The other day I reported on Dr. Kissinger's suggestion—the latest in a string of these—that Iraq might break up into at least three mini-states (see Democracy Bush-Style below). Most experts consider that a formula for unending civil war and ethnic strife. But recent developments in Iraq indicate that things are headed just that way. It's scary. Whatever your politics.
Last Sunday, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani had a private meeting with the scowly fatwa-man, Ayatollah Sistani, the de facto leader of the Iraqi Shiites. Now we're starting to find out that the Kurds and the Shiites may have struck a grand bargain, and one that could result in the partition of Iraq. Both Kurds and Shiites are talking about a "strategic relationship," as reported in a long New York Times story on Wednesday . Not mentioned in the Times, though, is the probability that the alliance isn't about elections at all—in fact, in Iraq the issue of elections, and democracy, is pretty much a joke.
The Kurds—whatever they say in public—want an independent Kurdistan and they want to control the oil in northern Iraq, centered on the city of Kirkuk. The Shiites—whatever they say in public—want to create a medieval-minded fiefdom with sharia-based Islamic law, repression of women, and all the rest. And they want to control the oil in southern Iraq. It now looks like the Kurds and Sistani are on the verge of a deal to support each other's claims.
The Kurds have no use for Islamic fundamentalism at all, but if they can get Shiite backing for a breakaway state, they'll support Sistani's vision in a heartbeat.
All of this is happening outside the U.S.-UN Fantasyland about when to hold elections. No elections are going to be held in Iraq this year, because it's impossible, and neither Paul Bremer nor Kofi Annan can fix that. So the Shiites are going to make a move to take power, and so will the Kurds. There are one or two—well, okay, a thousand—problems with that. First, there is no oil in central Iraq, which happens to be where both the Sunni Arabs and the capital, Baghdad, are. Second, it will be hard to get Turkey to buy into an independent Kurdistan. Third, the rest of the Arab world—especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria—Iraq's neighbors—will be unalterably opposed to the rise of Shiite power in Iraq and to the disassembly of the Iraqi state. And then there's Iran. All of them will be expected to meddle in what's left of Iraq. In fact, they're already starting. More to come on that.
More On Chalabi
Brazen, if nothing else, Ahmad Chalabi is pretty much admitting that he lied about Iraq's WMD and that Iraqi "defectors" coached by his Iraq National Congress misled intelligence officials. But, he says, "What was said before is not important." So what is important? "As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. The tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad."
February 19, 2004 | 12:09PM
Wrong Reward link
Here’s an item for the Department of Bitter Irony. The official “Iraqi Rewards Program” organized by the CIA is asking Iraqis to help the CIA find those darned weapons of mass destruction. Says the CIA: “The presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq puts at risk the health and safety of all Iraqis.” (Isn’t that assuming they exist?) It goes on to say: “The U.S. Government offers rewards to Iraqis who give specific and verifiable information that helps Iraqis rid their country of these dangerous materials and devices.”
So, the CIA is giving out rewards—cash money—to Iraqis who help them find “the location of stocks of recently made chemical or biological weapons munitions, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, or their component parts.” They can also cash in if they know anything about “where these materials were secretly disposed of” and about “efforts to hide them.”
No doubt dozens of unemployed Iraqi National Congress officials, who provided the original misinformation in the first place, are lining up to collect. So far, no word about money for anyone who can prove why the Pentagon lied about the WMD, or why the CIA couldn’t prove in the first place that they weren’t there.
tompaine.com |
