Iraq
is About to Explode

By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation

With Iraq's
internal politics a ticking time bomb -- and Iran wielding its influence --
neither John McCain nor Barack Obama has a realistic plan.
While everyone's looking at Iraq's
effect on American politics -- and whether or not John McCain and Barack Obama
are converging on a policy that combines a flexible timetable with a vague, and
long-lasting, residual force -- let's take a look instead at Iraqi politics.
The picture isn't pretty.
Despite the Optimism of the Neocons, which has pushed mainstream media
coverage to be increasingly flowery about Iraq's political progress, in fact
the country is poised to explode. Even before the November election. And for
McCain and Obama, the problem is that Iran has many of the cards in its
hands. Depending on its choosing, between now and November Iran can help
stabilize the war in Iraq -- mostly by urging the Iraqi Shiites to behave
themselves -- or it can make things a lot more violent.
There are at least three flashpoints for an explosion, any or all of which
could blow up over the next couple of months. (Way to go, Surgin' Generals!)
The first is the brewing crisis over Kirkuk,
where the pushy Kurds are demanding control and Iraq's Arabs are resisting. The
second is in the west, and Anbar, where the U.S.-backed Sons of Iraq sahwa ("Awakening") movement is moving to take power against the Iraqi
Islamic Party, a fundamentalist Sunni bloc. And third is the restive Mahdi Army
of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is chafing at gains made by its Iranian-backed rival,
the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).
Perhaps the issue of Kirkuk
and the Kurds is most dangerous. Last week, the Kurds walked out of parliament
to protest a law passed by parliament to govern the provincial elections. The
law passed 127-13, but it was vetoed by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Juan
Cole, the astute observer, says:
"The conflict between Kurds and Arabs over Kirkuk is a crisis waiting to happen."
He cites Al-Hayat, an Iraqi newspaper, as claiming that not only do the
Kurds want to control Kirkuk, an oil-rich
province in Iraq's
north, but they plan to annex three other provinces where Kurds live: Diyala,
Salahuddin, and Ninewa. That's not likely, but they do want Kirkuk, and the vetoed election law would
have limited the Kurds' ability to press their gains there.
The election law was supported
by Sadr's bloc and backed
by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his Iraq National List. Another
nationalist party, the National Dialogue Council, has demanded
the ouster of President Talabani over his veto of the law. Other Iraqi
parties are backing
the now-vetoed law, too, which also restricts the use of Islamic religious
symbols by political parties seeking to corral illiterate, religious voters.
Because of all this, it now looks like there won't be provincial elections
this year at all. The ruling bloc of Shiite religious parties and Kurdish
warlords is split over the crisis, weakening Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,
and members of the ruling coalition are trying to patch things up. I don't
think they'll succeed. Many Shiites in the ruling bloc, including ISCI, have criticized
the law as divisive, but as Arabs it's hard for them to endorse a Kurdish
takeover of Kirkuk.
ISCI and the Badr Brigade, its armed wing, are holding
parlays to decide what to do. Interestingly, all three members of the
ruling presidential council, including Talabani, the IIP's Hashemi, and ISCI's
Adel Abdel Mahdi, voted
to veto the law, putting ISCI and the IIP on record as supporting the
Kurds. Bad for them politically.
The IIP says that it wants to mediate the crisis. But the IIP is in a very,
very weak position. Having just rejoined the Maliki government, it is under
siege at home in its base in Anbar province, where the Awakening is flexing its
muscle. This could be the second explosion. The Sunni Arabs are still seething
over the divisive Iraqi Constitution and their continuing exclusion from
political power, and the Awakening movement sees the IIP (correctly) as wildly
unrepresentative. So the Awakening, representing Sunni tribal powers and former
resistance fighters, wants in, at the expense of the IIP. That time bomb is
ticking, too.
The final crisis-to-be is the Sadr vs. Badr one. The Times today suggests
that Sadr is weakening:

The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor
Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi
Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for
stability in Iraq.
Don't believe it. Sadr's rivals, ISCI, don't have anything like the popular
base that Sadr has. And underneath Sadr is a volatile mix of neighborhood,
local and regional militias, mosques, and economic fiefdoms that won't yield
easily to ISCI and Maliki. Because Sadr's forces are dependent on Iran, however, for arms and cash, Iran may be in
the driver's seat. Just the other day, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps crowed that the
United States has failed
to install an anti-Iranian regime in Baghdad,
and he's completely right.
So Iraq is still poised
to explode, and Iran
may be in control. McCain's solution: provoke a showdown with Iran. Obama's
solution: try to make a deal with Iran
to stabilize Iraq.
I'm not sure either "plan" will work.