Irak, Medio Oriente y Asia

El plan norteamericano puede cambiar mientras los iraquíes maniobran...

Autor: Robin Wright y Walter Pincus

Fecha: 30/11/2003

Traductor: Claudia Cinatti, especial para PI

Fuente: Washington Post

U.S. Plan May Be in Flux as Iraqis Jockey for Postwar Leverage

By Robin Wright and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 30, 2003; Page A29


The latest plan to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq is barely two weeks old, but it already faces an array of problems that has led Iraqis and Iraq experts to question its prospects for creating a stable democratic government by July 1.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, are developing fallback options. But the Bush administration's decision to hand over the reins in seven months has limited U.S. leverage to solve problems during this delicate period, Iraq experts say. Despite his power on paper, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer is effectively a lame duck, and everyone who disagrees with the U.S. plan knows it.

"Iraqis are now watching the calendar," said Henri Barkey, a former State Department policy planner who chairs Lehigh University's international relations department. "There's very little incentive to cooperate with the United States, because virtually every actor thinks he can get a better deal after the Americans leave."

"All of their activities are now designed to better their bargaining position for afterwards, not to help the United States now," Barkey said. "It's not necessarily because they're mean, but because the stakes are so high."

Even more daunting than the volatile security situation, administration officials concede, are assorted political skirmishes among Iraqis that jeopardize the next two big steps: writing a set of "basic laws," and selecting a provisional government to take over from the United States.

U.S. officials have been preoccupied in recent days with a demand from Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric for direct elections to the new government, rather than an indirect system of town hall gatherings and regional caucuses to pick delegates to a national assembly. But an even larger question now looms for the administration: Will the powerful Sunni community, which dominated Iraqi politics under Saddam Hussein, opt to boycott the process?

Large numbers appear likely to balk at the current political formula for one or more reasons: loyalty to Hussein, opposition to the plan, or fear of retribution for complying with the Americans, said Amatzia Baram, an Iraq expert and senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Sunni Arabs, who account for about a quarter of the 25 million Iraqis, are also the most fearful of democracy.

"The Sunnis view democracy with terror and as the destruction of their historic role and place in society, around which they've built their self-image," said Edward N. Luttwak, a Middle East analyst and author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace." "For them it's a double loss. First they lose their dominance, and then they don't believe there will be any genuine protection of their rights as equals in a country with a majority Shiite Muslim population."

Sunnis may not actively protest or confront communities that do participate, but the refusal of large numbers to engage could undermine the U.S. plan or stall the political transition at the heart of Washington's exit strategy.

At the moment, however, Bremer's more pressing problem is navigating among rival parties willing or able to consider the U.S. plan. They fall into two broad categories: the handpicked Iraqi Governing Council, dominated by former exiles and five parties backed by the United States before the war, and the traditional leaders with far wider popular support among Shiite Muslims, Kurds and several minorities.

U.S. strategy has relied on the council to play the leading role in the transition. But in recent weeks it has become increasingly unclear whether the council "is part of the problem or part of the solution," Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, writes in an analysis from a recent trip to Iraq.

One way or another, key council members are vying either to shape the transition or ensure the council remains intact and a powerful body, as the U.S. plan envisions. Because many of the 24 council members probably would not fare well in open elections, they pressured Bremer to establish an indirect three-step system to select a new national assembly, which in turn would pick a prime minister and cabinet, a process so complex that many Iraqis and U.S. experts doubt it will work.

A former U.S. adviser to Bremer described the plan as "an insane selection system of caucuses, like the Iowa caucus selecting those who will vote in New Hampshire."