Iraq Security Agreement: a Second Invasion

Countdown kicks off to divide Iraq

The security agreement signed by Iraqi and U.S. governments last week brought up three major questions:

1. What does this agreement mean for Iraq’s future, and how will the different Iraqi political powers react to it?

2. What are the possible complications on other regional countries, particularly Syria and Iran, and on the Middle East as a whole?

3 How will this agreement affect the U.S. policy toward both Iraq and the rest of the Middle East?

Let’s begin with the first question.

The funniest statement on the agreement came in the advisory opinion of the Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars, which said, “It must be rejected even if was signed by the Emir of believers.”

The funny thing is that “Emir” is an unfashionable word that has not been used for more than a century. Turkey, during Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s presidency, canceled the Islamic caliphate in 1924, replacing it with caliphate of secularist successors. But the Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars wanted, of course, to integrate ideological beliefs with political history to emphasize its hard opposition to the treaty which is “to carry out between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

However, there is still a serious angle in this funny similarity. The objection to the treaty came from several Iraqi parties, not only the multiple Iraqi resistance wings, but also the Sadrist trend and large segments of the Iraqi political arena. Some of these parties reject this treaty altogether, others seek to amend and still other parties took historical consideration into account so they decided to keep themselves away from all discussions made upon this issue.

These kinds of developments in a country under occupation may seem strange, especially when compared to what happened between America and other countries such as Germany and Japan. After the defeat received by the two countries in the Second World War, they fully gave up the fight, leaving America do whatever it wanted to their political and civil society. Thus, German and Japanese armies were resolved along with governments and parties and everything were set up from a scratch according to general guidelines set by Washington, D.C.

The same steps were applied in Iraq but were unsuccessful. Why? Because America destroyed the Iraqi state though it did not defeat the Iraqi society itself, while mass destruction smashed Japanese society in Hiroshima and Nagasaki altogether. Undoubtedly, the U.S. occupation has managed to divide Iraqi society into communities and ethnic groups. This could not prevent the emergence of an armed Iraqi resistance that coincided with strong Iraqi intellectual and political refusal against occupation. The Iraqi state fell and though Iraqi society seems to be torn, it struggled and resisted.

This fact has obvious consequences. As when America decided to evacuate, at least from crowded civil areas, that means it lost hope to bring Iraq to its will which may subsequently force it to close its military bases after 2011. When this happen, the current Iraqi heroes will become traitors and who refused to be heroes of the next phase of Iraqi society.

More clearly, he who refuses today will win tomorrow and who agrees today will lose today and tomorrow. This is a clear equation from the moment the withdrawal issue from Iraq turned into an American domestic issue, competed at the hands of the Democrats and Republicans to whom would take the lead in reducing human and financial loss in Iraq.

Yes, the Association of Muslim Scholars was right when declared that it would reject the treaty even if accepted by the Emir of believers. But perhaps forgotten that the Emir of believers if he was a policy maker nowadays, he would be much smarter than to sign a U.S. made treaty by which the U.S. cannot even guarantee its approval or continuation. This fact gets clearer when bearing in mind that the real contents of the agreement may not result in independence and territorial integrity of Iraq, but of course, a total loss of its independence and its territorial integrity.

How?

We have thought that the draft to divide Iraq is a page turned after Bush’s administration rejected it, and after being considered in a report presented by Baker Hamilton, “immoral and unrealistic.” Security incidents that happened in the past few months in which the U.S. and Iraqi militaries achieved some relative success in imposing security, especially in Basra and Baghdad neighborhoods, to promote this agreement.

Though all this proved to be just a mirage, this project is still active in Washington’s corridors and its research centers which are behind the actual American foreign policy. The plot is still going on in full swing to test all scenarios regarding the division question and what lies beyond it. Then came Joe Biden’s appointment as a candidate for vice-presidency on behalf of Democrats, who is by large “The hero of Iraq’s division,” confirming that the project has not left Washington’s kitchen.

Another indication is that dangerous report prepared by the Brookings Institution, a group with a great influence on American decision-makers, which was entitled by a name that strongly indicate its content: “Easy or soft partitioning of Iraq.”

Those who plotted the report struggled from the first letter to prove an essential point: there is no fear from Balkanizing Iraq, because it already happened. Civil war has led to the creation of a new demographic reality monitored by the International Organization for Migration, which stated in its report issued recently that Shiites are moving out of central Iraq to the South while Sunnis are moving out from the South to the center, especially to Anbar region. A study says that this phenomenon gradually turned Iraq into a new Balkan.

After getting rid of Balkanization issue, the idea of partitioning become easy and possible which must include the following elements according to Brookings:

Demarcating borders between following three regions: Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite and facilitating the fact of marriage mixing obstacle between people of different communities making process of demarcating on basis of geographical not sectarian, an easy matter. There is no problem in this regard in provinces of Southern Iraq as most of the residents are Arab Shiites, but the real dilemma is in provinces and main cities such as Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk.

Brookings criticizes Baker Hamilton’s report as it called for the “internationalization” of Baghdad, saying that the capital must be divided as other areas. Among the three new regions an equitable distribution in oil wealth must be achieved, because most of factional fighting erupted in the wake of the August 2005 referendum on Iraqi constitution, bearing in mind that constitution clauses regarding oil wealth distribution are vague and floating. Thus, the call for the Arab League and the United Nations not for the United States to handle supervision process, provided that the process of division is to be guarded by 300 troops but from where most of these forces come? America of course.

Here, security agreement overlooks with its head to reveal possibility to be a road map process to make this partitioning unchanged, as it states the U.S. troops withdrawal by the end of June 2009 to bases outside Iraqi cities and to full withdrawal by Jan. 31, 2011. However, experts and analysts believe the Iraqi army will not be able, not now and even not after five years, to maintain security in the country, especially as it was built upon plain sectarian bases and in light of this, a wide exclusion of Iraqi people took place. In addition, the presence of 100,000 soldiers of Kurdish Peshmerga beyond the control of Iraqi central state.

This fact produces two possibilities after the start of American withdrawals or redeployment. Either current sectarian Iraqi government will be obliged to request intervention continuation of the U.S. forces to maintain its survival, or the U.S. forces will oversee the partitioning of Iraq out of itself. This last possibility seems too strong after Southern sectarian made a not bad round in transforming Basra province into “an independent region” as done to Northern region of Kurdistan. Also, after having completed “sectarian and creed cleansing” operations in many areas of Iraq.

This is the answer to the first question. As for regional repercussions to the agreement, it is clear that Syria and Iran would be the most concerned countries rather than others.

Syria was the first to warn of the dangers of such treaty, when President Bashar al-Assad said, “The agreement’s repercussions will lead to instability in the Middle East.”

Also, Syrian Information Minister, Mohsen Bilal said, “The agreement is a reward to the occupiers for their occupation and a threat to neighboring countries.”

The Iranian stance was less severe. Conservatives have accused the Iraqi government of “Succumbing to America”, warning of the treaty’s dangers to Iraq, Iran and the rest of the Middle East countries. However, chief of Iranian Judgment Institution, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, a close friend to revolution guide, Ali Khamenei, surprised everyone with his positive attitude towards the treaty, praising “The Iraqi government’s efforts over the past months to adjust what is good for Iraqi interests.”

Why did Shahroudi along with Khamenei deviate from the rest of Iranian flock who opposed the treaty? It seems for just one reason which is keeping bridges of connections with Maliki government that is close to Tehran, then working to throw sticks in the way of the treaty implementation. Indeed, Iran was compelled to take this position after the power-ranked Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Sistani made his blessing to the agreement although he put one condition which is the approval of a comfortable majority in the Iraqi parliament to pass it. It was an ordinary thing for Tehran who did not respond to seem at odds with Sistani, who has an enormous influence on Iraqi Shiites as the supreme religious authority for them. Actually, there was another consideration to Tehran: the desire not to antagonize American president-elect Obama, who promised to conduct direct talks with it, among issue for negotiations is; “its legitimate security interests” in Iraq and the region.

But, nevertheless, Tehran is deeply concerned about the implications of this convention for two reasons:

First, it will free 150 troops from around the Iraqi quagmire, making it ready again for any potential military intervention in the Middle East. Indeed, Tehran did not forget what the retired U.S. General Wesley Clark said in late 2001: “When I visited Pentagon in the eve of Iraq invasion, I was surprised when a senior military commander said to me that the invasion of Iraq is only the first phase of a five years plan that will also include the occupation of Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.”

Second, the United States would be, after “redeployment of its forces” in Iraq, in a much stronger position to influence the course of all developments in the Middle East, politically, economically and militarily. This while it is now considered a virtual hostage in the hands of the Iranians and the Syrians.

This last point leads us to open our third question’s file: how this agreement affects the U.S. policy towards both Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. This is the approach that will depend on president Obama’s choice and his Democrat team: an Iraqi solution to the crises of the Middle East, or a Middle Eastern solution to the crisis of Iraq?

These two options were finalized in the United States during the last year of Bush’s term, then were emphasized in the statements made by president Bush, the republican candidate, John McCain and both Democratic candidates, Obama and Clinton on the occasion of fifth anniversary of Iraq war.

The option of “Iraq is first” was preferred according to Bush and McCain. It is based on two theoretic pillars: the first one; that “Strategic military victory” is possible in Iraq, as alleged by president Bush and as illustrated by experience, the “military wave” [surge], which succeeded under the commandment of General Petraeus in form of reducing insecurity in Baghdad and Anbar region.

Second, even if it is not possible to achieve a quick victory, America cannot simply pack its bags and leave Iraq. By doing so, this will be for Iran and Al Qaeda and international rivals of the United States; basically China Russia, and Europe to some extent, strategic huge gains left on a gleaming silver platter. According to this view point, America must continue fighting until final victory in Iraq, then continue its big project to the reformation of the greater Middle East starting from Baghdad.

As for the option of Middle Eastern solution to Iraq crisis which adopted by Obama, he believes that Iraq war was neither necessary nor justified and it proved limitations and incapability of the U.S. military to changing on the ground policies. Therefore, he called for a huge international Middle Eastern diplomatic effort to facilitate possible solutions to stop the deterioration in Iraq.

This requires in the first place a serious dialogue with Iran and Syria and China and Russia after that, as proposed in Baker Hamilton’s initiative. But, this option means not that Obama supports a quick American withdrawal from Iraq, despite all what he said in this regard or even a full withdrawal from it. All Obama has said about Iraq is just an empty campaign promise that will disappear when a new opinion is necessary. Also, it is obvious that Obama, who opposed Iraq war from the outset, proceeded to change his firm attitudes after approaching a possible arrival at the White House. In a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion he said, “We will have to do some tactical adjustments, listening to our military commanders on the ground, and ensuring that our interests in Iraq are stable and making our troops there more safer.”

To conclude, it is now clear, or should be:

The American-Iraqi security agreement will radically change the conflict in Iraq. If the wind goes with what the U.S. wishes for, the situation in Iraq shall be reversed from a predicament to America into a bunch of dilemmas for all the countries of the region, in particular, a potential partitioning of Iraq and the countdown for this potential development has already begun.