Al-Maliki Plan: A Bush Congressional Elections Public Relations Ploy By Michael Jansen

Al-Maliki Plan: A Bush Congressional Elections Public Relations Ploy

By Michael Jansen

Jordan Times, Thursday, June 29, 2006

PR ploys to save tragic situation in Iraq

The 24-point reconciliation plan presented on Sunday to the Iraqi national assembly by Premier Nuri Maliki is unlikely to provide a political remedy for the conflicts tearing his country apart. First and foremost, the plan addresses only one of these conflicts: the armed rising against the US occupation. The proposal does not deal with ethnic and sectarian cleansing being carried out by militias and inter-militia warfare which have overtaken the insurgency as the main source of violence against Iraqis.

The plan offers little that is new or original. Its key provisions give pardons to insurgents and prisoners who have not shed blood, call for disbanding militias, and propose rehabilitation of former Baathists. But Maliki’s predecessors, Iyad Alawi and Ibrahim Jaafari, tried and failed to achieve progress on these three absolutely critical fronts.

While the amnesty promises pardons for those who have not committed “crimes and terrorist actions”, it does not define terms precisely or indicate to whom the amnesty applies. The proposal speaks of pardoning insurgents held in Iraqi and US prisons but those still in the field cannot be expected to surrender unless they know what to expect or to trust the authorities to deliver on vague pledges while anarchy and chaos reign.

The overall number of insurgents is said to be 20,000. The vast majority are former soldiers or officers of the Iraqi army demobilised by the US in May 2003. These men will not give up their arms and turn themselves in unless their safety can be guaranteed. Fellow military men, doctors, professors, lawyers and civil servants are being kidnapped and killed on a daily basis by Shiite death squads attached to the ministry of the interior and Shiite political parties belonging to Maliki’s own parliamentary bloc. Insurgents who turn themselves over to the authorities could be courting torture and death. Those who surrender will also expect employment at a time of soaring unemployment. Therefore, pardoned insurgents could expect to swell the ranks of the jobless.

The amnesty excludes hard-core followers of Saddam Hussein and fighters belonging to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Taken together, these groups may account for only 5-10 per cent of the total number of insurgents. Some might even qualify because they have not shed Iraqi, American or allied blood. It would be a wiser policy to entice such people to desert and accept amnesty.

Although Al Qaeda is no longer in the vanguard of the resistance to foreign occupation, it continues to mount operations against US forces and attacks designed to stir Sunni-Shiite tension and animosity. Therefore, it retains a certain role in the resistance. Maliki and the US and Iraqi military do not seem to have a strategy for dealing with this movement which will continue to wield political influence in the loosely allied resistance front.

Maliki has neither the political clout nor the military might to disband the militias which now dominate the scene or to remove militiamen who fill the ranks of the army and police. The Kurds have flatly refused to disarm and disband the peshmerga which they believe to be their national army and police. This militia defends the region, provides a modicum of security, and gives the Kurdish bloc comprising the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the power to deal with competitors and challengers.

Maliki cannot expect the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and the Fadhilla Party to disband their militias. The armed groups enable these parties to assume control of territory in the provinces and take over ministries in the central government. Consequently, deputies belonging to these parties, the three largest Shiite factions in the largest parliamentary bloc, do not favour disbanding militias.

Shiite politicians belonging to parties which were persecuted under the former regime flatly refuse reconciliation with members of ousted Baath Party even though its lower and middle ranks were essentially conscripted and not decision makers. Shiite parties also seek to exclude former, qualified Baathists from jobs in the civil service, the police and the army. These parties seek to give such posts to their own constituents, even if they are not qualified to do the jobs they are given.

Unless the militias are tamed and armed men are incorporated into a genuine Iraqi national army — rather like the army Washington disbanded — there is little hope that Iraq will survive the onslaught of ongoing ethno-sectarian warfare which overshadows the insurgency.

Finally, Maliki’s proposal cannot be expected to win over the public. Few Iraqis feel confident that Maliki’s promise of compensation for fatalities, wounding and imprisonment of family members will enable families to deal with increasing deprivations. US offerings have been inadequate (up to $2,500 for a death of a father, brother or husband) and the current Iraqi government is unlikely to be in a position to muster the financial resources needed to satisfy claims of the thousands of Iraqis who might qualify for reparations.

The coincidence of the proclamation of the Maliki plan with the announcement by the US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, that Washington is set to draw down its troops in the country by 7,000 in September — just ahead of the November congressional by-election — and by the end of 2007 — well before the 2008 presidential and legislative polls — suggests that Maliki’s inadequate initiative is no more than a public relations ploy.

Indeed, the situation in Iraq is now so tragic that public relations ploys may be the only way to deal with it.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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