Iraqi opposition wary of US governing plan
The Jerusalem Post
April 8, 2003
The day after the war could be today. With US forces biting off
huge chunks of sprawling Baghdad, Iraqi opposition groups have
grown restive as the imposition of an American military
governorship for the next six months to a year seems
inevitable.
Hamed al-Bayati, spokesman for the Shi'ite-led Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, warned that Iraq's Shi'ites, who
constitute 65 percent of the country's population, could rebel
should the US overstay its welcome.
"We've told our people to reject a military governorship," said
Bayati in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post.
"Appointing an American military governor is going to be
counterproductive. We're going to see many fundamentalist groups
use this as a pretext for attack."
They cite Afghanistan and Kuwait after the last Gulf War as
examples of states that were immediately granted their
independence. The fear, Bayati added, that the US appetite for oil
motivates its impending decision to establish a military
governorship haunts both Iraqis and the Arab world.
But the Supreme Council, headed by Iranian-hosted Ayatollah
Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, are alone in believing that "Iraqis are
fully capable and have the right to control their own country and
govern themselves."
For its part, the US contends that it is already setting the stage
for the Iraqi opposition. It revealed Monday that it airlifted
Iraqi National Council leader Ahmed Chalabi and some 600 Iraqi
exiles to Nasiriyah to reduce tensions.
The Kurds of northern Iraq, steeled by centuries of statelessness
into pragmatists, are burdened by no illusions that Iraq will be
granted immediate autonomy.
The Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) are the only Iraqi opposition groups to hold
territory inside Iraq. Though Iraqi Kurdistan is recognized on no
map, the hardscrabble mini-state the two organizations slapped
together is possibly one of only two democracies in the Middle
East. Internet access is open and it boasts relative freedom of
expression, a market economy, and now blossoming relations with the
US.
"One cannot expect Iraqis to practice democracy so quickly. There
can't be democracy without food, water, or electricity," a KDP
official told the Post Monday.
Whereas coalition forces were met in the Shi'ite stronghold of
Basra with fierce resistance, and at best neutrality, in Iraqi
Kurdistan US Special Forces were literally pelted with flowers and
dragged into homes for tea.
The Kurds like to say that they have "no friends but the
mountains," but in this war, says the KDP source "it was like a
dream. We never had any power, much less a super military power, in
our side. Every other army has fought us, from the Turks to the
Syrians, the Iranians and Iraq."
As many as 60,000 Kurdish Peshmerga, or fighters, are working under
the Special Forces to quell regime strongholds in northern Iraq. In
addition, the US is about to airlift 3,000 Iraqis in exile, many of
them Kurds, back to Iraq to act as liaisons to the Iraqi
people.
Bayati's comment drew the wrath of some opposition members who
consider it an attempt to scuttle Iraq's only shot at stability.
"The Shi'tes' mentality never changes," said a source from the PUK,
"Why did they not rise up against Saddam? His was an irresponsible
statement reflecting the position of leaders in Iran. But if
[Ayatollah] Hakin arrived in Najaf, I doubt we'd have another
similar statement."
"The Shi'ites don't trust Americans as we do," said the PUK source,
"they need time, things are changing. They don't trust the foreign
armies, but it is our position that the Americans are here not to
occupy but to rebuild Iraq."
The concoction of Kurds loyal to the US and Shi'ites itching for
immediate autonomy could be explosive, believes Ofra Benjo, an Iraq
specialist at Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center.
Iraq has a long history of violence, she said. "This might
eventually compel the US to utilize the tools of Saddam to enforce
its rule. The question is how much power America wants to give the
Shi'a."
"The burden to engineer a new society is upon them," Benjo added.
She estimates that a bloody decade could pass before the US has
transformed a Muslim-Arab society into a Western-style
democracy.
