Human Rights First Report On What To Do About Iraq’s Refugees

At the end of December 2008 Human Rights First released an excellent report on Iraq’s refugees entitled “How to Confront the Iraqi Refugee Crisis.” It noted that the refugee crisis is still on going. The United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR for example, recorded 12,500 Iraqis entering Syria in 2008. Surveys show that one-third of Iraqis fled the general violence in the country, while the other two-third left because they felt directly targeted. Most of the displacement occurred after the February 2006 Samarra bombing that set off the sectarian war. This can be seen in the fact that Sunnis were only about 20% of the population, but represent 55% of the U.N. registered refugees. Iraq’s minorities such as Christians, Mandeans, Yazidis, Turkomen, Shabaks, and others have also greatly suffered, comprising 18-20% of the U.N. refugees, but only 3-4% of Iraq. The result has been a less diverse country and more homogenous neighborhoods, especially in Baghdad, which has seen the most displacement. The UNHCR, the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, and the State Department all believe that Iraq’s refugees still need help. The Human Rights First report was notable for its up to date numbers, and analysis of the current situation in Iraq. It not only went through the current refugee crisis, but also made suggestions for the in coming Obama administration as well.

The forces directly responsible for Iraq’s displacement are many. Insurgents, terrorist groups, and militias all took part in violence aimed at the country’s population. What is often overlooked is that the Iraqi government was also directly involved. The media usually talks about how militias had infiltrated the security forces during this period, but refugees told Human Rights Watch that they believed the ruling parties had a plan to force out certain groups. The police, National Police, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of Health all took part in sectarian attacks. As reported before, Shiite parties like the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its Badr Brigade and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army were directly enrolled into the security forces, and took control of specific ministries. They carried out a systematic campaign to cleanse certain areas of Sunnis. Iraq’s minorities were caught in the middle of this bloodbath. This has repercussions today, as many displaced still do not trust their government.

Iraq’s refugees have been both greeted and rejected in the countries they have moved to. Most can’t work legally, which leads to exploitation. Children are not going to school because they need to support their families, while some Iraqi women have gone into prostitution to make money. Many have run through their savings, while their cost of living expenses have risen. That has led to increasing dependence upon U.N. aid. Syria and Jordan are increasingly growing weary of the large number of Iraqis in their country. This is problematic since many Iraqis don’t seem to want to return anytime soon. Many who register with the UNHCR hope to be repatriated to a third country. 64,500 have applied for asylum in 2007 and the first six months of 2008, the highest amount in the world. Most want to go to Sweden, Germany, Greece or the United States.

Iraq’s internally displaced are facing tougher conditions as well. Many provinces have stopped movement of the displaced into their areas. Some want them to leave. Lack of jobs, access to services, and assistance from either the government or non-government organizations is chronic. The International Organization for Migration in its monthly reports have recorded dozens of cases of displaced families living in mud huts with no access to jobs, clean water, and sewage systems.

All of these hardships and the improvement in security have begun the process of return. By September 2008 the International Organization for Migration and the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration counted 38,401 families who had come back, amounting to approximately 230,406 people. That was around 5% of the displaced. Most of these were internal refugees moving within Baghdad. Surveys say that 80% of the displaced in their own provinces want to go back to their homes while only around 50% of the displaced in other provinces want to. Many still feel their original areas are unsafe. Very few refugees have come back from other countries however.

Baghdad has also been pushing for Iraqis to return, but Human Rights First believes it actually might be detrimental. In late 2007 the government began to encourage Iraqis to come back. In 2008 they created a national policy on refugees and the displaced written with the help of the United Nations, and conforming to international norms. They called on Iraqis to return because the country was safe, and they could be protected. The plan allows the displaced to vote in elections, provides aid, and includes the eviction of squatters to resolve property issues. At the same time, Baghdad also tried to force refugees to come back from other countries. In 2007 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Syria and Jordan to tighten their visa requirements to stem the flow of Iraqis to those two countries. In early 2008 the government talked Germany out of taking in minorities. Iraqi, Syrian and U.N. sources told Human Rights First that the Iraqi leadership was against helping the displaced because they believe the displacement crisis made the country look bad. They also thought that refugees who refused to go back were traitors.

Human Rights First also found that the refugee policy was not being applied evenly. In August 2008 the International Organization for Migration reported that militias were selling houses illegally that they had seized from people in Baghdad, Diyala, Tamim, and Ninewa with the help of local security forces. Some refugees said they believed the government was still sectarian. The government for example, was supposed to create two centers to assist returns in Baghdad, one in the Shiite east and one in the Sunni west. Only the center in the Shiite area was opened. Other refugees thought the return program was part of campaigning for the upcoming elections. In general, many did not trust the government.

This was why Human Rights First did not think that Baghdad’s refugee program was good. It thought that it was important that the government began an eviction process, but dealing with property issues was not the only thing that would help the displaced. It believes that Baghdad needs to provide the rule of law, punish those that carry out attacks and abuses, get rid of sectarianism, protect minorities, expel militias, and deal with Kirkuk and other disputed territories. Minorities especially, are still being targeted, while violence against women is increasing. Some refugees have also been attacked and intimidated after their returns. None of this is helping with the situation. Overall, Human Rights First believed that the Maliki government lacked earnestness when dealing with the plight of refugees.

The U.S. has also not had a real strategy to deal with this problem. President Bush and Secretary of State Rice hardly talk about the issue. The 2008 and 2009 budgets for example, had no funds for Iraq’s refugees. It was because of Congress that $500 million was set aside for fiscal year 2008 and $350 million in 2008 for Iraq’s displaced. This has meant a dramatic increase in aid and programs. The U.S. has also taken in more Iraqis. In 2006 202 Iraqis were admitted, followed by 1,608 in 2007 and 13,823 in 2008. There is still no real U.S. leadership however. The Bush White House has argued that returns are the solution, and this will happen when security improves.

Human Rights First believes that the Obama administration needs to make a real commitment to this crisis. They need to help those that want to go back, and those that don’t. It recommended setting benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet. If they are not met, the U.S. should withdraw support form the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, and focus upon non-government organizations and direct aid to Iraqis. The U.S. should also encourage Prime Minister Maliki to provide accurate information on the situation within Iraq to refugees so that their returns are voluntary. The Americans also have to provide aid to host countries like Syria and Jordan, convince them to ease their visa restrictions on Iraqis, as well as facilitate the immigration of those Iraqis that have no plans to go home. Finally, a property claims/compensation program needs to be started even if the families never return. In order to ensure that this will be carried out, Human Rights First calls for a high level official to be appointed by the incoming president solely to focus upon Iraq’s refugees.

“How to Confront the Iraqi Refugee Crisis” provides not only a good synopsis of the causes and effects of Iraq’s displacement, but analysis as well, in a short and to the point report. It shows that Iraqi refugees outside the country and displaced within it are still suffering major problems providing for themselves and obtaining support. Although some Iraqis have begun to return, Baghdad is not doing a good job dealing with them, and in fact, may be making the situation worse because it is more interested in image than implementation. Those that are coming back are mostly the displaced, with Iraq’s two million refugees staying in their new homes. This is probably due to the fact that they are largely Sunni and minorities who have been the victims of the Shiite parties and militias that now run Iraq. Until there is more trust and effective government it is unlikely that large numbers of refugees will ever return to Iraq. That places a large onus on the U.S. and international community to provide for these people, and the countries where they reside. That is the main point of the report, Iraq’s refugee crisis is an on-going event that is getting worse for many Iraqis, and needs the full attention of the new American administration.

SOURCES

Ferris, Elizabeth, “The Real Challenge of Internal Displacement in Iraq: The Future,” Brookings Institution, 12/6/07

Human Rights First, “How to Confront the Iraqi Refugee Crisis,” December 2008
Overview

International Organization for Migration, “Anbar, Baghdad & Diyala, Governorate Profiles,” December 2008

Ministry of Displacement and Migration & International Organization for Migration, “Returnee Monitoring and Needs Assessments Tabulation Report,” September 2008

Interview With McClatchy Newspapers’ Baghdad Bureau Chief Leila Fadel

In mid-December 2008 The Real News Network, an internet television station, interviewed Leila Fadel, the longtime Baghdad Bureau Chief of McClatchy Newspapers. As reported before, McClatchy is one of the few news outlets to maintain a fulltime staff in Iraq. The discussion covered the Surge, Moqtada al-Sadr, and the influence of Iran, but the most interesting part of the conversation was on Fadel’s opinions of the continuing struggles in Iraq.

Ms. Fadel believes that Iraq is still in turmoil. The major divisions within the country have not been dealt with despite the reduction in violence. Every time a major issue comes up in parliament, for example, it is always delayed and pushed back to be dealt with at a later time. This was seen when the legislature was discussing the Provincial Election Law. The most heated debate centered on the city of Kirkuk and the future of Tamim province. In the final version of the law however, elections there were postponed until a commission comes up with suggestions on how the major groups in the city can share power. Fadel believes that until these issues are dealt with there will still be violence in Iraq.

This will not be at the same levels as in the past, nor come from the same sources. The latest reports on violence show a dramatic drop in deaths from 2007 to 2008. Yet attacks and killings continue. Fadel believes that the motivation for such violence has changed. She thinks that the fighting in Baghdad is basically over along with the sectarian war. Now the major divisions are over politics between the Shiites in the south, and the Arabs and Kurds in the north where there is also an ethnic element. The conflict as ever in post-invasion Iraq, is about power and control of oil. The major groups, the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds are each vying for position, trying to find out who will have what in the future. Fadel said the political parties and their politicians are all opportunists, looking to see how much they can get away with and how much influence they can accrue.

At the heart of this struggle is Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who in 2008 has been concentrating power around himself. He has direct control of all military and police units. They can’t move without his permission. He has launched military operations against the Sadrists, the insurgency, and has increasing fashioned himself as a nationalist in opposition to the expansionist plans of the Kurds. He is also being accused of being an autocrat more and more. Fadel said that there were even some who were afraid of Maliki, and his newfound position. This is the reason why Iraq is full of stories about him being-unseated.

There are now two more added pressures to this competition. First, 2009 will see a series of ballots for local, provincial, and national offices. This has already led to an uptake in attacks. The most recent were the murders of a member of the Patriot Union of Kurdistan who was gunned down in a drive by shooting on January 5, and a politician from the Communist Party the day before, both in Kirkuk. The United Nations Special Representative to Iraq, Staffan de Mistura condemned such election related violence. He mentioned a member of the Hadba, Iraq For Us Party, the major Sunni coalition in Ninewa being killed in a café on December 31 in Mosul. De Mistura said there had also been raids and attacks on the party. At the beginning of that month, two members of the Islamic Party were also killed in that city. Second is the change in the U.S. administration. Under the Bush White House Iraq had a blank check from the United States. Fadel believes Iraqi politicians are afraid that under Obama Iraq will not be such a priority, and the new president might make more demands of Baghdad. The U.S. has also agreed to a 2011 withdrawal date under the Status of Forces Agreement, which means not only do the political parties need to consider Obama, but what position they’ll be in after the Americans are largely gone.

Leila Fadel has been working in Iraq for a long time, and provided some important insight in her interview with The Real News Network. She tried to explain that politics is increasingly driving violence rather than violence shaping the politicians. In fact, the differences between the major parties and sectarian groups is increasing as elections approach, the Americans have agreed to pull out their combat troops, and Maliki makes his move to grab power. This has made it almost impossible for the parties to come to any real meaningful compromises. Even when parliament passes important legislation like the election law, the major issue of Kirkuk is put off. Other laws like the Amnesty and the Accountability and Justice acts have not been implemented evenly leading to little reconciliation. As long as Iraq continues to be divided, this new status quo is likely to continue.

SOURCES

Agence France Presse, “Iraq Hails Lowest Monthly Death Toll in Three Years,” 1/2/09
- “Kurdish communist politician shot dead in Iraq,” 1/4/09

Al-Ansary, Khalid, “Election friction flares in Iraq’s violent north,” Reuters, 1/2/09

Associated Press, “Member of Iraq president party killed in drive-by,” 1/6/09

Aswat al-Iraq, “Two IIP members assassinated in Mosul,” 12/1/08

Goode, Erica, “Iraq Passes Provincial Elections Law,” New York Times, 9/25/08

Hanna, Michael Wahid, “Through the cracks,” The National, 12/19/08

Jay, Paul, “Iraq gov’t fear Obama?” Real News Network, 12/16/08
- “Iraqi elites fight for position,” Real News Network, 12/12/08

Kadhim, Hussein, “Iraqi government plays down arrests of 23 police officers,” McClatchy Newspapers, 12/18/08

Kamal, Adel, “violence threatens mosul elections,” Niqash, 12/11/08

Rubin, Alissa, “Iraq Unsettled by Political Power Plays,” New York Times, 12/26/08

United Nations Radio, “UN Envoy in Iraq condemns election related violence,” 1/2/09

UPI, “SIIC denies attempts to oust Maliki,” 1/2/09

Pentagon Pushing For Slow Withdrawal Process

When President Elect Barak Obama was campaign in 2008 he promised to have U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by May 2010. The military commanders in the Middle East however, are not comfortable with such a speedy withdrawal, and have proposed a much slower one loosely based upon the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). That would mean most U.S. troops would be out by the end of 2011, with an unknown amount of Americans staying behind as advisors and support staff for Iraqis. This is an approach that has been advocated by quite a few of America’s leading think tanks as well. Finding a compromise between Obama’s election promise and the desires of the military will be the first task of the new President’s Iraq policy.

In the middle of December 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen presented President Elect Obama and his national security team with their initial plans for withdrawal. General David Petraeus, commander of the Central Command, and General Ray Odierno, U.S. commander in Iraq, drew up the timetable. They loosely based their schedule upon the dates set in the SOFA newly signed between Iraq and the United States. Their withdrawal would start with two brigades of between 7,000-8,000 personnel coming out in the first six months of 2009. After that, the remaining 12 brigades would stay during most of 2009 to ensure Iraq’s elections. There are three planned for that year, provincial, district, and parliamentary. In the middle of the year U.S. forces are supposed to be out of Iraq’s cities however. The Americans are already pulling out of some of their camps and joint military stations, but General Odierno plans on getting around that deadline be re-designating some U.S. soldiers as trainers rather than combat personnel so that they can remain embedded with Iraqi forces. The rest of the U.S. troops would be consolidated into large bases. Only after the elections have been finished and the new politicians seated does Odierno want to begin drawing down large numbers of U.S. troops. By the end of 2011 most U.S. forces would be out, but again General Odierno wants to keep some American troops in Iraq past 2011 as advisors.

This slow approach to withdrawal has been advocated by some of the leading think tanks in the United States. Stephen Biddle, from the Council on Foreign Relations, and Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon, both of the Brookings Institution, have long been pushing for a gradual pullout of American forces. In a recent chapter they wrote for book for example, they echoed General Odierno’s concern about securing the Iraqi elections, and only starting sizeable withdrawals after they were completed. They too would have most U.S. forces out by the 2011 SOFA date, but like Odierno would keep some soldiers in the country afterwards.

Although these Iraq experts have criticized the Bush administration for giving Iraq an open-ended commitment, and call for conditional support of Iraq’s government, they and Odierno both want to keep U.S. forces in Iraq as long as possible in the hopes that it will develop politically. The problem is there is no guarantee that this will happen. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is consolidating power around himself to the great disdain of his coalition partners the Kurds and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. The upcoming provincial elections, may only shift power from one ruling power to another, giving few seats to new independents. Afterwards Iraq may be just as divided as before, giving American planners more reasons to stay.

This will present President Obama with his first test on Iraq. Will he stick with his election promise of withdrawing combat troops by the middle of 2010 or will he give into his ground commanders? Perhaps he will disregard Petraeus’ and Odierno’s strategy so that he can transfer troops to the growing crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s almost impossible to build up troops there without drawing down from Iraq first. There’s also the fact that Americans are not considering the Iraqis that much. In July of this year there will be a referendum on the SOFA. If the agreement is voted down, Baghdad and Washington will have to start all over again working out a deal to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Either way, the Pentagon’s and the Obama teams’ planning are in their early stages, and changes can be expected on just when U.S. combat troops will ultimately be out, and how many will stay as advisors.

SOURCES

Ashton, Adam and Hammoudi, Laith, “What are ‘combat troops’? Iraq withdrawal depends on answer,” McClatchy Newspapers, 12/23/08

Baldor, Lolita, “Commander: Troops to stay in cities past deadline,” Associated Press, 12/13/08

Biddle, Stephen, O’Hanlon, Michael, Pollack, Kenneth, “The Evolution of Iraq Strategy,” Brookings Institution, December 2008

Bumiller, Elisabeth and Shaner, Thom, “Generals Propose a Timetable for Iraq,” New York Times, 12/18/08

Burns, Robert, “Troops begin to shift out of Iraqi cities,” Associated Press, 11/12/08

Carter, Chelsea, “Top US general in Iraq prepares for troop decision,” Associated Press, 12/22/08

Hauslohner, Abigail, “Iraq’s Iffy New Year Resolution,” Time, 1/2/09

Reidar Visser On Obama’s Options In Iraq

Reidar Visser is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and is the author of Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq. He also runs the Historiae.org blog. On November 7 he wrote a piece on policy options for in-coming president Barak Obama in Iraq.

Visser starts off with a brief overview of the U.S.’s position in Iraq. First, the Surge has reduced violence. From the latest reports, attacks are down to levels not seen since 2004. That was only one goal of the Surge however. The point of suppressing the fighting and protecting the population was to allow space for Iraq’s politicians to cut deals and make compromises to create a more lasting peace in the country. Visser argues that has not happened. As discussed earlier, Iraq’s parliament has passed a series of reconciliation laws such as an Amnesty act and a new DeBaathification process, but none of them has been implemented as planned. The lack of political movement makes Visser believe the changes in Iraq are only temporary.

Within Iraq the real winner of the Surge has been Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In 2007 he was nearly ousted from office by parliament before being saved by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in December. Since then he has launched security operations in Basra, Sad City, Mosul, and Maysan and Diyala provinces to establish himself as the leader of his country. He has learned to use the themes of centralism and nationalism to build up his support with the Iraqi public. As a recent Iraqi public opinion poll found, Maliki is now the most popular politician in the country. He now feels secure enough to challenge his main supporters, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and the Kurds. The Prime Minister’s new position has direct consequences for U.S. policy because he is less susceptible to American pressure.

That brings Visser to President Elect Obama. As he ran for president Obama promised to draw down troops within 16 months of taking office. He also said he would use this withdrawal to pressure the Iraqi government into reconciling. This plan closely follows a June 2008 paper by the Center for a New American Security by Colin Kohl, Michele Florin, and Shawn Brimley entitled “Shaping the Iraqi Inheritance” that called for conditional engagement. The report argued that Prime Minister Maliki wants U.S. troops to stay a little while longer so they can strengthen the Iraqi army, which will consolidate his power. Kohl, Florin, and Brimley believe this gives the United States a meaningful way to pressure the Iraqis to compromise. This is in contrast to the Bush administration that has given unconditional support to Baghdad. Visser disagrees that the U.S. has this kind of influence. He doesn’t believe that Maliki needs nor cares whether the Americans will continue to support the Iraqi security forces. He has been demanding that U.S. troops leave by a set timetable for example, as a sign of Iraqi independence. If pressured, Maliki will probably tell the U.S. they don’t have the right to demand reconciliation because Iraq is a sovereign country.

What are the alternatives to Obama’s initial plans then? Another paper by Brian Katulis, Marc Lynch, and Peter Juul called “Iraq’s Political Transition After the Surge” argues that the United States needs to set a specific withdrawal date to force changes within Iraq. Their argument is that this will pressure Iraq’s politicians to cut deals so that they can stay in power because there will no longer be U.S. soldiers to prop them up. This will also make Iraq’s parliament and government more responsive to their public because they can’t rely upon the U.S. anymore to save them. Visser doesn’t believe this plan will be successful either. In 2007 Maliki claimed that the country had already reconciled. After the Sunni Accordance Front gave up on their boycott and rejoined the government in July 2008, he made similar comments. This doesn’t give the U.S. much of a chance to push for political compromises if the Prime Minister believes they are not necessary.

Visser finishes with two alternative plans of his own. One is to push for the next parliamentary elections to be as fair and open as possible. This would have the potential for new political parties to gain power and break the hold of the current ruling parties, and allow for more changes. This approach would have the added advantage in that Maliki could not use his nationalist argument against it. The issue with this recommendation is that the U.S. may not have the influence to get Iraq’s officials to change the election law to make it possible for smaller and newer parties to gain meaningful representation. The other policy wasn’t explained very well, but would be for the U.S. to get the Kurds to threaten to pull out of the government to pressure Baghdad. Visser doesn’t mention it, but the problem with that plan is that once the Kurds withdraw they may not agree to rejoin because they want independence and autonomy. At the minimum it will increase the growing divide between the central government and Arabs versus the Kurds.

It seems that none of these policies could realistically work to get Iraq’s government to move towards political compromise. As Baghdad and Maliki have gotten stronger, he has become less susceptible to U.S. demands. His new nationalist stance also makes it easy for him to reject any American pressure as an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. Withdrawing troops is already a demand Maliki is making, so that would not seem to be a good way to gain leverage. The U.S. probably doesn’t have the ability to get Iraq’s parliament to change the election laws to give more opportunities to newer parties. Finally, using the Kurds would only increase tensions within the country. This leaves the incoming Obama administration with even less ability to shape events in Iraq. That might mean Iraq will never have real reconciliation, leaving a large divide in the country in the foreseeable future.

SOURCES
Iraq Centre For Research & Strategic Studies, “Public Opinion Survey in Iraq; The Security & Political Situation in Iraq,” October 2008
Parker, Ned, “Iraq’s Nouri Maliki breaking free of U.S.,” Los Angeles Times, 9/16/08
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Quarterly report to the United States Congress,” 10/30/08
Visser, Reidar, “The Obama Administration, Iraq, and the Question of Leverage,” Historiae.org, 11/7/08

EPIC to Join Groups Working to Alleviate Crisis at Friday's National Symposium

THIS FRIDAY at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, NJ, EPIC supporters will join Iraq War veteran Kevin Murphy for IRAQ AT THE CROSSROADS. Coming less than two weeks before the Presidential election, this important national gathering will explore one of the greatest humanitarian challenges to be faced by the next President of the United States.

IRAQ AT THE CROSSROADS: Protecting Refugees, Rescuing Our Allies, and Empowering Iraqi Law
A National Symposium at Rutgers School of Law, Newark, NJ
October 24th, 2008 (Friday) 8:30 am – 5:30 pm
Register online via http://www.lawrecord.com

EPIC is proud to announce that National Editor of The Washington Post, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, will deliver the opening keynote address. Speakers will also include Emily Gish of Mercy Corps, Bob Carey of International Rescue Committee, Sam Parker of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Rep. Bill Pascrell, Hilary Ingraham of the U.S. State Department, and others.

In the Last and Final Presidential Debate, Few Mentions of Iraq

Given the global economic crisis, Americans are understandably focused on pocketbook issues close to home. Thus it was not a surprise that the final Presidential debate focused on economic issues. Nevertheless, in an increasingly interconnected world, it's important for the United States to remain responsibly engaged in facing global challenges.

Yet during the full 90 minutes of the last and final debate, the word "Iraq" came up only 7 times, and every time it was Senator John McCain. However, Senator Barrack Obama did use the word "war" once. The following are excerpts capturing the use of these words taken from the full transcript (38 pages).

page 11

MCCAIN: OK. But it's very clear that I have disagreed with the Bush administration. I have disagreed with leaders of my own party. I've got the scars to prove it.

Whether it be bringing climate change to the floor of the Senate for the first time. Whether it be opposition to spending and earmarks, whether it be the issue of torture, whether it be the conduct of the war in Iraq, which I vigorously opposed. Whether it be on fighting the pharmaceutical companies on Medicare prescription drugs, importation. Whether it be fighting for an HMO patient's bill of rights. Whether it be the establishment of the 9/11 Commission.

I have a long record of reform and fighting through on the floor of the United States Senate.

page 15

MCCAIN: Let me just say categorically I'm proud of the people that come to our rallies. Whenever you get a large rally of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, you're going to have some fringe peoples. You know that. And I've -- and we've always said that that's not appropriate.

But to somehow say that group of young women who said "Military wives for McCain" are somehow saying anything derogatory about you, but anything -- and those veterans that wear those hats that say "World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq," I'm not going to stand for people saying that the people that come to my rallies are anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they're great citizens.

page 19 & 20

MCCAIN: I think that Joe Biden is qualified in many respects. But I do point out that he's been wrong on many foreign policy and national security issues, which is supposed to be his strength.

He voted against the first Gulf War. He voted against it and, obviously, we had to take Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait or it would've threatened the Middle Eastern world supply.

In Iraq, he had this cockamamie idea about dividing Iraq into three countries. We're seeing Iraq united as Iraqis, tough, hard, but we're seeing them. We're now about to have an agreement for status of forces in Iraq coming up.

There are several issues in which, frankly, Joe Biden and I open and honestly disagreed on national security policy, and he's been wrong on a number of the major ones...

page 15 & 16

OBAMA: ...What I think is most important is that we recognize that to solve the key problems that we're facing, if we're going to solve two wars, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, if we can -- if we're going to focus on lifting wages that have declined over the last eight years and create jobs here in America, then Democrats, independents and Republicans, we're going to have to be able to work together.

In the Next Obama-McCain Debate, Who Will Speak Up for Millions of Vulnerable Iraqis?

Here at EPIC we're disappointed but not surprised that we didn't hear Tom Brokaw ask a question about the humanitarian crisis facing millions of Iraqis. Given the global economic crisis, Americans are understandably focused on pocketbook issues close to home.

But in an increasingly interconnected world, it's important for the United States to be responsibly engaged in facing global challenges, especially challenges that we helped create.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes. Years of violence, economic dislocation, and failures in the delivery of essential services have left 17 million Iraqis without reliable access to drinkable water. More than 4 million Iraqis live in fear of hunger. While security has improved significantly over the past year, the vast majority of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are staying put. With their own safety or that of their families in mind, they worry about the sustainability of recent security gains. For those who fled direct threats of persecution, they fear any return as long as their persecutor remains free.

Dear friends, we think it's time we had a broader conversation about Iraq. A conversation that goes beyond shallow, partisan questions like "Did the surge work or not?" There are additional questions that the candidates ought to answer: How will you help millions of Iraqis affected by a conflict that we helped create? Will you increase U.S. admissions of vulnerable Iraqi refugees? Will you strengthen humanitarian assistance to the region? Are you committed to supporting Iraq's peace and development?

We need to take these questions directly to the candidates.

In one week, Barack Obama and John McCain will square up for one last debate. Here’s your chance to ask them questions about our issues and to offer the answers you'd like to hear. If you keep your submission to a paragraph or less, you increase your chances of reaching a senior communications adviser or even one of the candidate.

Send your questions and talking points to each candidate via their websites:

Barack Obama | John McCain

Here's a sample from yours truly: Americans and Iraqis are interconnected by events over the past five and a half years. It's not enough to say you support "victory" or "ending the war" in Iraq, we want to know what you plan to do -- specifically -- to help millions of Iraqis who desperately need humanitarian relief and protection. In addition, what do you see as America's moral and international obligation to the people of Iraq?

Photo caption: Kurdish refugee camp in northern Iraq. Jasper Young/Panos Pictures

EPIC Guest Blogger: Reidar Visser Offers a History Lesson for Senator Obama

Reidar Visser is research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs with a background in history and comparative politics (University of Bergen) and a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies (University of Oxford). He's the author of Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq (Lit Verlag, 2006) and co-editor of An Iraq of Its Regions: Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? (Columbia University Press, 2007). The following commentary was originally posted at http://www.historiae.org/

Senator Barack Obama to Senator John McCain during last Friday’s presidential debate: “You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong.”

Since this is forceful claim about Iraqi history which was presented during a contest for the position as the world’s most powerful leader, it is worth examining in some further detail. Let’s take a closer look at that “history of violence between Shiite and Sunni” in Iraq. Shiites and Sunnis have coexisted in Iraq since they crystallised as two distinctive religious communities in Baghdad in the tenth century AD, when the struggle for power between various factions of the Islamic caliphate that had been going on since the seventh century became transformed into a theological one with the (Shiite) doctrine of the imamate. In the subsequent centuries, there was certainly tension between these two communities at times (not least because the rivalling ruling elements of the caliphates chose to cultivate links with particular communities to further their own power struggles), but outbreaks of violence on a large scale were extremely rare. In fact, not more than three cases stand out before the late twentieth century, and these were all related to invasion by foreign forces rather than to internal sectarian struggles between the Iraqis.

The first major case of extensive Shiite–Sunni violence was in 1508: A massacre by invading Persian Safavids of Sunnis and Christians in Baghdad. The Safavids returned a little more than one hundred years later, in 1623, and once more went ahead with a massacre of Sunnis in Baghdad. Later, in the nineteenth century, extremist Sunni Wahhabis from the Arabian Peninsula would regularly overrun the settled areas of Iraq; on one occasion, in 1801, this took on a clearly sectarian nature as Bedouin warriors massacred Shiites in the holy city of Karbala. The list can be completed down to 2003 and the US invasion with a series of ugly episodes that took place in the late twentieth century: Between 1969 and 1971, the Sunni-dominated Baathist regime performed mass expulsions of Shiites (including a high number of Fayli Kurds); in 1980 there was another wave of mass deportations of Shiites in the wake of the Iranian revolution; finally, in 1991 there were massacres of Shiites after the failed intifada that followed the Gulf War. (Conversely, some of the other historical episodes that are occasionally described as instances of “sectarian violence” simply do not fit this label. For example, the conflict between the government and the mostly Shiite tribes on the Euphrates in the 1935 was interwoven with questions relating to agrarian issues and conscription, and Sunni politicians had ties to both the government and the opposition camps.)

On the one hand, there can be no doubt that this is a grim record: it involves thousands of innocent people who were massacred simply because they belonged to the wrong sect. On the other hand, however, it is important to keep things in perspective. These six cases of widespread sectarian violence took place in a time span of more than 1,000 years. Moreover, they were mostly instigated by foreign invaders. The Iraqis themselves repeatedly closed ranks against these aggressions, uniting Shiites and Sunnis against the foreign forces. For example, in 1623 when the Safavid army was about to massacre the Sunni population of Baghdad, Shiites of Karbala intervened to save Sunnis from Shiite aggression. Similarly, in 1801, when Sunni Wahhabis sacked Karbala, the Sunni pasha of Baghdad punished the Sunni governor of Karbala for having failed to prevent the attack on the Shiites. Also, in none of these cases did the victims propose separative solutions. Never in Iraqi history has there been any call for a small Sunni state. And with the exception of feeble and short-lived attempt by some low-ranking clerics and notables of Baghdad in 1927, the Shiites have also consistently shied away from a call for a small Shiite breakaway state. None of the major upheavals of twentieth-century Iraqi history – 1920 and 1958 – featured sectarian conflict as the main mode of political action.

The accumulation of cases of sectarian violence during the decades of Baathist rule calls for special comment. True, the measures taken against the Shiites in the early 1980s and in 1991 were extremely repressive, and in a one-off episode in the immediate wake of the 1991 uprising they turned into fully-fledged explicit sectarianism through a series of chauvinist Sunni editorials in the Thawra newspaper in which the Arabness of the Shiites was questioned. However, subsequent developments in Iraqi politics show that the “Sunni” character of the Baathist regime was not its real core and that it was first and foremost an authoritarian regime built on relations between patrons and clients: In the mid-1990s the dominant political trend in Iraq was intra-Sunni struggles, as tribe after tribe challenged Saddam Hussein, who ended up executing people from his hometown Tikrit and his own family. When the defector Husayn Kamil Hasan al-Majid returned from Jordan in 1996, he was put to death just like many Shiite rebels had been after the 1991 uprising.

Perhaps most importantly in the context of the US elections, this record needs to be compared with that of the country Barack Obama represents himself. Did not the Civil War cause some 600,000 deaths between 1861 and 1865? How many thousands of African Americans have been killed in KKK violence? What about the Native Americans? The numbers here are clearly higher than the number of deaths caused by sectarian violence in Iraq, and yet few are prepared to question the viability of the United States as a political project. So where did Senator Obama really want to go with those comments?

There is a problem in Democratic discourse on Iraq that consists of always trying to put the actions of the Bush administration is the worst possible light, even in situations when this forces the Democrats to twist the reality. It seems reasonable to criticise the Iraq War on several grounds: there were no weapons of mass destruction, no al-Qaida link and no 911 relationship, and the unilateral action without a UN mandate created yet another dangerous precedent in international affairs. But Democrats go further than this: they frequently claim that the sectarian problems seen in Iraq since 2003 and especially in the wake of the Samarra bombing in 2006 were a “natural” expression of Iraqi politics, and that the high degree of Iranian influence seen in today’s Iraq is somehow a “natural” phenomenon in a country with a large Shiite population. The argument is that the Bush administration should have known that any tampering with the authoritarian structures of Baathist Iraq would automatically have prompted a civil war with a strong Iranian role among the Shiites. It is also a way of ultimately blaming the Iraqis themselves for all the problems they are currently going through.

This is to ignore the historical record of coexistence between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq and the fervent anti-Iranian attitudes among large sections of Iraq’s Shiites. Of course, on this latter point, John McCain is off the mark just like Obama: by suggesting that “the consequences of defeat would have been increased Iranian influence” he overlooks the fact that some of America’s best friends in the Maliki government have extremely close ties to Iran and that Iran’s interests so far have been well served by the Republican “victory” project and Washington’s peculiar choice of alliance partners among Iraq’s Shiites. But on the whole, Republicans, to a greater degree than Democrats, at least seem to recognise the historical roots of Iraqi national unity. From the Iraqi point of view it simply seems more dangerous to have a US president who based on some extremely superficial reading pretends to know something about the divide between Sunnis and Shiites than to have one who reportedly is completely ignorant about the subject.

The bottom line is that there is nothing in Iraq’s history that should prevent the country from reverting to its natural role as one of the world’s great nations. Those who try to suggest otherwise either ignore the empirical record or do not care for the well-being of the Iraqi people. It is said that Obama has several top-notch, progressive and knowledgeable advisers who know about all these things, and who are unlikely to look to soft partitionist Joe Biden when it comes to actual policy-making. But unless these voices can have a real impact on what their candidate says in front of millions of Americans in prime-time televised debates, their usefulness seems unclear. If yesterday’s unfounded attack on Iraq's record of coexistence is the most inspirational thing Obama can come up with on Iraq then it is hard for a non-American observer to see any fundamental difference between his candidacy and that of all the others before him. Obama's remarks were yet another example of how American politicians can be careless in dealing with other sovereign nations and their histories, and they also go in exactly the wrong direction at a time when politics in Iraq is once more becoming more cross-sectarian.

Photo caption: Al Kadhemain Mosque, Baghdad 2003, photo by Jan Oberg

Is Honesty on Iraq as Elusive as The Great Pumpkin?

Today's Washington Post editorial once again challenges Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama to update his Iraq position. While EPIC takes no position on candidates running for political office, we have a lot to say about the policy prescriptions (or lack thereof) of both the Republican and Democratic nominees. Where one party seems to be blind to U.S. shortcomings in Iraq and the region, the other seems to be blind to any progress.

What progress you ask?!

Yesterday EPIC Guest Blogger Reidar Visser wrote about the successful passage of a special election law in Iraq, which opens the door for next year’s provincial elections. Today the editors of the Washington Post write:

Iraq's parliament on Wednesday took another major step toward political stabilization. By a unanimous vote, the national legislature approved a plan for local elections in 14 of 18 provinces by early next year -- clearing the way for a new, more representative and more secular wave of politicians to take office. The legislation eliminates the party slate system that allowed religious authorities to dominate Iraq's previous elections, and it provides for women to hold 25 percent of seats. Most important, it will allow Sunni leaders who boycotted the 2005 provincial elections -- and who have since allied themselves with U.S. forces against al-Qaeda in Iraq -- to compete for political power in the provinces that were once the heartland of the insurgency.

While the U.S. media exaggerates Baghdad gridlock and sectarian politics in Iraq, in truth, the real contest for power in Iraq (as put forward by Sam Parker of USIP and other respected Iraq specialists) is between the powers that be (PTB) and the powers that aren’t (PTA). The passage of a special election law not only shows progress in negotiations between the rival factions of the PTB, but the growing political power and influence of the PTA. Unrepresented communities like Iraq’s tribal leaders (both Sunni and Shia), secular Iraqi professionals in Iraq’s urban centers, many Iraqis in rural areas, and minority communities such as Iraq's Chaldean and Assyrian Christians are demanding free and fair elections that give them a competitive chance of winning seats on Provincial Councils and eventually in the National Parliament.

Real representation from the grassroots up trumping sectarian (read: partisan) party lists and political insiders (dominated by former political exiles in the case of Iraq)? That’s change that both Americans and Iraqis can believe in.

At the same time, we’re all looking for more intellectual honesty and less knee-jerk partisan rhetoric. The McCain-Palin camp ought to offer more “straight talk” about U.S. shortcomings in Iraq and the region (especially surrounding the displacement and vulnerability of millions of Iraqis). The Obama-Biden ticket ought to explain how their administration will withdraw U.S. forces in a way that leaves sustainable security and continuing political progress behind, and it's hard to do that without being honest and forthcoming about where U.S. efforts have done some good. The first candidate who breaks out of the partisan framing of the “Iraq issue” will be the first to look truly Presidential in the eyes of thoughtful American voters.

So here’s the hard-to-swallow pill that the Washington Post prescribes to Obama:

...it's now clear that the political progress that the Bush administration hoped would follow the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq has finally begun. How can the next president preserve that momentum? Democrat Barack Obama continues to argue that only the systematic withdrawal of U.S. combat units will force Iraqi leaders to compromise. Yet the empirical evidence of the past year suggests the opposite: that only the greater security produced and guaranteed by American troops allows a political environment in which legislative deals and free elections are feasible.

Indeed, it’s time for both sides to reckon with the realities of Iraq no matter how inconvenient to old partisan narratives. Do that and you’ll be offering change we all can believe in.

EPIC Guest Blogger: Reidar Visser on Why Obama-Biden May not be Change Iraqis Can Believe In

Reidar Visser is research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs with a background in history and comparative politics (University of Bergen) and a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies (University of Oxford). He's the author of Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq (Lit Verlag, 2006) and co-editor of An Iraq of Its Regions: Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? (Columbia University Press, 2007). The following commentary was originally posted at www.historiae.org

In many ways, Barack Obama’s approach to Iraq is strikingly similar to that of the Bush administration and John McCain. In theory, the addition of Joe Biden to Obama’s ticket could change this, but over the last weeks and months there have been interesting moves by Biden to remove most traces of his “Iraq plans” from the public domain.

With regard to Iraq, the real context of the upcoming Democratic convention is that “the surge” in Iraq is not working at all. Despite measurable successes in bringing the levels of violence down, the American-sponsored political system in Iraq is actually more dysfunctional than ever, and incapable of delivering the results that both Iraqis and Americans are looking for. Perhaps the best evidence is the fact that it is now Washington’s own darlings in Iraq and their pet projects that stand in the way of progress, as seen in the vice-presidential vetoes this year against the provincial powers law and the provincial elections law. There is in fact a cross-sectarian majority in the Iraqi parliament that wants to have early elections and power-sharing in Kirkuk, but Washington’s allies among the Kurds and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) keep blocking progress towards national reconciliation and a more sustainable political system. The salient cleavages in Iraqi politics are increasingly of a non-sectarian nature – the alliance that challenged the Maliki government through its demand for early elections and power-sharing in Kirkuk had an eminently cross-sectarian composition, and no matter how the media likes to spin it, the recent sacking of the police commander in Diyala did pit some powerful Shiite players against each other – but American policy fails to respond to this reality.

Thankfully, there is growing attention to these cross-sectarian trends at least among some US analysts. There has been some debate as to the usefulness or otherwise of a new nomenclature introduced by USIP’s Sam Parker that employs the terms “The Powers That Be” and “The Powers That Aren’t” to describe the real battlefronts in Iraqi politics, with some critics finding the dichotomy pretentious and nothing more than a new name for “government and opposition”. However, that overlooks the way in which Parker’s concepts clearly augment our understanding of Iraq: they define the glue that holds the government together, and provide a very good point of departure for discussing those ideological pressures that threaten the survival of Maliki and which should be taken into account in any serious discussion of future US policy.(1)

Barack Obama, though, has yet to discover the usefulness of these concepts. During his recent trip to the Middle East, he revealed an extremely dated way of thinking about Iraq, more or less reiterating the Iraq cosmology of those Bush administration officials that have been in charge since 2003. During a press conference in Amman on 22 July following a visit to Anbar where meetings with “Sunni tribal leaders” were high on the agenda, this tendency could be seen very clearly, with Obama consistently portraying the principal dynamic of Iraqi politics as a struggle between Shiites and Sunnis. For example, Obama opined: “I think resolving the big issues like the hydrocarbons law in a way that gives Sunnis the impression that their voice is heard, that’s going to be important.” In fact, the real problem with regard to the hydrocarbons law is that two Kurdish parties insist on the right of federal regions to sign contracts with foreign compaines, whereas almost all the other parties – in this case Sunnis and Shiites alike, and including some of those Shiites that normally are quite pro-Kurdish – favour a more centralised system. Most Iraqis are confident that a purely demographic distribution system based on governorates (not sects!) will be adopted, and see the American quest for a “Sunni quota” as out of touch with Iraqi traditions of centralised government. Again, Obama: “Now, the willingness of Sunni cabinet members who have resigned to now return, to have those cabinet seats filled, and a sense that the Sunnis are going to participate aggressively in the upcoming elections, that, again, is I think a sign of progress.” Once more, very few analysts that have done work on Iraq before 2003 think the return to the government of the tiny Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) would be of any consequence whatsoever. With or without the IIP in their ranks, Maliki and his team will still fail to bring significant change to Iraq and a less sectarian political system of the kind that a majority of parliamentarians are calling for.

Arguably, the addition of Joe Biden to the Obama ticket might aggravate these tendencies, because in the past Biden has been a leading American voice in promoting an interpretation of Iraq as a country of three mutually hostile and internally stable population blocks. His various “plans for Iraq”, while frequently misunderstood, in different ways reinforce the view that the main problem in Iraq has to do with a centralised state structure and coexistence issues. Like many others in American politics, Biden has failed to acknowledge the emerging non-sectarian trends in Iraq, seeking instead to push ideas about “Sunni federalism” during his visit to the Anbar governorate. Remarkably, however, it seems that Biden may have cleaned up his Iraq rhetoric as part of his VP bid. At least, it is quite conspicuous how every trace of his “plan for Iraq” now appears to have been erased from his website at joebiden.com, where he now instead supports Barrack Obama’s more general argument about shifting the focus to Afghanistan. Also, at some point between April 2008 and today, Biden’s website specifically devoted to his soft partition schemes, www.planforiraq.com, was quietly shut down – at this site, Biden’s rhetoric had consistently focused on a tripartite Iraq to the very end. Only on his Senate website traces of his Iraq policy remain, but even there a more toned-down version appears, with the emphasis on a general push for federalisation. This is still in contravention of the Iraqi constitution (which specifically rejects any kind of elite-driven federalisation process) but it could perhaps mean that Biden increasingly realises that his plans were unsustainable and that trends in Iraq militate against them.

Still, for Iraq this seems to be a stark choice. On the one hand, there is McCain, who looks set to persevere with the Bush policy of handling Iraq primarily through military power instead of working for a more truly inclusive political system. With its systematic promotion to top positions in the new Iraq of some of the most sectarian, pro-Iranian and unprofessional cliques among Iraq’s 18 million (and mostly Iraqi nationalist) Shiites, this contradictive policy seems so obviously antithetical to long-term American interests that it is really hard to make sense of (except if one does what should be the unthinkable and puts it in the frightening context of a grander plan to eventually force regime change in Iran as well, in which case the rationale for these leaders to hold on to the Iranian connection would disappear). Democrats appear to be equally ignorant about the survival of Iraqi nationalist sentiment, but they express this in a different policy: acceptance of Iranian influence in Iraq as something natural. This was even written into Obama’s “New Strategy for a New World”, released in mid-July. Commenting on Iraq, Obama writes, “Iraq is not going to be a perfect place…we are not going to … eliminate every trace of Iranian influence”. He seems unaware that this particular statement may be seen as deeply offensive by many Iraqi Shiites who are proud of their Iraqi identity but fearful of Iran and the pro-Iranian elites that have been empowered by the Bush administration. Their fear is that a new Democratic administration will accord Iran exaggerated influence in Iraq as part of a grand, Dayton-style regional settlement designed as an antidote to the Bush administration’s unilateralist policies.

Of course, Obama’s stance flows from a multi-lateralist attitude which in itself is laudable. In general, it makes sense for the United States to rely more on national and regional equilibriums than to seek to micro-manage in the name of democracy. But in the specific case of Iraq, there is a responsibility for correcting past mistakes as part of a viable exit strategy. Democrats cannot simply close their eyes and imagine that the Iraq of 2008 in any way represents a natural state of affairs, and that a quick withdrawal automatically will prompt some kind of Hobbesian reset whereby the country will find back to its true self. Real change in Iraq would mean that Obama realised that for five years straight the United States has promoted and consolidated an artificial sectarian system in the country, and that disengagement from Iraq should also aim at reversing this trend. The real challenge is not to reconcile Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds but to bring Powers That Aren’t into the system. The instrument to do this is not some kind of federalism magic or a complex oil distribution formula, but to move away from the sectarian quota system more generally and towards a traditional state model with autonomy for the Kurds and more modest decentralisation in the rest of the country. And Biden should remember that the only thing that is artificial about today’s Iraq is the particular selection of sectarian leaders that the Bush administration has anointed to lead the country, and the exaggerated Iranian influence that comes with some of them.

Also on this subject:
Partition Iraq? Imperial Iraq Strategies from Sulayman the Magnificent to Joseph R. Biden
(Notes for a lecture presented at the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan and George Washington University, 11–15 January 2008)
Nonsense of Congress on Federalism in Iraq (13 December 2007)
The US Senate Votes to Partition Iraq. Softly. (27 September 2007)

(1) Sam Parker with the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP) explains the Powers That Be/Powers That Aren't (PTB/PTA) dichotomy as follows: The PTB/PTA dynamic is different from "government" and "opposition" in two important ways. First, PTA includes the Awakenings, Sadris, emerging nationalist groups, tribal leaders, etc. who either aren't represented in governing institutions at all or, in the case of the Sadris, for whom there is a tenuous relationship between the militant street movement and the guys in the COR. Moreover, many of these groups, first the Sadris and now the Awakenings (and whoever gets rolled up with these two groups along the way), are facing active, military persecution by the PTB. There is an intense effort to keep them shut out of all governing institutions. This portion of the PTA cannot accurately be described as "opposition" in any sense. They are too disenfranchised to be the opposition, and they're surely not in parliament.

Second, it is true that the PTA also does include the parliamentary opposition. But even here, opposition/government doesn't adequately convey the dynamics. In a normal parliamentary political system, there is an assumption that the government can be voted out and replaced, that this transition of power will occur peacefully as a result of everyone following the rules. But what if you have a ruling coalition that never intends to share power if it can get away with it, openly flouts parliamentary procedure, owns the "state" security services in a way that is very unlikely to be transferrable, all within a set of governing institutions that has not once experienced a peaceful transition of power? The PTB are trying to lock up and shut down the political system, whatever rudiments of democratic institutions may be formally in place. Opposition/government does not convey any of this dynamic. However, it is exactly this dynamic of being "shut out" that the "street" PTA and the parliamentary PTA share, and what I think is captured by the PTA/PTB dichotomy.

Why McCain Needs a New Plan

Last month, we challenged Senator Barack Obama to update his Iraq policy position. Today we turn our attention to Senator John McCain.

Since the 2003 U.S. invasion, McCain has been a critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. McCain questioned U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's decision to deploy too few troops to win the peace, later calling him "one of the worst secretaries of defense in history." McCain condemned the U.S. treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and worked to strengthen U.S. prohibitions on torture. When sectarian violence skyrocketed following the February 2006 Samarra bombing, McCain again called for an increase in troops. After Rumsfeld's resignation, President Bush finally came around to McCain's view, announcing the deployment of 20,000 additional U.S. troops as part of his "surge" strategy.

While McCain has established his credibility on military issues, many of the challenges facing Iraq today require progress on the civilian side. Gen. David Petraeus got it right when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee early last year: "Some of the members of this committee have observed that there is no military solution to the problems of Iraq. They are correct. Ultimate success in Iraq will be determined by actions in the Iraqi political and economic arenas."

The estimated unemployment rate in Iraq is between 35 and 50 percent. By comparison, when U.S. unemployment hit 25 percent during the Great Depression, FDR declared a national emergency, establishing the Works Progress Administration to rapidly put people back to work. High unemployment can lead to civil unrest, poverty, and crime. In Iraq, it has been a major source of instability, making it easier for criminal gangs, insurgents, and militias to find recruits. As both military and civilian experts note, sustainable security requires sustainable job creation.

Sustainable security will also require an aggressive diplomatic effort in the region as proposed by the Iraq Study Group report. Instead, McCain's website proposes that the United States “bolster its regional military posture to make clear to Iran our determination to protect our forces and deter further Iranian intervention.” Yet a military deterrence-based strategy can only go so far and suggests an ongoing heavy troop commitment that is neither sustainable, nor in our best interest. McCain ought to reconsider the value of American diplomacy and peace-building, as recommended by former Secretary of State James Baker and former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton.

McCain would further distinguish himself from President Bush by saying two words: "Iraqi refugees." To this day, neither Bush nor McCain have publicly acknowledged the humanitarian crisis facing millions of Iraqis. McCain's campaign website makes no mention of how he will respond to the needs of more than 2 million Iraqi refugees (the second largest refugee population in the world) and another 2.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq. Nor has McCain offered a plan to help more than 17 million Iraqis who do not have reliable access to clean water or the 4 million Iraqis who live in hunger or fear of starvation.

Freelance journalist Hanna Ingber Win writes: "While McCain has put the Iraq War at the center of his campaign, he studiously avoids any real discussion of the humanitarian crisis. His campaign has denied repeated requests for an interview on this topic."

Bush's former chief speechwriter Michael Gerson advises ending the silence. He writes: “Helping Iraqi refugees on a larger scale is not an embarrassing necessity [for the administration]. It is an opportunity to show consistency, humanitarian concern and constructive, long-term engagement in the Middle East.”

It's time for McCain to break his silence about the plight of Iraqi refugees, and start a conversation with the American people about how the United States can re-balance its policy in Iraq through effective diplomacy, development and peace-building.

Here at EPIC, we will continue to challenge both candidates to do much better.

Photo Caption: Senator John McCain gives a thumbs-up to his supporters. USA Today

Why Obama Needs a New Plan

In our July 3rd post we wrote about the long overdue need for Senator Barack Obama and the Democrats to update their Iraq policy position. We included excerpts from two recent essays by George Packer and Fareed Zakaria.

Today the editors of the Washington Post joined the chorus: “BARACK OBAMA has taken a small but important step toward adjusting his outdated position on Iraq to the military and strategic realities of the war he may inherit.”

Of course not everyone agrees on the refinement of Obama’s Iraq plan. We received this eloquent comment from John: “…the antiwar crowd who formed the basis of Obama's successful primary coalition is pretty dismayed by what also appears to them as a cynical move and a betrayal for political gain.”

Here at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) we believe Obama’s move is not a departure from his commitment to end the war. Instead we see it as a sign that Obama is finally recognizing the inconvenient truth about Iraq. In short, removing U.S. forces from Iraq would not end the war, and if done rapidly on an arbitrary timetable, could reverse whatever gains have been made over the past year. For Obama (and McCain) to show a true commitment to ‘ending the war’, they must offer a plan for drawing down U.S. forces in a way that supports a free and secure Iraq.

During the primaries, Obama’s “rapid withdrawal” plan (or “best case scenario plan” as Samantha Power rightly put it) sounded a lot like the plan offered by Rep. John Murtha two years ago. The following is our critique of Rep. Murtha’s plan for rapid withdrawal, originally posted on December 8, 2006:

At a December 7th Capital Hill press conference, Rep. "Jack" Murtha (D-PA) said we should rapidly pull U.S. forces out of Iraq and "...redeploy to the periphery, to Kuwait, to Okinawa, and if there's a terrorist activity that affects our allies or affects the United States' national security, we can then go back in."

Rather than offering a peaceful resolution to the war, Rep. Murtha offers a hawkish "containment policy" that risks prolonging the conflict, destabilizing the region, and escalating political violence, resulting in a far bloodier U.S. military intervention down the road.

While Murtha's assessment of the U.S. military and its needs are spot on, he fails to understand what the U.S. war in Iraq has set into motion. The prospect of a Shi'a-dominated Iraq alarms regional Sunni Arab leaders and many Sunni Muslims, and that is part of what is fueling the insurgency and the recruitment of foreign jihadists. If left unresolved, prolonged sectarian violence will ignite a major civil war with regional powers taking sides (much like we saw during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war). Murtha dismisses that danger as 1) already happening, and 2) not our problem. Here's his statement:

"I'm not talking about going back in if there's civil war, because we're in a civil war right now. We're caught in between a civil war right now. "

On both counts, he is partly correct. Yes: for some Iraqi militia and insurgent groups, the country is already in a state of civil war. And yes: the U.S. should not escalate Iraq's civil war by choosing sides. But that does not mean that U.S. forces should simply pull out. Doing so before Iraq can establish its own governance and security would create a much larger, far bloodier civil war. And the resulting power vacuum would more than likely pull competing regional powers into the conflict

Like John Murtha's plan, Senator Barack Obama's vision for drawing down U.S. troops within 16 months of his inauguration (2 combat brigades per month) resonates strongly with many Americans. Yet unlike Murtha, Obama pledges to do so in a way that leaves stability behind. However, the question remains: how?

Obama's campaign website outlines a plan for ending the war in Iraq by re-balancing U.S. policy through effective diplomacy, humanitarian relief, development and peace-building. His website includes this about Iraq's humanitarian crisis:

Barack Obama believes that America has both a moral obligation and a responsibility for security that demands we confront Iraq’s humanitarian crisis—more than five million Iraqis are refugees or are displaced inside their own country. Obama will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary.

In contrast, as of this date, McCain's campaign website makes no mention of Iraq's humanitarian crisis.

Committing $2 billion to address the urgent humanitarian needs of vulnerable Iraqis, including millions who have fled violence, is a good start. But to translate his vision into a reality he must go further to answer the question of "how?" Here at EPIC, we plan to challenge both candidates to do much better.

Photo Caption: Barack Obama speaks about Iraq. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

George Packer and Fareed Zakaria Offer Obama a Way Out on Iraq

Two years ago you could even hear Republicans grudgingly acknowledge that President Bush had an Iraq problem. His rhetoric was too inflexible to adapt to shifting realities in Iraq, and Americans were losing patience.

How quickly political fortunes change. Today it seems it's the Democrats who are not keeping up with shifting realities in Iraq.

In the latest New Yorker George Packer candidly explains Obama's Iraq Problem:

Obama’s plan, which was formally laid out last September, called for the remaining combat brigades to be pulled out at a brisk pace of about one per month, along with a strategic shift of resources and attention away from Iraq and toward Afghanistan. At that rate, all combat troops would be withdrawn in sixteen months. In hindsight, it was a mistake—an understandable one, given the nature of the media and of Presidential politics today—for Obama to offer such a specific timetable. In matters of foreign policy, flexibility is a President’s primary defense against surprise. At the start of 2007, no one in Baghdad would have predicted that blood-soaked neighborhoods would begin returning to life within a year. The improved conditions can be attributed, in increasing order of importance, to President Bush’s surge, the change in military strategy under General David Petraeus, the turning of Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda, the Sadr militia’s unilateral ceasefire, and the great historical luck that brought them all together at the same moment. With the level of violence down, the Iraqi government and Army have begun to show signs of functioning in less sectarian ways. These developments may be temporary or cyclical; predicting the future in Iraq has been a losing game. Indeed, it was President Bush’s folly to ignore for years the shifting realities on the ground.

...[Obama] doubtless realizes that his original plan, if implemented now, could revive the badly wounded Al Qaeda in Iraq, reënergize the Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia’s recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a state of collapse. The question is whether Obama will publicly change course before November. So far, he has offered nothing more concrete than this: “We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.”

Syndicated columnist Fareed Zakaria concurs with Packer. In "What Obama Should Say On Iraq," he argues that Obama and the Democrats need more than just a new narrative on Iraq, they need to offer a serious policy "informed by the conditions on the ground today." Zakaria writes:

Barack Obama needs to give a speech about Iraq. Otherwise he will find himself in the unusual position of having being prescient about the war in 2002 and yet being overtaken by events in 2008.

Zakaria then proceeds to offer Obama a well-argued speech to help get him out of the corner that his campaign rhetoric has painted him into. It's a good speech, and one can only hope that Obama's speech writers and foreign policy advisers are taking note.