Think Tank Paints Bleak Picture of Iraq's Future
Civil war risk tied to factional struggle
Thursday, September 02, 2004
By John Daniszewski, Los Angeles Times
LONDON -- Iraq will be lucky if it manages to avoid a breakup and civil war, and the country can become the spark for a vortex of regional upheaval, a report released yesterday by Britain's highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs has concluded.
In a bleak assessment of where Iraq stands nearly 18 months after the launch of the U.S.-led war to depose former President Saddam Hussein, the institute's Middle East team focused on the internal forces dividing the country and the danger that external pressures could make the tendency even worse.
The report noted that U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had called attention to the possibility of civil war during his visit to Iraq in February. "His warnings should be heeded," it said.
At most, the report suggested, the United States and its allies can hope for a "muddle through" scenario, holding the country together but falling short of their original goal: creation of a full-fledged democracy friendly to the West. The United States will have to keep all of Iraq's factions "more or less on board" through a combination of clever diplomacy and military restraint, it said, while avoiding any hint of U.S. interference in upcoming elections.
The fragmentation of Iraq is the "default" scenario, the report said, and would occur if U.S.-led forces were to pull out of the country too quickly or if the U.S. government were to impose its vision on the country too rigidly.
"Under this scenario," the report said, "Kurdish separatism and Shia assertiveness work against a smooth transition to elections, while the Sunni Arab minority remains on the offensive and engaged in resistance.
"Antipathy to the U.S. presence grows, not so much in a unified Iraqi nationalist backlash, but rather in a fragmented manner that could presage civil war if the U.S. cuts and runs," it added. "Even if the U.S. forces try to hold out and prop up the central authority, it may still lose control."
The institute is an independent research body chartered by the queen; its scholars frequently advise the government and the Foreign Office about international issues.
One of the authors of the report -- Rosemary Hollis, head of the institute's Middle East program -- yesterday said in an interview that there were two messages to be drawn from the study:
First, the United States and Britain must be cautious and flexible in their actions regarding Iraq and accept that the Iraqi central government will be weak and "untidy" for the foreseeable future.
Second, Iraq's neighbors -- almost none of whom support the U.S. approach there -- should be taken into account, or they could try to disrupt the transition to the stable government.