NYT : Iraqi Factions’ Self-Interest Blocks Political Progress

Iraqi Factions’ Self-Interest Blocks Political Progress

By DAMIEN CAVE | August 25, 2007

BAGHDAD, Aug. 24 — The National Intelligence Estimate released Thursday illustrated convincingly that, despite the troop buildup, Iraq has failed to forge the political reconciliation that could lead to long-term security and economic growth.

What it did not explain, though, is why reconciliation has been so hard to attain.

In part, of course, Iraq remains a place pocked by violence and fear, which makes compromise difficult. But more important, say Iraqi political commentators and officials, Iraq has become a cellular nation, dividing and redividing into competing constituencies that have a greater stake in continued chaos than in compromise.

In most areas, for most Iraqis, the central government today is either irrelevant or invisible. Provinces and even neighborhoods have become the stages where power struggles play out. As a result, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — or elements of each faction — have come to feel that they can do a better job on their own.

“No one can rely on the political participants who lack a common view of the public interest,” said Nabeel Mahmoud, an international relations professor at Baghdad University. “Such a concept is completely absent from the thinking of the political powers in Iraq’s government, so each side works to get their own quota of positions or resources.”

Because of their autonomy, the Kurds are perhaps best positioned to benefit from the government’s failures. American protection in the final years of the Hussein government helped disconnect the Kurdistan region from the rest of Iraq, bringing glass office towers and foreign workers to cities like Erbil.

Earlier this month the Kurds took another step in that distancing process, passing a regional oil law that will reach its full potential only if a national oil law is never implemented.

Shiites and Sunnis, however, are still the factions with the greatest responsibility for Iraq’s political stalemate, and the ones most able to gain from the dysfunctional status quo.

Shiites in particular, as the majority, have managed to take advantage of the weak central government in a number of ways.

Religious parties in majority-Shiite areas like Basra now openly fight for positions of power. Killings of Shiite officials by Shiite gunmen in the south have grown more common, and with huge oil wealth located in the region, interference from Baghdad remains entirely unwelcome.

In the capital, offices run by the militia and civilian organization of the populist cleric Moktada al-Sadr have opened like franchises across the city. His militia, the Mahdi Army, known as Jaish al-Mahdi, now controls businesses ranging from real estate and ice to guns and gas. One Mahdi commander from eastern Baghdad recently estimated that the militia controlled 70 percent of the city’s gas stations, a figure that is hard to verify but which falls in line with what American officials describe as a sophisticated network that combines brutality with business.

Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, for example, recently called the organization “Jaish al-Mahdi Incorporated.”

Mr. Sadr does play a role in the government. His party — encouraged by the Americans to join Iraq’s government — controls several ministries rich in resources, including the Health Ministry. Without Mr. Sadr’s support, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite, would not have become prime minister.

Like many others here, Mr. Sadr and his followers have recently turned on Mr. Maliki, repeatedly pulling out of the government to register discontent. And yet, Mr. Sadr has not called for a replacement.

Many here say that is because he knows that a strong government would be likely to crack down on what his organization has built.

“The people outside the law, the militia, the terrorists, the tribal leaders — all these people benefit,” said Qasim Dawood, a Shiite member of Parliament. “There are people living on the crisis, gaining their power through the crisis.”

New sources of power have also formed in the Sunni community. Millions of dollars in American reconstruction contracts have gone to Sunni tribal groups in Anbar who now work alongside the Americans to fight homegrown groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Similar bands of Sunni “guardians,” as the American military often calls them, have formed in Diyala Province and in Sunni areas in and around Baghdad.

Leaders from the groups have said they would like to join the government, but according to some American officers working with the groups, their most common demand has consisted of three things: money, guns and freedom of movement. It is unclear what they will do if they are not given what they consider a fair share of power.

The National Intelligence Estimate points out that if the Iraqi government does not move quickly to co-opt the tribes, American support for them could “shift greater power to the regions, undermine efforts to impose central authority and reinvigorate armed opposition to the Baghdad government.”

In short, the American strategy for Sunni Arab areas — widely described as promising — may ultimately encourage sectarianism and undermine the democracy that American troops are meant to support.

Sunni Arab leaders, nearly all of whom have pulled out of Iraq’s government, say they have no choice but to remain in opposition. Their communities view Shiite power as illegitimate, so signing on to legislation like a new oil law is anathema.

Indeed, for many Iraqis, seeing the government actually work together — at a time when so many are invested in keeping it weak — would be cause for alarm, not celebration.

As Saleh al-Mutlak, one senior Sunni leader, put it: “We have to satisfy people’s frustrations.”

Wisam A Habeeb contributed reporting.