It all seems like a lot of hard work and a real change management job. My feeling is that USA doesn't have the political mentality or resolve to make it work, and if they can't the other parties certainly won't! With Bush and Cheney calling the shots and relying on worn slogans in their speeches that only show they still don't 'get it,' call me a pessimist, but I feel that Iraq is drifting into another Rwanda/Bosnia, and it will get a lot worse before it gets better. I hope that I'm wrong and all parties can come to the party and negotiate along the lines of the recommendations promulgated above.After Baker-Hamilton: What to Do in Iraq
Middle East Report N°60 19
December 2006
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONSSlowly, incrementally, the realisation that a new strategy is needed for Iraq finally is dawning on U.S. policy-makers. It was about time. By underscoring the U.S. intervention’s disastrous political, security, and economic balance sheet, and by highlighting the need for both a new regional and Iraqi strategy, the Baker-Hamilton report represents an important and refreshing moment in the country’s domestic debate. Many of its key – and controversial – recommendations should be wholly supported, including engaging Iran and Syria, revitalising the Arab-Israeli peace process, reintegrating Baathists, instituting a far-reaching amnesty, delaying the Kirkuk referendum, negotiating the withdrawal of U.S. forces with Iraqis and engaging all parties in Iraq.
But the change the report advocates is not nearly radical enough, and its prescriptions are no match for its diagnosis. What is needed today is a clean break both in the way the U.S. and other international actors deal with the Iraqi government, and in the way the U.S. deals with the region: in essence, a new multinational effort to achieve a new political compact between all relevant Iraqi constituents.
A new course of action must begin with an honest assessment of where things stand. Hollowed out and fatally weakened, the Iraqi state today is prey to armed militias, sectarian forces and a political class that, by putting short term personal benefit ahead of long term national interests, is complicit in Iraq’s tragic destruction. Not unlike the groups they combat, the forces that dominate the current government thrive on identity politics, communal polarisation, and a cycle of intensifying violence and counter-violence. Increasingly indifferent to the country’s interests, political
leaders gradually are becoming warlords. What Iraq desperately needs are national leaders.As it approaches its fifth year, the conflict also has become both a magnet for deeper regional interference and a source of greater regional instability. Instead of working together toward an outcome they all could live with – a weak but united Iraq that does not present a threat to its neighbours – regional actors are taking measures in anticipation of the outcome they most fear: Iraq’s descent into all-out chaos and fragmentation. By increasing support for some Iraqi actors against others, their actions have all the wisdom of a self-fulfilling prophecy: steps that will accelerate the very process they claim to wish to avoid.
Two consequences follow. The first is that, contrary to the Baker-Hamilton report’s suggestion, the Iraqi government and security forces cannot be treated as privileged allies to be bolstered; they are simply one among many parties to the conflict. The report characterises the government as a “government of national unity” that is “broadly representative of the Iraqi people”: it is nothing of the sort. It also calls for expanding forces that are complicit in the current dirty war and for speeding up the
transfer of responsibility to a government that has done nothing to stop it. The only logical conclusion from the report’s own lucid analysis is that the government is not a partner in an effort to stem the violence, nor will strengthening it contribute to Iraq’s stability. This is not a military challenge in which one side needs to be strengthened and another defeated. It is a political challenge in which new consensual understandings need to be reached.The solution is not to change the prime minister or cabinet composition, as some in Washington appear to be contemplating, but to address the entire power structure that was established since the 2003 invasion, and to alter the political environment that determines the cabinet’s actions.
The second is that it will take more than talking to Iraq’s neighbours to obtain their cooperation. It will take persuading them that their interests and those of the U.S. no longer are fundamentally at odds. All Iraqi actors who, in one way or another, are participating in the country’s internecine violence must be brought to the negotiating table and must be pressured to accept the necessary compromises. That cannot be done without a concerted effort by all Iraq’s neighbours, which in turn cannot be done if their interests are not reflected in the final outcome. For as long as the Bush administration’s paradigm remains fixated around regime change, forcibly emodelling the Middle East, or waging a strategic struggle against an alleged axis composed of Iran, Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas, neither Damascus nor Tehran will be willing to offer genuine assistance. Though they may indeed fear the consequences of a full-blown Iraqi civil war, both fear it less than they do U.S. regional ambitions. Under present circumstances, neither will be prepared to save Iraq if it also means rescuing the U.S.
In short, success in Iraq, if it still can be achieved at this late date, will require three ambitious and interrelated steps:
A new forceful multilateral approach that puts real pressure on all Iraqi parties: The
Baker-Hamilton report is right to advocate creation of a broad International Support Group; it should comprise the five permanent Security Council members and Iraq’s six neighbours. But its purpose cannot be to support the Iraqi government. It must support Iraq, which means pressing the government, along with all other Iraqi constituents, to make the necessary compromises. It also means agreeing on rules of conduct and red-lines regarding third party involvement in Iraq. This does not entail a one-off conference, but sustained multilateral diplomacy.A conference of all Iraqi and international stakeholders to forge a new political compact: A new, more equitable and inclusive national compact needs to be agreed upon by all relevant actors, including militias and insurgent groups, on issues such as federalism, resource allocation, de-Baathification, the scope of the amnesty, and the timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. This can only be done if the International Support Group brings all of them to the negotiating table, and if its members steer their
deliberations, deploying a mixture of carrots and sticks to influence those on whom they have particular leverage.A new U.S. regional strategy, including engagement with Syria and Iran, an end to efforts at regime change, revitalisation of the Arab-Israeli peace process, and altered strategic goals: Polite engagement of Iraq’s neighbours will not do; rather, a clear redefinition of Washington’s objectives in the region will be required to enlist regional, but especially Iranian and Syrian help. The goal is not to bargain with them, but to seek agreement on an end-state for Iraq and the region that is no one’s
first choice, but with which everyone can live.There is no magical solution for Iraq. But nor can there be a muddle-through. The choice today could not be clearer. An approach that does not entail a clean break vis-à-vis both Iraq and the region at best will postpone what, increasingly, is looking like the most probable scenario: Iraq’s collapse into a failed and fragmented state, an intensifying and long-lasting civil war, as well as increased foreign meddling that risks metastasising into a broad proxy war. Such a situation could not be contained within Iraq’s borders. With involvement by a multiplicity of state and non-state actors and given that rising sectarianism in Iraq is both fuelled by and fuels sectarianism in the region, the more likely outcome would be a regional conflagration. There is abundant reason to question whether the Bush administration is capable of such a dramatic course change. But there is no reason to question why it ought to change direction, and what will happen if it does not.
RECOMMENDATIONS
STEPS TO INTERNATIONALISE CONFLICT-RESOLUTION
To the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council:
1. Establish an International Support Group, composed of the five permanent members of the Security Council, Iraq’s neighbours and the UN, represented by its Secretary General, with the objective of:
(a) agreeing on rules of the game for outside parties vis-à-vis Iraq;
(b) reaching agreement on broad goals and key compromises for Iraq;
(c) appointing an empowered UN special envoy to begin work with all Iraqi
constituents on a reconciliation process; and
(d) convening a conference of all of Iraq’s political stakeholders (including insurgent groups and other disenfranchised but politically significant elements of society).STEPS TO ENSURE REGIONAL COOPERATION
To the U.S. Government:
2. Alter regional strategy, renouncing in particular ambitions to forcibly remodel the Middle East.
3. Refrain from referring to Iraq as a “model” for the region or the new “front” in the anti-terrorism war.
4. Engage in discussions with Iran and Syria in a direct and sustained manner that acknowledges they have legitimate interests in Iraq’s and the region’s future.
5. In the context of the Quartet, and together with Arab countries, revitalise the search for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.To the Government of Syria:
6. Enhance control at the Iraqi border.
7. Facilitate achievement of a national Iraqi compact by:
(a) using its extensive intelligence on and lines of communication with insurgent groups to facilitate negotiations; and
(b) drawing on its wide-ranging tribal networks to reach out to Sunni Arabs in the context of such negotiations.To the Government of Iran:
8. Enhance control at the Iraqi border.
9. Facilitate achievement of a national compact by using its leverage to control SCIRI and its channels in southern Iraq to influence the Sadrists.To the Government of Saudi Arabia:
10. Facilitate achievement of a national compact by using its influence with
insurgent groups, in particular by cutting off funding from private Saudi sources to those that refuse to cooperate.To the Government of Turkey:
11. Facilitate achievement of a national compact by using its influence with all Iraqi actors, including insurgent groups.
12. Continue to develop peaceful economic and political relations with Iraqi
Kurdistan.STEPS TO ACHIEVE A NEW IRAQI POLITICAL COMPACT
To the Iraqi Government, Political Parties, and Insurgent and Militia Groups:
13. Work with the UN special envoy and attend the International Support Group’s
conference to reach agreement on a political compact focused on power and wealth
sharing, including:
(a) an asymmetric federal system providing a separate status for the Kurdish region, as currently defined and with powers broadly described in the constitution, and an Arab Iraq divided into fifteen decentralised governorates that reflect present boundaries;
(b) acceptance of Kirkuk governorate as a decentralised governorate with an interim power-sharing arrangement to last at least ten years; and a UN envoy appointed to facilitate this arrangement and help create a mechanism to determine the governorate’s final status;
(c) a process for equitable revenue sharing, under which income from oil, gas and other natural resources would accrue to a federal trust fund operated by an independent federal authority and would be distributed according to each region’s demographic share;
(d) a relaxation of de-Baathification measures, with the principal criterion for
exclusion being past proven crimes, not past party membership;
(e) passage of a broad amnesty covering individuals who agree to put down their arms and subscribe to the national compact;
(f) reintegration of officers of the former army unless proven to have committed human rights abuses or other crimes;
(g) negotiation with the U.S. of a relatively rapid timetable for the full withdrawal in stages of its forces;
(h) agreement on a status of foreign forces, with rules of engagement focusing on the need to protect populations and respond to immediate threats against troop security, while requiring prior Iraqi command authorisation for any manoeuvres, offensives, arrest campaigns or other military actions outside this framework; and
(i) agreement on a new electoral law providing for direct, constituency-based elections.To Members of the Recommended International Support Group:
14. Guide Iraqi participants in a peace conference towards accepting a national compact along the lines described above.
15. Condition further and augmented economic support on quick agreement on and implementation of elements of the national compact.To the Government of Iraq:
16. Organise, assuming agreement on a national compact is reached and reflected in a revised constitution, a referendum for its approval.URGENT STEPS TO STEM THE VIOLENCE
To the Government of Iraq:
17. Seek to reduce sectarian and ethnic polarisation and violence by:
(a) stating publicly its commitment to work toward a new, more inclusive national compact, as described in this report;
(b) condemning and seeking to halt the killing of civilians and torture by security forces, investigating allegations of abuse and prosecuting offenders;
(c) suspending police units suspected of serious human rights abuses and
participation in sectarian violence;
(d) urging all government officials to desist from ethnic, sectarian or otherwise inflammatory statements, and pressing members of the council of representatives to do the same;
(e) making a deliberate and widely announced effort to provide health services, opening bank branches and fixing power supply in predominantly Sunni Arab towns and neighbourhoods; and
(f) making a commitment to a peaceful solution to the Kirkuk question, and postponing referendums to determine its and other disputed areas’ status.To the U.S. Government:
18. Adopt a less aggressive military posture in Iraq by:
(a) redirecting resources to a program of embedding U.S. troops in Iraqi units; and
(b) moving away from fighting the insurgency to focusing on protecting the civilian population, and in particular halting blind sweeps that endanger civilians, antagonise the population and have had limited effect on the insurgency.
19. Redeploy troops along the frontlines of the unfolding civil war, notably by filling in the current security vacuum in Baghdad.
20. Focus on limiting the militias’ role to protecting civilians in places where government forces cannot, rather than seek to forcibly disband them, while taking strong action against political assassinations, sectarian attacks, or attempts to overrun government offices.
21. Avoid steps to engineer a cabinet reshuffle aimed at side-lining Muqtada al-Sadr, which would further inflame the situation.
22. Shelve plans to hurriedly expand the Iraqi security apparatus and focus instead on vetting, restructuring, and retraining existing units.
23. Free and compensate Iraqi prisoners detained by the U.S. without charge.
24. Compensate Iraqis who have suffered as a result of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign.
25. Condition short-term financial support on the government reversing its policy of serving certain constituencies at the expense of others (most notably with regard to salary payment and basic service delivery).
26. Abandon the super-embassy project and move a reduced embassy to a more neutral location.
27. Publicly deny any intention of establishing long-term military bases or seeking to control Iraq’s oil.Baghdad/Amman/Damascus/Brussels, 19 December 2006
Sending another 20,000 troops ain't gonna solve a lot. Total troop numbers in previous years were higher in the past than they will be with the extra 20,000 from what I've read elsewhere.
