Iraq:Shias
Going Their Own Way
By Mohammed A. Salih
07 August, 2006
Inter Press
Service
ARBIL, Aug 5 (IPS)
- Amid failed moves for a peace deal between the government and insurgents
through a national reconciliation plan, the Shia majority in Iraq are
pushing ahead for creating a federal region for themselves in the southern
part of Iraq.
The move is hugely sensitive
in the light of the increasingly hard political positions taken by Shia
Iran and the conflict in Lebanon involving Hezbollah, the militant Shia
group.
"The Prime Minister's
reconciliation project has failed, and so far no major insurgency group
has endorsed it," Abdullah Aliawayi, Kurdish member of Iraq's House
of Representatives told IPS. He said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
had implicitly acknowledged the failure of his plan at a meeting with
representatives of the major political parties.
The 24-point plan announced
by Maliki in June offered amnesty to insurgents other than those who
had targeted civilians. It also included a plan to disarm militias.
None of these things have happened, and insurgents still call the shots
in capital Baghdad and other cities.
According to some official
sources, more than 14,000 Iraqis were killed in just the first half
of the year.
Outgoing British ambassador
to Iraq William Patey has warned of civil war in Iraq and a break-up
of the country along sectarian lines. Gen John Abizaid, top U.S. commander
in the Middle East has also warned of civil war if sectarian violence
is not halted..
Many Iraqi politicians go
further to say that the country is in civil war already.
"Iraq is now in a state
of undeclared civil war," said Aliawayi, who attended a failed
meeting of Iraqi factions in Cairo. "The visions of Sunnis and
Shias for the future of Iraq are too far from each other to be easily
brought together in a joint programme."
As more and more signs of
the failure of the reconciliation plan surface, Shia groups are speeding
up efforts to carve a federal region for themselves.
Speaking at a ceremony at
the holy city Najaf last week, Iraq's Shia Vice- President Adil Abdul-Mahdi
said Shia parliamentarians will raise the issue of federalism in parliament.
"We suggest continuing
the establishment of regions," he said. "We are going to submit
the project to the parliament in the coming two months." The government,
he said, had failed to provide basic services.
Shia politicians claim that
the constitution, that the Sunnis reject, allows them to create their
federal regions. Sunnis see the creation of federal structures as a
prelude to partitioning of the country.
Many see a link between the
deteriorating security situation in Iraq and the Shia push for autonomy
in the south.
"Certainly the current
complicated political and security situation, in addition to economic
factors, has been a key reason in driving Shias towards demanding the
establishment of their federal regions in the south," Najdat Akreyi,
national security expert at Arbil's college of political science told
IPS.
If Iraq is to avoid the looming
civil war, Akreyi said it "cannot continue the way it does now."
He said that a federal structure cannot spare the country from violence,
and what Iraq needs is a system that provides for larger self-rule for
the main ethnic and sectarian groups. This move would be a step short
of federalism.
"Iraq's political map
has to be reviewed and redrawn by creating a system of confederations,
which devolves huge powers to separate Shia, Sunni and Kurdish entities
to govern themselves," he said. Since Sunnis control the source
of the rivers in southern Shia Iraq, Shias and Sunnis can exchange water
and oil, he said.
"To prevent further
bloodshed we must not be afraid to admit that Iraq is not a holy entity,
and can be subject to revisions that can bring stability to the region,"
he said. "That is what necessitates confederation."
The disintegration of former
Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are good models for Iraq to follow,
Akreyi said.