'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Ghassan Salameh speech, full text

Here's the full text of the speech I posted (partially) on yesterday. The speech was originally given at a November 4 conference in London by Ghassan Salamé, the UN's chief political advisor on Iraq and a former Lebanese Minister of Information. Ghassan is also a very asture analyst of the Middle East regional scene.

I have taken the liberty of adding in the numbers to the "ten points" he mentions (but did not number, in this text.)

Personally I don't agree with everything he says. For example when he says he expects that the US will "stay the course" in Iraq. Since November 4, it's become a lot clearer to me that this is most likely not, any longer, the case. A quick "cut and run" is fairly likely at this point.

Still, Ghassan makes some excellent points about internal Iraqi politics, and regional and global power-balances. So that's why I'm happy to post this here for further discussion.

Keynote speech on Iraq, by Ghassan Salameh, November 4, 2003

A month ago, many Arab newspapers carried on their front pages a
photograph of Bremer Imperator: Iraq's US civil administrator was sitting
alone, on what looked like a three-meter-high throne, watching the first
Iraqi soldiers graduate. Many in the Middle East thought the caption
should have read the Viceroy looking down in satisfaction on his
praetorian guard. Others noted, the same day, that the start of the new
school year was announced not by the newly appointed Iraqi education
minister but by his US advisor.

Meanwhile, a columnist in the New York Times was telling readers, in the
sweeping statements that he favors, that the US is giving $87 billion for
"Iraqi reconstruction," overlooking the fact that most of the money will
be devoted to military occupation. Hence the conclusion: Who provides the
money, rules. If Congress gives the money, if the Iraqis accept it as a
fait accompli, if other countries are willing to join the US, even in
limited numbers, why bother lobbying the UN or begging in Madrid? With a
bit of luck, with (more and) more US funds, and with a modest amount of
patience, US unilateral handling of Iraq may work after all. Direct
military occupation and direct financial disbursements naturally lead to
direct political rule.

The US is apparently set to stay the course, less out of conviction than
because of the potentially huge political costs of an about-face. On the
ground, nobody should underestimate the coalition's will to succeed. It is
basically the only working machine in town and the whole political process
revolves around it.

The coalition is operating from a tabula rasa: It buried General Garner's
cautious decisions, as well as the State Department's pre-war plans. It
ordered the deconstruction of the Iraqi state as if the latter had been
merely a disguise for Saddam Hussein's personal rule: Exit the regular
army; exit the national police; exit around 40 000 civil servants and
(often only formally) high-ranking people in the Baath Party; exit full
provincial bureaucracies. The coalition is intent on creating an Iraq of
its own, and one should not ignore the dimensions of that truly imperial
ambition.

This policy is supported by Iraqis who see the "purification" drive as a
precondition for their push to fill the state apparatus with their own
people, which they are slowly doing. The fear in Iraq is that the
transition is less one from dictatorship to democracy than from a
Baathist-ruled Iraq to a yet-to-be defined new hegemony of some other
group. In this master plan, the coalition defines a concrete role for each
and everyone: The Governing Council should do this, the ministers that,
the clerics, the US military, the UN, etc. Actors are given specific tasks
to carry out.

But the coalition has some strong assets that should make people think
twice before condemning the endeavor as doomed:

As the military occupying power, the US is the single unifying force in a
disjointed country. Most Iraqis, even the harshest critics of the US
occupation, believe a sudden military withdrawal would be a nightmare.
It's not that they fear Saddam's return to power, as some have suggested.
But with the complete deconstruction of the state apparatus and rising
sectarianism, they fear, with good reason, an inevitable period of
complete chaos. Such is the state's deconstruction that many Iraqi
cognoscenti believe that the chaos has been created intentionally to help
legitimize a long military occupation. Mention of a sudden US military
withdrawal induces panic in any Iraqi you talk to, remembering the looting
that followed Saddam's collapse.

The US is putting up the money to reconstruct Iraq. Although the overheads
are horribly high, the US is sending strong signals of its readiness to
pay the rent for occupation of the land and is doing it loudly, using the
fact as an argument of last resort to justify its direct rule. Given the
mixed results of the Madrid donors' conference, this argument becomes even
more compelling.

Despite periodic innuendos about possible scapegoating, one is impressed
by the amount of support Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA) head Paul
Bremer has gathered in Washington. He is smart, dedicated, well-traveled
and charming, at least when he has the patience. Although he was certainly
not versed in things Iraqi, he learns rapidly and makes up his mind
quickly (sometimes with negative effects that he tries, painfully, to
correct later).

Set for direct rule, the coalition derives huge benefits from the
well-organized diffusion of the (very small amount of) power left to
Iraqis. Governing Council heavyweights are infuriated by the CPA's
manipulation of "independents" on the council or of interim ministers with
no power base of their own. Moreover, provincial governors are dealing
direct with local US or British military commanders without informing
so-called "national" politicians. Some have even signed agreements with
neighboring countries. Here is the tabula rasa at its apex.

The uncertainty of this approach is another asset. Iraqis keep asking us
and themselves: What do the Americans want? This is somehow turning most
Iraqis into passive observers of Bremer's magical talents, with the
exception of those who have already decided that this is a too obvious
occupation of their country that needs to be resisted by force.

So here we are. You can hardly work WITH the coalition. You have to work
FOR it (and be rapidly overworked, as so many American aides have found),
AGAINST it (and earn Washington's wrath) or forget Iraq for as long as the
CPA is the single ruler with, by some measures, much more power than
Saddam ever had. The US has chosen direct rule as a principle and Bremer
has transformed it largely into a personal one, probably less by intent
than by a gradual slide. In fact, this Promethean ambition preceded
Bremer. Civilians in the Pentagon had set such high stakes for the war
that Bremer had only to wear ready-made imperial clothes.

But direct rule also means full responsibility, and the US occupation is
encountering very serious challenges. The security issue is paramount. US
soldiers are being killed in increasingly bold, more sophisticated,
better-organized attacks. Iraqis, especially in the capital, are happy if
they make it home safely after half an hour at the market. The cost is
high, in dollars (some $160 billion already committed) and in perception.

Many Iraqis are puzzled by the contrast between the efficiency of the US
war machine and the inefficiency of the peace one. Terrorists, whose
cooperation with Saddam has yet to be demonstrated by the US, are now
flocking to this new open field for militant jihad. Iraqi exiles who had
supported the invasion have discovered, to their dismay, that the US is
not there to deliver the country to them. More important, the population
so often told that it is not the target, but the ultimate beneficiary, of
the war is passively staying on the sidelines to see how things evolve: It
feels neither defeated nor victorious. Sectarianism, although less
strident than some had feared, is on the rise.

So yes, the US is still committed. And yes, the obstacles are much greater
than the hasty occupiers -- if not the true connoisseurs -- expected.

What is to be done to get out of a mess that is increasingly threatening
the unity of Iraq and regional stability, let alone President Bush's
reelection chances? Ten proposals can be articulated, proposals that are
useful if and when bravado statements are replaced with a calm, rational
approach to what increasingly looks like a quagmire.

(1) First, conceptually: Liberate Iraq from the liberators' grand designs. The
country needs to be liberated; not yet from American military occupation,
but immediately from its position as a springboard, a strategic
stronghold, a shining model, a pioneering example. you name it. The
country is so complex, has been so weakened by decades of dictatorship, by
successive wars, by 13 terrible years of sanctions -- whose harshness will
be remembered by Iraqis for generations to come -- and now by so many
post-war management mistakes that it needs, finally, to be looked at in
and for itself, rather than being viewed as the model for democracy, or
the jumping-off point against Syria and Iran, or the key to settlement of
the Arab-Israeli dispute, or, more recently, as the second step in a
global anti-terrorism crusade. Unless Iraq is somehow freed from the
burden of being given a role that goes beyond its own borders, it will
remain the victim of what the US used to accuse Saddam: Using the country
for some grandiose regional purpose.

(2)Establish a truly provisional, formally sovereign government as soon as
possible. The US line was: Karzai in postwar Afghanistan, Abu Mazen in
Palestine, the London group in liberated Iraq. Karzai is still there, Abu
Mazen is out, and the Iraqi exiles were replaced by direct US rule in May.
The reason for the change of heart a few weeks after victory is still
unclear. Our idea is certainly not a return to the pre-Bremer process. It
means giving the Iraqis what the Afghans got in Bonn: A representative
interim government that deals on a contractual basis with the US, the UN
and others, and gradually leads the country into permanent, stable,
hopefully democratic institutions. Although Afghan observers lament
Kabul's lack of resolve to enlarge the government's political base and
sometimes call for a second Bonn conference to ensure enlargement is
imposed on the Northern Alliance's strongmen, it is still a more
acceptable initial model than either the May formula of an exile-dominated
government or the present US direct rule.

(3) Rapid transformation [presumably of the US-led military occupation force] into a UN-mandated multinational force. This force
can be commanded, in the first instance, by the US. Even France does not
oppose such a move. National contingents, including from countries that
opposed the war, would be allocated peacekeeping missions in the various
provinces under Security Council supervision. A coordinated effort to hand
over security gradually to Iraqis would follow a clearly defined
timetable.

(4) Go slowly on the political process. Keep it alive, but proceed slowly,
hold more meetings where people can express their views and proposals,
reach out to various sectors of the population, including those who feel
excluded or have excluded themselves. Never give the impression that you
are determining the content or even the pace of the constitution-drafting
process. We should stop considering Iraqis as ignorant of what democracy
means: They know what it is, but are generally skeptical about its
feasibility. They may well be right. Start writing a constitution and
positions will freeze and divisions multiply. Think of elections and you
will face more chaos or, at least, a large, delegitimizing, boycott.
Forces intent on disrupting a referendum or an election need not be huge,
and there is enough anti-American sentiment in Iraq if not to win a
guerrilla war, then certainly to disrupt quiet institution-building.
Institution-building needs to be clearly decoupled from the security
agenda, left to Iraqis, and follow a slow, rational pace of its own.

Conspiracy theorists, and the Middle East has many, view former defense
minister General. Sultan Hashim Ahmad, caught and treated with deference
before being crossed off the 55-strong "wanted" list by the US military in
Iraq, as the next strongman for post-Bremer Iraq. Putsches are part of the
local culture. But a stable Iraq cannot wait ages until the New Iraq Army
is operational.

(5) A more reasonable approach is to reintegrate all those who
joined the REGULAR army and police (not members of the old regime's
praetorian forces or of the many secret service gangs), who are under 33,
and did not take part in quelling the 1991 intifada against Saddam. Most
did not take part in the war, either, and have, as institutions, been
denied new weapons or a vital role in the past 12 years. New recruits will
be taken only to correct any sectarian imbalance in these institutions.
This would avoid the growing tendency to recycle largely unreliable
militias as enforcers of law and order. The disbanding of the regular army
and the national police has been by far the most serious blunder of the
past six months, and needs to be corrected as soon as possible.

(6) Establish a clear distinction, thanks to available files, between, on the
one hand, war criminals of the highest and lowest levels (top of the
pyramid decision-makers and executioners, respectively) and, on the other,
professionals who joined the Baath Party for opportunistic or idealistic
reasons. Put the first group before tribunals and reinstate the second,
whatever their party rank or sectarian affiliation, since they are the
backbone of the Iraqi state. You will thus give Iraqis a clear lesson in
the difference between a faction and a neutral state apparatus, correcting
the other very serious blunder of a sweeping, indiscriminate
debaathification.

(7) Forget about the Iraqi development fund and the international monitoring
board created by UN resolution 1483. An Iraqi Ministry of Finance and a
Central Bank, equally supported by World Bank and IMF, would do the job.
Meanwhile slow down the privatization drive: Saddam's Iraq was neither
Hitler's Germany in political terms nor Honecker's Germany in economic
ones. The urgent need is not for sweeping privatizations of destroyed or
underequipped industries and not even of oil production, but for a real
rule of law to ensure the cronyism of the past is not replaced by a new
one -- although many, including US lawmakers and the media, doubt that the
US model of a truly competitive free market is the one now being applied
to companies working in Iraq.

(8) Establish a multibillion-dollar fund for the south, to make up for the
fact that areas south of Baghdad spent 12 years being punished by the
Saddam regime and were largely ignored by international donors and
non-governmental organizations. It would be an Iraqi institution,
supported by UNDP and Unicef. It would also help meet expectations among
deprived Shias for a better life.

(9) Send a clear message to the Iraqis that the international community is at
last united in its approach. Since the end of the Cold War, no other issue
has proved so divisive. Iraqis are aware of the fact, adding to their
perplexity. It is high time that the US and its allies radically downsized
their objectives in Iraq and ended direct rule. Countries that opposed the
war should start looking at it as a fait accompli and help rebuild a
united, peaceful and prosperous country. Neither the coalition nor its
many critics would welcome a chaotic, terrorism-ridden Iraq.

(10) Never forget that Iraq is not an island: Engage Iraq's neighbors. An oversimplification of the present situation would be to say: The US is in,
the UN is out and the region is back. For six months, the US had a clear
strategy, to handle the Iraqi question single-handedly: While deterring
regional countries to ensure they remained passive and inviting the UN to
play a legitimizing, largely ceremonial, role in reconstruction, the US
would busy itself remaking Iraq as a model for democracy and an American
strategic stronghold. Now that the UN is redeploying, the US is busy
answering nagging questions about the financial burden and the way
American (and now Iraqi) money is being spent, the countries bordering
Iraq have met in Damascus to discuss Iraq's future.

The meeting's significance should not be underestimated. The UN did not:
One important ingredient of the UN mission in Iraq was to develop a
dialogue with the six countries, as well as with the Arab League. The
message was clear. The UN understands that Iraq's neighbors have
legitimate concerns about its evolution, concerns that should be addressed
while those countries are invited to do their utmost to help stabilize the
country. One had to listen to these complaints and, at the same time, to
encourage those countries to develop an interest in stabilizing Iraq, in
view of their multisecular relations with many sects, tribes or parties in
Iraq.

These UN regional openings were viewed as at best a diversion from the
main task, at worst an unwelcome consideration of Iraqi neighbors'
potential contribution. The US basically thought of Iraq as an island it
could reshape independently. When others objected, they were threatened
with punishment for unacceptable "interference." Although the US had a
point in raising the issue, it was naïve to think that mere deterrence
could be sufficient to solve these and other problems. This policy was
even less sustainable in light of the fact that US proved unable to
monitor Iraq's borders efficiently, a formidable task at a moment when its
troops were largely involved in trying to catch officials from the old
regime or quelling the nascent resistance movement.

This was a self-imposed paradox: You cannot threaten countries in the
region with regime change, and then expect them to remain passive, let
alone cooperative, in your efforts to stabilize Iraq. How many American
officials said before the war that the objective was to reshape the whole
region? That Iraq was just the start, soon to be followed by others such
as Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia? The regime change rhetoric put Iraq's
neighbors on the defensive, prompting them to throw themselves into
Washington's arms or to make minor gestures designed to appease
Washington, waiting for the moment when the US would become more realistic
in its appraisal of the costs and benefits of sweeping regime change
across the Middle East. Leaders were of course encouraged by mounting
opposition to the American occupation inside Iraq (some certainly
encouraged it, in word if not always in deed) as well as by the continued
transatlantic divisions. Leaders also had to deal with the fact that the
occupying force in Iraq was Israel's main ally, and that Ariel Sharon had
good friends in Washington. The combination of the Iraqi and the
Palestinian issues was not lost on Arabs -- leaders and opponents alike --
and this certainly did not encourage them to be helpful.

The unsustainability of that policy gradually became evident. US
commanders in the north allowed local merchants to establish trade
relations with Syria and Turkey; the US government asked the Saudis and
other Gulf countries to contribute financially to rebuilding Iraq. Syria
was asked to cooperate in the war against terrorism and even Iran proved
too big to be dealt with in gung-ho fashion, especially after its wise
handling of the nuclear issue. The US now seems to be developing a more
realistic approach. Better late than never.

Four crucial factors are pushing towards this regionalization of the Iraqi
question.

1. A growing consciousness on the part of US military commanders in the
field that cooperation with Iraq's neighbors is needed.

2.Disenchantment with the US is pushing various factions both in and
outside Iraq's Governing Council into seeking regional advice and help.

3. The (possibly provisional) settlement of the dispute between Iran and
the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. US officials have toned down
their rhetoric on Iran, while Tehran appears to be more cooperative on the
nuclear issue, and possibly harsher in its treatment of Al-Qaida and the
Taliban.

4. Widespread opposition to the entry of Turkish troops into Iraq. Even
America's best friends on the Governing Council were opposed, either for
ethnic or sectarian reasons. Other countries felt the same, believing that
Turkish military deployment in Iraq could fuel a general trend towards
regional military interference, a form of "Lebanonization." Once a
neighboring country was allowed in, others would be emboldened to do the
same. In Damascus, the message was clear: Iraq is too important or too
threatening to its neighbors to leave it to the Americans alone to rebuild
it.

US realists would ask: Why not? But realists aren't those who called for
the invasion in the first place. The problem with Iraq is precisely the
fact that those who initiated the war wanted it to be the first act in a
regional reshuffle in which those whose help is now needed were supposed
to be next in line in the famous democracy crusade, with its cascade of
regime changes. Shifting from those broad objectives to a policy of
appeasement will not be easy for the ideologues of the Bush
administration.

Reluctantly, the coalition is correcting some of its most serious
blunders, readmitting members of the old military or reintroducing known
Baathists into the civil administration. Arming the police is now
accepted. A number of public works, such as rehabilitation of schools,
have been completed. Power distribution is not as dysfunctional as it was
in the summer. But while these signs of improvement are felt, the
resistance is becoming better-coordinated, more professional and much
bolder. A more impatient, more critical, tune is now played by Najaf's
leading clerics. More US soldiers have died in the past two weeks than in
the preceding three months. So, yes, it is a sprint race between a
US-reshaped, US- dominated Iraq and chaos. In their heart of hearts, most
Iraqis and most Middle East leaders are not happy with either of these two
outcomes. Hence these modest 10 proposals meant to devise a third way.