قمــة الـلامعنــــي 

يزخر المعجم السياسي بمقولات ساخرة عن القمم العربية باعتبارها جزءا من فولكلور أسهم في ادامة حالة العجز والتردي العربي في مواجهة تحديات هائلة واجهتها المنطقة علي مدي نحو سبعة عقود هي عمر جامعة الدول العربية‏,‏ التي تتولي زمام ما يطلق عليه بمسيرة العمل العربي المشترك.لعل خلاصة خبرة هذه التجربة التاريخية المريرة تتجلي الآن في ما آلت إليه المنطقة العربية من أوضاع تسير بها الي النقيض تماما لما قامت عليه الجامعة, حيث لا دولها عادت دولا ولا مجتمعاتها غادرت قبليتها وطائفيتها لتكون أمة, كما تواجه هويتها القومية الآن تحديات التعصب الديني والانقسام المذهبي.
هذه الحالة هي التي ستضلل ثاني قمة عربية تعقد بعد موجة الهبات الثورية التي أطاحت بعدد من أعتي الأنظمة العربية قبل عامين ووضعت المنطقة برمتها علي أعتاب مرحلة جديدة, ما يجعل من مجرد التئامها نشازا في ايقاع حركة التطور في المنطقة, وكأنها تعقد خارج السياق التاريخي التي أصبحت تسير عليه. والقائمون علي قمة الدوحة يدركون تماما هذه المفارقة ولذلك استعانوا بمحترفي تدبيج الشعارات الذين أطلقوا علي القمة التي تفتتح اليوم قمة الوضع الراهن وآفاق المستقبل وأسبغوا عليها أيضا مهمة وهي انعقادها من أجل غد أفضل للشعوب العربية, وهو ما ينتمي الي منظومة الخداع والتضليل السياسي, وليس إلي الحقيقة.
كل الوقائع المتوافرة تشير الي أن هذه القمة, ومثلها كانت قمة بغداد العام الماضي أيضا, هي مجرد عرض من تلك العروض البائسة التي دأب علي اقامتها النظام العربي سنويا والتي لا هدف لها إلا انعاش مؤسسة تحتضر بعد أن فقدت بوصلتها وانطفأ بريقها وأصبحت عاجزة عن مواجهة متطلبات مرحلة ثورية تسعي لاقامة الحرية علي الأرض العربية التي جرفها الاستبداد والفساد. مؤسسة القمة العربية هذه فقدت حتي عنصر الكوميديا التي كانت توفرها اعلاناتها بالتنديد والاستنكار والشجب, أو مشاهد المناكفات بين المشاركين فيها أو الممارسات المسلية التي كان يضفيها عليها طاغية مهووس مثل معمر القذافي.
فمهما وضع منظمو هذا المهرجان السنوي من شعارات أو ترنموا بخطابات فانهم سيكونون بعيدين عن الواقع الدراماتيكي الذي يمر به العالم العربي اليوم. وما لا يدركونه هو أن العالم العربي لم يعد ذلك الاقليم الذي أسست من أجله الجامعة العربية بهدف حماية دوله وكياناته التي صاغت حدودها اتفاقية سايكس بيكو الاستعمارية وأنه يعيش اليوم وفق حقائق جيوسياسية جديدة ومتغيرات تفرزها وقائع سنين الغليان التي سيظل يعيشها العرب بعد أن حطمت ثورات ربيعهم ذلك الاستثناء العار الذي وصمت به كأمة غير قادرة علي كسر جدران الخوف والانعتاق من الطغيان.
أحد أهم أسباب حالة الفوضي الحالية والثمن الباهظ الذي ندفعه لها والاحتمالات المفتوحة علي تفكيك المنطقة وتشظي بعض دولها هو المؤسسة نفسها, التي تمثلها القمة التي تدعي أنها ستأتي للعرب بمستقبل أفضل. لقد فوتت هذه المؤسسة أهم فرصة توافرت لها قبل عقد من الزمان لاصلاح أنظمتها ومجتمعاتها.
في قمة تونس عام2004 أجهض المشاركون فرصة نادرة للبدء بعملية الاصلاح والتحول الديمقراطي في العالم العربي حين استخدموا كل حيلهم وألاعيبهم وأساليب المماطلة والتسويف بغية افشال مشروع الاصلاح, الذي لو كان انجز لانتشل المنطقة من المستنقع الذي كانت فيه وأنقذها من هذا المصير الذي آلت اليه. وفي تلك القمة تجلت بشكل فاضح شراسة الأنظمة العربية في مواجهة أي محاولة حقيقية للاصلاح.
محاضر جلسات القمة تكشف عن كراهية لا مثيل لها لكلمة الاصلاح نفسها, رفضت بعض الوفود العربية أن تتضمنها أي وثيقة واستبدلوها بكلمة تطوير المطاطة ضمنوها ورقة سموها التطوير والتحديث في الوطن العربي وبيانا أطلقوا عليه  وثيقة العهد في ايحاء مزر أن الحرية لن تكون إلا منحة بأيدي الحكام وليست حقا من حقوق الشعوب.
ولم ينج بيان قمة بغداد العام الماضي من هذا الازدراء لكلمة الاصلاح حتي بعد ثورات شعبية في خمسة بلدان عربية, حيث أشار الاعلان الي الاشادة بـ التطورات والتغييرات السياسية وربطها بـ احترام القانون, في حين أصر البعض في مؤتمر وزراء الخارجية العرب الأخير علي اعادة إحياء وثيقة العهد البائسة بـ اعتبارها الأساس الأمثل الذي ينبغي الانطلاق منه في التطوير برغم ان الوثيقة ؤدت في مهدها لحظة مولدها عام.2004
ولم يقتصر الأمر علي اجهاض تلك الفرصة الذهبية, بل أن الأنظمة العربية ذات الامكانات المالية البترولية والمواقف السياسية المحافظة والتي أخذت مقعد القيادة في غيبة اطراف مؤثرة في النظام العربي, تعاملت مع حركات التغيير والثورات العربية بطريقة تآمرية, كما شاهدنا في العراق وفي مصر وليبيا واليمن وسوريا, لحسابات علي رأسها منع امتداد شرارة التغيير إليها, وأيضا لرغبة دفينة في اضعاف دول رئيسية تزعجهم قدراتها البشرية والجيواستراتيجية.
الطربقة الوحيدة التي يمكن أن تكون فيها القمة العربية هذه نافعة هي أن تقر استراتيجيات ايجابية متكاملة للوقوف الي جانب الثورات العربية وتتبني أهدافها في تحقيق الديمقراطية الحقيقية والحرية والعدالة والمساواة لجميع الشعوب العربية. ومن مستلزمات ذلك توفير دعم مالي سخي لاعادة بناء دول الثورات العربية التي خربت بسبب سياسات الدكتاتورية ونهب الثروات والفساد ومساعدتها علي تعزيز نموها الاقتصادي والاجتماعي في الفترات الانتقالية التي تمر بها.
مثل هذه المساعدات ليست منة, بل هي كفارة عن تلك السياسات التي عرقلت التحول الديمقراطي في العالم العربي لعقد من الزمن دفعت خلاله شعوبه وستدفع اثمانا باهظة, ولكي تكون ترجمة فعلية لشعار القمة من أجل غد افضل للشعوب العربية. إن مؤتمرا يأنف عن دعم الثورات ويجعلها ورقة في المساومات الاقليمية والدولية, ناهيك عن أن يقر بها في بياناته لا يستحق أن يسمي قمة, بل سيكون قمة اللامعني للنظام العربي ولجامعة دوله.

Fiasco of the Iraq war anniversary

A decade after the US-led invasion of their country, Iraqis are still counting the costs in human suffering and destruction, writes Salah Nasrawi

The newsroom in the villa-turned-office of the Associated Press in the Qatari capital of Doha looked like any other newsroom, except that it was being swiftly readied for “Shock and awe”, the codename given by the Pentagon to the upcoming US-led invasion of Iraq.
In early March 2003, I was sent there as an AP correspondent to join a strong team of editors and writers who would be reporting and supervising news coverage of the war on Iraq.
The gas and oil-rich Gulf emirate was hosting two US military bases and the headquarters of the war command, where daily briefings were planned over the course of the war.
As an Iraqi reporter who had covered the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s and the 1991 Gulf War for AP, I was also supposed to provide independent coverage from the invaded country’s point of view and help other AP reporters shape their stories by providing input on the cultural and historical background of Iraq.
Personally, I did not support the war, but probably like most Iraqis I was excited at the prospect of the new opportunities that could await the Iraqi people after the expected ouster of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
Yet, I already had my doubts about the announced goals of the invasion, especially about its creating a functioning democracy in Iraq. Based on thorough research of the war preparations and previous US experiences of intervention, it had become clear to me that Washington had no nation-building plans for Iraq and that it had thrown together a strategy for the invasion on the fly.
What came to trouble me most and prompted me to leave AP’s war room in Doha after only two weeks was my feeling that I should not put myself in a position where I might be seen as unpatriotic or unconsciously boosting the US-led invasion and occupation of my country.
Indeed, during the standoff with the Saddam regime, I had resisted attempts to be manipulated by the bizarre media fabrication of news about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, which had helped former US president George W Bush make the case for war.
Three months before the war started, I had argued in an article published in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat that the United States would eventually defeat Saddam’s forces, but that disaster would ensue, leaving the country in ruins.
Ten years after the horrendous adventure, Iraq today is a devastated and tormented nation. Reports published on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion show that both the human and financial costs of the invasion of Iraq are higher than most people realise.
A decade of war in Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and potentially contributed to the deaths of many hundreds of thousands more from indirect causes related to devastated infrastructure.
There are now more than one million Iraqi refugees abroad who have little hope of returning to their homes due to the ongoing political instability and violence. Millions of Iraqis remain displaced inside Iraq, some of them indefinitely, and many of them are living in grotesque conditions.
Iraq’s healthcare, infrastructure, and education systems were devastated by the war. Public services, including water and electricity supplies, are in disarray.
The ripple effects on the Iraqi economy have also been significant, as Iraq now imports most of its food, and farmers and factory workers have found themselves out of their jobs as agriculture and industry have ground to a halt.
Corruption is rampant. Bribery, graft and racketeering are not only widespread, but they are also systematic and institutionalised. Since the US occupation in 2003, Iraq has been ranked by the international NGO Transparency International as among the most corrupt countries in the world.
Most women in Iraq live in poverty, and they are shut out of social life. Violence against women, high rates of female unemployment, increasing religious intolerance and widowhood have further eroded their status.
While it was promised that the US-led invasion would bring democracy, freedom and human rights to Iraq, the country remains enmeshed in a grim cycle of human rights abuses, including attacks on civilians, the torture of detainees and unfair trials.
In a report on the country 10 years after the US-led invasion, the international NGO Amnesty International said this week that a decade of abuses had exposed a litany of torture and other ill-treatments of detainees committed by the Iraqi security forces and foreign troops in the wake of the 2003 invasion.
The report highlighted the “Iraqi authorities continuing failure to observe their obligations to uphold human rights and respect the rule of law in the face of persistent deadly attacks by armed groups, who show callous disregard for civilian life.”
Iraq is now gripped in its worst political crisis since the US-led invasion, amid sectarian divisions, rival clashes and terrorist attacks that have sparked concerns about the country’s post-war stability.
Iraq’s government is in disarray. Nearly half of the ministers have been boycotting cabinet meetings for months, while the parliament rarely meets to debate national issues.
The country’s constitution is a matter of opinion, and its political elite are at loggerheads with each other. Its president has been reported to be clinically dead, while political parties cannot even contemplate choosing a successor.
For months, the country has been gripped by the worst political crisis for years, with Iraq’s three main ethnicities bickering over a power and wealth-sharing structure formulated by the US occupation authorities that made Iraq into a federal state.
A few weeks before last 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.
The sharpening divide between Iraq’s Shias and Sunnis has given rise to increasing sectarianism. Hundreds of people are still losing their lives to sectarian conflict each month, mostly in attacks by the Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist group against Shias.
By and large, the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and its aftermath over the past ten years has inflicted multiple disasters on the country and turned Iraq into a failed state.
Today, Iraq stands on the verge of a devastating all-out civil war that would complete what the Americans started by ruining the country that was once the birthplace of human civilisation.
Surprisingly, many of the writers in the US mainstream media who swarmed over Iraq for the tenth anniversary of Bush’s army marching on Baghdad are still removed from reality and look at Iraq through the lenses of the war’s promoters.
Some of them insist that Iraq today has far better prospects than it would have had under Saddam, citing for example the Shias’ public displays of their faith by hanging up images of their revered saints, or nightly TV talk shows that bristle with barking criticisms of the government.
In talking themselves into believing these lurid fantasies, these reporters do not neglect to mention other signs of progress, such as waiters in Baghdad restaurants taking orders for spaghetti and pizza on iPads, or shopping malls and swanky hotels opening up in some parts of Iraq.
Other US writers have missed the opportunity for real reflection on the anniversary, instead engaging in useless debate about the flawed case for the war made by the Bush administration and by the dysfunctional national security process and tensions between different policy-making bodies.
A decade after the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi people are entitled to know more about the deceit of US policy-makers who deliberately and consciously launched a war to destroy Iraq.
Like during the fiasco of the invasion itself, when the US mainstream media participated in building the case for the war, the fiasco of the war’s anniversary has shown that the same media has not been forthcoming in reflecting on the broader question of why the Bush administration embarked on the vicious enterprise of destroying Iraq, unleashing the dynamics that are now playing out and destroying the wider Middle East.

Iraq’s media in the Sectarian crossfire

With sectarian tensions in the country running high, Iraq’s media may be adding fuel to the fire, writes Salah Nasrawi
The sharpening divide between Iraq’s Shias and Sunnis has given rise to sectarianism in the Iraqi media that many believe is increasingly turning nascent outlets into venues for sowing chauvinism and undermining nation-building in the ethnically split and violence-torn country.

The era after the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has brought unprecedented waves of enthusiasm for independent news organisations and triggered a boom in the local media that has given Iraqis free-for-all platforms on their new-found but troubling path to democracy.
However, 10 years after the US-led invasion of the country that toppled the repressive Saddam regime and was hailed as paving the way for democracy in Iraq, the mood has changed as Iraqis face the daily reality of their media suffering from serious professional and ethical problems, including shady ownership, political influence and bias.
Indeed, due to their flagrant bias and even the sectarian warfare they have found themselves engaged in, much of what has been left are merely the mouthpieces of various ethnic and sectarian factions and party patrons who use them for their own ends.
In recent weeks, and as the country has been mired in a deep Shia-Sunni conflict over power and wealth-sharing, concerns have been growing that the media is playing a negative role in deepening the country’s political crisis.
Whether by choice or by ownership agendas, Iraq’s media is widely seen as being driven into participating into the kind of sectarian shouting that many of the country’s politicians fear could be the trigger for renewed civil strife on street level.
Overall, the Iraqi media is now split into three camps, Shia, Sunni and Kurdish, each of which leans towards its own community. While the third is basically oriented to defending Kurdish interests, the Shia and Sunni camps remain engaged in sectarianism and political insult throwing.
Sunni-owned radio and television stations have been accused by Shias of partaking in the vocal fighting by presenting rumours or sectarian rhetoric and giving platforms for speakers and preachers to incite hatred.
Since the Sunnis started demonstrations in December to protest against perceived discrimination, orators at their public rallies have been accusing Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government of being “Safavids”, a derogatory way of saying that it belongs to Shia and Persian Iran and is not of Arab descent.
Another insult used recently at Sunni protests against Shia politicians is that the latter are “Alqamis”, a reference to the Shia chief minister to the last Muslim Abbasid caliph Ibn Alqami, who, Sunnis claim, betrayed the Sunni caliph and surrendered Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258 CE.
Both accusations are meant to blame Iraqi Shias for the US-led invasion in 2003 and Iran’s increasing influence in the country afterwards.
Last week, many Sunni-owned media outlets reported that fliers signed by a Shia militant group had been distributed in some neighbourhoods of Baghdad ordering Sunnis to leave their homes. The same outlets had reported earlier that many Sunni activists had been assassinated by “silencers” in other neighborhoods.
On Sunday, Iraq’s media regulatory body sent a stern warning to the country’s media outlets that it would not tolerate sectarianism in their broadcasts. “They should rectify their discourse and stop the sectarianism,” Mujahid Abul-Leil of the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission was quoted as saying by several Iraqi outlets.
Al-Maliki himself has blasted certain unnamed television networks for providing platforms to his Sunni opponents, whom he has accused of using sectarianism to incite members of their communities against the government.
“I tell those speaking with sectarianism in the sectarian media… to keep away from it,” Al-Maliki told a conference in Basra in south Iraq on Sunday.
On the other hand, Sunnis have accused media outlets owned or financed by Shia political groups of lacking religious tolerance, with some of them going as far as to promote sectarian divisions. 
Many Iraqis accuse Al-Maliki’s Shia-led government of using the state-owned media to slander his opponents as either “terrorists” or “collaborators” with foreign countries.
Among the country’s mostly criticised outlets are Iraqiya TV and the Al-Sabah daily newspaper, which are run by the Iraqi Media Network, a national conglomerate funded by public money.
Although its director, Mohamed Abdel-Jabar Al-Shabout, a Shia journalist who is close to al-Maliki, has denied that the two outlets are government mouthpieces, he has insisted that the group is entitled to take up positions on key issues.
“The duty of the state media is to defend the society and to prevent its slipping into a civil war, to encourage dialogue, and to seek political compromises instead of military confrontations,” Al-Shabout wrote in an editorial in Al-Sabah recently.
“The state-owned media cannot be neutral. Neutrality should not come at the expense of objectivity and national interests. You cannot be neutral between chaos and order, or between war and peace, or between a state and no state,” he wrote.
The Network, which was meant to be a world-class media operation, was established by the US-led coalition to replace Saddam’s state-owned media and produce “fair and balanced news coverage” and function as a public-broadcasting service that would transcend political and sectarian divisions.
However, once leading Shia parties took control of the government following the 2005 elections, the multi-million-dollar body evolved into a propaganda tool for the government with a discernible sectarian bias.
One of the key accusations is that the group did not send reporters to cover the ongoing protests in the Sunni provinces, though Al-Shabout has said that this was out of fear that its reporters could be harassed or even killed.
The Kurds, who have been at loggerheads with the Baghdad government over resources and territory, are also unhappy with the group’s performance and accuse it of being a mouthpiece for Al-Maliki.
The controversy has underscored the troubled status of the Iraqi media, which many believe is a mirror of a country that has acquired the image of an ethnic and sectarian cauldron.
Since the US-led invasion, hundreds of media outlets, including satellite television stations, radio stations and newspapers, have sprung up, many of them owned or run by political groups touted as sectarian.
Dozens of TV and radio stations that now capture the Iraqi airwaves, and many more print publications that pepper Iraqi newsstands, are affiliated with political or religious parties that seek to advance their agendas.  
Some are reportedly financed or backed by Iraq’s neighbours, such as Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and some are accused of being responsible for boosting sectarianism in Iraq. Others receive lavish finance from Iraqi and Arab entrepreneurs who have business interests in Iraq.
Another outlet that is fuelling the sectarian divide in Iraq is the Internet, and many websites can be seen as ways of promoting the interests of sectarian groups.
As a result, Iraq’s media now reflects the country’s political and religious divisions rather than being a diverse and free media and a means to inform, educate and entertain people and act as an essential instrument of nation-building.
What is most disconcerting is that the Iraqi media and journalists are being caught in the crossfire of the country’s sectarian divisions and driven by warlords and self-centred politicians who are inflaming sectarianism for their own greedy interests.


يأخذ الكلام في العلاقات المصرية الايرانية عادة منحي مذهبيا‏,‏ اي في اطار اعادة انتاج خطاب الفتنة التاريخي بين السنة والشيعة‏,‏ وهو ما تجلي مؤخرا بشكل سافر في مناسبتين‏,‏ هما زيارة الرئيس الايراني محمود احمدي نجاد للقاهرة التي صاحبها الكثير من القيل والقال, ونص رسالة منشورة لعدد من المفكرين ورجال الدين الايرانيين معنونة للرئيس المصري محمد مرسي اثير ايضا حول مضمونها ودوافعها الكثير من الجدل الطائفي.
وبالرغم من صعوبة إنكار العامل المذهبي في صراعات المنطقة, سواء كونه حقيقة تاريخية, او عنصرا حاضرا في ازماتها الحالية, الا ان التركيز علي هذا الخطاب ومحاولة منحه الاولوية المطلقة علي العوامل الاقليمية المتفاعلة, يثير تساؤلات عديدة بشأن مبرراته وجدواه, وان كان الامر حقا يتعلق بنزاعات الهوية المتجذرة وقضايا التعايش, ام يتعداه الي مجمل وضع ومستقبل المنطقة في عالم ما بعد الثوارت العربية.
ما يثير المخاوف حقا هو عما اذا كان الخطاب المذهبي سيصب في مقولة الصراع داخل الاسلام الذي يتوقعه البعض كتحصيل حاصل للتغيرات الناتجة من صعود الاسلام السني وهيمنته علي المشهد السياسي وقواعد الحكم في بعض دول الربيع العربي, مقابل تزايد النفوذ الايراني والبزوغ الشيعي في المنطقة الذي تحقق بتميكن شيعة العراق من الدولة اثر الغزو الامريكي له.
ما أريد ان اشير اليه بشكل اكثر وضوحا هنا هو العلاقة الوثيقة بين الصراع الطائفي واحتمال تصاعده ومستقبل الثورات العربية وكيف ان العزف علي الاوتار الطائفية وتأجيج الفتنة السنية الشيعية سيؤدي بالنتيجة الي ضعضعة العملية التاريخية الجارية في عموم المنطقة لتحقيق اهداف الثورات وعلي رأسها وضع اسس الديمقراطية وبناء مجتمعات ودول حديثة متطورة علي انقاض انظمة الاستبداد والاستغلال والتخلف.
من هذا المنظور فان الصراع الحقيقي الجاري في المنطقة الان هو ليس بين اتباع مذهبين في دين واحد ويعبدون إلها واحدا وداخل شعوب تمتلك هوية وطنية وقومية جامعة, كما قد تظهره التشنجات والجعجعات والتطرفات المذهبية, بل هو في الحقيقة بين قوي المستقبل التي تريد ان تبني تلك المجتمعات علي اسس الحرية والعدالة والتقدم, وتلك القوي التي تريد ان تشدنا بعيدا الي وراء, وهي قوي موجودة داخل كل مذهب ودين تتضافر لاعقلانيتها وارتداديتها مع ما تحمله داخلها من اوهام الهوية لكي تنتج ذلك الشحن العدواني تجاه الاخر وللحداثة والديمقراطية.
ويظهر التاريخ الاسلامي عبر قرون طويلة ان قوي الغلو والانغلاق ومحترفي الفتنة المتحالفين مع التسلط والاستبداد بالذات هم الذين أججوا الصراعات واعتاشوا عليها لكي يحولوا الدين الحنيف من رسالة سمحاء قائمة علي اساس العدل الالهي والاحسان وتكريم الانسان واحترام حريته الي ملك عضوض قائم علي بيعة مشتراة, او نيابة ولائية مطلقة لا اساس لها في العقيدة.بل ولعل التاريخ يكتشف اكثر من ذلك وهو ان هلاك الكيانات الاسلامية وخراب العمران لم يأت من التنوع وحتي من الاختلاف المذهبي والعقدي, وانما من فساد الملك وجدب العقل عند اهل الرأي والاستشارة.
بايجاز فإن القضية المطروحة علينا الان كشعوب في هذه المنطقة ليست مواجهة سنية- شيعية بالمعني الفكري والاعتقادي, فذلك اصبح مكانه رفوف الكتب, بل هو صراع سياسي, ان لم يكن مقبولا فهو مفهوم, بين دول وكيانات علي المصالح والثروات والنفوذ والقوة, وهذا ما اثبتته التجربة العراقية وتبرهن عليه التجربة السورية وما يحيط بهما من استقطابات وتحيزات.واذا كان مطلوبا بقوة ايقاف تداعيات هلال الازمة الطائفية المآساوية تلك فمن الاجدر والاولي وقف اتساعه وتوظيفه باستدعاء اطراف ودول اخري في المنطقة وتعميمه لمنع ليس فقط المزيد من تشظي المنطقة وتقسيمها, بل الانهيار النهائي لها ككيان عربي- اسلامي.
ليس لدي أدلة قوية تدعم ما يقوله الرواة من ان هناك مؤامرة خارجية تحاول ان تستغل ثورات الربيع العربي بهدف تأجيج صراع سني- شيعي وتفتيت المنطقة من اجل بقاء اسرائيل وخدمة مصالح الغرب, ولكني مثل غيري لدينا ما يكفي من الحدس وسعة الافق والخبرة بان نري ان هناك تمثلات وممارسات تتيح امكانية الاقتناع بتلك النبوءات الكارثية.ما يمكننا رؤيته ببصيرة هو ان البعض منا قد يعمل, حتي دون قصد ولكن بحمية حاملي مشعل الدفاع عن الهوية, علي تقديم يد العون لمن يعملون علي ذلك السيناريو البغيض.
العلاقات العربية الايرانية بمجملها قضية اشكالية في تاريخ المنطقة المشترك بين الامتين اساسها هو وجود نسختين متعارضتين لديهما من هذا التاريخ.في العصر الحديث ضاعت فرص كثيرة لترميم هذه العلاقة واعادة بنائها علي اسس عقلانية ترتبط بمفاهيم الدولة الحديثة والعلاقات الدولية البناءة وحسن الجوار والشراكة في الاقليم او لم تأت بالنتائج المرجوة.
المرحلة القادمة التي ستختلط وتتشابك خلالها عوامل كثيرة في تلك العلاقات ستكون ضبابية وخاصة لحين حسم مستقبل الحكم وهويته لدي كل طرف. وحتي ذلك الحين سيكون ضروريا مواجهة تحدي العلاقات مع ايران بتفادي اطلاق العنان للوساوس والهذيان الطائفي, بمناسبة او بدونها, والاستعانة بدلا عن ذلك بآليات الحوار والمنابر الدبلوماسية المتوافرة وبالحفاظ علي المصالح المشتركة كجيران في اقليم واحد.

The Iraqi surge revisited

The surge remains America’s most famous and misleading myth in Iraq, writes Salah Nasrawi

Nearly 10 years after the US-led war on Iraq, debate has been renewed about the so-called “surge”, the tactical US military build-up designed to tackle the country’s anti-occupation insurgency and cut US losses from a fight that its troops were losing.
What was advocated by the Bush administration as one of the invasion’s strategic master strokes is increasingly being shown as nothing but another strategic blunder in the disastrous war the United States waged on Iraq in 2003.
The current partisan row in the US Congress over the endorsement of President Barack Obama’s choice for Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel, who opposed the surge while serving as a US senator, has also resonated in Iraq, which is embroiled in one of its worst political crises since the US withdrawal in December 2011.
On Monday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt among a group of Sahwas north of Baghdad, killing at least 22 of the tribal militiamen and wounding dozens amid mounting sectarian tensions and pressures from Al-Qaeda on Iraq’s Sunnis to resume their insurgency against the country’s Shia led-government.
It was the latest attack in recent weeks against the Sahwas, also known as the “Sons of Iraq”, who were set up as part of the surge forged by US General David Petraeus, the US top commander in Iraq at the time, as part of a counter-insurgency strategy to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Desperate to reverse American failures to end the Sunni insurgency in the country, former US president George Bush decided in 2007 to tackle the Iraqi insurgents by ordering a surge of US troops in the country.
The plans were met by opposition by many in Congress who were pressing the administration to begin to pull US troops out of Iraq.
The policy had two declared main goals. First, to bring the level of violence down by increasing US force levels in areas designated as hot spots and forging a tactical alliance with cooperative Sunni groups while shifting to a counter-insurgency strategy to fight Al-Qaeda and other insurgency groups.
The second goal was to promote reconciliation among the competing sectarian and ethnic groups in Iraq.
Shortly after taking command of the US troops in Iraq in February 2007, Petraeus declared that the switch to a counter-insurgency strategy was working, and by autumn 2007 US army commanders and administration officials were boasting that sectarian violence in Iraq had plummeted to levels not seen since the 2003 war, with falling military and civilian casualties.
Their evaluation was that the plans were giving Iraq a chance to climb out of civil war and were creating the time to allow Iraqis to work toward a national political accommodation.
That highly positive assessment gave the Bush administration a chance to redeem itself for the defeat it had suffered in Iraq and clear the way for a US exit from the country.
However, sceptics blasted the assessment as nothing more than an article of faith and another “mission accomplished” declaration, noting that neither goal had been achieved.
Many warned that the consequences of the failure would be catastrophic and would hinder rebuilding Iraq as a viable state, making such an outcome unlikely.
Part of the argument in the current discussions about the Iraqi surge in Washington’s political and media arena is that history has not yet said its final word about the achievements of the strategy.
Indeed, history has long judged the surge, like the war on Iraq itself, as not only the biggest misstep in American military history, but also as a political and strategic fiasco.
Since the beginning, this writer has argued in this paper that the policy was failing. In June 2007, only a few months after the plan was operational, I argued that Washington’s surge strategy seemed to be crumbling based on a careful assessment of all its aspects.
In December, as much of the US media were hailing Petraeus as a hero and as the “man of the year” for bringing victory in Iraq, I again wrote that Iraq was far from being the tranquil democracy that the United States had promised on launching its war, and that it was still wracked by sectarian killing, a stagnant government and deadlocked national reconciliation.
Barely a year after the last US soldier pulled out of Iraq, the nation today continues to see regular outbreaks of sectarian violence and almost daily terrorist attacks, including a wave of bombings this week that killed dozens of people, including Sahwas members.
Violence last year rose to levels not seen for more than two years, with the toll in the deaths of civilians due to the political violence reaching 4,471, according to Iraq Body Count, a monitoring group, or slightly more than the year before.
Iraqi Sunni insurgents are back at work, and they are targeting Iraqi Shias and people connected to the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. Al-Qaeda has stepped up its campaign against the Shias, and last week it urged all Sunnis to take up arms, leading to fears of civil war.
The Sahwas, controlling tens of thousands of fighters when they were part of the surge, crumbled after the government stopped paying their salaries and integrating them into the security forces.
Hundreds of the militiamen, many of them former insurgents, have been killed by Al-Qaeda, which considers them to be collaborators with the Americans and the Shia-led government.
A recent wave of rallies across the mainly Sunni areas to the north and west of Baghdad, including strikes and sit-ins, has sharpened the sectarian tensions. The Sunni protests were triggered by the arrest of the bodyguards of Sunni Finance Minister Rafei Al-Eissawi on 21 December on charges of terrorism and targeting Shias.
The protests raised speculation about the future of the violence-torn nation amid the worst political deadlock and sectarian divisions seen since the US troops departed.
The seven-week demonstrations seem to be a sign of regained Sunni confidence in the face of Shia domination since the US-led invasion that toppled the Sunni regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Iraq has remained gripped in its worst political crisis as the leaders of its divided sectarian and ethnic communities have failed to reach agreement on how to share power and government revenues.
The country’s Sunni and Kurdish leaders have accused Al-Maliki of violating the terms of a power-sharing deal he signed with rival political parties following inconclusive parliamentary elections in 2010.
As the political crisis in Iraq deepens, Baghdad has been embroiled in a long-running dispute over political participation, oil and land and revenue-sharing with the Kurds in the north.
Tensions between the central Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish region intensified following reports of a military stand-off between Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and the Iraqi army.
As the Sunni protests continue and the violence escalates 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.
Corruption in Iraq is not only widespread and endemic, but also systematic and institutionalised.  Most of Iraq’s political leaders are believed to be involved in one type or another of corruption, kickbacks or embezzlement.
Some face corruption charges, including theft or mishandling of state property, nepotism and extortion.
If the objective of the surge was to build a stable and democratic Iraq before the US troop withdrawal, then all these and other mishaps are living testimonies of the stark US defeat in Iraq.
It is sad, disappointing and shameful that some US congressmen, as the handling of Hagel’s confirmation hearing has shown, have been engaged in political game-playing while ignoring Iraq’s ongoing tragedy that was caused by the US occupation.

Analysis & views from the Middle East