The Iraq Study Group Report

Presented by Lapham's Quarterly and the Institute for the Future of the Book

B. The Internal Approach » The Way Forward

2. National Reconciliation

National reconciliation is essential to reduce further violence and maintain the unity of Iraq.

U.S. forces can help provide stability for a time to enable Iraqi leaders to negotiate political solutions, but they cannot stop the violence—or even contain it—if there is no underlying political agreement among Iraqis about the future of their country.

The Iraqi government must send a clear signal to Sunnis that there is a place for them in national life. The government needs to act now, to give a signal of hope. Unless Sunnis believe they can get a fair deal in Iraq through the political process, there is no prospect that the insurgency will end. To strike this fair deal, the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people must address several issues that are critical to the success of national reconciliation and thus to the future of Iraq.

Steps for Iraq to Take on Behalf of National Reconciliation

RECOMMENDATION 26: Constitution review. Review of the constitution is essential to national reconciliation and should be pursued on an urgent basis. The United Nations has expertise in this field, and should play a role in this process.

RECOMMENDATION 27: De-Baathification. Political reconciliation requires the reintegration of Baathists and Arab nationalists into national life, with the leading figures of Saddam Hussein’s regime excluded. The United States should encourage the return of qualified Iraqi professionals—Sunni or Shia, nationalist or ex-Baathist, Kurd or Turkmen or Christian or Arab—into the government.

RECOMMENDATION 28: Oil revenue sharing. Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population. No formula that gives control over revenues from future fields to the regions or gives control of oil fields to the regions is compatible with national reconciliation.

RECOMMENDATION 29: Provincial elections. Provincial elections should be held at the earliest possible date. Under the constitution, new provincial elections should have been held already. They are necessary to restore representative government.

RECOMMENDATION 30: Kirkuk. Given the very dangerous situation in Kirkuk, international arbitration is necessary to avert communal violence. Kirkuk’s mix of Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen populations could make it a powder keg. A referendum on the future of Kirkuk (as required by the Iraqi Constitution before the end of 2007) would be explosive and should be delayed. This issue should be placed on the agenda of the International Iraq Support Group as part of the New Diplomatic Offensive.

RECOMMENDATION 31: Amnesty. Amnesty proposals must be far-reaching. Any successful effort at national reconciliation must involve those in the government finding ways and means to reconcile with former bitter enemies.

RECOMMENDATION 32: Minorities. The rights of women and the rights of all minority communities in Iraq, including Turkmen, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Yazidis, Sabeans, and Armenians, must be protected.

RECOMMENDATION 33: Civil society. The Iraqi government should stop using the process of registering nongovernmental organizations as a tool for politicizing or stopping their activities. Registration should be solely an administrative act, not an occasion for government censorship and interference.

Steps for the United States to Take on Behalf of National Reconciliation

The United States can take several steps to assist in Iraq’s reconciliation process.

The presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is a key topic of interest in a national reconciliation dialogue. The point is not for the United States to set timetables or deadlines for withdrawal, an approach that we oppose. The point is for the United States and Iraq to make clear their shared interest in the orderly departure of U.S. forces as Iraqi forces take on the security mission. A successful national reconciliation dialogue will advance that departure date.

RECOMMENDATION 34: The question of the future U.S. force presence must be on the table for discussion as the national reconciliation dialogue takes place. Its inclusion will increase the likelihood of participation by insurgents and militia leaders, and thereby increase the possibilities for success.

Violence cannot end unless dialogue begins, and the dialogue must involve those who wield power, not simply those who hold political office. The United States must try to talk directly to Grand Ayatollah Sistani and must consider appointing a high-level American Shia Muslim to serve as an emissary to him. The United States must also try to talk directly to Moqtada al- Sadr, to militia leaders, and to insurgent leaders. The United Nations can help facilitate contacts.

RECOMMENDATION 35: The United States must make active efforts to engage all parties in Iraq, with the exception of al Qaeda. The United States must find a way to talk to Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Moqtada al-Sadr, and militia and insurgent leaders.

The very focus on sectarian identity that endangers Iraq also presents opportunities to seek broader support for a national reconciliation dialogue. Working with Iraqi leaders, the international community and religious leaders can play an important role in fostering dialogue and reconciliation across the sectarian divide. The United States should actively encourage the constructive participation of all who can take part in advancing national reconciliation within Iraq.

RECOMMENDATION 36: The United States should encourage dialogue between sectarian communities, as outlined in the New Diplomatic Offensive above. It should press religious leaders inside and outside Iraq to speak out on behalf of peace and reconciliation.

Finally, amnesty proposals from the Iraqi government are an important incentive in reconciliation talks and they need to be generous. Amnesty proposals to once-bitter enemies will be difficult for the United States to accept, just as they will be difficult for the Iraqis to make. Yet amnesty is an issue to be grappled with by the Iraqis, not by Americans. Despite being politically unpopular—in the United States as well as in Iraq—amnesty is essential if progress is to take place. Iraqi leaders need to be certain that they have U.S. support as they move forward with this critical element of national reconciliation.

RECOMMENDATION 37: Iraqi amnesty proposals must not be undercut in Washington by either the executive or the legislative branch.

Militias and National Reconciliation

The use of force by the government of Iraq is appropriate and necessary to stop militias that act as death squads or use violence against institutions of the state. However, solving the problem of militias requires national reconciliation.

Dealing with Iraq’s militias will require long-term attention, and substantial funding will be needed to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate militia members into civilian society. Around the world, this process of transitioning members of irregular military forces from civil conflict to new lives once a peace settlement takes hold is familiar. The disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of militias depends on national reconciliation and on confidence-building measures among the parties to that reconciliation.

Both the United Nations and expert and experienced nongovernmental organizations, especially the International Organization for Migration, must be on the ground with appropriate personnel months before any program to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate militia members begins. Because the United States is a party to the conflict, the U.S. military should not be involved in implementing such a program. Yet U.S. financial and technical support is crucial.

RECOMMENDATION 38: The United States should support the presence of neutral international experts as advisors to the Iraqi government on the processes of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration.

RECOMMENDATION 39: The United States should provide financial and technical support and establish a single office in Iraq to coordinate assistance to the Iraqi government and its expert advisors to aid a program to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate militia members.

3. Security and Military Forces »

« 1. Performance on Milestones

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Frances FitzGerald says:

As more sophisticated members of the ISG must know, national reconciliation and the disbanding of the militias in Iraq are not going to be completed on a US electoral schedule. It will take much more than two years for that under the best of circumstances. The Kurds, for example, will never dismantle the pershmerga until they feel their security is completely assured – and perhaps not even then. (That some wear Iraqi army uniforms doesn’t make them any less peshmerga.) As for the Arabs, it is not clear they could disband the militias even if Moqtada al-Sadr and every other prominent leader agreed to the idea. So, what is the purpose of this series of recommendations? Well, it would be one way to extricate the American troops and blame the Iraqis for whatever ensues.

Reidar Visser says:

The national reconciliation recommendations form an especially interesting part of the report. The proposals presented are quite radical but at the same time, it is clear that the United States have only limited possibilities for doing anything in practice about what is an internal Iraqi constitutional process. What is remarkable is that there has been no American attempt to link these issues in a positive-sum game. Instead of unilaterally imposing troop “surges” and trying to engineer “moderate coalitions” in backroom deals, Washington could have opted for a “deal” and conditionality logic instead, for instance by offering enhanced security (for instance a temporary increase of troops and more economic aid) in return for progress on constitutional reform. If the whole package were timetabled towards a full withdrawal of US troops, this could appeal to Iraqi nationalists and American opponents of the Iraq War alike.

Reidar Visser says:

This is an obvious challenge to the current constitution with its differentiation between “existing” and “future” fields, and with a role for the regions in administering the latter. Given the composition of the committee charged with revising the constitution, this proposal – especially the portion that involves restoring the dominant role of the central government with regard to future fields – may at first seem unrealistic. However, among the Iraqi population at large, many still believe in a role for the central government in administering the oil sector. Often overlooked is the fact that the Iraqi oil resources outside the two centers of Basra and Kirkuk are comparatively negligible. Hence to speak of “Kurdish oil” or “Shiite oil” as if these resources were evenly distributed throughout Kurdish and Shiite territory is misleading. Most Iraqi governorates, including most Kurdish and Shiite areas, are relatively speaking poor in oil and stand to profit from an equitable distribution system channeled through the center. It is somewhat surprising that the report is mute with regard to another potential area of constitutional change where there already is a broad spectrum of Iraqi opinion: the rules for demarcating federal entities. Several parties have proposed size limits (three governorates, or even one governorate) and this is an area where moderate Shiite and Sunni opinions meet.

Reidar Visser says:

This is an attempt at rectifying what may well be one of the most catastrophic legacies of the CPA period: the acknowledgement in the Transitional Administrative Law of Kirkuk as “disputed territory” whose status is to be resolved after the taking of a census. Clearly the criminal displacement policies by the old regime could have been dealt with at the level of individuals and families instead, without resort to vocabulary from the murky world of ethno-religious politics such as “disputed territories”.

Kevin Baker says:

Just above, in paragraph 18, the Study Group is insisting that we negotiate with nearly “all parties in Iraq,” including “militia and insurgent leaders.” But seven paragraphs later, it seems, the militias will simply be negotiating their own demise. Why should they, and their leaders, possibly acquiesce in this?

Karl Meyer says:

I was especially struck by this recommendation that the rights of women and religious minorities “must be protected.” That imperative “must” must elicit a sigh from those familiar with the Iraqi past. Long before Saddam Hussein”s dreadful reign, Iraq evidenced a talent for intolerance unusual even by Middle Eastern standards. So frequent were massacres from the founding of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1921 that the new state was admitted to the League of Nations in 1932 only after it promised to guarantee to protect its minorities.

What immediately followed was described before his death in 1992 by Elie Kedourie of the London School oi Economics, a scholar of regal authority who had been born Jewish in Baghdad: “In 1933, the kingdom inaugurated its independence by a massacre of the Assyrians carried out by the Iraqi army.” The newly enthroned King Ghazi, successor to Faisal !, then promotrd the commander in charge (the Assyrians are Nestorian Christians of ancient origin who then were of special concern to the Church of England). As Kedourie added in a 1969 essay, “Brief as it is, the history of the Kingdom oi Iraq is full of bloodshed, treason and rapine, and however pitiful its end, we may now say that this was implicit in its beginning.”

It is commonly forgotten that a cabal of pro-Nazi officers seized power in May 1941, the only such coup to occur during the Second World War in the Middle East. At that point, Germany seemed irresistible and Britain was the sole European power to militarily challenge Adolf Hitler. If the Iraqi coup had succeeded, the oil-starved Germans would have formidably benefited. Baghdad was then host to the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti, a powerful clerical figure who called for a holy war against Jews. But Churchill, overruling his theater commander, rushed troopd to retake Baghdad, oust the Grand Mufti and restore the deposed king and prime minister. However, absent pccupying British troops and while the Iraqi army stood by, some 800 Jews were murdered and their homes and shops pillaged.

This was the prelude to the forced expulsion in 1948-1951 of 160,000 Iraqi Jews, who once formed the proudest and largest Jewish community in the Arab Middle East. And yet in light of past Iraqi intolerance to a dozen or so ethnic and religious communiies, the Study Group admonishes that Iraq “must” protect its minorities. If it does not, will the United States offer asylum to those who flee? Alas, the Study Group sheds little light on this relevant question (the current U.S. immigration quota for Iraq is 5,000 per annum).

Frances FitzGerald says:

Reidar Visser says:

Kevin Baker says:

Karl Meyer says:

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Frances FitzGerald says:

January 4th, 2007

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Reidar Visser says:

January 7th, 2007

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Reidar Visser says:

January 7th, 2007

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Reidar Visser says:

January 7th, 2007

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Kevin Baker says:

January 8th, 2007

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Karl Meyer says:

January 10th, 2007

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2. National Reconciliation

Steps for Iraq to Take on Behalf of National Reconciliation

Steps for the United States to Take on Behalf of National Reconciliation

Militias and National Reconciliation

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