HOW DO YOU STOP A SUICIDE?:

Iraq, IRA-style (Pepe Escobar, 3/11/05, Asia Times)

Sources in Baghdad confirm that influential echelons of the resistance are actively engaged in the political unification of an array of disparate groups and in concentrating their message to solidify their support from the bulk of the Sunni population. These are not the car-bombing, civilian-slaughtering gangs talking: this is more like the Iraqi version of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) polishing up a Mesopotamian Sinn Fein.

Even though the Sunni guerrillas are substantially united against a new Iraqi government monopolized by exiles who lived in luxury in Iran or the West during the Saddam Hussein era - which is the exact profile of the UIA leaders, this Sinn Fein strand of the resistance would be willing to negotiate with the new Shi'ite government. As a common objective is crystal clear - the complete withdrawal of the Americans, with a clear timetable - there should be no beef, at least in theory, with the Shi'ite leadership. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told Le Monde this week that no one in Iraq wanted permanent US military bases in the country: "It will be up to the elected Iraqi government, when the time comes, to give those forces a specific departure date. As soon as possible."

Prime minister-in-waiting Ibrahim Jaafari, for the moment, remains a prisoner of his own rhetoric. In his view, the guerrillas are composed of a "minority of Sunnis" (this may be true as far as the military-trained core is concerned; but they may number as many as 40,000). Around them, he sees a larger group of "mostly young people" who support the resistance but "are good people" (they may be hundreds of thousands). Jaafari all but admits the new government won't convince the hard, militarized resistance core, but it can seduce the "good people" around it by offering "good representation" of Sunnis. It won't be enough - as it did not work even with Sunni tribal chief Ghazi al-Yawer installed as interim president.

The only way out for the UIA is to reach out and offer the Sunnis something really substantial. But it can't - for the moment - because it's paralyzed by the Kurds. [...]

Sources in Baghdad insist on rising, very dangerous popular frustration with the political stalemate. A crucial development is that most Shi'ites - and not a few Sunnis - are blaming the Kurds for it. The Kurds want Kirkuk - their Jerusalem - at all costs. They are bent on stalling the formation of a new Iraqi government until kingdom come - and the Shi'ites deliver them the promised land. It cannot happen. If the Shi'ites agree to give Kirkuk to the Kurds, that's the end of any possibility of entente cordiale with Sunni Arabs. It would be a certified road to civil war.

How'd that IRA/Sinn Fein deal work out by the way?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 11, 2005 12:00 AM