Few Americans pay attention to Iraqi politics, but over the
past few days something has occurred that could change the
course of the war. For the first time since the Iraqi
election of 2005, a coalition of Sunni and Shiite Arab
parties and leaders is starting to take shape, across the
sectarian divide that has fueled the civil war. It began two
days ago, with the announcement by the Fadhila (Islamic
Virtue) party that it is leaving the United Iraqi Alliance
(UIA), to become an independent political party.
Original source URL:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17292.htm
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN
Iraq: Pulled Out Or Pushed Out
By Robert Dreyfuss
03/12/07 "TomPaine" - 03/09/07 -- Two parliaments, half a world away from each
other, struggled with calls to end the war in Iraq yesterday. In Washington,
Democrats in the U.S. Congress ended weeks of squabbling to settle on the
outlines of a legislative plan to end the war no later than August, 2008, and
perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a new constellation of political parties
is beginning to take shape in the Iraqi parliament, united around the idea of
asking U.S. forces to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Tremendous obstacles stand
in the way of pro-peace forces both in Congress and in Iraq¹s parliament, but if
I had to guess, I¹d bet that the Iraqis will ask the United States to get out of
Iraq long before Congress can force the issue.
Most congressional progressives and members of the Out of Iraq Caucus aren¹t
thrilled with the plan cobbled together by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Even so, let¹s
give credit where credit is due. Four months after an election in which American
voters went to the polls to demand an end to the war, the Democrats responded by
proposing a timetable to do just that, calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces
by the end of 2007 if President Bush can¹t certify that the Iraqi government is
meeting a series of specific benchmarks, and by August 2008 even if those
benchmarks are met.
The Democratic House leadership is: facing a nearly unified Republican caucus in
both the House and Senate opposed to any weakening of the U.S. role in Iraq;
threatened by a promised White House veto; and dragged down by the anchor of
several dozen conservative, Blue Dog Democrats afraid to challenge President
Bush over the war. Nevertheless, House leaders have probably done about the best
they could. It won¹t satisfy anti-war activists, who¹ll have to redouble efforts
to turn up the heat on the congressional Dems. And it hasn¹t exactly won
plaudits from congressional progressives, who are pressing their own plan to
force a more definitive exit, and sooner, by making more aggressive use of the
power of the purse to force a withdrawal by the end of 2007‹even though most of
them are likely to hold their noses and vote for Pelosi¹s watered-down plan,
too.
But the harsh reality of the American political system, in which the White House
holds most of the cards‹from its veto power to the president¹s role as commander
in chief‹means that Congress is playing politics, not making policy. To be sure,
it¹s good politics: over the next 18 months or so, the Democrats can draw a
sharp distinction between their support for a withdrawal deadline and the
president¹s obsessive insistence on escalating the war. That, in turn, can help
guarantee that the November 2008 election results in another Democratic
landslide. A recent USA Today poll showed that a stunning 77 percent of
Americans favor bringing U.S. troops home if the Iraqi government fails to end
the civil-war violence there. But the House legislation isn¹t likely to become
law. Nor is an anti-war resolution in the Senate, where the Republicans are
planning a filibuster to stop it.
And so, at least as far as Congress is concerned, the war will go on. True,
Democrats might find a reservoir of courage that will enable them to conduct the
kind of full-court press on Iraq that¹s needed to end the carnage there. And
true, if enough Republicans in Congress stopped acting like suicidal lemmings
running over the Iraq War cliff and defected to the peace camp, the war would
end quickly. But neither of those seems likely.
While Congress may be stymied, however, something important is happening in
Iraq.
Few Americans pay attention to Iraqi politics, but over the past few days
something has occurred that could change the course of the war. For the first
time since the Iraqi election of 2005, a coalition of Sunni and Shiite Arab
parties and leaders is starting to take shape, across the sectarian divide that
has fueled the civil war. It began two days ago, with the announcement by the
Fadhila (Islamic Virtue) party that it is leaving the United Iraqi Alliance
(UIA), to become an independent political party.
With 15 seats in the Iraqi parliament and with a significant grassroots base
throughout the Shiite areas of southern Iraq, Fadhila is a nationalist party
committed to the idea of a unitary Iraqi state. It is opposed to the breakup of
Iraq into regions or statelets. And its leader, Nadim al-Jaberi, is explicitly
opposed to sectarianism. He is committed to reaching out to Sunni parties and
secular groups to find common ground, and a new political coalition. Most
important, like most of the Sunni parties in Iraq, al-Jaberi and Fadhila support
the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Fadhila is currently negotiating with Sunni and secular parties‹including the
Sunni religious bloc, a quasi-Baathist Sunni nationalist party and the secular
Iraq National List led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi‹on the formation of
a new Sunni-Shiite-secular bloc in Iraq that would have nearly 100 votes in the
270-member Iraqi parliament.
Not only that, but Fadhila is a ³Sadrist² party, whose origins lie in loyalty to
the powerful Sadr clerical family. Fadhila is not loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the
thirty-something mullah who leads the Mahdi Army. But there are enough ties
between Fadhila and the Mahdi Army that perhaps Muqtada¹s own bloc could be
persuaded to join the emerging new coalition, too. (Late last year, Muqtada¹s
party pulled out of the Iraqi government, and according to Iraqi insiders Sadr
is also talking to the same nationalist, Sunni and secular forces about the
creation of a new ³government of national salvation.²) Along with a handful of
independent Shiite members of parliament, that would give the new coalition
enough power in parliament to have a vote of no confidence in hapless U.S. ally
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, topple his government and then reconstitute a
nationalist Iraqi government that could ask for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Even part of the ruling Dawa party, Maliki¹s own party, is said to favor the
idea.
Yesterday, members of the Iraqi parliament representing all of those
parties‹Fadhila, Allawi¹s bloc and the Sunni parties‹held an unprecedented
teleconference with a dozen members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans,
an event organized by Representative Jim McDermott (D.-Wash.). Fadhila¹s Nadim
al-Jaberi took part in the teleconference, and he minced no words. ³Putting a
timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops is a very important step in giving
Iraqis confidence that the occupation will end,² he said. Jaberi also added that
by quitting the UIA, Fadhila has permanently splintered the Shiite bloc. ³We
have opened a very wide door in redrawing the Iraqi political map,² he said,
hinting that Muqtada al-Sadr¹s party might walk through that door and join the
new bloc.
Other Iraqi parliamentarians, including Saleh Mutlaq of the Iraqi National
Dialogue Front, along with representatives of the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni) and
the Iraq National List, also took part in the teleconference with Jaberi. All
called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, along with emergency efforts
to reconstitute a new Iraqi government and to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces.
The emerging new Iraqi coalition is fragile, and it could easily fall apart or
fall victim to intensified sectarian warfare. Many obstacles lie in its way,
including the attitude of the Kurds, the opposition of the powerful Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and other factors‹including,
of course, the machinations of the United States and its ambassador in Iraq,
Zalmay Khalilzad. But it¹s at least possible that by the summer a new government
could start taking shape in Baghdad, one that could (among other things) assert
its nationalist credentials by demanding a timetable for a U.S. pullout.
President Bush, of course, would do everything he could to prevent the emergence
of such a new coalition in Iraq, including possibly the use of military force
against its leaders. Unlike with Nancy Pelosi¹s legislation, however, at least
the White House can¹t veto something that the Iraqi parliament passes.
Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and
national security issues. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United
States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam , a contributing editor at The Nation
and a writer for Mother Jones, The American Prospect and Rolling Stone. He can
be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com.
© 2007 TomPaine.com
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