within a year or so.
In the
pessimistic scenario, the situation in Iraq would
get so bad that there would be a growing clamor
for immediate US withdrawal. It is interesting to
note that a visible critic of US presence in Iraq,
former US Army General William Odom, [1] is
already proposing that the United States should
"cut and run" from Iraq.
Even though
Biden's plan depicts itself as an "alternative" to
partition, quite ironically, it is likely to be
envisaged as a well-intended argument for
precisely that. However, inside Iraq it is not
likely to get much notice or attention. The fight
in Iraq is getting bloodier as the national-unity
government is about to become a reality. Its chief
adversary, the insurgency, is doing its very best
to make the emergence of that government
impossible.
But inside the US, the Biden
proposal is likely to emerge as a major source for
debate, especially as this November's
congressional election gets closer. After all, a
plan, any plan, is better than no plan at all.
Note 1. See Cut and run? You bet, Foreign
Policy, May/June. Odom was director of the US
National Security Agency from 1985-88.
Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of
Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based
defense consultancy. He can be reached at
eahrari@cox.net or
stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear
regularly in Asia Times Online. His website:
www.ehsanahrari.com.
(Copyright 2006
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
