The Best and Only Option

by Michael Jansen

The protracted debate in the US media about what to do about Iraq fails to take into consideration Iraqi views.

The latest round of this debate was launched by the article "Unity Through Autonomy", written by Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie Gelb for The New York Times. They put forward a five-point plan for the division of Iraq into three autonomous regions - Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite - plus a federal region in Baghdad. The regions would be in charge of their internal affairs and Baghdad would handle foreign relations, defence and oil.

While the authors take the view that Shiites and Kurds would go along, Sunnis would be enticed to agree by offers of money to make their oil-poor central region viable. The rights of women and minorities would be ensured by a threat by the international community to halt funding. US troops would withdraw by 2008 and Iraq's neighbours would pledge to respect Iraq's borders and federal system of governance.

The reason this particular article generated discussion is that Biden, an opponent of the war, is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, while Gelb, a former editor on the paper, is president emeritus of the influential Council on Foreign Relations. US sources who know both say he convinced Biden to go along with a proposal that Gelb put forward in 2003. At that time, his ideas were dismissed by authoritative commentators and analysts, therefore he decided to recruit Biden in a bid to refloat partition as a solution for Washington's Iraq woes.

Amongst those who have gone on record to criticise the Biden-Gelb piece are Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, whose blog Informed Comment is a central source for up-to-date information on Iraq, and Helena Cobban, a veteran correspondent who characterised Gelb's ideas as "outrageous". In her 2003 reaction to Gelb's original partition proposition, Cobban pointed out that international law - including the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions - prohibits an occupying power from changing the status of the territory it occupies. Therefore, by promoting partition, Biden and Gelb are encouraging the US government to violate international law. But since the Bush administration has massively violated international law by invading and occupying Iraq, it can be assumed that partitioning the country would not worry policy makers very much.

The very fact that such a debate is taking place worries Iraqis a great deal. The majority of Arab Iraqis strongly opposes partition or camouflaged partition in autonomous regions. Iraqis are not prepared to accept the dictate of the US or any other foreign power. As inhabitants of the ancient "Land between the Two Rivers", heirs of the golden era of Arab civilisation and stalwart Arab nationalists, Iraqis believe they have every right to decide on the polity of their country.

A majority of Iraqis identify themselves as Iraqis, rather than members of a religion or sect. They recall that the 1920 nationalist revolt against Britain was mounted by Shiite tribesmen and that Shiites formed the rank and file of the Iraqi army which fought Iran in the 1980-88 war. Iraqis claim that sectarian politics was introduced by ethnic and sectarian separatist exiles who returned to Iraq in 2003. Iraqis consider regionalism as a means to divide and rule.

Most Arab Iraqis oppose the creation of autonomous regions. This is advocated only by the Kurds, with 58 seats in parliament, and the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, with 30 seats. Regionalism is rejected by Sunnis, secularists, Turkmen, the Shiites Dawa party of Premier-designate Jawad Maliki and the followers of Muqtada Sadr. The presence of Dawa and the Sadrists in the opposition means that a majority of Shiites does not go along with regionalism.

These groups can be expected to vote down any regional autonomy or partition plan put before the 275-member national assembly. The Sadrists have 32 seats, Dawa 30, Sunni fundamentalists 44, and secularists 36. This would give them a clear majority of 142. Sadr's militia, estimated to be 10,000 strong, and the anti-occupation resistance, another 10,000, are likely to take up arms against any effort to divide the country.

Biden and Gelb seem to think Iraqis live in neat ethno-sectarian compartments which can be formed into regions without massive dislocation. This is not the case. While provinces may have solid Shiites and Sunni majorities, there are also sizeable minorities of Arab Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Kurds in these provinces. Separation would result in mass population movements.

Major tribes have both Shiite and Sunni members, and there are tens of thousands of intermarriages amongst Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Turkmen at all levels of society. These couples have millions of children.

The majority of Kurds not only backs regional autonomy but also seeks independence in an expanded Kurdistan. The proponents of Kurdish regionalism and independence do not take into consideration the fact that nearly half of Iraq's Kurds do not live in the Kurdish provinces. More than a million dwell in Baghdad. An in-gathering of all Kurds would be disastrous for the Kurdish provinces which could not support a mass influx of refugees.

Kurdish nationalists are also determined to annex the mixed city of Kirkuk to an expanded Kurdish region, but this would be opposed violently by the 1.5 million Arab and Turkmen Iraqis who live there, as well as the vast majority of Arab Iraqis who are prepared to grant the Kurds limited autonomy in the three Kurdish-majority provinces but not accept "Greater Kurdistan".

For the present, Kurdish leaders recognise that a super-Kurdish region or a Kurdish state is simply not possible. Ankara is certain to make good on its threat to invade and occupy the Iraqi Kurdish provinces if they unilaterally proclaim independence. Recently Turkey mobilised 30,000 troops along the border to deal with Turkish Kurdish separatists who cross into northern Iraq to escape the Turkish army. This show of strength reminded the Kurds that they should not go too far in the direction of independence.

If Iraq were to break up into three sectors, neighbouring countries might move troops into the country. Their declared aim would be to impose law and order, but in fact their aim would be to work out how to put broken Humpty Dumpty Iraq back together again. A unified Iraq with a strong central government remains the only, and the best, option.

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This article was published in the Thursday, May 11, 2006 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.