Prof Cutler | Musings on the News

Those trying to discern any implicit political tilt to the Baghdad security plan should not be satisfied by White House professions of (and demands for) political neutrality and even handedness.

Instead, the best way to trace the contours of US policy is to listen for the howls of protest.

Here comes one now, and it suggests a pro-Shiite tilt.  Here is the Associated Press story:

The most prominent Sunni in Iraq’s fragmented government said Monday that the United States is going to have to come up with a “Plan B” if the current crackdown fails to stem the violence in the capital.

Tariq al-Hashemi, the Sunni vice president, also warned that the Shiite-led government has no choice but to use force against sectarian militias, even though it may be too late to keep them from resuming killings and kidnappings when the Baghdad security crackdown ends…

“The option of a political solution failed, and there is no choice now for the government except to use force against these militias – but it’s too late,” he said…

“Up to now, legal procedures have not been observed,” al-Hashemi said. “The human rights of Iraqis have not been respected as they should be. In this regard, this (security) plan is being implemented in the same way the previous ones were. This is surely regrettable.”

At the same time, he said efforts to lure Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms was “moving at the speed of turtles” because the Shiite parties are reluctant “to bring them into the political process.”

“They view the resistance as a terror group that is no different from al-Qaida and that’s the problem we are facing now,” he said of the Shiites.

One day after the official “launch” of the Baghdad surge and crackdown, here come the (earliest and totally preliminary) answers to the questions about US policy in Iraq:

Target #1: “Rogue” elements of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite Mahdi Army.  Reuters has the details:

U.S. and Iraqi forces detained Iraq’s deputy health minister on Thursday, a senior member of a radical Shi’ite political group, in the first major sign that a security crackdown in Baghdad was under way.

The U.S. military, without naming anyone, said a senior Health Ministry official had been detained on suspicion of infiltrating rogue members of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia into the ministry.

Ministry officials and witnesses said deputy Health Minister Hakim Zamili, from Sadr’s movement, was detained during the raid by U.S. and Iraqi forces on the Health Ministry in Baghdad.

“He is suspected of funding rogue JAM through large-scale employment of militia members,” a U.S. military statement said, using the acronym for the militia.

BBC even has Zamili’s picture.

So, if this is “rogue” rage, where is the “official” Sadrist movement?

Here is the Financial Times on that rather urgent question:

Last August, this correspondent observed US troops search one of the [health] complex’s buildings and arrest guards whom they believed may have hidden kidnap victims inside.

Later in the nearby battalion headquarters, the Iraqi commander to whom the captives had been transferred was besieged by phone calls from his superiors demanding the men be let go.

Sadrists say that Mr Sadr himself has directed his followers not to confront the US military or the Iraqi government, although this policy may be tested by such a high-profile arrest.

Right.  So, has Sadr been coopted by the Cheney crowd?  Or is he simply lying low.  Is the US moving ahead with a pre-approved program of helping Sadr gain control of his own “unruly” rank and file?  Or is the US spoiling for a fight with Sadr, using this high-profile arrest to draw the Sadrists into a confrontation?

Right now, I only have questions about US policy in Iraq.

1. Is the US preparing for a big counter-insurgency push against the Sunni insurgency?

The Haifa Street battles and the downing of several US helicopters by what appear to be Sunni insurgent forces tend to make it seem that the US is returning to the aggressive anti-Sunni moves from the summer of 2003.

At the same, Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post has been saying that Prime Minister Maliki and his Shiite governing coalition opposed the surge because they really only wanted the US to get out of the way so the Shia could complete the “ethnic cleansing” of Sunni Baghdad.

If Shiite power–the so-called “80 Percent Solution”–is the aim, why not simply “release” the Shia?

2. Is the US preparing to take on Sadr and the Shiite militias?

Recent attacks on senior Sadrist figures seems to point in that direction.

At the same time, the US continues to stand by Maliki even as he appears to be quite dependent on Sadr.

If the goal is to try to close “Pandora’s box” and restore Sunni minority control, why not back a Sunni coup and “release” a proto-Baathist attack on the Shia?

3. Is the US trying to use American soldiers to protect Shiite and Sunni populations from each other in the name of National Reconciliation?

Good luck with that.

4. Is the US preparing for a two-front war against Shiite militias and the Sunni insurgency?

Please…

In a prior post, I noted that Reuel Marc Gerecht over at the Right Zionist American Enterprise Institute was quite adamant that the US should not inaugurate a new, aggressive counter-insurgency campaign with direct confrontation with Sadr.

It now appears that the US (and Prime Minister Maliki) has gone ahead–pace Gerecht (and Cheney?)–and launched a crackdown on Sadr’s organization, including at least one high level leader.  CNN is reporting:

In an overnight raid, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops captured a top aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in eastern Baghdad, the militia’s spokesman told CNN Friday.

The spokesman said Sheikh Abdul al-Hadi Darraji — the director of Sadr’s main offices in Sadr City — was arrested at a mosque in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Belediyat, just outside Sadr City.

A U.S. military statement Friday did not name Darraji specifically but did announce U.S. and Iraqi forces had arrested a “high-level, illegal armed group leader” blamed for kidnapping, torturing and killing Iraqi civilians while heading an “illegal armed group punishment committee.”

In addition, the “armed group leader” is suspected of working with “death squad commanders” and armed group cells that practice sectarian revenge killings in Baghdad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Wednesday that security forces in recent days cracked down on the Mehdi Army. He said 400 arrests were made.

The last time the US moved against a top aide to Sadr, back in April 2004, the capture sparked a Shiite uprising in Baghdad.

At several points in 2006, the US has been to the brink of a renewed confrontation with Sadr.  But each move has been short-circuited.

Is the US now courting a full confrontation with Shiite Baghdad?  If so, it is not hard to imagine how a Shiite rebellion might ensue and how this uprising, in turn, might lead the US and some elements of the Sunni political elite to call for the formation of a “national salvation government”–an anti-Shiite coup–to quell the unrest and “restore order.”

In another scenario, Sadr himself has given the green light for Maliki’s move against Sheikh Abdul al-Hadi Darraji, not only to appease the US but also to let US forces battle rogue forces within his own Mahdi Army militia.

The US is suggesting that Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji has links to Abu Diraa, the figure I have been calling the Keyser Söze of Sadr City.  The Associated Press makes the link:

“The suspect allegedly leads various illegal armed group operations and is affiliated with illegal armed group cells targeting Iraqi civilians for sectarian attacks and violence,” [a military] statement read, adding he was believed to be affiliated with Baghdad death squad commanders, including Abu Diraa, a Shiite militia leader who has gained a reputation for his brutality.

The AP story also includes a threat from Sadrists in Najaf of a violent backlash:

Abdul-Razzaq al-Nidawi, an al-Sadr aide in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, demanded that al-Darraji and other detainees from the cleric’s movement, be released and called for demonstrations after the weekly Friday prayer services.

“America is playing with fire and our patience is beginning to fade,” he said. “This savage barbarian act will not pass peacefully.”

But Reuters reports that the Sadrists disavowed a violent response:

The U.S. military said in a statement that Iraqi special forces backed by American advisers seized an unnamed man they described as a death squad leader wanted for kidnap, torture and murder and linked to fugitive Shi’ite warlord Abu Deraa.

Aides to Sadr said the man held was Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a prominent media spokesman for their movement. An official in Sadr’s political office branded his detention a deliberate “provocation” but said they would not respond with violence.

Gerecht has suggested that Sadr “may play along.”  But that idea was predicated on a US campaign that began by targeting the Sunni insurgency, not the Shia of Sadr City.

This move against al-Darraji makes it seem like the point of the “surge” is to take on the Shia.  Even at the level of appearances, this move could provoke a Shiite backlash–a rebellion that extends beyond the control of Muqtada al-Sadr.

The preview of the Iraq Policy Review seemed to indicate that the Bush administration was thinking of the new “Way Forward” in Iraq as consistent with efforts to woo Sunni political forces into government, even as the US tried to isolate Muqtada al-Sadr and crackdown on the Shiite militias of Sadr City.  Here is the preview from the Washington Post‘s Robin Wright:

The centerpiece of the political plan is the creation of a national reconciliation government that would bring together the two main Shiite parties with the two largest Kurdish parties and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials. The goal is to marginalize Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the largest and most powerful Shiite militia and head of a group that has 30 seats in parliament and five cabinet posts.

But it seems as though the “Way Forward” may actually mark more of a shift.  And that shift may have already begun.

I have in mind the operation, initiated by US forces, to take control of Haifa Street.  Here is the Washington Post report:

The fighting in the area began four days ago, when Iraqi soldiers killed 30 insurgents after uncovering what was described as an unauthorized checkpoint, according to a Defense Ministry spokesman. Pearson said Iraqi army commanders asked for U.S. assistance after insurgents killed several Iraqi soldiers two days ago.

At 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, about 400 U.S. troops from the Stryker Brigade rolled toward Haifa Street, meeting up with Iraqi army units along the way.

They arrived about 5:30 a.m. In the pre-dawn darkness, the joint forces took control of the buildings surrounding Tallil Square, a key target of the operation.

“We showed up in their living room for breakfast,” Pearson said. About 7 a.m., the trouble began. “As soon as the sun came up, the insurgents began shooting,” he said.

“We started taking it from all sides,” [Sgt. Israel] Schaeffer recalled.

From rooftops and doorways, the gunmen fired AK-47 assault rifles and machine guns. Snipers also were targeting the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. U.S. soldiers started firing back with 50-caliber machine guns mounted on their Stryker armored vehicles. They used TOW missiles and Mark-19 grenade launchers. The F-15 fighter jets strafed rooftops with cannons, while the Apaches fired Hellfire missiles. But the insurgents kept fighting.

“They were able to coordinate mortars at us. They were able to execute well-aimed shots from the cover of buildings,” said Capt. Robert Callaghan, who was coordinating air support for the operation. “There were mortar rounds that went off close to our vehicle. It was difficult to concentrate on my job.”

Schaeffer was surprised. He was accustomed to the hit-and-run tactics that the insurgents typically have used over the past few months.

“We fired a TOW missile into a building,” he said. “A few minutes later we started taking fire again from the building. Normally, that would have pretty much ended the whole engagement. They were fighting pretty persistently.”

“The terrain was in their favor,” he added. “It is about as defensible a terrain as you can get.”

Sounds like urban counter-insurgency.  In a Sunni neighborhood.

Are Sunni political leaders–especially the ones the Bush administration are supposedly courting–on board with the new “way forward”?

Not so much.

In a statement, the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party described the 50 killed as “innocent citizens.” It asserted that Sunnis on Haifa Street were “under siege” by Shiite militias backed by the Iraqi army.

The Iraqi Islamic Party.  Isn’t that the party–led by White House visitor and Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi that was supposed to form the Sunni backbone of the new “moderate” government the Bush administration was trying to promote to beat back Sadr?

Add, on top of that, the fact that the military brass is backing off from a confrontation with Sadr himself:

Odierno said U.S. forces would leave dealing with Sadr to Iraqi authorities. “I’m not sure we take him down,” he said.

“There are some extreme elements (of the Mehdi Army) … and we will go after them. I will allow the government to decide whether (Sadr) is part of it or not. He is currently working within the political system.”

What does it all add up to?

The Shiite Option after all?

Too early to tell.  Stay tuned.

Iraqi oil is back in the news.

The most recent flurry of chatter was prompted by an article in the Independent on Sunday entitled, “The Future of Iraq: The Spoils of War.”

The central focus of the article is on a draft hydrocarbons law that has the Iraqi oil industry operate under production sharing agreements or PSAs that provide very generous terms of international oil companies.

An article in the Turkish Daily News suggests that the PSA terms in the draft law will be extraordinarily generous:

According to the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) system to be invoked by the draft, companies will have the right to retain 75 percent of their annual income from Iraqi oilfields, until they match their oil production costs. After then they will be able to pocket 20 percent of the annual income. Experts point to the fact that this is double normal market rates.

The Iraqi oil story is extremely import, but the “news” is not the PSA system.  I discussed negotiations over PSA terms in a couple of October posts (here and here).  Greg Muttittt and others made news with the PSA story back in November 2005 with a report entitled “Crude Designs.”

The centrality of oil to US plans in Iraq cannot be overstated.  I have always liked Chomsky’s way of framing that part of the story:

[W]e are under a rigid doctrine in the West, a religious fanaticism, that says we must believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq even if its main product was lettuce and pickles… Well, you know, if you have three gray cells functioning, you know that that’s perfect nonsense. The U.S. invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources, mostly untapped, and it’s right in the heart of the world’s energy system.

The problem, however, has always been and continues to be for the Bush administration to get the domestic Iraqi politics and regional geo-politics aligned in such a way to get the deals done and the oil flowing.

On this score, it should be noted that a draft law–even if adopted by the current Iraqi parliament–does not yet constitute “success.”  Here is one sober industry reaction (Simon Wardell, “Draft Oil Law: New Iraqi Law Will Reportedly Allow Large-Scale Investment by Western Oil Majors,” Global Insight Daily Analysis, January 8, 2007):

[T]he legislation is just the first of several steps which will be required before any wells are sunk. The security situation still presents a major challenge which no major is currently willing to face. While deals may be struck, they will be contingent upon an improvement in the security situation. There will also be major risks in pouring capital into Iraq’s oil sector due to the political instability. Even if the security picture improves, governments may change, and the status of PSAs may come under question at a later date, as they have in Russia. The lack of a political consensus in Iraq makes this risk more significant…

The crux of the matter is that the political stability favored, if not required, by the Oil Majors was critically upset the day in May 2003 that the Bush administration adopted its de-Baathification policy and thoroughly undermined by the three major votes of 2005 that handed political power to Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds.

From the perspective of the foreign policy establishment, the preferred path for political stability in Iraq was then and continues to be benign dictatorship under Sunni minority control.

The proper model for a simple US oil grab is the Libya deal, not Iraq.  Saddamism without Saddam.

So the Bush administration has been scrambling to construct some kind of political stability, not only within Iraq but within the region, that would allow the oil to flow.

The News from Kurdistan

One key sticking point has been the locus of control over new oil field development within Iraq.  In other words, who gets to sign the contracts?

The Kurds have always hoped to win control for the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq–and to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk within that regional entity.

The news of an oil “breakthrough” in Iraq is mostly on the Kurdish front.

Shiite forces abanonded the Kurds on this issue.

Now, the Kurds appear to have conceded the point.

In late December 2006, the Kurdish Globe reported:

Oil has been a major issue dividing Kurdish and Iraqi authorities in post-war Iraq. KRG says it is constitutionally allowed to drill for oil in areas under its control, but Iraqi oil officials have threatened that KRG’s oil deals will not be “valid.”

“Most of the oil wells are in southern Iraq, and the oil law allows KRG to talk with companies and make deals for oil production,” [Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan] Barzani said…

According to preliminary agreements between the KRG and federal authorities, a representative from the Baghdad government will attend talks between the KRG and oil firms. Once the KRG reaches a deal with a company to drill for oil in Kurdistan, the contract will be sent to Baghdad for assessment and approval by an Iraqi government committee. The contract will then be returned to the KRG and it will have 60 days to sign it…

“There needs to be some criteria according to which the (oil) contracts are investigated so as to know if there is any corruption in the deals or to what extent the company will implement its obligations,” Barzani said.

Note well: this is Barzani’s concession speech and it will not likely be greeted with thunderous applause in Kurdistan.  Barzani’s two justifications for centralized control–that most of the wells are in southern Iraq (and therefore a source of wealth for Kurds only under centralization) and that central authorities need to be able to investigate corruption–are very thin fig leaves, given the history of Kurdish demands for autonomy.  Look for an internal Kurdish split that would challenge Barzani for “selling out” the Kurds.

The Kurdish concession has regional implications insofar as Turkey has been firm in its opposition to Kurdish autonomy.  Indeed, just as the Kurds were conceding the point, Kirkuk oil began to flow in the pipeline to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan.  Perhaps it is no coincidence.

Note, too, that the future of Kurdish control of Kirkuk also looks increasingly fragile, with John McCain now leading a campaign to delay a referendum on Kirkuk that would likely establish Kurdish control of the city.

In the last instance, these Kurdish concessions are part of a larger campaign to restore centralized national political control in Iraq.

On the oil front, centralization is likely intended to appease Sunni rejectionists.  It will also please Muqtada al-Sadr who is a strident critic of Kurdish control of Kirkuk and of decentralization, more generally.  Is Sadr willing to trade privatization (i.e., production sharing agreements) for centralization?

If so, then the US will have effectively exploited the threat of Kurdish regional PSAs to extract comparable concessions from Iraqi nationalists.

Bush’s Iraq Policy Review looks set to announce that on the political front in Iraq there will be no change, even as the administration contemplates a military escalation.

After floating some very radical ideas for abandoning “national reconciliation” and outreach to Iraqi Sunni insurgents–the so-called “80 percent Solution“–the Bush administration now appears to be ready for more of the same.

Robin Wright of the Washington Post reports:

During its two-month interagency review, the Bush administration has struggled the most to come up with proposals to jump-start the stalled political process in Iraq, according to U.S. officials and Western diplomats. The fate of the revised strategy will be determined as much by new movement on Iraq’s combustible political front as by success on the battlefield, administration officials said.

But the emerging package looks slim and, absent last-minute additions, appears to be more of the same, according to sources who have been briefed.

The centerpiece of the political plan is the creation of a national reconciliation government that would bring together the two main Shiite parties with the two largest Kurdish parties and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials. The goal is to marginalize Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the largest and most powerful Shiite militia and head of a group that has 30 seats in parliament and five cabinet posts.

To ensure participation of Sunni moderates, the Bush administration is pressing the Maliki government to take three other major steps: Amend the constitution to address Sunni concerns, pass a law on the distribution of Iraq’s oil revenue and change the ruling that forbids the participation of former Baath Party officials.

Been there.  Done that.

Or, more to the point: Been there.  Tried to do that.  Was blocked by Grand Ayatollah Sistani who allegedly refused to allow the US to marginalize Sadr.

Little wonder, with word that the US is determined to pursue this course, that Sadr has gone to meet with Sistani for clarification and confirmation of support.

So, is the US prepared to move without the blessing of Sistani?  Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, the same old political battles will certainly accompany the proposed escalation on the security front.

The military brass is spoiling for a fight with Shiite militias, if not Sadr himself.  Here is the Washington Post report on the political contours of the US military surge:

A top U.S. commander in Iraq said Sunday that previous attempts to halt sectarian killings in Baghdad had failed in part because of a shortage of Iraqi troops and a tight focus on Sunni Arab neighborhoods, and that those lessons would be incorporated into a new strategy to slow the violence in the capital.

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the number two commander in Iraq, declined to discuss a proposed surge of thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad, saying he preferred to wait for President Bush to outline the policy. But he said he wanted his forces to begin with a push against both Sunni and Shiite fighters…

“You have to go after both Sunni and Shia neighborhoods,” he said. “Together Forward was mostly focused on Sunni neighborhoods, and we’ve got to do both.”

Reuters suggests that Odierno hedges a bit on Sadr and the Mahdi Army:

Odierno said U.S. forces would leave dealing with Sadr to Iraqi authorities. “I’m not sure we take him down,” he said.

“There are some extreme elements (of the Mehdi Army) … and we will go after them. I will allow the government to decide whether (Sadr) is part of it or not. He is currently working within the political system.”

The military brass consistently emphasized a split between Sadr and his followers.

In any event, some of Prime Minister Maliki’s aides are already throwing cold water on Odierno’s plan for a more balanced security crackdown in Baghdad.

Hassan al-Suneid, a key aid and member of al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, said the Iraqi leader had committed 20,000 soldiers to the operation that would call upon American troops and airpower only when needed…

Al-Suneid, who is also a member of parliament, said the new drive to free Baghdad from the grip of sectarian violence would focus initially on Sunni insurgent strongholds in western Baghdad.

Indeed, the Shiite appetite for a decidedly sectarian form of counter-insurgency seems undiminished.  As Robert Collier reports in the San Francisco Chronicle:

For their part, Shiite hard-liners also say they support reconciliation efforts. But in interviews with The Chronicle, they called for U.S. officials to stop advocating the inclusion of Sunnis and to give military backing to a full-scale Shiite offensive in Sunni areas. These Shiites described their opponents as “takfiri Baathists,” combining the term for Sunni religious extremists with the name of Hussein’s secular-leaning party — two groups that most outside observers say are often at each other’s throats.

“The American government must give the Iraqi government complete sovereignty, which means that the Iraqi army will have the authority to strike the takfiri Baathists with an iron hand, without any interference from the Americans,” said Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia that has been largely incorporated into the Interior Ministry and, along with al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, is widely blamed for death-squad attacks on Sunnis.

Many al-Sadr followers, including the Mahdi Army, appear markedly more sectarian than their leader.

As I noted in a previous post, there are competing conceptions about the purpose of a military “surge” in Iraq.

The Shiite visions for Baghdad articulated in Robert Collier’s report seem to have more in common with Reuel Marc Gerecht’s views on counter-insurgency than with Odierno’s.

Right Zionists like Gerecht are still looking for “victory” in Iraq.  [Update: new Gerecht essay emphasizes his basis for hope, albeit not on the basis of the path set to be adopted by the White House.]

Odierno, not so much.  Reuters reports:

U.S. Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, in charge of combat forces in Iraq, said on Sunday U.S. commanders had offered several recommendations and some did not involve more troops….

He also sought to play down U.S. public expectations of what could be achieved over insurgents, saying an overwhelming “77-7” win — to use a sports metaphor — “ain’t going to happen“.”It’s a different concept. There will be no victory parade when we leave here. There never was going to be,” he said.

Oh.

Intelligence Czar John Negroponte will leave his post to become Deputy Secretary of State, the State Department’s second-ranking official.

It is too early to know why Negroponte is accepting a demotion, but speculation runs along some familiar lines.

The New York Times suggests that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has essentially recruited Negroponte for the job:

[A]dministration officials say Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been trying to recruit him to bring more Iraq expertise to her office…

Negroponte’s move to the State Department has been rumored for months. Rice was pushing to bring Negroponte in as her deputy…

The move may be a sign that the administration is looking for more sweeping changes to its Iraq strategy…

It might be more accurate to say Rice is trying to add more “heft” to her office in the hope of winning a factional battle for the direction of Iraq strategy.

Negroponte is going to State in order to help Rice battle Cheney, and perhaps prepare to take over the reins should Rice depart Foggy Bottom.

Here is one account of the factional battle lines from a December 5, 2006 Insight Magazine article:

The White House has been examining a proposal by James Baker to launch a Middle East peace effort without Israel.

The peace effort would begin with a U.S.-organized conference, dubbed Madrid-2, and contain such U.S. adversaries as Iran and Syria….

“As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure,” an official said. “This has become the most hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month.”

Officials said Mr. Baker’s proposal, reflected in the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, has been supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. The most controversial element in the proposal, they said, was Mr. Baker’s recommendation for the United States to woo Iran and Syria.

The “heft” in all this is to take on Cheney.  Seymour Hersh reported in his late November 2006 New Yorker essay, “The Next Act“:

A retired four-star general who worked closely with the first Bush Administration told me that… [for] Scowcroft, Baker, the elder Bush… [the issue] is how to preserve the Republican agenda. The Old Guard wants to isolate Cheney and give their girl, Condoleezza Rice”—the Secretary of State—“a chance to perform.” The combination of Scowcroft, Baker, and the senior Bush working together is, the general added, “tough enough to take on Cheney. One guy can’t do it.”

It seems like Negroponte’s new job is to help take on Cheney.

Cutler’s Blog will return in January 2007.  Happy New Year.

The Washington Post has published the latest installment of Robin Wright’s reporting on the Bush administration’s Iraq Policy Review and the New York Times has a report on the hydrocarbon law negotiations in Iraq.

If Wright has the factional story correct, the White House Iraq Policy Review is looking increasingly like Cheney’s Right Zionist answer to James Baker’s Right Arabist Iraq Study Group Report.

The central “news” of Wright’s article–entitled “Iraq Strategy Review Focusing On Three Main Options“–is that she identifies Cheney as leader of the faction supporting the so-called “Shiite Option” or the “80 Percent Solution.”  Here is Wright:

Vice President Cheney’s office has most vigorously argued for the “80 percent solution,” in terms of both realities on the ground and the history of U.S. engagement with the Shiites, sources say. A source familiar with the discussions said Cheney argued this week that the United States could not again be seen to abandon the Shiites, Iraq’s largest population group, after calling in 1991 for them to rise up against then-President Saddam Hussein and then failing to support them when they did. Thousands were killed in a huge crackdown.

Let us stipulate that Cheney’s concern for the Shiite is not humanitarian.  It is “strategic” and represents a return to the Right Zionist “Plan A” that dominated the early days of the US invasion of Iraq.  The heart of that plan has been a shift in the regional balance of power away from Sunni Arab dominance and toward a “reconfigured,” pro-American Shiite Crescent.

At the heart of any Shiite option has always been Grand Ayatollah Sistani and, to a lesser extent, SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

Hakim was recently in Washington for meetings with administration officials.  It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall for those sessions.  One topic that surely made the agenda: Hakim’s position on regional autonomy for southern Iraq and the implications of autonomy for the future of oil field development in Iraq.

Hakim and the Hydrocarbons Law

It may be no coincidence that only days after Hakim’s visit to Washington, Ed Wong reports in the New York Times that Iraqis are “near” a deal on the hydrocarbons law.  Wong writes as if the Kurds have opened a path toward reconciliation:

Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say.

If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north…

At the start of the talks, the Kurds fought to ensure that regional governments have the power to collect and distribute revenues from future fields, Iraqi and American officials said. They also proposed that revenues be shared among the regions based on both population and crimes committed against the people under Mr. Hussein’s rule. That would have given the Kurds and Shiites a share of the oil wealth larger than the proportions of their populations.

But the Kurds dropped those demands, said Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister who is a Kurd and the chairman of the committee.

The only problem is that the distribution of revenues has not been the key sticking point in recent months.  The contentious issue is control over new oil field development.  Have the Kurds backed down on that issue?

No, says Wong in the New York Times:

The major remaining stumbling block, officials said, concerns the issuing of contracts for developing future oil fields. The Kurds are insisting that the regions reserve final approval over such contracts, fearing that if that power were given to a Shiite-dominated central government, it could ignore proposed contracts in the Kurdish north while permitting them in the Shiite south, American and Iraqi officials said…

[T]he Kurds are still holding out on the issue of oil contracts, arguing that the Constitution guarantees the regions absolute rights in those matters.

So what has changed?  What motivates the Wong report if the Kurds have not removed the major remaining stumbling block?

The Shiites and the Bush administration may be preparing to overrule the Kurds.  Specifically, SCIRI’s Hakim seems to have abandoned his prior commitments to regional autonomy, at least with regard to the crucial issue of control over new oil field development.

On the drafting committee, Sunni Arabs have allied with the Shiites against the Kurds, who have sought to maintain as much regional control as possible over the oil industry in their autonomous northern enclave. Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed de facto independence since 1991, when the American military established a no-flight zone above the mountainous region to prevent raids by Saddam Hussein.

Wong has buried the big news: Shiites have allied with Sunni Arabs on the issue of Iraqi national unity (no news that Sunni Arabs oppose the Kurds on this issue…).

Combine this with word in the Financial Times that the oil majors appear to have leveraged a commitment to Production Sharing Agreements and you have a new ball game in Iraqi politics.

That helps clear the way for Cheney to embrace a Shiite Option in Iraq.  Forget James Baker.  Get ready for a really lame duck.

Bush administration factionalism seems to have returned, although media coverage thus far makes it very difficult to discern the contours of the debate and the key factional players.

On November 13, 2006, the Washington Post published an Op-Ed by a relatively unknown figure, Monica Duffy Toft, who argued that the US should pick a winner in the Iraqi civil war and–at least as I interpreted the article–US money should be on the Shia.

I also noted at the time that there were still many anti-Shiite voices arguing the opposite, including an author named Tim Greene, identified as Chief of the Anti-terrorism training section under the U.S. Department of Justice/International Criminal Investigations and Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) at the Jordan International Police Training Center (JIPTC) at Camp Muwaqqar, Amman–currently tasked to train a majority of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) cadets for the Ministry of Interior in Iraq.

At the same time, this Op-Ed “civil war” between Monica Duffy Toft and Tim Greene was also playing out at a much higher level in Washington.

The locus of at least some of the new factionalism seems to surround a series of “secret” Veteran’s Day meetings, first reported by Robin Wright on November 15, 2006 in the Washington Post. The meetings resulted in the launch of a formal “Iraq Policy Review,” distinct from James Baker’s Iraq Study Group and a military review by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On November 16th, Laura Rozen published an Op-Ed in Los Angeles Times that cited unnamed sources suggesting that one option under consideration was a “tilt toward the Shiites,” and–implicitly, at least–an abandonment of efforts to court the Sunni insurgency. Rozen reported that the “Shiite option” was one proposed in a paper authored by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Although Rozen does not identify her sources, it is interesting that she does appear to have talked to Monica Duffy Toft who is quoted in Rozen’s article.

On November 17th, Charles Krauthammer published a Washington Post column that I interpreted as part of a new “tilt” toward Shiites.

That same day, there was also news from Iraq that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Interior Ministry had issued an arrest warrant for Harith al-Dhari, leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars and one of the central figures linked to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

About ten days later, on November 27, 2006 came news that another key insurgency figure–Izzat Ibrahim, Saddam’s former deputy–had publicly urged insurgents to reject US reconciliation efforts.

It was also at this time that the first signs began to emerge of a Bush administration split over James Baker’s Iraq Study Group and its call for direct dialogue with the incumbent regime in Iran.

Exhibit A in the sniper attacks on Baker’s Group was an extraordinary November 27, 2006 New York Times article that featured an unnamed “intelligence official” linking Iraq’s Sadrist Mahdi Army to Iran via Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Exhibit B was offered up in a November 28, 2006 Washington Post article by Robin Wright and Thomas Ricks:

[I]n a sign of the discord in Washington, the senior U.S. intelligence official said the situation requires that the administration abandon its long-held goal of national reconciliation and instead “pick a winner” in Iraq. He said he understands that means the Sunnis are likely to bolt from the fragile government. “That’s the price you’re going to have to pay,” he said…

And, this same intelligence official appears to have also talked to David Ignatius about the “pick a winner” approach and seems to be the same figure making allegations about the Sadr-Hezbollah-Iran link. This from the Wright and Ricks Post article:

The intelligence official said that he “never saw any evidence” that Sadr’s organization sent personnel to Lebanon this summer to fight against Israel, but said he had heard talk that some were sent there to be trained by Lebanese members of Hezbollah, an organization funded by Iran’s Shiite government.

He said there was evidence that the Iranian government this year had escalated its efforts inside Iraq.

“The whole year, yes, it has stepped up,” he said. “More training in and out of Iraq. More coordination with Hezbollah. More advisers.”

So, the key point here is that the so-called “Shiite option” is decidedly not a pro-Iranian option in the mind of the faction that wants the US to pick a Shiite winner.

The option of backing Iraqi Shiites against Iran is not a new plan for Iraq. This is not Plan B or Plan C. This is Plan A. It is the original Right Zionist plan for dual rollback in Iraq and Iran.

If this plan is on the table again, it marks one more flip-flop on Iraq that seems to move to the rhythm of domestic US politics and confirms my pre-mid-term election sense that the final two years of the Bush administration might be the most dangerous of all.

David Ignatius named the so-called “80 percent option” back in November 2004, just after the Presidential election. What followed was the year of the Shiite–US-backed Iraqi elections in January 2005, a constitutional referendum in October 2005, and another election in December 2005, all of which enhanced the political power of Iraqi Shiites.

All of this took place over the objections of Right Arabists like Brent Scowcroft who warned against elections in Iraq.

Today, however, there are complications and confusing signs regarding the factional politics of the 80 percent option.

Zelikow the Zelig

On the one hand, there is the November 28, 2006 abrupt resignation of Philip Zelikow, a top aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a figure touted in the media as a Scowcroft-style Realist, i.e., a Right Arabist.

His resignation could easily be read as a protest against the Shiite option.

On the other hand, in a December 1, 2006 Washington Post article, Robin Wright–the Washington Post reporter most closely associated with the entire story of the Iraq Policy Review, the Shiite option, and the decision to back away from negotiations with Sunni insurgents–says that Zelikow is the author of the Shiite option plan and, presumably the leader of the faction championing such a plan.

The Bush administration is deliberating whether to abandon U.S. reconciliation efforts with Sunni insurgents and instead give priority to Shiites and Kurds, who won elections and now dominate the government, according to U.S. officials.

The proposal, put forward by the State Department as part of a crash White House review of Iraq policy, follows an assessment that the ambitious U.S. outreach to Sunni dissidents has failed…

Some insiders call the proposal the “80 percent” solution, a term that makes other parties to the White House policy review cringe. Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people…

State Department counselor Philip D. Zelikow, author of the proposal, argued that the United States has compromised its prospects of success by reaching too far, according to the sources.

At the same time, Wright reports that the “Zelikow” proposal has met with fierce resistance from all of the other Right Arabist, “Realist” factional players:

The proposal has met serious resistance from both U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and military commanders in Iraq, who believe that intensive diplomatic efforts to bring Sunni insurgents into the political process are pivotal to stabilizing the war-ravaged country, the sources said…

Khalilzad, who has spearheaded U.S. outreach to the Sunni leadership, has developed a long list of steps to accommodate Sunni concerns, from a possible amnesty to changes in the hydrocarbon law that distributes oil wealth, which is located mainly in Shiite and Kurdish regions.

No surprise in Khalilzad’s position. But it is strange that Wright reports it is against Zelikow–a fellow traveling “Realist” that Khalilzad allegedly battles.

And Wright never mentions that Zelikow–presumably the “victor” in any move toward the 80 percent solution–has resigned!

So did Zelikow resign in protest against the 80 percent solution or does his resignation signal defeat for the 80 percent option that he allegedly sponsored?

Is it possible Wright simply has the facts wrong when she links Zelikow to the 80 percent option?

Finally, there is reference in the Wright article to the hydrocarbons law. As I have previously argued (here, here, and here), the hydrocarbons law is central to ongoing battles over Shiite (and Kurdish) demands for regional autonomy. Any new Shiite option would attempt to shift the balance of power in Iraq from Moqtada al-Sadr–the leading Shiite opponent of regional autonomy–toward SCIRI’s Ayatollah Hakim–he leading proponent of Shiite regional autonomy–who is scheduled to visit Washington this week.

One of Zelikow’s primary responsibilities has been the management–with Robert Kimmitt of the Treasury Department–of ongoing negotiations over a so-called “Compact for Iraq” that centers on the hydrocarbons law.

So, what does Zelikow’s resignation say about the hydrocarbons law?

Regarding the extremely contentious issue of control over the development of all new oil fields, were Zelikow and Kimmitt pressing for centralized Iraqi authority rather than regional autonomy, as favored by SCIRI and Hakim?

Did Zelikow resign in protest over a decision in Washington to allow regional, Shiite control over new oil fields?

What did the Saudis have to say about the 80 percent option when Cheney was in town?

Wright suggests an answer to that final:

A decision to step back from reconciliation efforts would… be highly controversial among America’s closest allies in the region, which are all Sunni governments. Sunni leaders in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms have been pressuring the United States to ensure that their brethren are included in Iraq’s power structure and economy.

So, what is the relationship between Cheney and the “intelligence official” who has been talking to the press about the 80 percent solution?

The New York Times is serving as an outlet for some powerful Bush administration messages on Iraq.

First, someone in the intelligence community leaked word to the Times of links between Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement.  Did that one come from Right Arabist anti-Iran hawks at the CIA or DIA?  Or did it come from Cheney’s office?  In either event, it was arguably a clear shot at James Baker’s idea of direct dialogue with Iran.

Now, an “administration official” has provided the Times with the full text of an extraordinary Memo by Bush’s National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, reviewing the “political front” of US policy in Iraq and US relations with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.

Was this memo “leaked” against the wishes of the administration?  Or was it released?  It makes a difference.  As an accurate indicator of administration views, I would give far more weight to a leaked memo than one “approved” for public consumption as part of an initiative of some kind–especially on the eve of Bush’s meeting with Prime Minister Maliki.

Either way, read the full text of the Memo.  It is an incredibly clear, concise discussion of some very big issues.

Here is the stand out section on domestic Iraqi politics (aside from an equally important but passing reference to “the current four-brigade gap in Baghdad”:

Maliki should:…

Bring his political strategy with Moktada al-Sadr to closure and bring to justice any JAM [Jaish al-Mahdi’s, the Arabic name for the Mahdi Army] actors that do not eschew violence…

Pushing Maliki to take these steps without augmenting his capabilities could force him to failure — if the Parliament removes him from office with a majority vote or if action against the Mahdi militia (JAM) causes elements of the Iraqi Security Forces to fracture and leads to major Shia disturbances in southern Iraq…

[W]e could help [Maliki] form a new political base among moderate politicians from Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and other communities. Ideally, this base would constitute a new parliamentary bloc that would free Maliki from his current narrow reliance on Shia actors. (This bloc would not require a new election, but would rather involve a realignment of political actors within the Parliament). In its creation, Maliki would need to be willing to risk alienating some of his Shia political base and may need to get the approval of Ayatollah Sistani for actions that could split the Shia politically. Second, we need to provide Maliki with additional forces of some kind…

[S]upport Maliki himself as he declares himself the leader of his bloc and risks his position within Dawa and the Sadrists…

If Maliki seeks to build an alternative political base:

• Press Sunni and other Iraqi leaders (especially Hakim) [Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Maliki rival] to support Maliki

• Engage Sistani to reassure and seek his support for a new nonsectarian political movement.

All of this assumes that Maliki is the guy to do the deed.  The Memo doesn’t really focus on that issue.  But the US policy of seeking a political realignment is the news, whether it proceeds with Maliki or without him.

This political realignment matches on advocated by Charles Krauthammer in a recent column, discussed in a previous post.

Note that Hadley does not think that Sistani has become irrelevant.

Much of the political realignment turns on the idea of splitting the Shia, dumping Sadr, and replacing his bloc with Sunni forces in parliament.

What does this do to the question of regional autonomy in the Shiite south?  Sadr and his bloc oppose SCIRI plans for southern autonomy.  Does this political realignment aim to free Hakim to pursue such a plan?  Or is Hadley convinced that Hakim was bluffing about autonomy and the issue is a dead letter?

As noted in a previous post, the New Republic Online has sponored a debate between Peter Galbraith, the leading advocate of Iraqi partition, and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a leading Right Zionist at AEI.

Galbraith made his case and now Gerecht has offered his response.

The importance of this debate is that Zionists are split between those like Galbraith whose primary political “investment” in Iraq has always been with the Kurds and those like Gerecht for whom the Iraqi Shia constitute the political foundation for the US project in Iraq.

On the Kurdish question, Gerecht offers Galbraith his sympathy but little more.

It would be enormously unwise for Iraq’s Kurds to exchange de facto independence with an explicit declaration of national sovereignty… But, for the sake of argument, let us assume that the Kurds… can pull this off and sustain their de facto Kurdish republic. That’s as far as you go, Peter.

In truth, Kurdistan is probably as far as Peter wants to go.  Readers of Galbraith’s book, The End of Iraq, will find that aside from his passionate attachment ot the Kurds, Galbraith is otherwise quite sympathetic to the Right Arabist critique of US policies that empower the Iraqi Shia.

Gerecht essentially notes as much in his response to Galbraith:

You… regularly err in your association of the Iraqi and Iranian Shia, implying a growing subservience of the former to the latter. In all probability, the distance between the two–even with Iran’s closest Shia allies in Iraq–is going the other way as the Arab Shia gain more self-confidence and fear the Sunni Arabs less.

Gerecht is surely right about Galbraith, who never acknowledges the Right Zionist hope of facilitating and exploiting divisions between Najaf–the home of Iraqi Shiite clerical authority–and Qom–home to the Iranian clerical establishment.

It is also interesting to note that in November 2006, Gerecht remains committed to the dream of Iraqi Shiite power as something distinct from Iranian power, if not as a potential challenge to Iranian power.

The most interesting part of Gerecht’s debate with Galbraith has nothing to do with his critique of Galbraith and the Kurds, however.  It turns on Gerecht’s view of Shiite moves to establish an autonomous region in Southern Iraq, including the oil-rich city of Basra.

It is a dubious proposition to suggest that the efforts of Abdul Aziz Al Hakim and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) for a large autonomous region in the south means that Hakim, SCIRI, and others who have backed this plan have given up on the idea of one Iraq, particularly one Arab Iraq. They haven’t. Hakim is after a power base. Such an entity doesn’t represent for him–or for any other Shia that I can find–a geographic expression of a serious religious or regional affection. The autonomy-loving people of Basra and its surrounding areas are not quite in this camp, but that’s a completely different issue from what Hakim has advanced. Many Shia, both religious and secular, have liked the autonomy idea, since it gives them a redoubt where the Arab Sunnis can no longer interfere….

It’s important to remember that this idea of a Shia zone was developed in 2004, at a time when the Shia were still fearful of the Arab Sunni rejectionists and holy warriors. They had not yet thrown off the Saddam-era fear of a Sunni return to power or of the possibility that the Arab Sunnis–through their greater martial virtue and communal discipline–could slaughter their way back to power. When Hakim first met with President Bush in Washington after the liberation, he stressed the need for the United States to stay the course in Iraq.

Today, the statements of Hakim to pay attention to are those that depict the United States as an obstacle to an effective counterinsurgency. (Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki has made similar allusions.) It’s a good bet that Hakim and others in SCIRI now believe that they can more effectively handle the Arab Sunni rejectionists and holy warriors on their own, since they are not restrained by America’s humane rules of engagement. For what the Sunnis have done, these Shia, who now perhaps represent a majority of the community, intend a horrific vengeance.

From this point on in the Gerecht essay, his focus turns away from the partition question and toward a vision of full-blown civil war that would consume Iraq and the entire Gulf if the United States withdraws.  This is amounts to a concise restatement of Gerecht’s previously published, longer response to the idea of US withdrawal from Iraq.

At least two questions emerge from Gerecht’s discussion of the SCIRI bid for autonomy.

First, the idea of Shiite autonomy in the south may originate in 2004, but it was only beginning in August 2006 that Hakim made a largely successful push for legislatition that would authorize the formation of such a region.  Why the 2006 push?

Maybe Hakim still fears “a Sunni return to power,” in the form of a US-backed anti-Shiite coup.

Second, what to make of Gerecht’s reference to the “autonomy-loving people of Basra and its surrounding areas” as a “completely different issue” from what Hakim has advanced.

Gerecht is silent about his own opinions regarding the autonomy-loving people of Basra.  My hunch is that these are not “his” people–his money continues to be on Hakim, Sistani, etc., whom he considers Iraqi nationalists.

In terms of the larger issue of partition, it might be worth noting that it was in Basra that big oil was presumably supposed to find common cause with Right Zionist plans for the breakup of Iraq.

This was central issue in previous posts on the political contours of Basra.

The dream of Shiite autonomy in Basra was most clearly–and favorably–sketched in a February 27, 2005 James Glanz article in New York Times entitled “Iraq’s Serene South Asks, Who Needs Baghdad?”

[I]f no inconsiderable number of people here have their way, the provinces of the south, home to rich oil reserves but kept poor by Saddam Hussein, will soon become a separate country, or at least a semi-autonomous region in a loosely federal Iraq. The clear southern preference for profit over politics could make it a place where foreign companies willing to invest hard cash are able to do business.

‘’Quite a few people prefer to be separated, because they are disappointed,’’ said Sadek A. Hussein, a Basra native who is a professor in the college of agriculture at the University of Basra, and who speaks with the mildness characteristic of southern Iraq. The trait is refreshing in itself, in a country better known for its firebrands, chatterboxes and just plain loudmouths…

And Zuhair Kubba, a board member of the Basra Chamber of Commerce, said that, in contrast to the xenophobia dogging other regions of Iraq, Basra’s history made it likely to welcome foreign investment.

‘’They have a port, and being a port, they have experience with foreigners,’’ said Mr. Kubba, a follower of the largely pacifist and apolitical Sheikhi branch of Shiite Islam, whose holiest cleric, Sayyed Ali Al-Mousawi, is based in a Basra mosque.

Some foreign companies, including Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that is repairing parts of Iraq’s oil industry under American government contracts, are already listening. The company is moving its center of operations from the insurgency-ridden streets of Baghdad to the south, said Ray Villegas, a general manager for the company, and not just to be closer to its field work, which is mainly in the south.

‘’This is the place you want to be,’’ Mr. Villegas said. ‘’It’s much different down here. You have flat open land, so you have a lot of visibility. We don’t have the day-to-day traffic problems that you experience up in Baghdad, so the opportunity is much less for insurgents to act.’’

Most of all, he said, ‘’we’ve found that the Iraqis here are much more willing and accommodating to approach the Americans.’’

All of this was a dream that subsequently devolved into Shiite factional warfare.

Gerecht suggests that Hakim’s talk of Shiite autonomy is a completely different issue than the old dream of autonomy for Basra.  It is not Hakim’s dream.  It is not Gerecht’s dream.

How about Kellogg, Brown & Root?

I suggested in a previous post that international oil companies were most likely uninterested in the breakup of Iraq, except insofar as the threat of partition could be used to leverage more lucrative oil deals from Sunni and Shiite nationalists in ongoing negotiations over a new Iraqi hydrocarbons law.
The only exception would be a pact between the oil majors and the “autonomy-loving people of Basra.”

If such a pact is in the works, however, it isn’t getting a lot of public attention–apart from that provocative James Glanz New York Times article of February 2005.

Is everyone sure that dream is dead and buried?

Liberally sprinkled amidst the news about Iraq is ongoing talk of “partitioning” the country. An article in the New York Times today includes a rather prominent discussion of support for such a policy among Democrats like Senator Joseph Biden and adivsors like Peter Galbraith.

Are there any signs that the Bush administration is seriously considering such an option?

Perhaps Saudi resistance to such an idea is enough to give credence to the fact that it is actually an option under consideration.

I tend to think that the function of the partition chatter has little to do with real options on the table and much more to do with ongoing negotiations over the Iraqi hydrocarbons law that will govern relations with the oil industry.

The US is firmly committed to centralized national control over the development of new oil fields. In this, they have the support of Sunni Arab political forces along with nationalist Shiite forces in Southern Iraq, including those loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr.

The threat of partition, however, is being used to pressure these Sunni and Shiite forces to embrace particular oil policies that will be very unpopular with Iraqi nationalists, even as they are sought after by international oil majors.

The oil majors and the US are pressing for generous contract terms for foreign oil investment and use the threat of extremely generous regional contract terms on offer in the Kurdish north to extract similar concessions from Iraqi nationalists.

US pressure has not been subtle. An October 24, 2006 report in the Petroleum Review entitled “Iraqi Nadir” explains:

At the request of the US State Department, the USAID Agency has provided an advisor from consultancy firm BearingPoint INC (the former consulting arm of KPMG) to the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Maliki, to help in the drafting of a new petroleum law. Oil Minster Shahristani expects the new law to be ratified by the Iraqi parliament this year. This expectation might be somewhat premature, however, given that the economic policies pursued by the current government, influenced by the US, are not popular with the general public…

Most observers believe that the involvement of BearingPoint, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – as a condition of cancelling 30% of Iraq’s $39bn debt to the Paris Club of creditors – in drafting of the petroleum law is likely to result in handing over control of the development of Iraq’s oil fields to foreign oil companies. This policy, although supported by many in the government – namely Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi and Oil Minister Shahristani, who see a major role for foreign oil companies in Iraq’s oil industry – is understood to be strongly opposed by the majority of Iraqi people and by the oil industry trade unions. It could be seen as confirming the belief that the war was about oil after all.

It is in the context of these negotiations that the US–with the help of Joe Biden and the Kurdish Regional Government, if not the autonomy-minded Shiites of SCIRI–uses the threat of partition to leverage concessions from Iraqi nationalists.

This is a game of chicken that Shiite and Sunni nationalists are playing as well as the oil majors.

The question is this: who will blink?

There is no way that the oil majors would support the actual partition of Iraq. This is a bluff. And they will have to weigh the popular backlash–in the context of ongoing insurgencies–to an oil regime that appears to strip Iraqis of national treasure.

A June 2, 2004 analysis from the World Market Research Centre captures the idea:

[The] most important task… is the establishment of a new state-owned Iraqi national oil company (NOC) to oversee the existing functional companies (without ruffling too many oil industry feathers) and to set in place a framework by which INOC can most effectively co-operate with private investors, without antagonising the Iraqi nationalist constituency. This will be the issue on which [the Oil] ministry performance will be assessed and the one that will be most integral to shaping Iraq’s oil and gas future in the coming years.

How much more will the US and the oil majors risk further antagonising the Iraqi nationalist constituency in the hope of leveraging more lucrative oil deals?

[Update: in the post above, I wrote: “There is no way that the oil majors would support the actual partition of Iraq. This is a bluff.”  I want to register my own doubts about this assertion.

I have seen no evidence to support the idea that the international oil majors favor partition.  Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to rule out the idea that at least some oil majors might be looking for favorable “rules of the road,” even if the rules apply only to regional roads, rather than national highways.

The issue is not Kirkuk oil.  The question is Basra oil.  Do any of the oil majors think they can get favorable terms from Hakim and SCIRI’s proposed autonomous southern Shiite region, even amidst resistance from Sadrists and Basra’s Fadhila party, to say nothing of Sunni Arab insurgency?

For now, this remains a question…]

There are two events that sparked the recent clash between Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

The first is a recent round of US raids on Sadr City. As with at least one previous instance, Maliki denied any prior knowledge of the raid, even though Iraqi forces were involved.

The second event is the October 24, 2006 press briefing by Ambassador Khalilzad.

Khalilzad’s remarks are worth a closer look, if only because the Ambassador was unusually candid about several issues:

Iraq is strategically vital, due to its location and resources.

When was the last time anyone in the Bush administration even acknowledged that Iraqi “resources” were a “strategically vital” consideration for the US?

Khalilzad also does a little sabre rattling about Iran and Syria.

Those forces that constitute the extremist’s camp, including not only al Qaeda, but Iran and Syria, are at work to keep us and the Iraqis from succeeding…

The enemies of Iraq — Al Qaida, Iraq’s historic rivals and the local clients — concentrate their efforts on tearing the Iraqi people apart along sectarian lines.

Tragically, these efforts have had an effect. Now the primary source of violence is not simply an insurgency but also sectarian killings involving Al Qaida terrorists, insurgents, militias and death squads. Iran and Syria are providing support to the groups involved.

Khalilzad also reviews US strategy for dealing with the Sunni Arab insurgency:

[Another element in US strategy] is persuading Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms and accept national reconciliation. We are reaching out to Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan to help by encouraging these groups to end the violence and work for a united and independent Iraq, and to work against al Qaeda. These countries have promised to be helpful.

I cannot recall the last time a US official publicly noted that there may be a “regional angle” to the Sunni Arab insurgency, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan in key roles.

Presumably, the portion of the briefing that sparked the clash with Maliki concerned benchmarks and timetables.

We are helping Iraqi leaders to complete a national compact. Key political forces must make difficult decisions in the coming weeks to reach agreements on a number of outstanding issues on which Iraqis differ: enacting an oil law that will share the profits of Iraq’s resources in a way that unites the country — this is of critical importance; amending the constitution to make all Iraqis understand that their children will be guaranteed democratic rights and equality; reforming the De-Baathification Commission to transform it into an accountability and reconciliation program; implementing a plan to address militias and death squads; setting a date for provincial elections; and increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces.

Iraqi leaders have agreed to a timeline for making the hard decisions needed to resolve these issues.

President Talabani has made these commitments public. The United States and its coalition partners will support Prime Minister Maliki and other leaders in their effort to meet these benchmarks.

While most of the talk of “benchmarks” have been suspiciously vague, Khalilzad’s list is relatively specific.

Military Action Against Sadr

During the briefing, there was a question (the transcript on this site identifies the reporter as Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post) about Maliki and militias that anticipates the current impasse:

QUESTION: General Casey has repeatedly said that resolving the militia issue will take a military and political approach, but Prime Minister Maliki has made clear that he doesn’t want any kind of U.S. military action against the militias. He’s said that specifically (inaudible) Sadr City.

So when the question comes to it’s up to the Iraqi government to show resolve against the militias, they’ve already made clear that they’re not going to take a tough approach like the U.S. wants. And Muqtada al-Sadr has already said that his militia is not a militia per se and that he’s not going to disband it.

So absent any kind of military force against these militias and these death squads, who are the main component of violence right now, how are you going to stop the militias?

KHALILZAD: I don’t agree with your characterization.

I believe that the Prime Minister has said to me and to George that he believes in an integrated approach — political, yes. That’s the best approach if you can convince those that control militias to cooperate with the decommissioning, demobilization and integration plan. But he has said he does not rule out the use of force.

And we will see what happens, but I believe right now we are in the phase of developing a plan for how to move forward with a demobilization and decommissioning and reintegration plan. Our people, both from the military and civilian side, are working with a team that has been designated by the Prime Minister to develop such a program.

“We will see what happens.” What seems to have happened, for now, is that Maliki ruled out the use of force. But it ain’t over until its over. So, we will see what happens.

On a Hydrocarbons Law

Khalilzad makes clear that, for the US, the truly “critical” benchmark involves the passage of a new oil law, usually referred to as a hydrocarbons law.

The hydrocarbon law has been at the center of all the talk of a new Iraqi “Compact.”

Back in September 2006, the US and UN sponsored an International Compact for Iraq conference, held in Abu Dhabi.

“The bargain being struck here is economic reform by Iraq in return for financial support,” said U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt, President George W. Bush’s special envoy on the talks. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad also attended the meeting…

The most urgent reforms sought by the international donors are a hydrocarbons law that would outline ownership and foreign investment in Iraq’s oil reserves and a reduction of government’s subsidies.

An Iraqi parliamentary committee has been working on the hydrocarbons law. An August 31, 2006 article published in International Oil Daily entitled, “Iraqi Panel Hammers Away at Draft Oil Law” (no online link, sorry) provides some details:

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who heads the committee, said it has already resolved the issue of sharing oil revenues between the different regions of Iraq, but many other matters are still outstanding. These include the roles of the central and regional governments in managing reserves and production from fields that are currently not producing and the question of who will award lucrative oil contracts to foreign firms…

But leaders of the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority have voiced concern that the constitution, ratified in a referendum last year, could hand control of Iraq’s vast oil reserves to powerful new regional governments in the Shiite south and Kurdish north leaving their oil-poor areas in central Iraq with nothing…

The composition of the committee preparing the draft hydrocarbon law suggests that Sunni grievances and interests will not get much of a hearing, even though the issues under consideration are at the heart of power struggles between the different sectarian and ethnic groups in Iraq.

Two members of the committee have stood out so far: the Kurdistan regional government’s minister of natural resources Ashti Hawrami and Jabar Luaibi, the director general of South Oil Co.

Hawrami has been very active since his appointment earlier this year in drawing up an oil bill for the northern Kurdish region which gives the regional government extensive control over oil and gas fields independently of the central government in Baghdad…

Luaibi, a member of the majority Shiite community, has been instrumental in improving security in Shiite southern Iraq and ensuring uninterrupted exports from the region’s vast oil fields.

Salih, an influential figure in Kurdish politics, said the aim is to submit the draft law to parliament by the end of this year. Iraqi analysts expect to see clashes in parliament based on different interpretations of the constitution, especially on the vital issue of how to develop Iraq’s huge untapped oil reserves, most of which are located in southern Iraq.

According to an Associated Press report from September 10, 2006, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih (aka Barham Saleh) envisions the birth of what he calls a “Petro-Democracy” in Iraq.

Baghdad’s best hope for boosting its moribund oil output is working with major international companies in production-sharing deals, Iraq’s deputy prime minister said Sunday…

He spoke of Iraq emerging as a “secure petro-democracy”…

The deputy prime minister said he expected the law setting ground rules for managing Iraq’s huge petroleum reserves would be approved in parliament by year’s end.

“This will open Iraq’s oil sector for investment,” Saleh said. “We know what it takes. It takes partnerships with international oil companies.”

Big oil companies have told the U.S. government they are willing to send crews to Iraq to explore and pump oil — regardless of the violence — as long as there are legal ground rules for their participation, said U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt.

“The oil companies have told us they need to know what the rules of the road are,” said Kimmitt, President George W. Bush’s special envoy for the Iraq donor talks…

“Iraq needs investment. Iraq needs to send a strong signal to the international community about investment in oil,” the deputy prime minister said. “We need to push liberalization and open our markets.”

Asked about the most appropriate model of foreign investment for Iraq, Saleh advocated production-sharing agreements — known as PSAs. Under such arrangements, oil companies are typically granted a share of the crude they produce to offset their investments.

“I’m personally in favor of PSA agreements,” Saleh said.

For US officials and international oil companies, Saleh is sounding all the right notes when he speaks about PSA agreements, liberalization, etc.

But the crucial question regarding what Bush envoy Robert Kimmitt calls the “rules of the road” for oil investment concerns the explosive question of regional autonomy.

The committee drafting the hydrocarbons law is dominated by Shiite and Kurdish figures committed to regional control over the agreements dealing with the vast undeveloped fields that are currently not producing.

Is the US still committed to pushing for centralized national control over such agreements?

The Iraqi parliament recently voted to grant increased autonomy to regional federations. Kurds and the pro-autonomy Shiite coalition that dominates Parliament won a little help from some Sunni political figures to win passage of the plan.

“This is the beginning of the plan to divide Iraq,” said Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Sunni National Accordance Front, which boycotted the vote along with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada Sadr’s party and the Shiite Fadila party. “We had hoped that the problems of sectarian violence would be resolved…”

If the Bush administration is still committed to “national unity”–including centralized control over the development of new oil fields–then this once again puts the US in an “objective” alliance with Moqtada Sadr and Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi, the religious leader of the Fadhila or Virtue party, based in the oil-rich southern Shiite city of Basra.

A US Alliance with Sadr and Yacoubi Against Regional Autonomy?

Given the enormous tensions between the US and the Shiite radicals among Sadrist and Fadhila forces, it hardly seems plausible to mention a US alliance with these figures.

Nevertheless, if the US wants to resist moves toward regional autonomy, then they will find allies in Sadr and Yacoubi.

Are there any signs of such an alliance?

The only such sign concerns Khalilzad’s press briefing reference to the urgency of setting a date for provincial elections.

In many provincial elections in the south, Sadr and Yacoubi will do very well. Khalilzad knows this; so do the Shiites.

Recent clashes in southern Iraq have pitted anti-autonomy Sadrist forces against the pro-autonomy SCIRI forces.

Is it possible that US pressure for provincial elections aims to empower the Sadrist forces as a bulwark against SCIRI’s autonomy moves?

The Sadrists certainly appear to be headed in that direction. An October 25 Associated Press report on the Shiite militia clashes in southern Iraq includes the following:

“There is a huge conspiracy supervised by the U.S. occupation to target the Sadrists,” said lawmaker Hassan Shanshal, a supporter of al-Sadr…

Looming ahead, however, is a battle the two sides will certainly fight–a contest over nationwide local elections for provincial councils.

The last vote in 2005… allowed SCIRI to take control of almost all of southern Iraq’s provincial councils as well as those in Baghdad. The Sadrists are eager to wrest away political hold on local government…

Al-Sadr, who has often derided his SCIRI rivals for their close ties to Iran, also is opposed to federalism…

“We will not be dragged into a fight,” said Nasser al-Saadi, a Sadrist lawmaker. “Instead, we will prepare for the elections and, when we take control of local governments, we will not allow federalism.”

The key question, then, is not how various Iraqi factions position themselves on the question of regional autonomy.

The most critical question is this: how do US factions position themselves on the question of regional autonomy and who is navigating the US ship of state?

Does the US support centralized control of Iraq, or regional autonomy?

It looks to me like Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has decided that his bread is buttered in Baghdad, not Washington.

More specifically, he has affirmed his allegiance to Moqtada al-Sadr, rather than US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Now that his bread is buttered, we’ll find out if his days are numbered.

Here is the latest news from the Guardian on Maliki’s strident news conference:

The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, today denounced a US raid against a Shia militia position and denied that his government had agreed to a timetable to crack down on violence.

Mr al-Maliki said he had not been consulted about the operation to snatch a militia commander from inside Sadr City and insisted, “It will not be repeated”. He also hit out at an announcement yesterday by the most senior US general in Iraq, General George Casey, and the US ambassador Zalmay Khalizad, stating that the Iraqi government had agreed to a timetable to curb violence in the country.

“I affirm that this government represents the will of the people and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it,” he told a news conference…

The timeline plan outlined yesterday by Mr Khalilzad was believed to have grown out of recent Washington meetings at which the Bush administration sought to reshape its Iraq policy amid mounting US deaths and declining domestic support for the 44-month-old war.

The fact of the Raids on Sadr City surely reflects pressure from the US military brass for a crackdown on Sadrist forces, if not Moqtada al-Sadr himself.

Maliki has denounced such raids before and recently demanded that US forces release a leading Sadrist.

In this instance, it appears that the US was looking for the “Keyser Söze” of Sadr City, Abu Dera (aka, Abu Dereh). According to the New York Times:

Iraqi forces and American advisers entered the far northern tip of the [Sadr City] district, the domain of an infamous Shiite guerilla leader known by his Iraqi nickname, Abu Dera, and immediately came under fire…

Residents said that Abu Dera, whose real name is Ismail al-Zerjawi, was not among those captured, though his son was wounded and his cousin killed. Once loyal to Mr. Sadr, Abu Dera broke away in 2004 and now runs his own influential crime ring. He is famous among Shiites, who put his image on their cellphones and refer to him as the Zarqawi of the Shiites, a reference to the former Al Qaeda leader who exhorted Sunni Arabs to kill Shiites.

[By the way: this is a far more detailed profile of Abu Dera than I’ve seen elsewhere. Type “Zerjawi” into Google News and so far the search engine returns only a question: “Did you mean Zarqawi?”]

US pressure on Maliki to crack down on the Sadrists is essentially a demand that he abandon and betray a significant element of his own political base in exchange for continuing US “support.”

Maliki has refused that exchange. He now risks losing US support.

For the record, AEI’s Reuel Marc Gerecht–a leading Right Zionist–probably isn’t going to shed any tears for Maliki. In his latest missive, he wrote:

We should expect a few Iraqi governments to collapse before we start seeing real progress. Yet our presence in Iraq is the key to ensuring that Shiite-led governments don’t collapse into a radical hard core.

Gerecht is still standing by the Right Zionist idea of an alliance between the US and moderate Iraqi Shiites.

He is simply having trouble finding the moderate Iraqi Shiites.

There are confusing and conflicting reports coming out of Amara (sometimes Amarah), scene of recent violence involving Sadrist forces and local police.

A little background context might be helpful here.

Amara is home to Abdel-Karim al-Mohammedawi, widely known as the ‘Prince of the Marshes.

The current Interior Minister of Iraq, Jawad al-Bolani was formerly an aide to Mohammedawi. According to a June 10, 2006 report in the New York Times Bolani began his contemporary political career working with Moktada al-Sadr.

When the British abandoned (or, more accurately, fled) Amara two months ago, Mohammedawi complained that they left the city in corrupt hands.

An August 26, 2006 New York Times report included the following from Mohammedawi:

”[Amara] was handed over to a corrupt authority…” said Sheik Abdul Kareem al-Muhammadawi, a prominent tribal leader in Amara. ”What do you think the attitude of an ordinary citizen would be….”

Who was this “corrupt authority” of which Muhammadawi was complaining?

The answer seems to the SCIRI and its Badr Brigades.

An Associated Press report from October 19th seems have captured the details of the current conflict:

Clashes erupted Thursday between Mahdi Army fighters and policemen defending their headquarters in the southern city of Amarah after the family of a senior police officer struck back against his suspected killers, kidnapping the teenage brother of the Shiite militia’s commander, police said.

The family of Ali Qassim al-Tamimi, the chief of police intelligence in Maysan, the province of which Amarah is the capital, said they would not release 19-year-old Hussein al-Bahadli until the culprits in al-Tamimi’s death were surrendered…

Al-Tamimi was killed Wednesday by a bomb planted on the highway between Amarah and the city of Basra farther south. He was killed along with four of his bodyguards…

Tamimi is known to be a member of the Badr Brigade, a militia linked to Iraq’s largest religious Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI. The family maintains that the rival Mahdi Army of radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was behind his murder…

The Mahdi Army commander in Amarah is sheik Fadel al-Bahadli…

I can’t help thinking that US foreign policy factionalism is playing a role in recent flip-flops over US policy toward Sadr.

As Swopa was quick to note, the US moved against a key Sadr aide yesterday. An “eruption” seemed plausible.

Well, somebody seems to have thought better of that idea.

Today, Muwaffaq Al Rubaie–Iraq’s national security advisor and a figure with “close ties” to some in the US–announced that Prime Minister Maliki had “ordered” the US to release the Sadrist figure, Sheikh Mazen Al Saedi. According to one news report, Saedi has, in fact, been released.

Questions of the day:

Who was behind the move to clash with Sadr?

Who was behind the decision to retreat from the brink?

Not easy questions, especially since “everybody hates Sadr.”