Full text: The unpublished (and quite long--49 pages) official Arab League report on Iraq was leaked in full to As-Safir newspaper in Beirut. The leak is significant because it represents an attempt by somebody in the Arab League to bring the information out maybe because he/she feared the US pressures, and pathetic Arab official subservience to US Empire, may suppress the release of the report. Kudos for As-Safir for publishing it in full, and kudos for the leaker. This is without a doubt the most accurate and most comprehensive report about the Iraqi public mood and opinion since the Iraq war. It is important to note that Iraqi people report, and say, different things to Western reporters who are almost always accompanied by not only US soldiers but also interpreters (just as they were accompanied by Saddam’s forces and interpreters before the war). I notice that Iraqis tend to tell a different story to Arabic media than the one we get on US media. Western reporters are, due to the worsening security situation, more isolated than ever. They live in isolated compounds, and do not mingle freely with the population. Their lack of language skills, for US reporters—less for European reporters—also weaken their abilities to report accurately what Iraqi are asking and demanding. This League of Arab State’s report was based on a field trip to Iraq undertaken by an official delegation that toured the country (all its regions) in the last two weeks of December 2003, and met with over 600 personalities, leaders, clerics, party heads, etc. The picture that is drawn in the report is frightening and worrisome on several levels: a) the country is quite fragmented and divided that one can hardly speak of a restoration of an Iraqi national identity that came (perhaps by force) out after the formation of modern Iraq; the Iraqis and the report warn against sectarian seditions and yet the people who met the delegation spoke mostly about their sectoral and sectarian demands and aspirations while making an effort sometimes to shroud them in national Iraqi discourse; b) there is a clear division between Sunni political sub-culture and Shi`ite political sub-culture, not to mention the existence of separate Kurdish nationalism that aims in the long term to split off (but will suspend the demand due to “regional opposition” as one Kurdish leader put it—in reference to Turkey); c) the Arabs are quite insistent on their Arab identity and were enthusiastically welcoming of the (belated) but important Arab League visit (I could see that when I followed the visit on Arab media channels) while the Kurds are equally insistent on their Kurdish nationalism; d) there is an interesting difference in the attitude toward US occupation between Sunnis and Shi`ites (at least those who met with the delegation) and toward the issue of the puppet council (more on that later); e) the Kurds will not go back to where they were before the war in terms of political power and territorial gains—they have suffered enough, they feel—and who can disagree that the Kurds did suffer horrifically under the brutal and tortorous dictatorship of that pathetic dictator Saddam (I do believe that there is sometimes a tendency among Arabs to minimize Kurdish suffering and Shi`ite suffering under Saddam because they feel an acknowledgement may serve US interests—a silly reason in my opinion); f) Arabs will not be happy to notice that there is no consensus among Iraqis over the issue of the violent resistance to occupation; g) religious fundamentalism is here to stay as the most potent political force in Iraq, among Sunnis and Shi`ites alike, despite the expression of Kurdish displeasure toward that phenomenon—without elaboration in the report.

It was interesting that in the meeting with the puppet council there were criticisms of the occupation; members seemed in agreement that US dissolution of the army and government bureaucracy—long a Chalabi and Makiya and Wolfowitz idea—was responsible for the breakdown in order, and the rise of resistance and resentment. The delegation tried to meet with the 10,000 odd prisoners in crowded US-ran jails in Iraq but were not allowed. The council was also pleased with the role of the Arab League.

The monarchist (Sunni) movement of Sharif `Ali (who have drifted away from US patronage after the war because a) he was not included in the puppet council and b) he wanted to score political points with the Sunni population) maintains that there is a special SECRET appendix to the agreement that was signed between the puppet council and the US occupation to the effect that the term of rule of puppet council members will be extended almost indefinitely beyond the initial provisional period. This adamant US opposition to elections makes this claim credible.

The Sunni factor: the meetings clearly indicates that rise of Arab nationalist and Sunni fundamentalist organizations. The new Arab nationalist parties (they exist in different names) tells me that the Ba`th is not dead, and will most likely re-emerge among Sunnis, benefiting greatly from (at least perceived) anti-Sunni actions and policies of the US occupation. They will operate initially under general Arab nationalist banners, and when the chance will come they will emerge and they will strike. I have mentioned already that Al-Quds Al-Arabi has reported about the proliferation of flyers in Sunni areas warning collaborators and preparing for the withdrawal of US troops. The Ba`th Party in the underground, and in conspiracies, is as scary as the Ba`th in power. The Ba`th invented political and military conspiracies in the Arab world. Nasser hated them for it. I am no fan of the Ba`th, as you can tell, but do not believe that a sentence in an article by Michel `Aflaq (founder of the party) is sufficient to explain the horror of Saddam’s rule and tyranny (that is what Kanad Makiya does in Republic of Fear). The Sunnis are very adamant about the Arab identity of Iraq, and about a categorical rejection of occupation and its by-products (the puppet council for example). They also complain about the sectarian sedition of Arab media channels (they tend to reinforce the Sunni-Shi`ite divide and I have noticed an increase in anti-Shi`ite sentiments expressed on Arabic channels. Many Arabs seem to be angry that the Shi`ites are not resisting the occupation violently, and they seem to belittle their suffering under Saddam—not that anybody was spared suffering under Saddam, of course. The Sunnis seem to also be concerned about the possibility of elections under current voters’ sheets, and may be nervous about a gigantic rise of Shi`ite political power—unprecedented in modern Iraq. Sunnis in the north expressed concern over Israeli infiltrations into the region. Complanits about US occupation practices were also widley voiced.

You notice how different the political cultures of the different communities when you read the report about the meeting with Ayatollah `Ali Sistani and other Shi`ite leaders. They report this: Shi`ite are very concerned about lack of appreciation for their suffering (a point Kurds want to make too) and blame Saddam for whatever befell Iraq, including the war and occupation. They are not pro-occupation but they blame Saddam for the occupation and also said that occupation and the war were perhaps the only way to remove Saddam. This will not go well in predominantly Sunni Arab nationalist circles. They similarly concede that there are problems with the representativeness of the puppet council but accept to deal with it. They of course also want the occupation to end and insist on free elections and democracy, which is a matter of dispute with the same forces that launched the paradoxically dubbed “Operation Iraqi Freedom”—Freedom my potato. The Shi`ites also expressed opposition to Iraqi resistance activities and view them as terrorism. This is another issue that sets them apart from the Sunnis, or so it seems in present-day Iraq.

The Kurds as always lamenting, and rightly so, the lack of Arab understanding for their plight. I am glad that they took the delegation to the sites where Saddam committed his gruesome crimes: the so-called Anfal Campaigns. They also reject any reduction in their autonomy, and want “national federalism” and not simply “administrative federalism”—the latter being what Shi`ites and Sunnis are willing to accept. Kurdis denied news of Israeli infiltrations in their region.

I am furious at how the delegation seem to ignore women, and secular forces. Before the unfortunate Ba`ithis takeover of Iraq, the Iraqi Communist Party was one of the most powerful parties in the whole Middle East. Now it is splintered, with the main faction serving as tool for occupation and for that they got a seat on the puppet council. One of the reasons for my (many) objections to the US war and occupation is that it revived and rejuvenated the most traditional and religious and tribal and primordial ties, sentiments, and leaderships. Leadership in Iraq today resembles leadership in Iraq during Ottoman time. If you have been patient and read all the way through I want to assure you that Bush and company have carefully considered all these problems, and have ready solutions and remedies for all of them, if you only give them a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th terms in office. That is all.