Gilbert Achcar, elections, Iraq, Palestine
Some of the most insightful analysis that Juan Cole's blog has on the situation inside Iraq are those that are guest-posted there by leftist Parisian intellectual Gilbert Achcar. Like the post that Gilbert had up there yesterday.
It includes these items:
- 2) Muqtada al-Sadr’s consults Sistani on sectarian violence
Some days ago, followers of Muqtada al-Sadr from the Iraqi city of Al-Kufa had addressed a letter to him asking his advice to the “followers of the Sadrist line in particular and the Shiites in general” regarding the recent declaration of war against the Shiites by Zarqawi...
Al-Sadr — who is the most popular Shiite figure among Arab Sunnis and is accused by some forces in the Shiite community, especially in SCIRI circles, of cozying up to the enemies of the Shiites — did not want to take it upon himself to call for Shiites to refrain from launching reprisals. His reply came in three points: 1) “Refer in this regard to your noble references, who naturally, as is well-known, are Sayyed Sistani (may his shadow last) and Sayyed Ha’eri (may his shadow last), they must be referred to first, and if they do not intervene, please get back to me with a new request.” 2) Print books and other educational material against “each of the occupation and its suite, the brigands [designating anti-Shiite Wahhabi forces, like Zarqawi’s group] and the Ba’athists.” 3) Call on the Imams at Friday’s prayers to stigmatize them. In conclusion, al-Sadr asked his followers to remember that “the unity within Islam and the [Shiite] sect is the major weapon” against the “brigands and their masters,” as well as the Ba’athists.
The Sadrists of Al-Kufa wrote accordingly to al-Sistani, asking his advice. The latter replied with a long official communiqué, now posted in Arabic on his website [is this it? I think so... ~HC], with the following main points: Those who try to divide the Iraqis and push them toward civil war want to prevent Iraq from “recovering its sovereignty and security.” Iraqis should not and will not fall into this trap whatever horrors occur to them. Shiites should keep restraining themselves and cooperate with the competent services to protect their areas. All Iraqis should call, in words and deeds, to repel the deviants (an indirect call on Sunni religious leaders to issue condemnations of sectarian attacks). The Iraqi government should provide security to all Iraqis and “prevent them from being hurt, to whatever ethnical group or religious sect or thought they belong.”
3) US military campaigns and the forthcoming vote in Iraq
Commenting on the November 2004 assault on Fallujah prior to the January 30 election, I had written: “The US occupation could not have any illusion -- at this point in time -- about its ability to stop the violence in the country by resorting to such violent means. Instead, there is serious reason to believe that the real purpose was precisely to aggravate the chaotic conditions in Iraq in order to diminish the legitimacy of the outcome of the January 30 elections.” [Funny, I wrote something very similar at the time-- not guessing about the intent of the US commanders, but certainly gauging the effect of their actions... ~HC]
I had written this because of the fact that the very brutal assault on Fallujah had led to such a deterioration of the conditions in Iraq and to such an outcry among Arab Sunnis, that it compelled most major political forces belonging to this community to revert their stand and boycott the election. (The Islamic Party, the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, had even registered its electoral slate, before withdrawing from the race.)
This scenario seems likely to be repeated. Up until recently, the ranks of the Arab Sunnis were divided on the issue of the October 15 referendum. Not that any major force among them is calling to approve the draft constitution: as is well known, there is a large consensus among Arab Sunni representatives on rejecting the draft. (The sectarian polarization in Iraq is such that the majority of Arab Shiites support the draft and the vast majority of Arab Sunnis oppose it, while the Kurdish forces try to arbitrate preserving their interests.) However, the majority of Arab Sunni forces had called their constituencies to register on the electoral lists (which they did massively) to try to defeat the draft constitution by gathering two-thirds of No votes in the three main Arab Sunni provinces. Only two forces had adopted a long-standing call for a boycott of the referendum: the Ba’ath Party (very officially by a formal statement published on its website) and Al-Qaeda followers (they forbid any vote on a constitution anyhow, since there should be no constitution but the Koran in their view).
Today’s Al-Hayat reports that two main figures of the Arab Sunni community in Iraq, Saleh al-Mutlak, the man leading the campaign against the draft constitution, and Issam al-Rawi, a member of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, have accused US occupation forces and Iraqi governmental forces of trying — by the full-fledged offensive they launched in the Arab Sunni province of Al-Anbar, starting with the assault on Tal Afar — to prevent the participation of Arab Sunnis in the referendum, thus pushing them to call for a boycott. Al-Mutlak said that a call for boycott could be announced after consultations among the opponents of the draft.
If the referendum were to be held with a massive participation of all Iraqis, the result would be, whether the draft passes or fails, that this first all-encompassing electoral test would likely be followed by all-encompassing elections for a new National Assembly (with the possibility of getting there a majority in favor of the withdrawal of occupation forces). If the referendum were boycotted massively by Arab Sunnis, as were the January elections, then it is highly likely that the same would occur for the parliamentary elections scheduled to take place before the end of this year. The present tragic situation would be prolonged indefinitely, if not very much worsened actually.
In particular, I agree with the conclusion that seems strongly implied by Achcar's last paragraph, that what would be best for Iraqis would be to have a strong-- he says "massive"-- participation in both the imminent referendum and the December elections. (Though of course, if the referendum rejects the draft constitution, which is still a possibility, I am not sure what the basis for the December elections would be? Can anyone tell me whether that was covered in the TAL?)
So anyway, as I argued here on JWN many, many times in the lead-up to the January elections, we need to make sure that the actions of the US military are not such as to discourage or dissuade a strong Sunni participation in the October referendum.
... Over in Palestine, meanwhile, we can also see a situation where there is--amazingly, given everything else that's been going on--an ongoing process of voting by the Palestinians in the West Bank, in which the (Sunni) Islamist party Hamas has seemed set to make a fairly strong showing... and where the occupying power has (likewise) been engaged in hostile, strongly escalatory activities that have definitely thwarted the ability of Hamas to participate in the vote on a fair and equal basis.
To say the least! Numerous Hamas candidates in the elections there have actually been arrested by the IOF.
Those elections are, admittedly, only for municipal councils; but still, they are an important part of the broader political process...
Anyway, big thanks to you, Gilbert Achcar, for your contribution to the global knowledge-base, and thanks to you, Juan, for putting it up on your blog even though you've recently had a disagreement with Gilbert, as we know, about the need for a total US withdrawal from Iraq.
Postscript to Gilbert Achcar: If you care to come over to JWN and guest-post, you can actually be part of an ongoing public discussion forum here (and get a little bit of help with formating from yours truly), unlike over at Juan's place...
I too thought Gilbert Achcar's contributions were very good.
It seems to me that his remarks about the intent of Falluja support my contention in these comments a couple of days ago, that the secret aim of Washington in Iraq is to break the country up into three (or perhaps more, you never know) mini-states, as this will permanently weaken Iraq, and provide the only chance for permanent US bases in the country. The continuing, pointless, offensives against Sunni cities, Tel'afar, Ramadi, the threat against Samarra, can only be intended to keep Sunnis in the extremist camp, and out of the polling station.
It actually seems that Fatah did slightly better and Hamas somewhat worse than the last round of municipal elections. Fatah got 60 percent of the vote as compared to 56 percent in May, and took 61 councils to Hamas' 21 as opposed to 52-28 last time. This could have been influenced by any number of factors - the switch to a party-list system, for instance - but many people are bound to perceive it as a slip in Hamas' support following its recent mistakes. Maybe this will cause a rethinking of strategy within the party (although nothing's certain).
And, um, might the IDF arrests of Hamas candidates have had something to do with the barrage of 40 Qassams fired into Israel over the weekend? The Israeli government seemed willing to leave matters alone before that.
Updated figures give Fatah 64 councils with 61 percent of the vote to 28 councils and 26 percent for Hamas.
I don't agree with the suggestion that the US gov't has a grand strategy to neutralize or take over Iraq by encouraging sectarian divisions that will divide up the country. Sectarian violence and civil war may well result from our actions, but that is not evidence of "intelligent design."
I don't think anyone in the US gov't is really in control of the war effort anymore. It is a ship adrift, caught in the current of events. The only possible outcomes are all disastrous.
Just today, General Casey made the jaw-dropping admission that the number of fully functioning "Iraqi Army" battalions has decreased from 3 to 1 since June. No explanation offered, but only one is possible: we are losing support. An already tenuous position has deteriorated to desperate. The one remaining battalion is, of course, the Peshmerga.
It may be that our trusted leaders are willing to give up the Southern oil fields to the Iranian-backed Shiite militias, in order to concentrate their meager forces on trying to wipe out the Sunni resistance, in the hopes that we can eventually strike some kind of permanent deal with our friends the Kurds, but even this will come to naught. Why should the Kurds give us a good deal, once their opposition has been neutralized? Plus, whatever the outcome of the guerilla war in Anbar province, once it is over, the most highly trained and disciplined fighters will turn their attention to Saudi Arabia - a target rich environment, and the crutch upon which our economy rests its weight.
All I can see here is failure on a massive scale. But I would be very pleased to be shown the errors of my analysis.
"Sectarian violence and civil war may well result from our actions, but that is not evidence of "intelligent design.""
Oh har har. Very good. Are you suggesting that Bush the Creator may not exist?
John C.:
I did not say breaking up Iraq was a grand strategy, and certainly not one maintained from the beginning. However it's an aim which might explain the apparently pointless destruction of Sunni cities.
I too am a great supporter of the cock-up theory of history, but to suggest that deep in the dark corners of the Pentagon and the White House, there are no plans at all, however immoral, cannot be right.
via "A Tiny Revolution", http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000097.html
Gamal Nasser in the fifties:
"The genius of you Americans is that you never made clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which makes us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing."
Small wonder Hamas "candidates" have been arrested in recent days. The only problem there is that there have not been enough arrests. What would you expect Israel to do when an openly and proudly genocidal hate group launches dozens upon dozens of rockets at children and other civilian "targets" in the run-up leading to this (very likely rigged) "election? Give me a break. Israel, like all countries, has every right to defend itself from terrorism, whether that practiced by non-state actors or states themselves. Posts like this, however, put forth the view that Israel actually has no right to self-defense. As a self-described Quaker, this type of view is not only racist, it is decidedly NOT non-violent.
Your openly hostile criticism of Israel is hardly informative, and does little to bolster your well-earned reputation as an educated writer and Middle East expert.
Small wonder Hamas "candidates" have been arrested in recent days. The only problem there is that there have not been enough arrests. What would you expect Israel to do when an openly and proudly genocidal hate group launches dozens upon dozens of rockets at children and other civilian "targets" in the run-up leading to this (very likely rigged) "election? Give me a break. Israel, like all countries, has every right to defend itself from terrorism, whether that practiced by non-state actors or states themselves. Posts like this, however, put forth the view that Israel actually has no right to self-defense. As a self-described Quaker, this type of view is not only racist, it is decidedly NOT non-violent.
Your openly hostile criticism of Israel is hardly informative, and does little to bolster your well-earned reputation as an educated writer and Middle East expert.
Alastair-
I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, just responding in a general way. Of course the Pentagon has plans for all sorts of things, most of which will never occur. The question is whether events in Iraq are proceeding in accordance with any preconceived plan made by the U.S. government, and I think the answer is clearly no. After the spectacular public failures of four successive envoys (Garner, Bremer, Negroponte and Khalilzad), each with his own approach to the problem, it is hard to argue that they planned it this way all along.
In fact, nothing they have tried has come close to working. Even the so-called "Salvador option" has failed (which is why Negroponte is no longer the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq). We are now firmly ensconced in the worst case scenario. So why does the war go on? Because our Dear Leader has simply told the military brass that they must stay the course until they achieve victory, which just means some condition that Karl Rove can use to make Bush look like a strong and successful leader. The
Pentagon has no idea how to do this, because it is impossible. But the Commander in Chief doesn't want to hear about that, so the military just continues to fight the way it was trained to fight, even though most of them know the cause is lost.
As ground force options dwindle, the Pentagon will have to ratchet up the aerial bombardment, because air power and nuclear weapons are the only unimpaired tools left in the box. The only things I see that could prevent this are (a) a suddenly reinvigorated U.S. Congress putting on the brakes, or (b) the Iraqis somehow managing to establish a unified political
front. Neither seems likely. Here I think is where some people are tempted to conclude that the Bush administration is actively trying to sabotage the political process in Iraq, in order to keep the war going. I just don't think it works that way.
General Myers 4/26/05 (1)
"I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time."
General Myers 9/29/05 (2)
"I don't think this committee or the American public has ever heard me say that things are going very well in Iraq."
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601412.html
2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092902085.html
The division of Iraq may not be a bad idea. The ugly Sunni-Shiite quasi civil war, and geographical cleansing, debunk the notion of a strong Iraqi identity beyond the incidental cheer for the same national football team.
Also the Algerian precedent shows that democracy and civility are facilitated, in the Arab world, by plain exhaustion of the internal violence. At the rate the insurgency is killing Iraqis that may be in 5 to 6 years.
David
The division of Iraq may not be a bad idea. The ugly Sunni-Shiite quasi civil war,
Their is one uglier than them.....
I see that Robert Fisk is interpreting events in Iraq in quite a similar way to what I said above, and a couple of days ago.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1472282.htm
He thinks civil war in Iraq is unlikely, and that the notion of civil war is being talked up in the US - including I see by Juan Cole.
Robert Fisk has a lot of experience in Iraq, and he's been there more recently than I. His conclusions are a lot more useful than all those people who have never been to Iraq. He seems to me to get the tone exactly right. There's little danger of civil war, the Iraqis will reach their own solutions, once the occupation troops are withdrawn. An important, if not the most important, element of the insurgency is simply the demobilised Iraqi army, a point I had already been alerted to a couple of months ago by an Iraqi contact.
If the notion of "civil war" is being talked up as a danger, you have to ask why. It is evidently part of a narrative coming out of Washington, to justify the US staying in Iraq.
Hi, folks. This is a really good and well-informed discussion, so thanks to you one and all.
The question of US "steering" the events in Iraq, or not, as discussed by John C and Alastair above, is a really important one...
Gosh I am so behind on what I want to write for JWN (main posts)!
Still, I just wanted to tell y'all that I heard from Gilbert Achcar who says he'll be happy to send me the periodic analyses that he emails out to a bunch of people (incl. Juan). When this happens I'll decide whether to copy and paste the whole thing into a main post here; make excerpts; upload and archive it here and provide a link; or provide a link to it if he has it archived elsewhere.
Anyway, I think that getting his work well featured here will certainly add to what we have on JWN.
Gilbert also answered the question I had in this post about what the TAL says if the referendum goes against the draft constitution.
He referred to paras D & E of Art. 61 and summarized them as "that elections are to be held before Dec 15 whatever the result of the referendum."
Actually, Art. 61-E, which he helpfully also sent over specifies that:
(E) If the referendum rejects the draft permanent constitution, the National Assembly shall be dissolved. Elections for a new National Assembly shall be held no later than 15 December 2005. The new National Assembly and new Iraqi Transitional Government shall then assume office no later than 31 December 2005, and shall continue to operate under this Law, except that the final deadlines for preparing a new draft may be changed to make it possible to draft a permanent constitution within a period not to exceed one year. The new National Assembly shall be entrusted with writing another draft permanent constitution.
Fortunately, David is always here to remind us why we're fighting in Iraq - it's a religious crusade, just like George Bush and Osama Bin Ladin said it was!!
David, you would do well to remember who the earlier crusaders turned on after they got tired of fighting muslims. Do you think it won't happen again?
But if U.S. policymakers listen to the Iraqis, the future can be bright
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI. .
This is the only truth.
United States’s global hegemony will go the way of the British, Spanish, Roman and all other empires. Byzantium? Babylon? The one is suing to join the EU, the other is in the grip of Saddam Hussein. Forget the ethical hand-wringing. It’s about power, stupid; and power eventually sifts through a nation’s grasp like sand.
'What We Think of America'
by
James Hamilton-Paterson
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