What we need to get right
Fareed Zakaria
Iraq: I'm glad that President Bush has finally admitted to some
mistakes in Iraq. But what worries me is that he still seems to be
persisting in one important error. In his press conference last week,
the only concrete plan he outlined to move forward - on a path out of
Iraq - was a better-functioning Iraqi Army and police force.
In this respect Bush is hardly alone. Many who criticize him on the
right and let say that the training of Iraqi troops is happening too
slowly, or that we need more American troops, or that we should flood
the city of Baghdad with forces to stabilize it. But all of these
solutions are technocratic and military, while the problem in Iraq is
fundamentally political. Until we fully recognize this, doing more of
the same will accomplish little.
Initially the Sunnis thought they could use military power - through
the insurgency - to get their way. Now many Shia think they can use
military power - through the government's security services and militias
- to get their way. For our part, despite the denials, we believed that
what we needed was more troops, Iraqi troops.
Except that 260,000 Iraqi soldiers and police are "standing up" and
it hasn't led to nay significant withdrawal of Americans. The reality is
that only an effective political bargain will bring about order.
There needs to be a deal that gives all three communities strong
incentives to cooperate rather than be spoilers.
While the United States can push hard in this direction, forging this
bargain falls largely on the shoulders of the new Prime Minister, Nuri
al-Maliki. I met Maliki a year ago in a small safe house in Baghdad,
where he sat on a sofa across from me, fingering his prayer beads with
practised precision.
He was then a Dawa Party official, with no position in the
government. He is a big, strapping man and came across as
straightforward and confident. He also came across as a hard-line Shia,
unyielding in his religious views and extremely punitive toward the
Sunnis.
He did not strike me as a man who wanted national reconciliation in
Iraq. But many Iraqi and US officials who have spoken to him since he
became prime minister believe that he understands his new role. If so,
he will have to tackle very quickly the two big political challenges
Iraq faces, weakening the insurgency and disbanding sectarian militias.
Neither can be done purely militarily.
Co-opting the majority of the Sunnis is the simplest way Maliki can
cripple the insurgency. So far he had said some encouraging things about
national unity. On the other hand, he has given Sunnis only 11 percent
of cabinet posts, though they are 20 percent of the country. Tariq al-Hashimi,
the new Sunni vice president, complains that when he details violence by
death squads, Iraq's leaders remain highly unresponsive. "Even if you
have complete evidence, they are not open-minded. It's really
phenomenal," he says.
Maliki will have to stake out national positions on the proposed
amendments to the Constitution, the sharing of oil revenue and other
such matters. But even sooner he will have to address the core Sunni
demand an end to the de-Baathification process, which has thrown tens of
thousands of Sunnis out of jobs and barred them from new ones.
Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, a Kurd, told me that "the
time has come for us to be courageous enough to admit that there were
massive mistakes in de-Baathification." The American ambassador to Iraq,
Zalmay Khalilzad, argues similarly, saying, "De-Baathification has to
evolve into reconciliation with accountability." Khalilzad added that
Prime Minister Maliki supported the notion that de-Baathification "has
to focus on individuals who are charged with specific crimes, not whole
classes and groups of people." If so, it would mark a major and positive
shift in policy.
Maliki's second challenge is with his own. The Shia militias now run
rampant throughout non-Kurdish Iraq. Khalilzad believes that they will
have to be largely disbanded - "perhaps 5 percent of them can be
integrated into the national Army and security services, but most have
to be given civilian jobs." The greatest challenge here comes from the
large and growing Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr.
This renegade cleric is mounting a frontal challenge to the United
States and to the authority of the new Iraqi government (even while he
takes charge of some of its ministries). He is popular on the Shia
Street, and his gangs run unchecked through the country and dominate
large parts of Baghdad. He receives money and support from Iran, which
has recognized that Sadr supports its agenda in Iraq - to make trouble
for the Americans.
Maliki will have to handle Sadr politically as well as militarily,
enlisting Ayatollah Sistani's help. If Maliki cannot handle him, Moqtada
al-Sadr will become the most powerful man in Iraq. And Nuri al-Maliki
will not be the first elected Prime Minister of a new Iraq, but the last
Prime Minister of an experiment that failed.
Iraq will continue down its slide into violence, ethic cleansing and
Balkanization. In places like Baghdad, with mixed populations, this will
mean the city will be carved up into warring neighbourhoods, with gangs
providing a mafia-style system of law and order, and constant guerrilla
attacks. It will be Lebanon in the 1980s, except that 130,000 American
troops will be in the middle of it all.
Courtesy - Newsweek |