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description= 6 posts published by Reidar Visser during September 2007;
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iraq, the, and, in, to, partition, is, it, gulf, analysis, archive, for, september, 2007, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, on, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, us, senate, votes, softly, football, quotas, national, reconciliation, statoil, getting, wrong, surge, shiites, nation, building, of, that, would, be, truly, artificial, local, reactions, british, withdrawal, from, basra, sadrists, claim, victory,
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the (388), and (93), iraq (88), that (66), iraqi (48), this (38), with (38), for (37), have (31), which (28), federalism (28), 2007 (26), would (25), from (24), kurdish (24), #september (22), statoil (22), biden (22), basra (21), their (21), was (20), more (20), are (20), sectarian (20), not (19), should (19), has (18), federal (18), one (17), but (17), all (17), may (17), iraqis (17), british (15), about (15), 2006 (15), 2008 (15), who (14), posted (13), there (13), partition (13), 2010 (13), 2013 (13), been (12), political (12), national (12), constitution (12), amendment (12), 2014 (12), 2009 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), shiite (11), these (11), many (11), june (11), idea (11), new (11), country (11), among (11), october (11), august (11), part (10), than (10), sunni (10), state (10), even (10), april (10), december (10), january (10), other (9), sadrists (9), some (9), government (9), against (9), foreign (9), shiites (9), team (9), november (9), february (9), march (9), july (9), 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Text of the page (random words):
s since the constitution was adopted in 2005 there have been several suggestions for constitutional amendment by iraqi parties both shiite and sunni to limit federalism to ensure that no purely sectarian federal regions are allowed to develop the latest poll numbers south of kurdistan are not particularly supportive of biden s plan either with for instance 56 of shiites expressing the wish to abandon federalism altogether almost all sunnis agree with them on this and with the remainder divided between different federal projects only a small portion of which would correspond to biden s ethno sectarian visions again this is all in conflict with biden s idea of comprehensive total federalisation the senator should be more honest about these problems and should follow in the footsteps of his fellow pro partitionist michael o hanlon who openly asserts that only a minority of iraqis support any idea of soft partitioning or federalism based on ethnic groups and more fundamentally biden must understand the logical defect of his current argument he cannot claim authorship of a distinctive plan and at the same time maintain that he does not propose to impose anything on the iraqi people in fact the contradictions in this area are even worse in the final version of the amendment than in early drafts the text now stipulates that the proposed international conference on iraqi federalism should be based on the 2006 law for implementing federalism this in itself is contradictive in the extreme because the key point of the 2006 legislation is that federalism shall never be imposed from the outside or from above in a single conference but instead emerge gradually only in those parts of the country that wish to adopt a federal model of government furthermore who is to decide which iraqis will take part in the projected conference the maliki government this effectively brings back the question of how to nominate conference invitees and more fundamentally the basis ethnic versus non ethnic on which to define representativeness in any grand federal settlement of the kind envisioned by biden at the heart of this contradictive piece of legislation lie several more fundamental misunderstandings about iraq among the many biden plan supporters whose panegyrics adorn the senator s website and are construed as evidence of the plan s great potential take for instance henry kissinger s suggestion that a wiser course would be to concentrate on the three principal regions he actually seems to believe that these regions already exist similarly another prominent biden supporter david brooks recently used the story of the iraqi politician shadha al musawi as inspiration for an enthusiastic defence of ethnic federalism which was published in the new york times the only tiny problem being that musawi herself is an avowed enemy of the idea of a soft partition of iraq or consider sam brownback s recent exegesis of ottoman history delivered in the senate during the adoption of the biden amendment and reproduced here with added annotations in brackets i show my colleagues a map that i think is kind of interesting it is a map of iraq under the ottoman empire it is prior to the world war i divisions in iraq i think we ought to study history to keep from repeating past mistakes i think we are repeating history now because we have not studied it sufficiently so here is a map from 1914 this is fascinating you have the north ottoman sic which were called vilayets this is in the state of mosul the kurdish north it was actually mixed kurdish sunni arab christian turkmen yazidi you had the vilayet of baghdad the sunni area in iraq it was mixed and contained all the shiite holy cities you had the vilayet of basra the shia state it had fewer shiites than baghdad and was politically dominated by sunnis baghdad was the federal city a very effective city at that particular time this is pure nonsense there was no federalism in these parts of the ottoman empire baghdad did however have some supervisory functions for all the iraqi vilayets for instance in customs military affairs and justice again here is a three state solution that the ottoman empire put in place as a way of managing these different groups who do not agree with each other who do not get along again this suggests that brownback fully believes that basra was somehow more shiite and less sunni than baghdad whereas in fact all the vilayets of the ottoman empire in this region were sunni dominated all in all the biden amendment is an alarming but useful numerical indication of the level of support for an ethnic approach to iraqi politics in the us senate the supporters included presidential candidate hillary clinton as well as a reminder of the remarkable unfamiliarity among even elite us politicians with the finer points of iraqi legislation on federalism it does not bode well for the future that the potential successors to president bush seem to converge on a scheme that would be even more unpalatable to the muslim world than washington s current policy true bush invaded iraq and paul bremer weakened the country severely there are worrying signs that some in the state department like ryan crocker are already indistinguishable from biden by tirelessly encouraging sunnis to think in terms of federalism but if his partition plans were implemented joe biden would be remembered by muslims and arabs around the world in an altogether different way he would be considered alongside other historical personalities who routinely are being accused by middle easterners for having destroyed their region completely arthur balfour mark sykes and francois georges picot posted in iraq and soft partition us policy in iraq leverage issues comments off on the us senate votes to partition iraq softly football quotas and national reconciliation in iraq posted by reidar visser on wednesday 26 september 2007 23 59 english translation of an op ed originally published in norwegian in aftenposten oslo 26 september 2007 soon after the recent announcement that norway s egil drillo olsen is the new coach of iraq s successful national football team critical voices emerged in the norwegian media some suggested that olsen would effectively be collaborating with the us led occupation of iraq whereas others were concerned that he might be unable to navigate the ethno sectarian tensions of the country when selecting players for future matches olsen should not take this criticism too seriously in the first place it should be stressed that most iraqis regardless of their view of the americans see their football team as a legitimate symbol of national unity leading newspapers like al zaman al mashriq and al manara which frequently feature criticism of the maliki government and the united states all used big headlines to celebrate iraq s recent victory in the asia cup even harith al dari a prominent opposition politician with ties to the armed resistance described the performance of the iraqi squad as a victory for the entire nation purists may perhaps claim that no contact with iraq is permissible pending the withdrawal of foreign troops but those critics should appreciate the widespread affection for iraq s national team even among radical factions within the iraqi opposition another important point concerns the question of ethno sectarian quotas one important factor behind the popularity of the iraqi team is the fact that it emerged relatively unscathed from the fixation with quotas that dominated the first years of the us administration of iraq after 2003 true many iraqis value the way in which the national football team represents the ethno sectarian complexity of their country but perhaps more importantly and this is often overlooked in the west this representation is imperfect in mathematical and proportional terms strictly statistically speaking sunni arabs and kurds are under represented in the current line up nevertheless and maybe precisely for this reason the team remains enormously popular among members of the under represented communities this is the area where the americans committed one of their gravest mistakes during the early years of the occupation the insistence that iraqis should think of themselves primarily as sectarian citizens rather than as iraqis this way of thinking is entirely alien to iraqi political thought but it is an approach which was cultivated among members of the exiled opposition during the 1990s and which enjoyed something of a boom during paul bremer s administration in 2003 and 2004 bremer s idée fixe was that sectarian disproprotionality had always been the main problem of the old iraq and while overlooking long periods of peaceful coexistence in previous eras such as the monarchy and ottoman periods he insisted that the political affairs of the country be conducted with strict ethnic proportionality as the guiding principle today most iraqis yearn to be treated on the basis of qualifications and merits rather than according to sectarian criteria olsen should simply disregard the whole idea about ethnic and sectarian quotas and should rely exclusively on performance related criteria when selecting his next squad iraq would stand to lose one of its last non sectarian oases if also the national football team should fall victim to the principle of quotas however there is one aspect related to team selection in which sociological patterns in today s iraq might become relevant in the near future the marked dominance of exiles in almost all fields of iraqi society since 2003 naturally many of the most talented iraqi football players have taken up lucrative offers from foreign clubs mostly in the gulf and in the arab countries of the mediterranean region but olsen should not neglect the domestic iraqi league historically one of the most enduring symbols of a unified iraq free of sectarian logic if it should prove impossible for him to visit matches in the domestic league due to security concerns he should at least use video materials to acquaint himself with talented players inside iraq once more there should be no need for quotas but with today s difficult security environment there is a real danger that iraqi footballers in the domestic clubs consistently would be at disadvantage during the selection of the national team under that sort of scenario valid criticism of olsen s brave undertaking in iraq might emerge posted in iraqi nationalism sectarian master narrative comments off on football quotas and national reconciliation in iraq is statoil getting it wrong in iraq posted by reidar visser on wednesday 26 september 2007 23 58 english translation of an op ed originally published in norwegian in dagbladet oslo 14 june 2007 as of september 2007 no statoil office has actually been opened in arbil recently announced plans by statoil to open an office in arbil the capital of the kurdistan federal region in iraq raise several critical questions about the company s ability to gauge the fundamentals of middle eastern politics it should however be clarified at the outset what this proposed office is really about statoil norway s biggest oil company and soon to become even bigger through a merger with hydro is not considering signing any kind of exploration deal with kurdish authorities statoil has repeatedly stated that it will not enter into any such deals in the absence of a judicial framework approved by the iraqi parliament moreover the projected statoil mission in arbil would have all of iraq as its sphere of operation not only the kurdish areas for example among the components of the plan is a training facility for prospective iraqi statoil employees who would be recruited from all parts of the country in this regard a key argument in support of statoil s choice of location has been the considerable difficulties involved in arranging such training sessions elsewhere internally in iraq this would be troublesome due to the security situation in other countries of the world it is simply proving increasingly difficult for iraqis to obtain visas on all these counts there are essential differences between statoil s plans and the kurdistan activities of another norwegian player the miniscule and privately owned dno which openly entered into cooperation with kurdish authorities prior to the adoption of the iraqi constitution in october 2005 nevertheless there are numerous problematic dimensions to the scheme currently under consideration by statoil above all concerning potential side effects in internal iraqi politics regardless of statoil s politically correct rhetoric an all iraqi office which just happens to be located in arbil due to the security situation most iraqis will interpret any such office as a preparatory step towards investments in the kurdish areas which in turn would make statoil s office part of the struggle about iraq s future state structure that is currently going on in committee charged with revising the 2005 constitution currently the stalemate in the constitutional revision committee concerns the prerogatives of the central government where the two kurdish parties are resisting attempts by shiite and sunni arabs to restore a modicum of authority for baghdad lately kurdish politicians have protested vociferously against even modest attempts at consolidating the powers of the centre preferring instead the current constitution which leaves iraq with one of the weakest federal capitals ever recorded in the annals of political science unable even to impose taxes and customs control inland waterways and administer civil aviation in recent years the kurdish parties have deliberately worked to improve their bargaining position vis à vis baghdad they have for instance approached shiite leaders with the hope of converting them to the idea of a mirror image of kurdistan in southern iraq a shiistan so far their success has been limited despite much sensationalism in the western press about various incarnations of southern separatism on the whole outside the green zone at least ideals of iraqi nationalism have proven remarkably resilient among the shiites nevertheless the overt attempts by kurdish leaders to push the shiites into a more pro federal direction form a considerable problem in the process of iraqi national reconciliation because this has encouraged some shiite leaders to embrace new and radical perspectives on federalism such as the idea of a single shiite federal entity which in turn has led to friction with other iraqis shiites and sunnis alike who have more traditional and sceptical attitudes to federalism among the symptoms of these ongoing processes are the kurdish led efforts seen in the first part of 2007 to define certain oil fields in southern iraq as undeveloped and hence open to foreign investment another reflection of a policy on the part of the kurdish leaders to seek out potential partners among other iraqis who may share their preference of a very weak central government the pr...
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