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Current focus: Southern Iraq

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More on the free and expanded e-mail alert service, now subscribed to by more than 1,000 readers worldwide: shorter topical news stories that are not published online at historiae.org will be sent directly to subscribers, via email. Recent examples of such reports include:

• General Mohan Is Transferred to Baghdad – New Security Regime in Basra (17 April 2008)

• The Fadila Party Criticises the Basra Operations (27 March 2008)

• ISCI Faces Challenges in Nasiriyya; Provincial Powers Law Vetoed (27 February 2008)

• Anti-Sectarian Police Commander Is Assassinated in Babel (9 December 2007), also quoted by Reuters

• Once More, Iraq’s Shiites Express Scepticism about Federalism (14 September 2007)

• Local Reactions to the British Withdrawal from Basra: Sadrists Claim Victory (4 September 2007, quoted by Patrick Cockburn in The Independent and with related coverage by Ned Parker in Los Angeles Times

• Iraq Inches Closer to Oil Legislation Deal but Key Issues Remain (23 June 2007)

• Towards a Political Earthquake in Basra? (27 April 2007)

• Mysterious Southern Regionalists Cause a Stir in Baghdad (15 April 2007)

• SCIRI Members Arrested in Kut (18 January 2007)

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15 May 2008: The Sadrists of Basra and the Far South of Iraq: The Most Unpredictable Political Force in the Gulf’s Oil-Belt Region? Background paper on internal rivalries within the Sadrist movement, and how US policy could affect Muqtada al-Sadr's strategies in the future. With related comments to CNN.

The narrative that just doesn’t work: “On the other hand, if we succeed in Iraq after all that al-Qaida and Iran have invested there, it would be a historic blow to the global terrorist movement and a severe setback for Iran. It would demonstrate to a watching world that mainstream Arabs reject the ideology of al-Qaida, and mainstream Shiites reject the ideology of Iran’s radical regime.” (George Bush, 10 April 2008). “Mainstream Shiites”, yes, but apparently not Bush's own favourites, such as Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, pictured here in a recent meeting with Iran’s Ali Khamenei. “Rejection” simply isn’t the term that comes to mind.

9 April 2008: Maliki, Hakim, and Iran’s Role in the Basra Fighting. Based on an article published in Terrorism Focus vol. 5 no. 14, with additional commentary on the US Congress hearings on Iraq policy. Also comments to USA Today and Reuters on the campaign against the Sadrists.

Basra is burning: After having first tried to distinguish between moderate Sadrists and radical splinter cells loyal to Iran, the US and the UK have now uncritically and even enthusiastically espoused Nuri al-Maliki's apparent attempt at a more general war against Muqtada al-Sadr. This despite (some claim because of) repeated signals that the Sadrists are committed to the political process and want to contest the local elections.

26 March 2008: The Enigmatic Second Battle of Basra. Is Nuri al-Maliki trying to build an independent power base for himself inside the Iraqi security forces? With additional comments to Reuters (29 March), Los Angeles Times, UPI and Reuters (31 March), as well as remarks to an online debate on Iraqi issues at The Washington Post. Also related coverage from Aswat al-Iraq, the Baghdad-based Iraqi news agency (in Arabic) and in La Croix (in French, PDF file.)

10 March 2008: Debating Devolution in Iraq. Published at Middle East Report Online. As Iraq’s federalization process enters phase two, it’s centrists versus ethno-federalists.

11 February 2008: The Law on the Powers of Governorates Not Organised in a Region: Washington’s “Moderate” Allies Show Some Not-So-Moderate Tendencies. With a brief update (14 February) on the passage of the law in the Iraqi parliament, also published in an extended version (including comments on the 27 February veto by the presidential council) at The Atlantic Community.

18 January 2008: Ashura Sees Iraq’s Shiites Divided between Sectarianism, Iraqi Nationalism, and Mahdism, with a brief update on the situation in Basra and Nasiriyya published 20 January and comments to Los Angeles Times.

13 December 2007: Nonsense of Congress on Federalism in Iraq. On the adoption by the US Congress of the 2008 defence authorisation bill. Also available is a background paper relevant to the forthcoming British handover of Basra (scheduled for 16 December), with a focus on the tensions which British and US military authorities are overlooking – and which the Iraqi government want them to overlook. With comments on the security situation in the far south to Reuters, regarding Basra and Amara.

12 November 2007: Will 2008 Be the Year of Federalism in Iraq? A new book, An Iraq of Its Regions, features critical perspectives on Iraq’s federalization process. With related coverage at Aswat al-Iraq, the Iraqi newswire service (in Arabic).

8 October 2007: The Planned Basra Handover; Iraqi Reactions to the US Senate Vote on Federalism. Critical perspective on the timing of the British handover plans in Basra published at The Atlantic Community, plus Iraqi reactions to the US Senate vote on federalism and what they mean to US policy: op-ed in The News Journal published in Wilmington, Delaware – the home state of Senator Joseph Biden, the principal American advocate of “soft partition” in Iraq. Also related news story on Basra in Newsday (Long Island/NYC) and on the Concil on Foreign Relations website, and a letter to the editor published in The Hill (Washington, D.C.) about contradictions in Biden’s claim to have a distinctive “Iraq plan”.

27 September 2007: The US Senate Votes to Partition Iraq. Softly. Reprinted in The Arab American News (Dearborn, Michigan); related coverage in The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware). Also two further comment articles on foreign involvement in Iraq’s national reconciliation process: a positive one involving football (originally published in Norwegian in Aftenposten, Oslo, 26 September 2007); another more negative one focused on the Norwegian oil industry (translated from an op-ed in Dagbladet, 14 June 2007).

14 September 2007: US Policy in Iraq at a Crossroads. Critical perspective on how the “surge” is working in areas south of Baghdad in Terrorism Monitor (also reprinted in a shorter version in Asia Times Online), and an op-ed on the “partition” alternative, published at the History News Network, with related coverage in the cover story of the 1 October issue of Maclean’s, the Canadian national weekly. Also comments to the Berlin-based Atlantic Community on US policy in Iraq, and the prospects of a European role.

19 August 2007: Another Bout of Partitionism. The campaign for an Iraq divided on the basis of ethnic and sectarian identities adds some academics to its ranks, but the arguments for partition remain as unconvincing as ever. Review of Edward P. Joseph and Michael E. O’Hanlon, “The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq”, and Amitai Etzioni, “Plan Z: A Community Based Security Plan for Iraq”. With related interview in The New York Times (19 August 2007), and comments in The Boston Globe (21 August 2007) and The International Herald Tribune (via AP, 22 August) on the US failure to activate Iraqi nationalist sentiment for instance by reaching out beyond the Maliki government. Additional coverage at The Huffington Post and in The Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel.

17 July 2007: The Supreme Council Marks the Fourth Anniversary of Baqir al-Hakim’s Assassination – No Mention of Federalism. Are Shiite leaders reconsidering their position on the idea of a single Shiite federal entity? With related commentary on the Iraq partition question in The Star (Toronto) 22 July 2007, and on the situation in Basra (United Press International, 16 August 2007).

17 July 2007: The Gibraltar That Never Was. Paper presented to the British World conference, Bristol, 11–14 July 2007, originally titled “A Rigid Conception of Britishness: Imperialism, Local Regionalism and Transnational Links among the British of Basra and Abadan, 1890–1940” and published here with an epilogue on the contemporary geopolitics of the Shatt al-Arab delta and some reflections on current British and US policies.

11 June 2007: Iraq’s Constitutional Revision: Give the Iraqi Politicians an Offer They Cannot Refuse. Why the United States should encourage limits on federalism in Iraq.

12 May 2007: SCIRI More Flexible on Federalism, but Fails to Resolve Khamenei Ambiguity. The supposed makeover of SCIRI (SIIC) raises more questions than it answers. With related coverage in al-Hayat and the Kuwaiti al-Qabas (in Arabic).

23 April 2007: Why “Gated Communities” Will Face Opposition in the Iraqi Capital. Westerners tend to overestimate the Iraqis’ desire for territorial segregation along sectarian lines.

10 April 2007: Unitary State, Federalism or Partition? Poll Data Give Mixed Picture of Iraq South of Baghdad. Also including some extraordinary survey results from Sadr City.

20 March 2007: Democratic Alternatives for Iraq. In their efforts to create an alternative Iraq discourse, the Democratic Party adopts a cavalier attitude to the country's history.

27 February 2007: Basra Crude – The Great Game of Iraq’s “Southern” Oil. Background paper of relevance to the new Iraqi oil and gas law. With an update (6 March) on the leaked final version of the draft law, and a companion article, “Basra, the Reluctant Seat of Shiastan”, published in Middle East Report no. 242, special issue on the Shiites in the Arab world, also available in a Turkish translation (PDF) from Stratejik Analiz (Ankara), June 2007.

29 January 2007: Ashura in Iraq – Enter Mahdism? With related commentary in Reuters reports of 29 January, 30 January and 2 February as well as in the Boston Globe & The International Herald Tribune (31 January).

11 January 2007: What Exactly Is Washington Surging for in Iraq? On the problems of implementing a troop surge without including a credible political component. (Also reprinted in The Arab American News, Michigan, and published at openDemocracy.) For a discussion of why the “alternative” policy proposed by Senator Joseph Biden is even more problematic – and could amount to presenting the whole Middle East to al-Qaida on a silver platter – see the historical background essay “Other People’s Maps”, published in the Wilson Quarterly (Winter 2007) by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC.

21 December 2006: A Strategy for Dealing with the Sadrists? A US “surge” campaign to marginalise the Sadrists has obvious weaknesses, and could prove futile unless there is serious attention to political reform. See also the comment article A Timetabled, Conditional Surge (29 December 2006) and marginal notes to the Iraq Study Group report, published at the Institute for the Future of the Book’s website as a Lapham’s Quarterly project (7 January 2007).

6 December 2006: The Iraq Study Group – Regionalisation Not Balkanisation. Dialogue with Iraq’s neighbours might increase the United States’ range of options in Iraq and help Washington extricate itself from the country.

4 December 2006: Federalism from Below in Iraq – Some Historical and Comparative Reflections. Why the emergence of a tripartite Kurdish–Sunni–Shiite federation in Iraq is actually quite unlikely from the legal and procedural point of view. Paper presented to the international workshop “Iraq after the New Government: Stabilisation, Reconstruction and the Security Regional Scenario” arranged by the Landau Network, Como, Italy, 24–25 November 2006.

20 November 2006: In Basra, Iraqi Nationalism Remains Proud and Articulate. Physically they may look monotonous, but Iraq’s southern flatlands are more complex than facile stereotypes in Western media would suggest. For more on the inadequacy of sectarian paradigms for understanding southern Iraq, see Ottoman Provincial Boundaries, Shiite Federalism, and Energy Conflict in Iraq, English version of an article which appeared in Turkish in Stratejik Analiz (Ankara), November 2006. Turkish text available here.

27 October 2006: There Is No Biden Plan. Comment article published at Just World News. US policy debate on Iraq should be purged of the spurious partition alternative.

27 September 2006: The Draft Law for the Formation of Regions – A Recipe for Permanent Instability in Iraq? The proposed text may deepen the confederal nature of the Iraqi polity by giving advantages to those in favour of a system of a few large-scale regions instead of several small ones. With an added note on the adoption of the law on 11 October 2006.

17 September 2006: Another Iraq Deadline Passes. The simmering controversy over the implementation of federalism is once more heating up.

17 August 2006: Divide and Rejoice - Why Are Western Intellectuals so Enamoured with the Idea of a Fragmented Iraq? Book review of Peter W. Galbraith’s The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End, published at the History News Network (Seattle, Washington).

11 July 2006: Britain in Basra – Past Experiences and Current Challenges. Paper presented to the Global Gulf conference, University of Exeter, 4–6 July 2006 and originally titled “Melting Pot of the Gulf? Cosmopolitanism and Its Limits in the Experience of Basra’s British Community, 1890–1940”; published here with some additional reflections on multi-culturalism in contemporary Basra and the current British role in the city. Later quoted in The Independent.

9 June 2006: Building Federal Subunits by Way of Referenda – Special Challenges for Iraq. International constitutional experts have fixed their eyes on Spain as a federal model for Iraq, but historical contrasts between the two countries mean that Iraq faces certain special problems not shared by Spain.

23 May 2006: The Maliki Government – What It Could Mean to Southern Iraq. Nuri al-Maliki is seeking allies in an unruly periphery. For a related news story and interview, see “Iraq's Premier Sets State of Emergency for Southern City” in The Washington Post 1 June 2006. Maliki’s singling out of a mainly Shiite governorate in this first major demonstration of power illustrates the futility of reducing complex Iraqi politics to a conflict between three ethno-religious groups. With an addendum dated 9 June 2006 on the completion of the Maliki government.

19 May 2006: Iraq and the Partition Fantasy. Comment article published at openDemocracy. On recent federal and confederal schemes for Iraq (especially the Biden & Gelb proposal), with discussion of relevant issues in the upcoming revision of the Iraqi constitution – particularly with regard to the implementation of federalism. Also available in an Arabic translation (PDF) published by al-‘Arab al-Usbu‘i (London). This version was not prepared in consultation with the author and contains some divergences from the original text. Please refer to the English text in case of any ambiguity.

22 April 2006: Centralism and Unitary State Logic in Iraq from Midhat Pasha to Jawad al-Maliki: A Continuous Trend? On why an Ottoman document from 1910 is of relevance for understanding the battlefronts in Iraqi politics today. (Translation of an article published in Norwegian in the journal Babylon vol. 4 no. 1, 2006, with an added postscript on the nomination of Jawad al-Maliki as prime ministerial candidate.)

12 March 2006: Sistani, the United States and Politics in Iraq: From Quietism to Machiavellianism? With a commentary added 29 April 2006 on the latest pronouncement by Sistani regarding the formation of a new Iraqi government, and a related news story at Radio Sawa (Arabic).

Is a second Iran emerging in Iraq? This study covers Sistani’s interaction with key concepts in contemporary Iraqi political debate, like democracy, federalism and the “rule of the jurisprudent” (wilayat al-faqih).

"An excellent study of Sistani."

11 February 2006: SCIRI, Daawa and Sadrists in the Certified Iraq Elections Results. SCIRI recoups some influence within the United Iraqi Alliance, but the overall structure of the coalition remains complex and diversified.

20 January 2006: Beyond SCIRI and Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim – the Silent Forces of the United Iraqi Alliance (Iraq elections analysis based on final results). The results within the results show that bedrock support for the UIA is polymorphic and largely unexplored.

22 December 2005: A Disunited Iraqi Alliance Triumphs in the South (elections analysis). The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – often seen as the leading force within the United Iraqi Alliance – is in fact surprisingly marginal in areas south of Baghdad. See also the related discussion at Helena Cobban’s blog, Just World News.

13 December 2005: Towards Sectarian Separatism in Iraq? The 15 December elections may determine whether abstract scenarios of disintegration are transformed into hard political realities.

7 December 2005: Norway’s Oil Industry and the Partitioning of Iraq. Norway’s first steps off the beaten track in Iraq are distinctly undiplomatic. (Translation of comment article published in Norwegian in Dagbladet (Oslo), with additional excerpts from the Iraqi constitution, and a postscript note added 11 January 2006. Further commentary on developments in 2006 in this report by Reuters, also excerpted and published with supplementary information by the International Herald Tribune. Also available in Norwegian is a brief background sketch, circa 210 KB, covering the October 2005 constitutional referendum in Iraq.)

23 November 2005: Southern Iraq Gears Up for Elections. Voters can choose between Islamism and secularism – with southern regionalism featuring as a complicating factor.

14 October 2005: Basra, the Shi'is and the Iraq Referendum. Weaknesses in the proposed constitution might lead to the break-up of Iraq in a worst-case scenario. But the fault lines are different from what many believe, and the charter itself could be made more robust with additional checks and balances. Comment article published in Asia Times Online (Hong Kong) and Khaleej Times (Dubai).

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