Monthly Archives: January 2013

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Sunni rebellion in Iraq

As the Shia-Sunni disputes in Iraq remain under the spotlight, the country has been rocked by a Sunni rebellion, writes Salah Nasrawi
Some hailed it as an Iraqi Sunni Spring, while others just took to the streets to vent their grievances about being treated as second-class citizens. Still others said the rallies that have hit Iraq’s three Sunni provinces over recent days have taken place as a protest against a crackdown on Sunni leaders.
Whatever the reasons behind their two week-long sit-ins, Iraq’s Sunni Arabs seem to have opened a new chapter in their struggle to regain prominence a decade after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country that toppled the minority Sunni regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and propelled Iraq’s majority Shias to power.
The Sunni rebellion is a sign of regained confidence, driven by increasing support by powerful regional Sunni heavyweights such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey and the prospect that a Sunni-dominated regime will come to power in neighbouring Syria following the widely expected fall of President Bashar Al-Assad’s Alawite regime.
The Sunni demonstrations heralded another bad year for Iraq and raised speculation about the future of the violence-torn nation some ten years after the US-led invasion which has gripped it in its worst political deadlock and confessional divisions since it came into being in the 1920s.
The Sunni protests came as sectarian violence spiraled across the country following the US troop withdrawal last year. A series of bombings across Iraq this week killed more than two dozen people, many of them Shias who were performing pilgrimages to the holy city of Karbala.
The protests were triggered by the arrest of the bodyguards of Sunni Finance Minister Rafei Al-Essawi on 21 December.
Thousands of Sunnis massed across their three provinces with the main focus in their heartland of Anbar. Crowds also blocked the highway that links Iraq with neighbouring Jordan and Syria to increase the pressure on the Shia-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.
Al-Essawi, a prominent member of the mainly Sunni Al-Iraqiya political bloc, denounced the arrests as a “deliberate and premeditated act” by Al-Maliki. He accused Al-Maliki of turning the Iraqi security forces into militias run by his office.
Al-Maliki said the executive branch had not ordered the detentions and insisted that they had been the result of an investigation carried out by the judiciary.
A spokesman for the Supreme Judiciary Council said 10 of Al-Essawi’s bodyguards were being held on suspicion of terrorism-related offences. Other sources suggested that the bodyguards had confessed to carrying out bombings on Al-Essawi’s personal orders.
Last December, several bodyguards of Sunni Vice President Tarek Al-Hashimi were arrested. Shortly afterwards, a warrant was also issued for the arrest of Al-Hashimi himself, accusing him of running sectarian death squads.
Al-Hashimi denied the charges, but fled to the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region and then to Turkey and later to Qatar. He has been sentenced to death in absentia.
The Sunnis’ anger has been growing louder for several months over what they perceive as their mistreatment in Shia-run Iraq. The complaints have included the arbitrary use of anti-terrorism laws and the prolonged detention and mistreatment of prisoners, particularly women, in government jails.
Sunni dissatisfaction with the government has been building for years, stemming from claims of marginalisation, unequal distribution of wealth, repressive actions and the government’s failure to provide jobs.
Many Sunnis have declared that they should secede from the ethnically-divided and violence-ridden country and seek their own autonomy. Proponents say that the establishment of an autonomous region would be in reaction to the Iraqi government’s neglect and exclusion of the Sunnis.
Last year, the Sunni-dominated province of Salaheddin created uproar when its local council voted to establish it as an “independent region within a unified Iraq”. The Anbar council was to follow suit, but a bid to vote on the issue was halted under pressure from Sunnis opposed to autonomy.
Such demands for autonomy are considered as a major shift in the perspective of the country’s Sunni Arabs.
Since modern Iraqi came into being after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, Sunnis have prided themselves on being a bulwark of Arab nationalism and the guardians of Iraq’s unity in the face of Kurdish secessionism and Shia disenchantment with Sunni domination.
Most Sunnis rejected Iraq’s new constitution drafted after the 2003 US-led invasion on the grounds that the document was a recipe for the end of Iraq as a unitary state, since it allowed ethnic groups, or provinces, to set themselves up as autonomous regions under a federal system, something argued for by the Kurds and backed by the Shias.
Many Sunnis boycotted Iraq’s parliamentary elections following the invasion but participated heavily in the 2010 elections, later joining a “partnership government” in the hope of ending their marginalisation under the Shia and Kurdish-controlled governments that came to power after the US-led invasion.
Although in recent demonstrations Sunnis again showed their commitment to a unified Iraq, a sectarian slant was also evident in the demonstrations.
Some protesters carried the Iraqi flag of the Saddam era and shouted anti-Shia slogans. Others carried Syria’s rebel flag and pictures of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom many Iraqi Shias consider as an enemy.
Fugitive Vice President Al-Hashimi has been leading a campaign from his new exile in Qatar to rally Sunni support for the demonstrators.
He has called on Sunnis not to “waste the historic opportunity provided by the blessed uprising” and has also urged the Sunni Gulf countries to lend support to their Sunni brethren in Iraq.
However, the anti-Shia rhetoric has infuriated many Shias in Iraq, including those who are opposed to Al-Maliki. Prominent Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr canceled plans to send representatives to Anbar to participate in the anti-government protests and criticised the anti-Shia slant.
Even liberal-oriented Shias who disagree with al-Maliki voiced their dismay over what they saw as sectarian incitement and attempts to bring back Saddam loyalists to power.
“How can we defend the Sunnis, when their representatives fire all these words of contempt and slander against the Shias,” asked Nabil Yassin in the Al-Mowaten newspaper on Sunday.
Some Shia politicians have accused the regional governments of being behind the protests to incite “sedition”.
Turkey has headed the list of countries accused of meddling in order to destabilise Iraq. On Sunday, Al-Maliki accused Turkey of encouraging Iraqi Kurds to secede from Iraq.
Turkey has sided with the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan in its conflict with the Iraqi government. It is also working closely with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and Erdogan has said that Al-Maliki is sectarian and is discriminating against Sunni Muslims in the country.
Last week Erdogan said that “extremist Shia authorities are ruling Iraq”.
Saudi Arabia, at the forefront of the conflict against Shia Iran, has assumed the mantle of the defender of the Iraqi Sunnis.
In an article published by Project Syndicate 2012 last week, an influential member of the Saudi royal family said “Iranian intervention is tearing Iraq apart and endangering the countries around it.”
“Western and Iranian support for Nuri Al-Maliki’s government, which is controlled by Iran’s Basij militia, must be withdrawn, enabling the Iraqi people to determine freely their own destiny,” wrote prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence and ex-ambassador to the United States and Britain.
Qatar is also believed to be heavily involved, its Al-Jazeera satellite networks providing heavy coverage for the Sunni protests and its employees joining an anti-Shia campaign by disgruntled Iraqi Sunnis on the Internet.
As the inevitable brinksmanship plays out, the question remains of what options the Sunnis really have to advance their cause apart from street mobilisation.
One effect of their protests is a deepening division within their ranks, which could embolden Al-Maliki. Many moderate Sunni groups and leaders have expressed their dismay over the anti-Shia rhetoric, describing it as being counter-productive.
Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutleq was attacked when he visited the protesters in Anbar recently, trying to calm them. Angry crowds insisted that the Sunni official should resign from the government.
There are also signs of Shia dissent within the Al-Iraqiya bloc, which are a serious blow to its proclaimed secular mantel.
On Monday, the bloc’s Shia leader, Iyad Allawi, distanced the group from the protests in Anbar. He told the Al-Hurra television channel that he would have preferred Al-Iraqiya ministers to withdraw from the government instead.
Al-Iraqiya’s Shia spokesman Haidar Al-Mullah said he was resigning from his post because of the anti-Shia diatribes.
Prospects for these escalating Shia-Sunni tensions spiraling out of control and producing yet another civil war are sharply heightened by the new conflict.
In an interview with Al-Sumeria television on Sunday, Al-Maliki warned of “a deadlock situation” in the country.
He suggested that the Sunnis either go for a new election or sit around the negotiating table in order to try to find a solution to the crisis.
Otherwise, he said, “we are faced with either civil war or separation.”
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Troubled times for Iraq

Iraq has had another bad year, and it is entering 2013 amid increasing uncertainty, writes Salah Nasrawi

A year after the last US troops pulled out from Iraq, the beleaguered country has slipped into a state of ongoing and escalating political turmoil as sectarian violence shows no signs of abating.
Iraq has remained gripped in its worst political deadlock since the US-led invasion of 2003 amid confessional divisions, rival clashes and terrorist attacks that have sparked concerns about the country’s post-war stability.
Corruption and human rights abuses are rampant, while government mismanagement and the lack of health and social services and basic supplies, such as electricity, water and sewage systems, remain epidemic. Ultimately, the situation in Iraq nearly ten years after the US-led invasion is anything but encouraging.
A few weeks before the year ended, the political deadlock took a sharp and perilous course as the country’s Shia-led government and its Kurdish and Sunni partners engaged in a bitter power struggle and military standoffs.
On 21 December, Iraq’s Sunni leaders accused Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki of a political crackdown after troops raided the Sunni Finance Minister Rafea Al-Essawi’s office and home and arrested dozens of his guards and staff members.
The crackdown has built on tensions that have been running high since December 2011, when Al-Maliki moved against Vice President Tarek Al-Hashemi, who fled Baghdad for Turkey in order to avoid prosecution on charges of terrorism and running death squads.
The Sunni Al-Iraqiya bloc, which includes the groups of both Al-Essawi and Al-Hashemi, has accused Al-Maliki of trying to consolidate his power at its expense.
Al-Iraqiya leaders say Al-Maliki, who controls the army, security forces and intelligence services, is trying to subdue the country’s Sunnis to his autocratic tendencies. They also accuse him of relying on Iraq’s compromised judiciary and corrupt bureaucracy as weapons against his rivals.
The situation has also infuriated some of Al-Maliki’s Shia allies, who believe he is fabricating and politicising terrorism or criminal cases against his enemies. “The way he deals with the security files has made everybody lose confidence in him,” said Amir Al-Kinani, a top Shia lawmaker from the Shia Sadrist Trend.
The raids and detention of Al-Essawi’s staff came a day after troops from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish Region opened fire on Iraqi army helicopters, the second such incident in a week, underscoring mounting tensions between Baghdad’s Shia-led government and the Kurdish Region.
Iraq’s central government and the country’s northern Kurdish region have in recent months remained gridlocked after Kurdish leaders accused Al-Maliki of trying to orchestrate a power grab.
Tensions between Baghdad and the Kurdish Region have risen after Al-Maliki formed a new military command covering disputed territories in September, in order to address the deterioration in security in areas that have been the scene of terrorist attacks in recent months.
In retaliation, Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has dispatched massive troop numbers to the same areas, ordering them to be renamed “Kurdistan areas outside the region”, which Baghdad considers to be provocative.
Relations between the country’s Kurds, who make up about 20 per cent of the population, and the Shia-led government have also worsened over other long-running disputes, including power and resource-sharing.
The Kurds have been pursuing separate oil-and-gas exploration deals with foreign companies, and they have started selling oil on international markets in independent export deals.
The moves have aggravated tensions with Baghdad, which considers the sales to be illegal and a challenge to its claim to full control over Iraq’s oil.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has initiated a reconciliation effort to defuse the disputes, but the talks have come to a stalemate after Talabani himself recently suffered a stroke.
Now there are increasing fears that if he dies or is permanently incapacitated, Iraq will face further political turmoil.
While the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq led to the creation of a Kurdish semi-autonomous region, the recent disputes have raised fears that the Kurds are now drifting further from Baghdad, raising questions about the possible secession of Iraqi Kurdistan from the rest of the country.
On the other hand, sectarian violence and killing continue to rise, and attacks targeting both Iraqi security forces and civilians killed more than 4,000 Iraqis in 2012.
The United Nations said it was concerned that the violence was increasing a year after the US forces left, noting that “the attacks were often more deadly, with a few attacks claiming scores of victims.”
As the political conflicts and violence continue, respect and protection of human rights in Iraq have deteriorated. While acknowledging the responsibility of the armed groups for some gross human rights abuses, including the indiscriminate killings of civilians and kidnappings, international rights groups blame the Iraqi government for serious violations, such as unlawful detention and torture in detention centres.
Executions remain of great concern in Iraq, with the number of people executed in 2012 exceeding 129, the highest since 2005, drawing criticism from international rights groups. Further death sentences were ratified last week pending execution.
“Respect for human rights is the basis of any democracy, and strong action needs to be taken by the Iraqi authorities to ensure that each and every person in this country can fully enjoy his or her fundamental rights,” said Martin Kobler, UN special envoy for Iraq.
Corruption remained one of the main obstacles to economic development and good governance in Iraq over the course of the year. Reports have suggested that corruption has reached the highest levels of the government and negatively impacted every aspect of Iraqi life.
As usual over the last 10 years, the international group Transparency International has ranked Iraq among the most corrupt countries studied in its 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index. A US government report quoted Abdel-Baset Turki, Iraq’s chief auditor, as saying in October that almost $800 million was flowing out of the country illegally each week.
In November, Iraq cancelled a $4.2 billion deal to buy arms from Russia because of concerns about corruption. Lawmakers accused several of Al-Maliki’s aides of personally profiting from the deal.
Iraq’s internal bickering aside, 2012 will also be remembered as the year when Iran managed to protect its alliance with the country’s government and increase its standing with Iraq’s Shia political groups, which dominate the Baghdad government.
Iran’s resolve to increase its influence in Iraq, including by building a military and security alliance with the Shia-led government, has raised concerns among Iraq’s Sunni neighbours, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Relations between Iraq and Turkey remained strained over a host of issues, including accusations by Baghdad that Ankara was interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs.
On Saturday, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Iraq was “passing through a critical period” and described the Shia-led government as “a minority government.”
Baghdad has repeatedly accused Ankara of sectarian bias and has blasted Ankara for supporting both the Kurds and the Sunni Arabs.
Distrust and suspicion between Iraqi Shias and Saudi Arabia continued to block reconciliation with the Arab world’s heavyweight oil-producer. Iraq now plans to increase its own oil production, which could trigger a decline in international prices, setting the two countries on a collision course.
Relations between Iraq and Kuwait also remained cool, signalling difficulties in ending issues emerging from former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
The main disputes include Kuwait’s refusal to lift the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq following the 1991 invasion and a new port on the Arabian Gulf that the emirate has started constructing that many Iraqis believe is blocking entrances to Iraqi ports.
Iraq also faces daunting challenges over Syria as it seeks to contain the spill-over from the crisis in the neighbouring country.
Fearing that Iraqi insurgents will unite with extremists in Syria in order to wage a two-front battle for Sunni dominance, Iraq has implicitly supported Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and allowed Iranian weapon airlifts through its airspace.
This has put Iraq at loggerheads with the United States and other countries, which are pushing for Al-Assad’s ouster.
All this makes Iraq today as fragile as it has ever been since the US-led invasion in 2003. No lasting solution to the country’s instability can be brought about until the decade-old struggle over power and wealth is dealt with.
Though the failures of the Iraqi political groups have been well-documented, it is time for them to contemplate other options or else to watch the pattern of perpetual conflict in the country continue.