Finally, a man with a plan for a political settlement in Iraq: take it apart and put it back together. But will his boss, or the Bush administration, listen?

Newsweek
November 10, 2004
By Christopher Dickey

One of the most dismal facts about the never-ending plunge toward chaos in U.S.-occupied Iraq is the fatal lack of what you might call "the vision thing." The political notion put forth by the Bush administration-a happy, prosperous American-style democracy with guarantees for human rights that will stand as an example to the region and the world-is, alas, completely out of touch with reality. It might sound good to American voters. (Really, it was made for them.) But Iraqis aren't buying it.

As a result, our fighters are out there right now in Fallujah killing and dying without a credible political program to back up their firepower. They can punish Iraq's Arab Sunnis, who are about 20 per cent of the country's population and at least 90 per cent of the insurgents, but what do they promise them? Certainly not a decisive role running the whole country, which is what they were used to under Saddam Hussein. Certainly not the top jobs in a powerful new army and air force, which is what important tribal leaders have told me they want.

No, as the Arab Sunnis see the Bushian fantasy for Iraq's future, they'll be a despised minority in a country whose Shiite leaders are anointed, if not appointed, by ayatollahs. So it's not surprising that they're fighting like hell right now, and will keep fighting for the foreseeable future. As the Israeli conflict ought to have taught us, Arabs get beat, but they don't admit defeat. In this part of the world, if there's no political solution, peace is just a nervous lull between wars.

Iraq's controversial national-security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, may have come up with a better idea: take the country apart, then put it back together. He calls this vision "democratic regionalism," a loose federal system of four to six separate, powerful provinces. The Sunni heartland-"the Triangle"-would not be able to dominate the rest of the nation, but it could run its own affairs. "The Triangle would have its own regime, its own security forces, its own recruitment," he says. If they want to become a Talibanized fundamentalist region, "good luck," he says. But he thinks that can be avoided. "They will be surrounded," says Al-Rubaie, and they will be largely dependent on oil revenues generated in other parts of the country, which would be allotted according to population.

To the north, the Kurds would have their own province with a very high degree of autonomy, but something less than full independence-which is pretty much what they have now anyway. To the south, there would be at least two Shiite provinces: one centered on the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, the other including the oil-rich regions around Basra and An Nasiriya. Baghdad would be a separate district as the seat of the federal government whose only responsibilities would be for inter-regional affairs, foreign policy, currency, banking and (nominally) national defense.

Now, this is a dangerous idea, and Al-Rubaie knows it. The plan walks along a knife-edge toward the complete disintegration of the Iraqi state. But Al-Rubaie also knows how to adapt to changing realities. He was a prominent member of the Shiite Dawa Party when it was an anti-Saddam Hussein terrorist organization in the 1980s but became a leading moderate among exile leaders in London during the 1990s. He insists his new plan simply faces facts. "Violence and terror have been the glue that kept Iraq a centralized state," he says. The Americans took that away when they removed Saddam, and neither they nor the current Iraqi government can replace it by reinstating a new reign of terror.

U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a former Baathist and a would-be strongman, is not a fan of Al-Rubaie's notions, and partly as a result Al-Rubaie has been marginalized inside his regime. Discussion of the proposal among the Iraqi public is only just beginning. Al-Rubaie says the Sunni tribal leaders who've heard it listen with interest, but not yet with any sign of acceptance. The highly influential Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani, on the other hand, may give it tacit backing.

"Al-Rubaie is among the smarter politicians who have always tried to consult with Mr. Sistani since the invasion," a Sistani adviser told NEWSWEEK's Maziar Bahari. The creation of two main provinces for Shiites, one with oil and another one with the clerical schools and shrines is exactly what Sistani would like to see now, the adviser said.

Washington isn't so enthusiastic. When NEWSWEEK's correspondents raised the idea of "democratic regionalism" in D.C., officials quickly dissed it. The word one of them used was "unworkable." Yet unworkable is really what we've got right now. Civil war's no longer a threat in Iraq, it's a reality. Operations like the one in Fallujah, which may be needed to restore some semblance of order in the short term, will only deepen sectarian conflict as they're seen to pit mostly Shiite Iraqi National Guard forces against mostly Sunni insurgents.

The actual situation is so bad, in fact, that when I tested Al-Rubaie's ideas on people I considered clear-eyed realists in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran-people who had warned in early 2003 that the greatest danger of the American invasion would be the eventual break-up of Iraq-many were remarkably receptive. "At the end of the day, [democratic regionalism] could be the way out," says Ali Shukri, who was for decades the right-hand man of Jordan's late King Hussein. "I don't think the Iraqis are ready to accept a strong man on top who will force them to be part of what's now a virtual Iraq."

The Turks vehemently oppose an independent Kurdistan, but are increasingly comfortable with the autonomous region that exists. Some Saudis worry that too loose a federation in Iraq would inspire demands for something similar in the Kingdom-but other Saudis told me that's very much what they'd like to see. Iran, as usual, is looking for ways to manipulate any situation to its advantage. The mullahs realize that regionalism would weaken the role of national Shiite parties like the Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which used to be their clients. But now that those parties are working under the American umbrella, Iran might think it could gain more influence over regional governments instead.

And where would this plan leave the United States?

Still in Iraq. Whatever the political system that's put in place in Baghdad or the regions, the Bush administration never intended to leave, and never meant for the country to be able to defend itself alone. Nor does it plan to now. For better or worse, or much worse, Iraq looks destined to remain an American protectorate for decades to come. But that's the subject of next week's column.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

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