The Pakistani Spectator

Assessment of Iraq ’s prospects in Washington , and among the country’s political class generally, continues to focus on the short-term and tactics for influencing it.  Participants in GM2 are among the exceptions. I propose taking a longer-term view by asking the question: what will political leadership in Baghdad look like 5 years down the road.  Predictions of this kind have very wide confidence margins, of course.  But probably no wider than predictions for the next few months.

Here is my vision of Baghdad New Year’s Day 2014.

The President will be a Shi’ite general.  The office of presidency will have been enhanced relative to the Prime Minister through constitutional amendments.  Formally, it will resemble the French 5th republic.  General ‘X’ will be a secular Shi’ite who passed muster with Ayatollah Sistani (or his successor) by paying dutiful attention to public displays of devotion to the Faith.  In this, he will be in the mold of American politicians who ‘find Jesus’ the day before they decide to run for national office. He may or may not have been an officer in Saddam’s day.  He will have gained popularity by kicking the Kurds out of Diyala Province and confronting them successfully over Kirkuk .  Some small blood will be shed but no civil strife to match a blistering war of words. This will make him a hero among Sunni Arabs as well as Shi’ite Arabs.  His actions will have toughened the stance of the then government in bitter dealings with the Kurds, a question made all the more compelling by a prolonged decline in oil prices and, therefore, revenues.

General ‘X’ will win office by garnering about 65% percent of the vote in an election that is only slightly rigged. On this basis, he will pass as a shining example of Arab democracy - helping Washington to finesse the overriding strategic fact that it has been shown the door - as Gareth Porter has foreseen and as the ever blinkered media have yet to recognize.*  General ‘X’s’ government will bring Iraq much closer to Iran

than to the United States .  Economic and cultural ties will be particularly intense.  Cordiality in all directions will be the leitmotif of his foreign policy.  It will aim at keeping the Americans off Iraq ’s back and mollify Sunni states in the region.  On the Iranian nuclear issue, he will follow a studied course of neutrality and keep a low profile.

There will be a vestigial American military presence - confined to a limited number of bases.  Standing up to the Americans in rejecting President’s Obama’s plans to maintain a bigger force with greater discretionary powers will add to his popularity.  Our grandiose Vice-Regal Embassy will have no more than a few hundred personnel instead of the 1,300 expected.  There will be ample time for recreational activities.

General ‘X’ will seek to consolidate his power by using oil revenues as the all-purpose emollient.  He will work through tribal leaders and provincial governors who, for the most part, will be fellow military men.  Any faction that gets out of line will be slapped down - hard.  That’s the advantage of having a military hero in power.  If really clever, he’ll insert into his Inaugural Address the phrases: “With malice toward none; with charity toward all.’

In other words, Iraq will look not that different than the country as it would have been in the wake of a post-Saddam military coup.  Two significant differences: the Shi’ites rather the Sunnis will at the top of the heap; relations with Iran will be intimate rather than frosty.  That is what will be called ’success’ in many retrospective accounts of the American adventure in Mesopotamia generated around Dupont Circle .

I have no idea of the likelihood of this picture actually crystallizing.  I do hope that this is the time horizon being used by Mr. Obama’s team of the not-so-bright and not-quite-best.

The American media are currently obsessed with finding old titles to fix on the incoming Obama government. “Team Of Rivals” had a good run of 10 days; now succeeded by the box office hit “The Best and The Brightest” on marquees nationwide.  Let us pray that the future will not give us: “Gone With The Wind” or “For Whom The Bell Tolls”