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hristopher hill goes rural posted by reidar visser on friday 20 january 2012 13 50 in his tireless efforts to convince the world that political problems in post withdrawal iraq cannot possibly be attributed to his own tenure as the us ambassador in baghdad from 2009 to 2010 christopher hill today presents a new twist to his narrative having apparently realised the failure of his previous attempt to explain that it is all the fault of iraqis hill now informs us that the really really deep sectarian conflict in iraq is rooted in the rural parts of the country according to hill we other mortal iraq analysts who focus on the politics of baghdad urban bias are incapable of seeing the big picture because we are not privy to the ambassador s unique rustic insights forget about baghdad and its artificial coexistence between sects instead consider the countryside trips outside of the capital to sunni dominated anbar or shia controlled southern iraq often reveal a country much more focused on and animated by the sunni shia divide and this phenomenon did not begin with the us led invasion it had a thousand year head start it is hard to know where to begin for example did hill take note of the recent episode in dhi qar where a sunni soldier nazhan al jibburi sacrificed his life to stop a terrorist attacking mainly shiite targets and immediately had streets and new born shiite children named for him maybe that was not rural enough let s venture further away from the urban distortions of the real iraq and try to reach the rural purity that hill doubtless found unadulterated of course by any possible presence of american security details or other distractions of non iraqi origin did ambassador hill consult some of the best anthropological material on iraq like the marsh dwellers of the euphrates delta by sm al salim 1962 relating to chubayish between basra and dhi qar or shaikh and effendi by r a fernea 1970 relating to daghara in the mid euphrates there really is not much about sectarian conflict in those volumes but maybe the 1970s were exceptional maybe the 1960s were exceptional too perhaps the generally peaceful monarchical period and the late ottoman eras were exceptional too if the ambassador is so sure about a thousand year head start for sectarian problems why doesn t he at least do us the favour of enumerating some historical empirical examples of bloody sectarian conflict in iraq say between 1650 and 1970 to back up his own impressions today hill is telling us that iraqiyya is essentially a sunni party and as such it should by definition accept a secondary role in iraqi politics there are many good reasons for iraqiyya to reconsider its relationship with maliki but the idea of accepting that shia majority rule is an immovable fact of life just isn t one of them the examples of shiites bitterly disagreeing with each others are simply too many for iraqis to accept this kind of simplistic and essentialist formula for their politics do these problems really have nothing to do with the conflict paradigm of iraqi politics that seems to have been a staple of most us ambassadors in baghdad from paul bremer via zalmay khalilzad and ryan crocker to hill himself does hill not realise that some of his own policies actually abetted sectarian tensions for example when he was apologetic about the de baathification excesses of early 2010 one good thing about the latest revelation by hill is that it may help explain some of his own delphic policies most of the time hill was out in the desert hiking with camels and doing anthropological research hopefully to be published in a soon to come landmark tome posted in sectarian master narrative 64 comments after one month of boycotting iraqiyya at a crossroads posted by reidar visser on wednesday 18 january 2012 19 27 it is exactly one month since the secular increasingly sunni backed iraqiyya coalition began boycotting the iraqi parliament followed by the withdrawal of its ministers from cabinet sessions it has been a dramatic month full of heated verbal exchanges with political opponents nonetheless it is high time that iraqiyya stands back and reflects on what exactly it has achieved so far in terms of practical results iraqiyya s actions have at least managed to put the subject of some kind of national conference on the agenda iraqiyya are hoping that such a conference will deal with the fulfilment of promises made by prime minister nuri al maliki during the process of government formation in november december 2010 but doubts remain about the exact agenda location and date of the conference more fundamentally speaking it is the unequivocally negative results of iraqiyya s boycott that stand out the boycott has clearly accelerated a trend of defections from the iraqiyya coalition by individual politicians and groups of politicians that are more interested in taking part within the system than in boycotting examples include prominent politicians from babel and nineveh the latter showing that this is a phenomenon that includes sunnis as well as shiites from iraqiyya the defectors are not necessarily openly pro maliki but they tend to agree with maliki on some issues including an aversion against the recent pro federal trend among some sunni politicians the net effect of all the defections from iraqiyya since early 2011 may be a loss of around 5 deputies so far that may not sound like a lot but every single defection does bring maliki closer to his dream of a so called political majority government so what are iraqiyya doing at this momentous juncture alas very few new ideas were presented by coalition leader ayyad allawi during his speech today in fact all three alternative ways forward proposed by allawi involve constitutional problems that have been debated before firstly the suggestion by allawi to have new elections under an interim government is unconstitutional this goes back to an idea which has consumed a ridiculous amount of energy both among iraqiyya leaders and the americans since 2009 to the effect that there could be some kind of neutral caretaker administration during the run up to elections unless the prime minister resigns or is voted out of office there is no such thing as a transitional caretaker government in the iraqi constitution period the legal status of the government remains exactly the same until a new government is formed additionally any call for early elections would of course reopen the stalemated debate about the composition of the iraqi elections commission and the electoral law probably ensuring that actual elections would not happen until 2013 at the earliest the second suggestion by allawi to have the dominant partner in the government the shiite national alliance change its prime minister i e sack maliki is also unconstitutional as long as he means changing the pm only as per the constitution once the pm is voted out of office the cabinet as a whole is considered resigned and it is the job of the president to identify the biggest bloc in parliament and charge its pm candidate with forming a new government constitutionally speaking then there can be no smooth and easy transition from maliki to whoever may be waiting in the wings allawi is probably thinking of adel abd al mahdi iran of ibrahim al jaafari thirdly the alternative of trying to enforce an implementation of the arbil agreement itself would also be unconstitutional as maliki has rightly reminded us lately things like the national council for high policies the idea of balance in the ministries of government and the re establishment of the presidency council are all unconstitutional one of the few specific points of the obscure arbil agreement that actually resonate with the constitution is the demand that bylaws for the cabinet be adopted in the current political climate early agreement on such a complex piece of legislation seems entirely unrealistic the real alternatives for iraqiyya seem very few at this point in time they may of course opt for the pro federal course as some have attempted but this might also end up with a bloody nose as well examples of sunni resistance towards federalism continue to manifest themselves and might well surge considerably if an actual referendum were to be held a far more realistic course of action would be to forget about most of the acrobatics of the arbil agreement and instead focus on something very basic the security ministries that are still run by acting ministers not confirmed by parliament the interior one being of course maliki himself although the constitution does not expressly deal with the question of acting ministers the idea of having ministers confirmed by the national assembly is so central to all variants of parliamentary democracy in the world that maliki would be in for severe international criticism if he should opt to continue with acting ministers indefinitely what iraqiyya could and should do is to make a deal with maliki on the security ministries that appeals to his desire to be in a dominant position vis à vis competing shiite islamist factions it is well known that the sadrists fadila and isci are all critical of some of maliki s nominees for the interior ministry what iraqiyya should do is to give maliki support for an interior minister that is unpopular with the other shiite factions in exchange for a defence minister acceptable to iraqiyya that could over time bring about the rapprochement that the arbil agreement will never be able to produce for iraqiyya the real alternative to rapprochement with maliki is none of the three options discussed by allawi today rather it is an inevitable process of internal disintegration eventually leading maliki to establish a more narrow governing coalition that will likely exclude many iraqiyya politicians entirely posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 30 comments talabani maliki and the disputed territories posted by reidar visser on thursday 12 january 2012 19 58 certain comments by prime minister nuri al maliki over the past week have failed to receive the attention they deserve as the political scene in iraq quietens down for the shiite arbain festival and a long weekend it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at maliki s statements regarding disputed territories and the creation of new federal regions that may well reflect his negotiation strategy over coming months the most sensational aspects of maliki s comments are as follows firstly they seem supportive of a plan by president jalal talabani a kurd to introduce a bill to parliament that would adjust by law the boundaries of governorates that comprise so called disputed territories and have boundaries that were modified during the baath this would be done prior to a final settlement of the disputed territories issues by referendum secondly in practical terms maliki revealed that with respect to salahaddin governorate which was created by the baath in 1976 the plan would involve transferring parts of that governorate with turkmens and kurds to kirkuk and parts with shiites to baghdad thirdly maliki used these arguments against any early referendum for a salahaddin federal region indicating that the talabani plan would have to be implemented prior to any decision on federal status the talabani plan or law proposal has not been published in its entirety nonetheless there is sufficient information in these comments by maliki to identify both theoretical and practical problems related to its potential application on the theoretical level we know the desire of talabani and the kurds more broadly to reverse any administrative changes to governorate boundaries that they interpret as having flowed from racist and anti kurdish motives in particular kirkuk s loss of a solid chunk of territory to salahaddin in 1976 is seen as something that needs to be rectified the kurds appear to believe that the number of kurds and possibly pro kurdish turkmens in the area will work in their favour as far as aggregate numbers for a reconfigurated kirkuk governorate are concerned and also maintain that it would be more difficult to make these changes if salahaddin was to receive federal status prior to a final territorial settlement to some extent chronology works in advance of the kurdish claims in this regard because the creation of salahaddin in 1976 was one of the last major changes to the administrative geography of baathist iraq potentially making it a convenient cut off point other major changes such as the creation of the muthanna governorate and the separation of dahuk from nineveh both antedated 1971 clearly the kurds do not want to go back to 1971 since they probably see the creation of dahuk as a virtuous move whose reversal is undesirable it was in fact part of the peace negotiations between the kurds and the baath at the time but exactly at the same time as the creation of salahaddin in january 1976 another new iraqi governorate came into existence najaf this in turn has similarly created cases of disputed territories with respect to neighbouring and more well established governorates like karbala presumably talabani does not aim to abolish the najaf governorate presumably too his law proposal contains impenetrable arguments for abolishing salahaddin but not najaf at the practical level there are problems too why should the shiite parts of salahaddin plus samarra revert to baghdad but not sunni tikrit all of these lands belonged to baghdad in the early 1970s reflecting administrative realities that date back at least to monarchical times if the talabani proposal involves attaching shiite but not sunni parts of salahaddin to baghdad it will no doubt be seen as sectarian perhaps in resonance with the idea of a smaller iraq from basra to samarra that has been in vogue among some exiled iraqis iraq administrative map 1971 it is interesting that maliki is flirting publicly with ideas that will be seen by many iraqis as typically post 2003 partition oriented discourse precisely the sort of thing maliki has tried to steer away from since 2008 on the other hand we should perhaps not exaggerate the importance attached by maliki to these ideas as end goals in themselves maliki knows perfectly well that whereas giving him the premiership was completed in a single parliamentary session fulfilling all his promises to the kurds and others depends on further legislation in parliament each legislative initiative comes with at least three crucial junctures first and second reading before a vote each of which offers opportunities for unexpected drama that can easily consign a legislative project to the growing catalogue of on hold items awaiting political consensus this may well be maliki s real intention in flirting with the talabani initiative on disputed territories the kurds will see it as a concession of sorts sectarian shiites will like the idea of a bigger baghdad extending to samarra none of it is likely to come into ex...