A wreck

The official pronouncements about the security and future of Iraq are ringing increasingly like the clanging of a badly cracked bell. It becomes clearer every day that the so-called "handover of sovereignty" scheduled for June 30 will be more of a PR event than any actual transfer of power - the media's slavish repetition of the White House line that it marks "the end of the occupation" notwithstanding.

It marks no such thing in any sense but a narrow legalistic one having more to do with the words used to describe the relationship between the US forces and the supposed interim government than the actual distribution of any power. This is well recognized in the region, as a BBC report for February 15 indicates:

Iraq and its neighbours have said the US-led occupation forces must withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

At an unprecedented regional summit in Kuwait, they also urged the UN to play a greater role in post-war Iraq. ...

The regional summit brought together Iraq and the six countries which border it, plus Egypt, for two days of talks in Kuwait.

The group had met four times since US-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein last April, but this was the first time Iraq was invited. ...

The proposed UN role would include giving advice and expertise on formulating a new constitution, holding elections and completing the transfer of power.

That is, Iraq's neighbors realize that as long as the troops remain, the real power lies in Washington, not Baghdad. But such a withdrawal will not happen any time soon, because, as the New York Times for February 15 points out,

Iraqi security forces will be unable to guarantee safety after the planned transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30, a range of Iraqi and Western specialists concluded Sunday, one day after an audacious raid in Falluja that killed at least 25 people.

Even Paul Bremer agrees: "I think it's quite clear the Iraqi security forces, brave as they are, and beaten and attacked as they are, are not going to be ready by July 1."

"It is so evident that they are nowhere close to being able to handle their own security," said one occupation official familiar with Iraqi forces. "Everyone has rushed to prepare them for July 1, and that's exactly what we have gotten: a rush. They're trying to put a Band-Aid on something, rather than doing the surgery," the official said. ...

Jeffrey B. White, who worked for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency for almost 35 years and is now an associate with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that training security forces could take years.

So years is how long the troops will be there, particularly because

the Iraqis have been vulnerable to well-armed, dedicated and elusive insurgents, a risk that will probably only worsen before and after the transfer of sovereignty, according to the American military. [Emphasis added.]

Despite all that, Bremer and other US officials on the scene remain locked into the June 30 date because, as a senior American official told Newsweek,

"[o]ur credibility on the ground is so important. Everyone tells us if you move June 30, the Iraqis will just feel like it's another broken promise." The only factor that could change that, he said, is if [UN special envoy Lakhdar] Brahimi advocates moving the date in the report he is supposed to issue in 10 days or so. That is unlikely.

In this Bremer is solidly backed by - surprise - the White House political team, which wants Iraq to go away as an issue, apparently without regard to what that might mean to the Iraqis. That position, however, is not without its critics in the halls of the Pentagon and the State Department. The February 14 Newsweek also says that as little as a week ago,

senior State and Defense department officials back in Washington, in a rare state of agreement, were suggesting privately that the June handover probably would have to slide - possibly until January 2005, when genuine elections could be held. ... The problem is that administration officials in Washington fear a disaster, possibly civil war, if sovereignty is granted before the installation of a legitimate government created by proper nationwide elections. The United Nations new special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, this week called civil war a "very, very serious danger."

The feeling is strong enough, Newsweek goes on, that "administration officials are already preparing the talking points they'll need if they announce that sovereignty will be delayed."

On the other hand, Brahimi apparently heard from a variety of Iraqis that most were committed to June 30, bolstering Bremer. But the unasked question is, what, in this context, does being "committed to June 30" mean? Committed to what? To a "transfer of sovereignty?" To who? To what government, interim or otherwise? The caucus plan is dead and no one seems to seriously think that elections can be organized in the time remaining. Continuing the Iraqi Governing Council simply means continuing the status quo, which seems to be the one thing everyone in both Washington and Iraq agree can't happen. As a result,

sentiment in the administration is growing in favor of meeting the June 30 deadline by simply handing off sovereignty to an expanded Iraqi Governing Council. That seems to be an acceptable solution to the Shiites, who are the key swing vote.

The danger of a simple handoff to the Governing Council is, once again, civil war. The council is despised by many Iraqis, who see it as an instrument of U.S. interests. Many Iraqis also resent the idea that the returned exiles who dominate the council, like Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, are trying to gain power and win spoils although they didn't suffer under Saddam. Any interim government run by the council, even an expanded version of it, will have thin legitimacy at best....

And just how is this expanded council to be chosen, that is, who picks the extra members? If either the US of the current council members do the choosing, it would still label the IGC a US creation, making the expansion pointless. If you say the various communities will pick them, how do you decide who does the naming? Who chooses the choosers? I see no way for it to shake the taint of "child of US policy."

June 30 is looking more and more like the point where the irresistible force meets the immovable object. If you don't transfer authority by then, you risk civil war. If you do transfer authority in the only way that now seems practical - an expanded IGC - you risk civil war. Everybody on the ground is committed to "it," but no one now can say exactly what "it" is or exactly how "it" is going to come about. There is no prospect either for a government with generally-accepted legitimacy or for Iraqi forces able to handle security by June 30. Instead, it appears, we'll be seeing a continuation of US-imposed rule with US-backed security and US forces increasingly involved in keeping a lid on the proverbial boiling pot. That will be the reality, the mouthings of the Shrubberies about "the end of the occupation" be damned.

How that constitutes "progress," I don't understand - any more than I understand how shortages of food and electricity and an unemployment estimated by some at as high as 70% makes Iraqis "better off."

Footnote: It's possible that the acceptance of an expanded IGC is actually a matter of a tactical retreat on the part of some, a marking of time.

Karbala, Iraq (AP, February 16) - The top U.S. administrator in Iraq suggested on Monday that he would block any interim constitution that would make Islam the chief source of law, as some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have sought.

L. Paul Bremer said the current draft of the constitution would make Islam the state religion of Iraq and "a source of inspiration for the law" - as opposed to the main source. ...

Asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wanted to write into the constitution that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of the law, Bremer suggested he would wield his veto. "Our position is clear. It can't be law until I sign it." ...

Bremer also acknowledged that U.S. influence on an Iraqi constitution would fade substantially after the June 30 handover. U.S. observers have predicted liberal reforms enshrined in the transitional law could well be rolled back in a future constitution. ...

Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, the current council president and a member of a committee drafting the interim constitution, has proposed making Islamic sharia law the "principal basis" of legislation.

"Go ahead, have your expanded IGC. Have your interim constitution. We can wait a few more months." And the beacon of democracy shines ever brighter across the region.