Tag: Iraq
Regional ripples from a nuclear deal
As gradual progress is made towards a potential nuclear deal with Iran, many question the implications that this agreement would have for the surrounding region. On Monday, the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted “The Iranian Nuclear Deal and the Impact on its Neighbors” to analyze the regional repercussions of a possible bargain. Abdullah Baabood, Director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, and David and Marina Ottaway, Senior Scholars at the Woodrow Wilson Center, discussed relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and neighboring Iraq, while Bijan Khajehpour, Managing Partner of Atieh International, analyzed the regional economic aspects of a nuclear deal.
The prospect of a nuclear bargain with Iran poses a great challenge for the GCC. According to Abdullah Baabood, each of the six GCC countries has a great stake in the Iranian nuclear deal and has many concerns regarding regional security, the economy, and the environment.
However, negotiations have been taking place secretly between Iran and the US, much to the dismay of the GCC. This is particularly insulting as the US is an important ally to the region, and a deal with Iran would be a major foreign policy issue with implications far beyond simply arms control. There is fear that Iran and the US will strike a grand bargain, resulting in the US leaving the region and Iran coming to dominate it.
The GCC fears this deal because it does not know how to interpret Iran’s status and whether or not it will strictly abide by the rules of the nuclear agreement. There is a great deal of unease about Iran spreading its wings throughout the Gulf and expanding its influence without restriction.
David Ottaway further analyzed the tumultuous relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the past several decades. The two countries have a history of intense rivalry for regional dominance that is currently at its peak. However, there have been attempts recently to initiate dialogue between the foreign ministers. The main issue in these upcoming conversations will be determining the true meaning of détente for both the Iranians and the Saudis and exactly how to handle the challenge of energy and oil, as well as sectarian divides.
With the current situation in Iraq, Marina Ottaway highlighted the need to consider how the instability will affect a nuclear deal with Iran. The current sectarian division in Iraq could pose a threat to Iran, which has continued to back Prime Minister Maliki and ultimately has more influence than the US, due to its location. However, volatility is highly unfavorable for Iran and is not ideal for contracting a regional settlement in regards to its nuclear program.
Bijan Khajehpour then discussed the economic implications within the region, assuming there will be a comprehensive nuclear bargain with Iran. There are four areas of either convergence or divergence between Iran and its neighbors. This includes:
- The energy sector
- Regional trade and cross-border investment activity
- Competition for economic and technological dominance
- International investment
The energy sector is a fundamental concern because of the growing demand for oil and gas reserves within the region. While the Persian Gulf holds nearly half of the world’s oil reserves, most states lack natural gas resources, with the exception of Iran and Qatar. Other countries will need to import gas in the near future. “Keeping pressure on Iran’s natural gas sector is to the detriment of the whole region,” Khajehpour concluded, highlighting why energy efficiency will be a point of contention with the progress of an Iranian nuclear bargain.
There is still fierce ideological and strategic competition between Iran and the surrounding region over a possible nuclear deal. It has never been clearer to Iran’s neighbors that they must get involved in this bargain to have their vital interests addressed.
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Shi’astan 1, Kurdistan 1, Sunnistan 0
Here is the concluding paragraph of my piece published by the Middle East Institute Friday:
Thus the current insurgency may look as if it has Maliki cornered, but the long-term strategic balance is still with the Shi’a for geographical, demographic, and resource reasons. Sunnistan is neither a viable state nor a unified one. When the money ISIS seized in Mosul starts to run out, the thieves will quarrel with their comrades in arms. Sunnistan will not want to stay in an unhappy marriage, but it won’t be able to leave, either. Whether Maliki stays or goes, the Sunni insurgency is doomed.
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Schisms in Shi’ism
With sectarian violence flaring in the Middle East, it is tempting to view the Islamic world in terms of the Sunni-Shia schism. However, there are conflicts within the Shia community itself, and on Thursday, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a multipanel event to discuss them. The first two panels focused on the struggle for legitimacy between the two competing theological centers in Iraq and Iran, and the third panel offered policy recommendations going forward. Michael Rubin moderated.
Iraqi Shi’ites are not a monolithic community, said Abbas Khadim, noting that there are two competing schools, or hawza, within Shi’ite Islam: one in Najaf, and one in Qom. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani heads the hawza in Najaf, which acts as counterweight to the Iranian hawza in Qom. According to Khadim, Sistani told him personally that he wanted to curb Iranian influence in Iraq, adding that only political parties in Iraq are interested in patronizing Iran.
Najaf was the center of Shi’ite scholarship until the early twentieth century, declining with the establishment of modern Iraq in 1921. The rise of Qom coincided with the Iranian revolution, and for thirty years it commanded more influence that its rival. According to Toby Mathhiesen, however, the number of Shia worldwide who follow Khameini has declined to around 10%, while Sistani commands a much larger following.
In practice, the panel agreed, the Iranian republic is not a secure model. While Khomeini was able to exercise power in large part through the strength of charisma, Khamenei’s lackluster personality commands far less allegiance than his predecessor. The weakness of his administration was especially apparent in 2009, when thousands of Iranians ignored his orders to remain off the streets.
Sistani’s quietist brand of Islam, meanwhile, has played a moderating role in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003. Following the bombing of Samara, for instance, his refusal to issue a call to arms to Iraq’s Shia population prevented a widening of the civil war. Even Saddam Hussein recognized Sistani as a counterweight to Iranian influence. During the 1980s, Saddam wanted him expelled, but ultimately decided that without Sistani, Iran would be able to leverage even more control within his country.
The speakers agreed that if Sunni governments allocated money for Shiite theological seminaries in their own countries, their Shia minorities would be less inclined to travel to Qom, thus curbing Iranian influence. In fact, Iranian scholars would leave Iran to study in other countries, as many did after the fall of Saddam Hussein (including Khamenei’s grandson).
The third panel was asked to address the question, “should America have a Shia policy?” According to Robert Rook, the short answer is no. This is because the Shia are not a single, indistinguishable group, any more than the Sunni are. Kenneth Pollack said that the US has a bad habit of neglecting human rights in the Middle East, most recently in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, and Lebanon, to name a few. Instead, America should champion the human rights we claim to espouse. By ignoring human rights abuses in Syria, he added, we have allowed the conflict to devolve into a sectarian crisis.
By focusing on the Sunni-Shia divide, we neglect the equally large gap between secular and extremist poles in Islam. The US should be backing moderates in all countries, and we should build viable opposition movements that will be able to contest extremism of all sorts. In 2007, Pollack noted, the US was able to successfully build an apolitical army. Walking away from Iraq and Syria feeds extremism. Maliki’s policies have been far more sectarian since the US left Iraq.
America has tried to ignore the Middle East for the last forty years, an approach that has failed us over and over again. Our long-term approach should be to combine diplomacy with use of force. In fact, Pollack said that the US should offer inducements (weapons systems, money or other) directly to governments in exchange for their cooperation. “We should straight up bribe” them, he suggested.
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The Maliki quandary
There is good reason for the many calls for Nouri al Maliki to quit his post as Iraq’s prime minister. In office for eight years, he has accumulated a great deal of power but delivered little to Iraq’s citizens. The country still lacks electricity, water, infrastructure, educational facilities, employment and health care. While the press and civil society are freer than in many Arab-majority countries, Maliki has largely neutralized parliament and the courts. He controls many of the so-called independent institutions the Americans left behind, including Iraq’s central bank. The Prime Minister has campaigned and governed in a blatantly sectarian and increasingly authoritarian way, mobilizing Shia support and attacking (sometimes arresting) Sunni politicians.
But…Maliki is also the most popular single politician in Iraq, with over 700,000 personal preference votes in April’s election. His State of Law coalition won more than twice as many seats in parliament as its nearest competitor. His belligerence towards Sunnis is popular among Shia in the south and Baghdad. Those who call for him for him to step down, step aside or otherwise quit are ignoring the clear message of the last election: most Shia want him to stay in place and crack down on a Sunni insurgency that is a potent mixture of Sunni Islamist extremism and Ba’athist nationalism. Compromising with that is not what people who identify as Shia and suffered under Saddam Hussein want.
So what is to be done?
I don’t know, but I’d prefer the decisions be made in Baghdad than in Washington. John McCain, who wants Maliki out, should not count for more than the voters of Najaf or Basra. President Obama has gone far enough by insisting on a cross-sectarian, cross-ethnic coalition as a condition for American assistance. That may be impossible with Maliki at the helm. But it is Iraqis, not Americans, who should tell Maliki that and make it stick. McCain hasn’t had brilliant success in American politics. It is hard to picture him more successful in Iraq.
The prospects for Iraq are not good. As Peter Galbraith notes in Politico yesterday, the Kurds now have much of what they need and want to go for independence. Kirkuk, which they took over when the Iraqi army fled, can provide Kurdistan with the revenue it needs to replace the Kurdistan percentage of Iraq’s oil revenue Maliki has been withholding, in a dispute over accounting for the proceeds and over the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) decision to export its oil without Baghdad’s permission. I imagine the Americans will hold KRG President Barzani back from announcing the referendum on independence he has promised. But the day is coming. With Kirkuk and other “disputed territories” in hand, it is hard to imagine that the Kurds will want to stick around while Sunni Islamists and Ba’athists shoot it out with Maliki’s Shia supporters.
The big losers in all this are predictably the Sunnis, whose insurgent forces will not be able to take most of Baghdad even if they are successful on its western outskirts, which include Baghdad International as well as Abu Ghraib prison. The headlines if those are attacked will be big, but the strategic consequences less so. The Ba’athists and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will clash sooner or later. Even if they don’t, “Sunnistan”–Anbar, most of Ninewa, most of Salahedin, parts of Baquba and Tamim as well as a few suburbs of Baghdad–may have lots of natural gas, but it is undeveloped. Ninety per cent of Iraq’s current oil production would remain in Shia control, far away in the south. Once Kurdistan pulls out of Iraq, the Sunnis won’t want to stay in it, but they won’t have the resources or territory needed to establish a viable state.
Ironically, the Shia will, as they have the oil. But Tehran will not want an independent Kurdistan, as that would threaten Iran’s own territorial integrity, which includes the province of Eastern Kurdistan. A weak Iraq in which Iran exercises influence is what Tehran wants, not one that breaks up, threatens to redraw the map of the Levant and gives birth to ISIS’s hoped-for Sunni caliphate.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Iraq is not lost so much as it is broken. A new political pact, with or without Maliki as prime minister, is what it needs. A state worth fighting for will take years to build. Iraqis, not Americans, should be the prime movers in that process.
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Politics first
The American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead talked of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” which is like putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble. We are at risk these days of doing that in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) rapid advance toward Baghdad is getting a lot of attention, as it should. But Sunni-based ISIS is not a military threat to a city of nearly 4 million people, most of them Shia. ISIS might target the western outskirts near Baghdad International Airport and Abu Ghraib prison, which will grab big headlines. But ISIS is not going to march into what used to be called the Green Zone.
Nor did ISIS take Mosul, Tikrit and other Sunni-majority towns in the north and west solely because of its military prowess. Its success is due to broad Sunni support for action against Prime Minister Maliki, who proved his popularity among the Shia in April’s election but has governed in an increasingly authoritarian and sectarian way. That’s why President Obama has made assistance to him conditional on taking a more inclusive approach. Yesterday’s meeting and declaration of support from a broad cross-section of Iraqi politicians was meant to be Maliki’s response.
What we are facing in Iraq is not merely a military challenge but rather a political challenge to a fragile state.
The outcome of this challenge may well be determined by neither Sunni nor Shia, the prime protagonists of the current fighting. Kurdish peshmerga under the command of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have already filled the vacuum left in Kirkuk by the evaporation of the Iraqi Army. The Kurds have long claimed Kirkuk as their own and won’t leave it without a fight. It is a major oil-producing area that could bring the KRG to the breakeven point: 100% of the oil produced within KRG control could generate as much revenue as the 17% of all of Iraq’s oil that Baghdad is supposed to provide. But Maliki has cut off KRG revenue for months, due to a dispute over accounting for it and over the KRG’s authority to decide on the export and sale of oil independent of Baghdad.
In the past, Kurdistan’s political independence seemed impossible because of Turkish opposition. But Turkish attitudes are changing. Ankara this year received oil directly from Kurdistan, allowing it to be stored and then sold without Baghdad’s permission. Prime Minister Erdogan has appreciated the KRG’s cooperation in tamping down Kurdish violence inside Turkey. Even the Turkish military might think an independent and relatively secular Kurdistan would be a more attractive neighbor than either an ISIS-run Sunnistan or a Shia-run autocracy.
The Kurds will not want to go their own way until ISIS is defeated or contained. But KRG President Barzani even before the latest ISIS advance was promising Kurds a referendum on independence. If he ever follows through, the vote will be overwhelmingly in favor. It is hard to picture the Sunnis staying in an even vaguely democratic Iraq that would then be 60-70% Shia. Sunnistan under ISIS control would be a real threat to the United States and to Iran, which is why Tehran and Washington are trying to make nice these days even as they compete for influence with Maliki while trying to keep Iraq unified.
Focusing exclusively on Iraq would be another fallacy of misplace concreteness. ISIS does not confine its ambitions to a single country. Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are already a single theater of operations. The place to attack an enemy is where he is weakest. That might well be inside Syria rather than in Iraq. The Obama administration was unwise to let ISIS get as strong as it has in western Syria. It is late to beef up support to its competitors or help them succeed against Bashar al Asad, but it is still worth a bolder try than Washington has made so far. The issue is not just a military one in Syria either: one of the key shortcomings of the Syrian Opposition Coalition there is its inability to deliver services in liberated areas. That is a political and governance issue, not only a military one.
The same is true in Libya. I’m delighted Ahmed Abu Khattalah is in US custody and will be tried in a civilian court. But whatever role he played in Libya’s Ansar al Sharia will be filled quickly by another jihadist. The problem in Libya, as in Iraq and Syria, is a weak state that lacks legitimacy with its people and is unable to maintain even a modicum of law and order. Dealing with this problem only by training up a General Purpose Force and leaving the governance and political issues unresolved is one more fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
PS: On Iran, best to listen to Randa Slim on NPR this morning:
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Hedging all the way to the bank
It is always difficult to write about a place that you visit for only a week or so, but Qatar poses unique problems: Qatari citizens represent perhaps 10% of the population. The rest are foreigners, brought in from India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nepal, Spain and virtually every other place on earth. They make up the vast bulk of the work force, often living here in group dormitories while they send money home to their families. An Indian restaurant manager told me he could double his salary coming here (and there are no taxes). A Nepali told me he misses the green and the mountains, but living here is okay. A Spaniard rated it higher than that. Palestinians, Syrians and Egyptians (hiding out here from the restored military regime) also gave Qatar the thumbs up. Of course there is little risk to a foreigner in giving the place high marks, but the responses seemed genuine.
I’ve garnered a few data points on the Qataris themselves. This really is an absolute monarchy at the national level, where a few people make all the key decisions. There is no system or habit of consultation with tribal leaders, as in Bahrain. Only at the municipal level are there elections, but the issues there are strictly local ones.
Among the 200,000 or so Qataris, everyone knows everyone else’s family ties, even if they don’t know the individuals. Some families are more prestigious than others, but others may be wealthier (e.g., those that spent time in Iran after a war with Bahrain and came back with trading and other business skills). Sectarian relations are less problematic than in Bahrain because both the monarchy and the majority are Sunni. Most men content themselves with one wife. Most women cover in public, but to varying extents. The presence here of South Asians is regarded wryly: before natural gas made Qatar wealthy, Qataris used to go to Pakistan and India to work.
Many view the monarchy, which has no religious function, as reasonably wise and benevolent, which isn’t surprising given the sky-high per capita GDP. Even the scandal regarding Qatar’s successful 2022 bid to host the World Cup does not appear to be generating a lot of interest. The international press coverage of World Cup labor practices has raised consciousness about the unfairness of tying immigrant visas to specific employers (which we happen also to use in the US). Support for education and infrastructure is very much in evidence: new roads, mass transit and universities seem ubiquitous. So too are giant shopping malls, luxury apartments, fancy restaurants, and Ferraris parked by the curb. Cranes and yachts everywhere:
I am reminded of a radio ad for a men’s clothing store from many years ago: “money talks and nobody walks.” There are sometimes sidewalks, but only the foreigners use them. Electricity and water are free, for everyone. I turned off the air conditioning in my hotel room upon arrival and haven’t turned it back on. Few complain about the heat outside because no one goes there, though most Qatari men dress in thobes and assure me it is much more comfortable. It is often still above 100 degrees Fahrenheit at midnight.
Qatar does not yet have anything like Bahrain’s fabulous national museum, which displays ample evidence of its pre-Islamic civilization. I am told a national museum is under construction. But Doha already has a fabulous Museum of Islamic Art that reminds a Westerner of how much brighter the so-called dark ages were in Muslimdom than in Christendom. Here is just a random sample that had the virtue of not being behind glass:
A large portion of the iconic museum’s holdings are Persian and Turkish, but there is lots of good stuff from North Africa, Syria, Iraq and on into central Asia. The message is clear: Qatar is not just a tiny kingdom, but a vanguard of civilization for the entire Islamic world, transcending national, ethnic and sectarian distinctions.
Doha, which houses 80% of the kingdom’s population, is more Brasilia than Amsterdam, at least from a visitor perspective. Its forests of oddly shaped and designed twenty- and thirty-story office buildings flashing light shows at night give way on the outskirts to low rise villas behind high walls. The Souq Wakif is pleasant enough, but clean and orderly to those who have enjoyed the market places in Cairo, Damascus or Aleppo (in better times). Doha’s version feels more like a pleasant World’s Fair pavilion. At the high end of commerce there is “The Pearl,” an artificial island of fasionable shops, luxury apartments and big yachts.
While the world is focused on the collapse of Iraq, less than 500 miles northwest, Doha seems calm almost to a fault. Has someone here helped to finance the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that is wrecking havoc there? Or are they financing the more moderate Islamists tring to counter ISIS? I’m not likely to discover the answer to that question, as the Qataris who know such things haven’t been accessible to me.
Reserved to a modest fault, the kingdom nevertheless prides itself on getting along with everyone (especially Iran in addition to the US) and generally succeeds, except for the Saudis, who are arch rivals, at least for now. Hedging is the classic diplomatic strategy of small countries. Qatar’s rulers are good at it. The place is thriving.
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