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Iraqi opposition: From conflict to
unity?
By Robert G Rabil
This article, based largely on official Iraqi
documents, reviews the relationship between the Iraqi
opposition and the regime of Saddam Hussein.(1) It also
tries to place the opposition’s evolution and actions in
the context of regional and international factors.
Generally speaking, the Iraqi opposition has
been through four phases since the current government
took power in 1968.
During the first phase, from
1968 to 1980, opposition to the regime was mainly local.
Although Iran supported a Kurdish rebellion, the regime
was able to suppress the opposition and solidify its own
rule. The Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) heralded a new phase
marking the opposition’s shift from a local to a
regional phenomenon. The regional countries,
particularly Iran and Syria, tried to control the
opposition parties' agenda by developing patron-client
relationships given their own interest in undermining
Saddam Hussein’s power.
The second Gulf war
(1990-1991) and the March 1991 uprisings by Kurds and
Shi'ites after the regime’s defeat in Kuwait ushered in
a new phase. During the next decade, the opposition was
transformed to an international phenomenon, letting the
groups free themselves from the leverage of regional
states. The Iraqi National Congress was born and Kurdish
autonomy was secured in the north under US and UN
sponsorship.
At the same time, the opposition
camp gradually began to solve the historical problem of
its fragmentation due to rivalries and ideological
differences. This trend was accentuated following the
September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The
Bush administration made "regime change" in Iraq a
high-priority objective. Suddenly, the opposition became
the focus of the US efforts. The future of the
opposition, and Iraq itself, will largely depend on
whether the opposition will play a significant role in
removing Saddam and be able to institute a democratic
and stable government if he falls.
Suppressing the opposition
The Iraqi
opposition is not the product of either the first or
(the looming) second Gulf War. Throughout its modern
history, Iraq has had an active opposition and this has
been especially true during the Ba'ath party’s rule over
the country since 1968, and particularly after Saddam
Hussein became president in 1979. Yet while opposition
to Ba'ath rule gathered momentum, opposition forces were
plagued by fragmentation and disarray, partly due to the
regime’s ruthless suppression and its ability to exploit
internal dissent and rivalry.
During this
period, the opposition consisted mainly of the Kurdish
movement led by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),
the Iraqi Communist Party, the Arab nationalists and the
Islamic movement, led by the Da'wa party. It is
noteworthy that the distribution of the opposition
conformed to a great extent with the ethnic and
sectarian division of the country, with the Sunni Kurds
in the north, the mainly Sunni nationalists in the
center, and the Shi'ite Islamists in the south.
The deep structural changes brought about by the
post-1973 hike in oil revenues and the Algiers agreement
with the Shah of Iran in 1975 allowed the regime to deal
the opposition camp severe blows. Immediately after the
Algiers agreement, the Kurdish rebellion collapsed
because Iran no longer backed it. These events followed
a pattern characterizing Kurdish-Iraq relations since
1958. Each Iraqi government that came to power at first
pursued peace talks with the Kurds, only to fight them
at a later date and assert its authority throughout the
country. This was also the case with the Ba'ath party
government taking power after the July 1968 coup. The
new regime was pragmatic enough to seek political
accommodations with the Kurds at a time it had not yet
consolidated its rule.
The government's
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the highest
authority in the land, issued a manifesto on March 11,
1970 essentially recognizing the legitimacy of Kurdish
nationalism and guaranteeing Kurdish participation in
government. But it avoided defining the territorial
extent of Kurdistan pending a new census. Since the next
census was not scheduled until 1977, the regime felt
confident it would be in full enough control to break
its promise by then.
In March 1974, Baghdad
unilaterally decreed an autonomy statute excluding the
oil-rich areas of Kirkuk, Khaneqin and Jabal Sinjar from
the Kurdish autonomous region, which would include only
the three provinces (governates) of Irbil, Sulaimaniya
and Dohuk. In line with the new statute, the Ba'ath
regime undertook an administrative reform in which the
country’s 16 governates were renamed and some had their
boundaries altered. Of special importance, the governate
of Kirkuk was divided and the area around its capital
city Kirkuk was renamed al-Ta'mim (nationalization)
governate after its boundaries were redrawn to give an
Arab majority.
As a result of the collapse of
the Kurdish rebellion, the KDP split into two main
factions, the KDP-Provisional Command led by Idris and
Masoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), led by Jalal Talabani. The Iraqi regime embarked
on a campaign to "Arabize" the areas it had excluded
from the autonomous region. Hundreds of Kurdish families
were uprooted and Arabs from the south were lured to
move to the north. Subsequently, in 1977-1978 the regime
began to clear a strip of land along its northern
borders with Turkey and Iran, which was expanded several
times until it was several few miles wide.
Sharing a long mountainous border with Iran, the
governate of Sulaimaniya was deeply affected. Hundreds
of villages were destroyed in this border clearance
campaign. Their residents were forcibly relocated to
mujamma'at (complexes), crude resettlement camps,
known also as "modern cities", built near large towns or
main highways under the army's complete control.(2) By
the time Saddam Hussein became president in 1979,
Kurdish social and political life had been very much
affected by these measures. Army and intelligence units
stationed throughout Iraqi Kurdistan continued to
control and oppress them.
Simultaneously, the
regime continued its persecution of Communist party
members and supporters. On his ascendancy to the
presidency, Saddam Hussein orchestrated a bloody purge
of the Ba'ath Party. By early 1980, the regime focused
on the Islamist opposition, after a number of grenade
attacks in Baghdad were blamed on the Da'wa Party. Tens
of thousands of people were expelled to Iran on the
pretext they were of "Iranian origin".(3). Equally
significant, the RCC banned the Da'wa Party and made
membership in the party punishable by death.(4)
The Iran-Iraq War and its impact on the
opposition
With the onset of the Iran-Iraq war in
September 1980, Baghdad's campaign to suppress Kurdish
political life had eventually foundered after so many
army units stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan were sent to the
front. The resurgent Kurdish fighters, known as
peshmerga (those who face death), were quick to
fill the security vacuum there. In addition, rejuvenated
by the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the
Islamist opposition continued its underground attacks on
the regime's facilities and officials. However, unlike
its Kurdish counterpart, the Islamist opposition failed
to transform its individual attacks into an armed
struggle.
The eruption of the Iran-Iraq War
marked a new phase in the development of the opposition.
Iraq's neighbors, mainly Iran and Syria, began to
support the opposition on a scale hitherto unseen. But
the opposition forces themselves had little success
creating a united front. Consequently, the opposition
lost the initiative as it ineluctably deferred to the
decisions of its regional supporters, who tried not only
to control them but also to play off one party against
another.
On November 12, 1980, two months after
the war began, Damascus hosted the inauguration of an
alliance of opposition forces, the Democratic Patriotic
and National Front (DPNF). The DPNF included nationalist
and Kurdish groups and the Iraqi Communist Party.
However, the Arab nationalist parties (Arab Socialist
Movement, Socialist Party and the pro-Syrian Ba'ath
Party) objected to the inclusion of the KDP and
supported the PUK, whose leader Talabani had resided for
several years in exile in Syria. On November 28, another
opposition front, the Democratic Patriotic Front (DPF),
was established at the instigation of the Communist
party and included the KDP and the Kurdistan Socialist
party. Throughout the 1980s, opposition forces were
plagued by personal rivalries for leadership,
institutional control, and ideological differences.
At this time, it was fairly difficult to
identify and assess the real strength of the various
Islamist underground forces. But the regime’s ruthless
clampdown on the Da'wa Party indicated that it was the
strongest of the forces.(5) Among other active groups at
the time was the Organization of Islamic Action. In a
move to close Shi'ite ranks, Iran supported the creation
of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI) in November 1982. However, this is not to say
that Iran supported only Islamist organizations. It also
backed the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the
PUK, though not equally. In the beginning of the 1980s,
Iran extended substantive support to the KDP, whereas
Syria gave hers to the PUK. Thereafter, Iran, with the
help of Syria, intermittently tried to coordinate with
both the KDP and PUK, which played significant military
roles in Iran’s attacks on Iraq.
Early in the
war, the Ba'ath regime understood the danger resulting
from the collaboration of the opposition with Iran. But
it also understood the overall incoherent state of the
opposition and attempted relentlessly to undermine it
further. In addition to continuing its persecution of
the communists and Da'wa Party members, the regime
issued an edict on August 4, 1980, to confiscate all the
monies and properties of all opposition members.(6) It
devised a "working plan" for dealing with the opposition
in general and the Kurds in particular. The plan,
included in General Directorate of Security's letter
number 9566 of September 1, 1981, contained the
following goals:
1. To penetrate the leadership of
the saboteurs and maintain contact with their leading
personalities in an attempt to either recruit them or
create suspicion among them.
2. To widen the
disagreement among the bands of saboteurs and to
continue the delicate work to fomenting clashes among
them.
3. To work to prevent the expansion of
saboteurs' activities to areas they have not reached
previously.
4. To pressure famous well-known
saboteurs by detaining their families, letting them know
that the fate of their families is conditioned on them
leaving the opposition.
5. To expose (to the Iraqi
people) the bands of saboteurs' collaboration with the
Persian regime and their betrayal of the country.
6.
To stop saboteurs from establishing organizations within
the cities.(7)
In addition, the regime continued
to recruit Kurds into pro-government Kurdish militias,
informally called jahsh (a pejorative name
literally meaning mule), but known officially as the
National Defense Battalions. The regime favored
recruiting Kurds from influential tribes such as the
Zibaris, Hirkins and Surjis which had the clout to
compete with the PUK and the KDP.(8)
Equally
significant, the regime at first focused its attention
on the KDP's links to Iran. This relationship entered a
new dangerous phase in the regime's eyes when Iran, with
help from the KDP, seized the important border garrison
town of Hajj Omran in July 1983. The regime was furious
with the KDP and branded it a fifth column. At the same
time, the regime maneuvered to deepen the rivalry
between the KDP and the PUK. Capitalizing on the PUK's
opposition to the KDP's role in facilitating the Iranian
offensive on Hajj Omran, Saddam Hussein launched a
diplomatic initiative centering on offering the PUK
leader a renewed commitment to Kurdish autonomy. Talks
ensued between the PUK and Baghdad and continued
inconclusively until their collapse in January 1985. One
of several reasons for this result was the regime's
rejection of the old Kurdish demand that the oil-rich
regions of Kirkuk and Khaneqin be considered part of
autonomous Kurdistan.
This policy now pushed the
PUK as well into Iran's arms. Tehran was happy to
welcome this new ally in the midst of its war with Iraq.
Within two years, Iranian-PUK cooperation improved
dramatically, culminating in a sweeping political,
economic and military accord signed by the two parties
in October 1986. They agreed to fight Saddam until he
was toppled and to sign no unilateral deal with Baghdad.
The Iraqi government’s reaction was to ascribe
officially the epithet of Zumrat Umala' Iran (Band of
Iranian Agents) to the PUK.(9)
With both Kurdish
groups helping Iran, Baghdad lost control of the
countryside in Iraqi Kurdistan except for the main
towns, cities and connecting roads and highways. The
regime designated villages falling under the
peshmerga's control or those where this militia
was active as prohibited for security reasons.
As official Iraqi documents show, it was at this
point, at the beginning of 1985, that the regime dropped
its hitherto ad hoc counterinsurgency measures and began
to pursue a systematic policy against the Kurds aiming
at destroying their political, economic, social and
military foundations.(10) The resulting plan was to
carry out one sweeping operation, codenamed Termination
of Traitors. In line with the name's implication, that
operation was designed to implement the highest possible
level of punishment and physical liquidation of both the
Kurds and their villages. The method was to destroy
villages and towns, and then forcibly deport their
inhabitants to tightly supervised camps. The first step
would be against population centers in
government-controlled areas, followed by another phase
to eliminate villages prohibited for security reasons
wherever the army could reach or even politically
passive villages in areas where guerrillas might
operate.(11)
In this way, most of rural
Kurdistan was declared prohibited, and villages were
marked for destruction regardless of whether the
villagers abetted, harbored or supported the saboteurs.
The first phase ran from April 20 to May 20, 1987 while
the second was conducted from May 21 to June 20. The
final phase culminated in the Anfal campaign,
characterized by the use of chemical weapons against the
Kurdish population and lasting from February to
September 1988.
In the meantime, relations
between Kurdish opposition parties remained
characteristically incoherent and marked by rivalry.
Although in parlous times they tried to cooperate of
their own volition or at the instigation of Syria and
Iran, the parties were more interested in maintaining
and expanding their spheres of influence.(12) According
to intelligence reports, the KDP was active in the
provinces of Irbil and Dohuk, while the PUK was active
in the province of Sulaimaniya. Other Kurdish parties
operated in these provinces but hardly competed with
either the PUK or KDP. The Kurdistan Socialist party
operated in Diyala, Irbil and Sulaimaniya; the Kurdish
Socialist party operated in Irbil and Sulaimiya; the
Kurdistan Democratic party operated in Dohuk; and the
Islamic Movement in Iraqi Kurdistan (IMIK) operated
mainly in Sulaimaniya, although the IMIK rarely set up
political headquarters, preferring mobile offices.(13)
Throughout the war, Iran cared for Kurdish
casualties and allowed both the KDP and the PUK to
establish headquarters on its territory, in Rajan and
Qasem Rash respectively. In general, it favored the KDP
and allowed its members a freedom of action not afforded
to the PUK.(14) Syria, on the other hand, early on
favored the PUK. Syrian officers trained PUK fighters
and supplied them with weapons.(15) It nevertheless
tried to coordinate with all the opposition camp in
general and with the two Kurdish parties in particular
to help Iran in its war against Iraq.
According
to Sulaimaniya Directorate of Security's intelligence
report number 10907 (Branch 5) of December 12, 1987,
Syria in October 1987 hosted a meeting for the
opposition in which all parties agreed to divide Iraq
into three fields for operations. Islamist parties would
operate in the south, the Kurds in the north, and the
communists and the renegade band (nationalists) in the
middle and Ninawa province.(16) But Syria, unlike Iran,
allowed the Kurdish parties to open only representative
offices. Equally significant, while Syria hosted the
nationalist parties, Iran hosted the Islamist parties.
Libya also supported the PUK, including training its
members, and tried to coordinate between Iran and the
PUK.(17)
The tragic consequences of the Anfal
campaign pushed the opposition parties to put aside
their differences temporarily. In May 1988 they
established a united front, the Iraqi Kurdistan Front
(IKF), which had been the subject of discussion (mainly
in Damascus) for quite some time.(18) It included the
PUK, the KDP, the Kurdistan Popular Democratic Party,
the Kurdistan Socialist Party and the Kurdish Socialist
Party. Subsequently, three other groups joined the IKF:
The Iraqi Communist Party, the Kurdistan Toilers' Party,
and the Assyrian Democratic Party.
The carnage
and destruction brought about by the Anfal campaign also
caused many Iraqis to flee, mainly to Iran and Turkey.
These countries placed the refugees in military barracks
(mainly in Turkey) or in compounds (mainly in Iran).
Moreover, Iran jailed Iraqi prisoners of war (POW), many
of whom were captured by the Kurdish opposition.
This presence of refugees and Iraqi POWs in Iran
allowed that country to promote and strengthen certain
opposition groups. This was very much the case of Iran’s
advancement of SCIRI. With the blessing of Iran, SCIRI
convened some of its meetings in the north of Iran with
the objective of intensifying propaganda in Iraqi
Kurdistan. In this way, SCIRI could project itself as a
representative of all Iraqis. A special committee was
established in Tehran in 1987, including most of the
opposition parties, to coordinate with Iranian
authorities on the treatment of POWs. Besides the fact
that the committee was headed by Islamists, Iran put
Muhammed Baqer al-Hakim, leader of SCIRI, in charge of
arranging family visits to the POWs.(19)
Of the
regional countries, Turkey posed the greatest dilemma
for the Kurdish opposition. Given its own large Kurdish
minority, Turkey wanted to prevent any situation that
might fuel Kurdish sentiments for independence in Turkey
and to suppress the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In
addition, Turkey abhorred the Iraqi Kurds' attempts,
with Iranian support, to sabotage Iraq's oil pipeline
that passes through Turkey to the Mediterranean. Turkey
thus saw Iraq's Kurdish insurgency as a threat to its
own interests. Turkey guarded its borders with Iraq
closely and was intermittently hostile to Kurdish
parties. With Iraq's tacit agreement, Turkish forces
made several air raids across the border in 1986 and
1987 into Kurdish camps, thereby establishing a pattern
of involvement in northern Iraq that has continued
since.
This military involvement coincided with
a revived Turkish interest to make references to its old
claims to the Mosul region, relinquished in 1926, to
protect not only the pipeline from Kurdish insurgency
but also the ethnic Turks, Turkomen, who are a minority
in northern Iraq. When Iraq was faring badly in the war,
Turkey reportedly notified Iran and the US in 1986 that
it would demand the return of Mosul and Kirkuk in the
event of Iraq’s collapse.(20)
This Turkish
attitude became discernibly ambivalent in the late 1980s
as the PKK intensified its anti-Turkish operations at a
time when Turkey had become the destination of many
Kurdish refugees. To keep a watchful eye on the refugees
and prevent them from fraternizing with Turkish-Kurds,
Turkey housed the refugees in military barracks, mainly
in Mardin, Diyar Bakr and Mosh.(21) Kurds complained
about the dismal and harsh conditions.
In the
meantime, the PUK signed an agreement with the PKK in
May 1988, which the KDP denounced as detrimental to the
unity of the IKF.(22) Turkey, for its part, went on to
sign two separate agreements, one with the Iraqi
government and the other with the KDP. On September 19,
1989, Turkey and Iraq signed a legal and judicial
agreement stipulating that each party to the extradition
agreement would surrender any person present on its soil
who was accused of or found guilty of any charge by the
judicial authorities of the other country.(23)
Immediately thereafter, Turkey signed an
agreement with the KDP pledging to support that party in
exchange for its helping the Turkish army in its fight
against the PKK. Accordingly, Turkey ordered its
military border posts to let through KDP
peshmerga and offer them refuge, provisions and
medical help. It also allowed KDP fighters to appear in
military gear in some Turkish towns and cities without
army interference.(24) At the same time, Ankara
continued its policy of pursuing PKK forces inside Iraq.
It maintained a military presence inside Iraq a few
miles across the border. In May and September 1997, the
Turkish army launched two major offensives in Iraqi
Kurdistan. Turkish forces even joined the KDP in
fighting the PUK.
Meanwhile, following the
Iran-Iraq ceasefire, which went into effect in August
1988, Syria's and Iran's support for the Kurdish
opposition became more circumscribed since these
countries (plus Turkey) were adverse to the idea of an
independent Kurdistan. Nevertheless, these countries
also desired a weakened Iraqi regime. Thanks in no small
part to Iran and Syria, the Kurds were able to
reestablish their presence in areas that had been the
target of the Anfal campaign. But Iran now barred the
Kurdish parties from launching military operations from
its land or along the Iran-Iraq border, though it did
not object to operations deep inside Iraq.(25)
The Kurdish parties were concerned about secret
Iran-Iraq ceasefire terms or about a prospective peace
treaty between the two countries that could have
negative implication for Kurdish activities.
Consequently, the Kurdish parties began to convene large
meetings to which they invited all opposition parties.
For example, the KDP, in the course of convening its
tenth congress in Rajan in November 1989, invited the
IKF. One of the important decisions taken in the
congress was to adopt a new vision emphasizing "a belief
in national unity and considering the Kurds as part of
the Iraqi people".(26) While this attitude apparently
affirmed Kurdish identity as Iraqi, it most likely
stemmed more from the Kurds' apprehension about possible
agreements between the regional countries and Iraq, for
which the Kurds would pay the political price.
Breaking free
Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait in August 1990 and subsequent American-led
efforts to build an international, anti-Iraq coalition
marked a new phase in the relations among opposition
parties as well as between regional countries and the
opposition camp. Several intelligence reports from the
General Military Intelligence Directorate dating from
October 1990 to January 1991 shed light on the state of
the opposition and its position on the impending US-led
attack on Iraq. The opposition reckoned that their cause
might now become "internationalized". They intensified
their mutual contacts and tried, with little success, to
fashion a unified plan of action. Although they expected
fundamental changes in Iraq, they were wary of launching
an armed attack, or participating in one, against the
regime.
In fact, according to intelligence
report number 200 (Branch 3, Section 2) of January 5,
1991, PUK chieftains expressed a desire that in the
event of a confrontation between a US-led coalition and
Iraq, the PUK should reach an agreement with Baghdad
rather than fight it.(27) The KDP preferred to
reestablish its positions in northern Iraq. Both parties
adopted a "wait and see" position, including suspending
their operations, to find out the outcome of the
confrontation.(28) One of the Kurdish concerns expressed
about this position was that the Kurds might again
become the target of the regime’s chemical weapons.(29)
Following the invasion, Syria was the first of
the regional countries to upgrade its relations with the
Kurdish opposition to the foreign ministry level.
Damascus brought opposition parties together at several
meetings in Damascus at which a unified plan of action
was discussed. In addition, Syria offered not only to
open bases and headquarters for the KDP but also to
facilitate and help its military operations.(30) In
fact, Syria agreed for the first time to open a military
headquarters for the opposition in the
Iraqi-Turkish-Syrian border triangle.(31) While the PUK
went along with Syrian plans, the KDP and the communists
expressed reservations about these meetings as
strengthening Syria's leverage and appearing to
coordinate efforts with the US-led coalition against the
regime.(32)
Iran, on the other hand, was so
concerned about American plans in the region that it
adopted an ambivalent position toward both the Kurds and
Iraq. It seems possible that Iran and Iraq concluded a
secret agreement based on denying the United States a
future hegemonic role in Iraq. This is reflected, as we
shall see, by the statements of Iran's protege, SCIRI’s
leader al-Hakim. In fact, this agreement was mentioned
twice in intelligence reports and elicited concerns from
the Kurdish opposition including the IMIK.(33)
Responding to Kurdish concerns, Iranian authorities
emphasized that this agreement would not affect the
activities of the Kurds.(34) According to General
Military Intelligence Directorate's report number 11256
(Branch 2, Section 3) of October 15, 1990, Ahmad
Khomeini alleviated the IMIK's concerns by stating, "We
do not bargain with Islam, and we shall support you as
previously. You should continue your activities."(35)
Although Turkey, an important coalition partner,
allowed Western nations and Syria to open a number of
headquarters in the border province of Hakari, it did
not permit any military operations against Iraqi troops
along the Iraqi-Kurdish border.(36) Finally, the crisis
in the Gulf pushed Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to interfere
for the first time in opposition affairs.
Obviously, the growing interest of the regional
countries in the opposition stemmed from their concerns
about a possible transition of power in Iraq. They
sought to have a say regarding the composition of any
new government. More specifically, Syria and Iran
believed that Saddam would fall and thus began preparing
for an alternative. But the two countries did not share
the same vision for Iraq. Syria disliked the idea that a
future Islamist government might rise on the ruins of
the Ba'ath Party.
Syria’s efforts to bring the
opposition under one umbrella materialized with the
establishment of the Joint Action Committee in December
1990 in Damascus. The Iraqi opposition consisted mainly
at the time of the Kurdish parties, represented in
Damascus, but possessing headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan
and Iran; the pro-Damascus parties (pro-Syrian
Ba'athists, and some Nationalists, Iraqi officers,
communists) based in Syria; and the pro-Tehran Islamist
parties, based in Tehran, mainly SCIRI, Da'wa party
(less Tehran-oriented than SCIRI), and the Organization
of Islamic Action.
Essentially, the creation of
the committee reflected a kind of accord between
Damascus and Tehran. Subsequently, Damascus and Tehran
began to prepare for an Iraqi opposition congress.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, lacking any influence with the
opposition, tried to create pro-Saudi groups and build
bridges to existing ones. In this respect, it supported
Sa'd Saleh Jabr, a liberal scion of an influential
family and leader of the Party of the New Nation. Saudi
Arabia prodded him to dissolve this party and establish
a broader organization. Jabr did so, establishing the
Free Iraqi Council in February 1991. Shortly thereafter,
some Ba'athists and nationalists, led by former Ba'ath
officials Salah Omar al-'Ali and Ayad Awali, established
the Iraqi National Accord (INA). Based in London, the
two movements joined the Joint Action Committee before
the congress convened.
While war was raging in
the Gulf, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and opposition
parties were engaged in shuttle diplomacy to convene the
first national Iraqi opposition congress. The congress
took place in Beirut in March 1991, coinciding with the
spontaneous uprising that engulfed Iraq. The congress
succeeded only in bringing opposition groups under one
roof. The regional countries' different future visions
for Iraq clashed with the opposition’s personal
rivalries and ideological differences. The failure of
the congress marked the gradual shift of the opposition
from a regional to an international phenomenon.
At this point, it is important to examine some
of the opposition's statements on the eve of Desert
Storm, especially with regard to the United States. Once
coalition air forces began bombing Baghdad, SCIRI's
leader, al-Hakim criticized the war as aggression
against the Iraqi people under the pretext of punishing
Saddam for occupying Kuwait. In addition, he called on
Iraqis to confront the foreign aggression and to seek to
establish Islamic rule in Iraq.(37) This statement
underscored SCIRI's intimate relationship with Iran,
which considered the United States to be the "Great
Satan" to be confronted first.
Da'wa issued a
statement radically different from that of SCIRI's. It
called on the army to overthrow Saddam, the real culprit
in rending Iraq. In its January 17 statement, The
Organization of Islamic Action focused on toppling
Saddam’s regime while at the same time blaming the
United States for not targeting the regime's
headquarters.(38) The Kurdish parties were wary of
taking a definite position at the time. In fact, the
Kurdish parties took a unilateral decision during the
uprising to negotiate with Saddam after it appeared to
them he would be victorious.
In the aftermath of
the failed uprising, the opposition was in disarray.
However, it tried to break free from the grip of
regional countries, which it perceived as harmful to the
cause. Toward this end, it convened a congress in Vienna
in the summer of 1992 which elected the Iraqi National
Congress, an umbrella organization including most
opposition parties and headed by Ahmad Chalabi, to take
leadership in opposition politics. In addition, the
opposition began to seek international support, mainly
from the United States and Britain. The groups also
decided to convene another congress in Iraq, which met
in September 1992. At that congress, the opposition
forces fashioned and agreed on a unity plan. The groups
meeting in Salahuddin, Iraqi Kurdistan, including SCIRI,
Joint Action Committee and Da'wa, agreed to convene an
enlarged General Assembly and also agreed to the
principles that a future Iraq would remain
geographically united and headed by a parliamentary,
democratic and constitutional government.
The
General Assembly convened in Salahuddin in October 1992
and ratified the decisions made at Vienna and
Salahuddin. At this conference, the INC managed to
include individual democrats and most established
organizations and currents within the Iraqi opposition.
While some nationalists boycotted the assembly because
they rejected the idea that the future form of Iraqi
government will be based on a federalist structure, a
decision discussed and accepted at the assembly, the
Da'wa party expressed its reservations about this
decision.(39)
Meanwhile, the regime's brutal
suppression of the uprising triggered a mass exodus,
mainly Kurds and Shi'ites, to the neighboring countries
of Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In April 1991, the UN
Security Council adopted Resolution 688, calling on Iraq
to end "the repression of the Iraqi civilian
population". Shortly thereafter, the allied forces,
especially those of the United States and United
Kingdom, established "no-fly" zones in northern and
southern Iraq, forbidding Iraqi aircraft from flying
north of the 36th parallel and south of the 32nd
parallel. Consequently, the Iraqi regime withdrew from
the Kurdish region in late October 1991, except for
Kirkuk. As a result, an "internal frontline" was
established separating the Kurdish region from the rest
of Iraq. Also in April, the IKF and the Iraqi regime
entered into negotiations that remained inconclusive
until their collapse a few months later. As before, the
disagreement over the demarcation of the Kurdish
autonomous region, particularly concerning Kirkuk,
scuttled the negotiations. In January 1992, the IKF
announced the suspension of the talks.
The IKF
exercised de facto control of the Kurdish region and
began a process of institutionalizing its rule. For the
first time in their history, in May 1992, the Kurds held
free parliamentary elections for a 105-member Kurdistan
National Assembly. The elections were based on a system
of proportional representation with a 7 percent
threshold for party legitimacy. The KDP won 50.8 percent
of the vote while the PUK won 49.2 percent. The parties
settled for 50 seats each as part of a power-sharing
agreement. In a move defining Kurdish-Iraq relations,
the National Assembly issued a statement in October 1992
adopting federalism within a unified Iraq as the basis
for its future political program.(40)
Yet,
personal rivalry and struggles for control soon
shattered the calm in Iraqi Kurdistan. Rising tensions
between the PUK and IMIK, which controlled significant
swaths of territories along the border with Iran and
around towns such as Halabja and Kifri in proximity to
PUK strongholds, led to PUK-IMIK armed clashes in
December 1993. Subsequently, widespread battles broke
out between the PUK, the KDP, and the IMIK in May 1994.
Although all parties sustained heavy casualties, the
IMIK suffered the most as it retreated close to the
Iranian border. This, however, did not prevent the IMIK,
and later on other splinter Islamist parties such as
Jund al-Islam and Ansar al-Islam from reestablishing
their presence in and around Halabja.
On the
other hand, tension climaxed between the KDP and the
PUK, following PUK encroachment on what the KDP
considered its sphere of influence in Irbil. In a
dramatic twist of events, the KDP called on Iraq's armed
forces to help with the fight against the PUK. In August
1996, the KDP, with the help of Iraq's armed forces,
launched an attack on PUK positions in Irbil and drove
them from the area. In the process, the Iraqi army
attacked INC headquarters, which had been established
there with the CIA's help, and killed many INC members,
ending INC presence in northern Iraq.
As a
result of all these events, Iraqi Kurdistan split into
two regional areas with their own separate
quasi-governments. The KDP rules the provinces of Dohuk
and Irbil, while the PUK rules Sulaimainiya province.
While the PUK has intermittently had armed clashes with
the Islamist parties around Halabja, since 1996 the
overall situation in Iraqi Kurdistan has largely
stabilized and the two major parties cooperate on a wide
range of efforts aimed at improving the economic,
educational, and political life in Kurdistan. The two
parties have committed themselves to democratic rules
and freedom of speech. Schools, universities,
newspapers, NGOs and other mediums of a democratic free
society have proliferated in the area. This has been
made possible thanks in no small part to the UN. In an
effort to ease the negative effects of the international
embargo on Iraq, the UN adopted Resolution 986 in 1995
that created the oil-for-food program. This program
provides money to Iraq in exchange for petroleum
exports. The Kurds receive 13 percent of the funds.(41)
Paralleling these developments in the Kurdish
region, the London-based INC tried to advance its
program of toppling Saddam by enlisting the financial
and military help of the United States. Chafing over
Saddam’s continuous haggling with and delaying UN
inspectors, who were pulled out of Iraq in 1998, the US
Congress issued the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which
established a program to support a transition to
democracy in Iraq. The INC emerged as the recipient of
this support. However, although the INC served as an
umbrella organization of opposition groups (KDP, PUK,
SCIRI, Constitutional Monarchy Movement - CMM- and INA),
each one of them has claimed the right to operate
outside the INC framework, thereby undermining the
cohesion of the opposition.(42) This was set in sharp
relief when the Bush administration made a regime change
in Iraq a US foreign policy objective and focused on
widening the Iraqi opposition camp. Disagreement in the
Bush administration at the personal and departmental
levels over the methods to bring about a regime change
has confounded the opposition groups as well.
It
should be noted that other opposition groups and
personalities have emerged on the international stage as
the United States seeks a wide opposition circle to oust
Saddam. They include the Iraqi Free Officers, led by
General Najib Salhi, who claims influence within the
Iraqi army; the Iraqi National Movement (INM) led by
General Hassan Nakib, former deputy chief of staff of
the Iraqi army (the INM is a recent merger of the Iraqi
National Liberals and Iraqi Officers Movement, headed by
General Fawzi Shamari. The group, like the INA, claims
support in key central provinces); and General Nizar
Khazraji, a former chief of staff, and Wafiq
al-Samara'i, a former intelligence chief, both of whom
claim influence within the Iraqi army.
As the
campaign to topple Saddam has been gathering momentum in
Washington, the Iraqi opposition has been attempting to
close its ranks and adopt a unified position to present
itself as the alternative government for Saddam's
regime. In this respect, it succeeded to a large extent
in working together as a group united by two principles:
Toppling Saddam's regime and calling for democratic form
of government with federalism and decentralization at
its basis. Several meetings for the opposition
confirming these views took place, including the exiled
officers’ convention in London in July 2002 and the
leaders of the opposition "group of six" (representing
SCIRI, PUK, KDP, INA, CMM, INC) meeting with US
officials in August 2002.(43)
In addition,
statements by opposition leaders, unlike past statements
on the eve of the Gulf War, reflected a genuine
understanding that the opposition not only needs to work
together but also to cooperate with the United States.
Toward this end, most importantly, the statement by
SCIRI's leader, al-Hakim, marked a substantial shift
from the sentiments he expressed during the Gulf War. He
now welcomed the idea of American intervention to
destabilize the Iraqi government, provided it was the
Iraqis who carried out the real change. He stated that
"the Iraqi people will benefit from any opportunity that
weakens Saddam", and added, "They can topple him if they
know that he will not be able to suppress them like in
1991."(44)
At first the Kurdish leaders,
Talabani and Barzani, expressed reservations about a
US-led campaign to oust Saddam. They were concerned
about a repetition of US actions such as in 1975 and
1991, in which Kurds were left alone fending for
themselves. Equally significant, they were apprehensive
about disrupting their current situation in Iraqi
Kurdistan unless there was a clear and beneficial
alternative. Responding to questions about the United
States touting the Kurds as possible allies, Barzani
said, "First of all, we have to know who the alternative
is, if there is one. Of course, so far there is no
alternative." Talabani concurred and stated, "We do not
know what will happen ... we will not enter adventures
whose end is unclear."(45)
This attitude,
similar to that on the eve of the Gulf War, mutated to
one gingerly supporting the United States. The Kurdish
leaders eventually admitted that their "ideal" current
situation in Iraqi Kurdistan was ephemeral and could
change for the worse. Since they considered themselves
part and parcel of Iraq, they realized the imperative of
contributing to opposition efforts to bring about
democracy to Iraq. Following a meeting with US officials
in August, Talabani even went so far as to confirm that
the Kurds would relinquish the "independence of the
current reality and that urban street fighting against
Americans [in the event of an invasion] was
unlikely".(46) It can be argued that this attitude is a
logical extension to the initial one taken by the
Kurdish leadership on the eve of Desert Storm in which
they identified themselves as Iraqis.
The
opposition’s defining moment
No doubt, the Iraqi
opposition, given its past disarray, has made strides
toward unity and common cause. But a closer examination
of the opposition groups' intentions and motives reveals
schisms beneath the surface of opposition unity that, if
not addressed, could again split the opposition and
prove disastrous to a possible US intervention in Iraq.
SCIRI's shift to supporting US intervention rests
largely on SCIRI's apprehension about Iraq's readiness
to use non-conventional weapons against the opposition.
SCIRI is more interested in US protection than in US
intervention or in any future role for America in
building a new Iraq. This also reflects Iran's
uneasiness with a US presence on both its borders
(Afghanistan and Iraq).
SCIRI has remained vague
about the specifics of federalism (let alone about
Kurdish aspirations) since the Salahuddin conference.
SCIRI, on the one hand, has endorsed the concept of
federalism for Iraq's future political structure, but,
on the other, has refrained from elaborating its
position about it, opting instead to claim that the
"will of the Iraqis will be the final recourse".(47)
Given that the Shi'ites are the majority and there
exists no secular Shi'ite party, this could well mean
that SCIRI has ulterior motives not only to acquire a
determinative role in a future Iraqi government but also
the ability to enhance its Islamist agenda.
In
addition, a group of Shi'ite academics, professionals,
religious leaders, tribal leaders and businessmen,
reflecting the whole spectrum of Shi'ite viewpoints,
issued a declaration dealing with the sectarian problem
in Iraq and its future political order. The declaration
emphasized democracy and federalism, whereby the central
authorities would be effective but not hegemonic. It
also stated that "Iraq's federal structure would not be
based on a sectarian division but rather on
administrative and demographic criteria".(48) But the
group formulated its outlook of Iraq's future by
speaking exclusively as Shi'ite and significantly by
defining the Shi'ite community as a distinct group
created by the regime's anti-Shi'ite policies.
Consequently, despite its positive outlook, this
declaration has the potential of deepening the ethnic
and sectarian divide in Iraq by highlighting the
identity and singular experience of the Shi'ites as a
community, thereby promoting a Shi'ite rather than a
national collective consciousness.
Equally
significant, the KDP issued a draft constitution in
April 2002 that reflects both Kurdish wariness and
doubts about power-sharing arrangements and Kurdish
aspirations for complete autonomy in Iraqi
Kurdistan.(49) The constitution adopts democratic rule
and federalism. But federalism is based on ethnic and
historic demographic criteria. It calls for the
establishment of a federal union consisting of Arab and
Kurdish regions, whereby the area of Kurdish region is
coterminous with historic Iraqi Kurdistan.(50) In
addition, it calls for the repatriation of all Kurds
forcibly relocated from Iraqi Kurdistan and the
expatriation of all Arabs who the government relocated
there since 1957.(51)
Arabic would be the
official language of the union and the Arab region while
Kurdish would be the official language for the Kurdish
region. The constitution stipulates the establishment of
a federal parliament consisting of national and regional
assemblies. The regional assembly would participate on
an equal footing with the national assembly in
practicing federal legislative powers. Every region
would have its own constitution taking into
consideration rule by an Iraqi republic and the
provisions of the federal constitution. Every region
would have a president, prime minister, and a council of
ministers, in addition to an independent judicial
system. The federal union would be responsible for
collecting customs’ taxes while each region will collect
all other taxes.
The provisions of this draft
constitution clearly reveals the Kurds' suspicions about
future power-sharing by attempting to acquire an
arrangement that would give them a veto power on all
national and political decisions, and a structure that
was in many ways that of a state. Although this
preliminary position is still under discussion, it
reflects the attitude of the Kurds after 11 years of
autonomous rule.
Peter W Galbraith, a former US
ambassador and currently a professor at the National War
College, explained the position of the Kurds: "In the
past 11 years, the Iraqi identity has largely
disappeared from the north of Iraq. Kurdish television,
media and universities have replaced earlier Iraqi
counterparts. In schools, Arabic has been demoted from
the language of instruction to a foreign language (one
considered by young people far less useful than
English). Kurds take pride in what they have
accomplished on their own .. in a post-Hussein Iraq, the
Kurds will insist on maintaining the independence they
now enjoy. Barzani and Talabani have proposed that a
future Iraq be a federal state with Kurdish and Arab
entities. In the coming months, they will be moving
unilaterally to create a legal structure for a
self-governing Kurdistan that will have its own
assembly, president, tax and spending powers and police.
Believing that written promises in an Iraqi constitution
provide scant protection, the Kurdish leaders insist on
retaining a Kurdistan self-defense force."(52)
This could not only prove divisive for the
opposition camp, but also could provoke Turkey to
intervene military in Iraqi Kurdistan in the event of an
American attack in order to have leverage over the shape
of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. A joint committee
representing the KDP and the PUK has approved the core
of the KDP's draft constitution. The amended version
outlines the structure of a regional administration in
Iraqi Kurdistan, including legislative, judiciary and
executive responsibilities. The region would have a
flag, presidency, and the city of Kirkuk as capital.
Turkish officials viewed the draft constitution as an
expression of Kurdish ambitions for full independence,
an outcome the officials said they would encounter with
the use of troops. Defense Minister Sabahattin
Cakmakoglu told reporters that northern Iraq was
"forcibly separated" from Turkey in the 1920s and added,
"Turkey considers northern Iraq to be under its direct
care."(53) A former general, Armagan Kuloglu of the
Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara has
lobbied the current general staff to amend its
contingency plans for northern Iraq. He proposed moving
troops 200 miles into Iraq to hold Mosul and Kirkuk
until the situation has "stabilized".(54)
Complicating things further, Mudr Shawkat,
executive committee member of the INM, expressed his
reservations about a federalist structure "based on
ethnicity and sectarianism", a position similar to that
of the Shi'ites.(55) Equally significant, the opposition
risks being stigmatized by an American intervention in
Iraq to remove the regime. The opposition needs not only
to play a significant role in removing the regime but
also make that role obvious and out-front for all to see
and recognize, so as to avoid seeming like US puppet.
Clearly, the Iraqi opposition may be entering
its most challenging era in history, with the potential
rewards for success and penalties of failure extremely
high.
Conclusion
During the past three
decades the Iraqi opposition went through dramatic
events and changes. At one point, it needed the support
of regional countries to survive. But these states
subordinated the opposition's interests to their own
national priorities. The removal of Saddam Hussein's
regime was not a foreign policy objective for them. What
they really sought was a weak but territorially
integrated Iraq, stripped of its capacity to pose a
regional threat or foment crises. It was within this
context that the regional countries offered their
support to the Iraqi opposition. Consequently, the
opposition camp fell hostage to the national agendas of
these countries. The opposition's disarray allowed the
regional countries and the Iraqi regime to further widen
its ideological and personal discord. This situation
gradually changed in the aftermath of the Kuwait war
(1990-91) as the opposition maneuvered to extricate
itself from the grip of the regional powers. But this
did not save the opposition from continuous debilitating
internal dissent.
The Bush administration's
policy of effecting a regime change in Iraq mobilized
the opposition camp to attempt to close its ranks.
Although the opposition has made strides toward common
objectives and unity, it still has difficulties to
overcome, including the attainment of a national
consensus on the future political structure of
government. The opposition camp is at a crossroads, and
to a large extent its actions will define the future of
Iraq.
Notes
1. During the March
1991 uprising in Iraq, Kurdish opposition groups
captured huge quatities of Iraqi government documents
primarily belonging to Iraqi intelligence. Thanks to
efforts by Kanan Makiya and Human Rights Watch, these
documents were transferred to the US, where the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee took charge of them. Along
with government officials, Human Rights Watch/ Middle
East first examined these documents, which were
subsequently given in digital format to Iraq Research
and Documentation Project (IRDP). Supplementing
documents possessed by Makiya, this collection of
documents numbering approximately 2.4 million pages is
available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~irdp
2.
Iraq Research and Documentation Project-North Iraq Data
Set (hereafter IRDP-NIDS) (1108064, 1106843-1106895),
available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~irdp
3.
IRDP-NIDS (324282, 324623, 324709, 321561, 1344601).
4. IRDP-NIDS (1110666). See the text of RCC
decree 461 of March 31, 1980, sentencing members of the
Da'wa party to death, in IRDP-NIDS (1372984).
5.
IRDP-NIDS (1400768-1400776).
6. IRDP-NIDS
(754953).
7. IRDP-NIDS (736283).
8.
IRDP-NIDS (63302).
9. IRDP-NIDS
(1027970-1027975).
10. As illustrated by
official documents, the barrage of decrees and orders
began systematically on June 15, 1985 with telegram
number 3488 ordering the deportation of "women, children
and elderly people who were the relatives of saboteurs".
Any males who might bear arms were to be arrested and
detained. See IRDP-NIDS (735456). Consequently, many
families were forcibly deported and many males arrested.
For example, in the Shaqlawa district most families were
forcibly removed to the Khoshnaw region. See IRDP-NIDS
(735410-17). Those detained would only be released if
their peshmerga relatives surrendered to the
authorities. See IRDP-NIDS (711051, 717546).
11.
For complete details on the operation see Robert G
Rabil, "Operation Termination of Traitors: The Iraqi
Regime Through Its Documents", Middle East Review of
International Affairs Journal (MERIA), Vol 6, No 3,
(September 2002).
12. IRDP-NIDS (2382536).
13. IRDP-NIDS (1400771-6). A Sunni Muslim
movement, the IMIK was formed in 1986 under the
leadership of Shaykh Uthman Abd al-'Aziz. Some of its
cadres included former members of the Union of Religious
Scholars and veterans of the war in Afghanistan. In
recent years, notwithstanding the growing political and
military clout of the IMIK, splinter Islamist groups
emerged in Iraqi Kurdistan, mainly Ansar al-Islam
(supporters of Islam) and Jund al-Islam (soldiers of
Islam).
14. IRDP-NIDS (1146242).
15.
IRDP-NIDS (645920-1).
16. IRDP-NIDS (900023).
17. IRDP-NIDS (1144055, 749311).
18.
IRDP-NIDS (742820).
19. IRDP-NIDS (900017). Iran
also demanded from the PUK and KDP to allow some
opposition cadres to operate in areas under their
control. IRDP-NIDS (903634, 900026, 859393).
20.
Richard C Hottelet, "Mideast Wild Card: Kurds in Iraq,
Turkey," Christian Science Monitor, October 24, 1990.
21. IRDP-NIDS (1274043).
22. IRDP-NIDS
(749441, 749433).
23. See complete agreement in
IRDP-NIDS (1139017-1139033).
24. IRDP-NIDS
(855198-855120).
25. IRDP-NIDS (888118).
26. IRDP-NIDS (1274045).
27. IRDP-NIDS
(639605).
28. IRDP-NIDS (639599, 1270082).
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31.
IRDP-NIDS (639626).
32. IRDP-NIDS
(1274066-1274072).
33. IRDP-NIDS (639624-639625,
639626-639628).
34. Ibid.
35. IRDP-NIDS
(639628).
36. IRDP-NIDS (639625).
37.
Ibrahim Nawar, al-Mu'arada al-'Iraqiya wa al-Sira'
li-Isqat Saddam 1990-1993, (Iraqi Opposition and the
Struggle to Remove Saddam 1990-1993) (London: N
Publications Ltd, 1993), p. 56.
38. Ibid, pp
56-64.
39. See the preamble of the report issued
by the Executive Council of the Iraqi National Congress,
"Crimes Against Humanity and the Transition from
Dictatorship to Democracy," (Salahuddin, May 25, 1993),
pp 5-6.
40. This statement was issued in
National Assembly Decree No 22 on October 4, 1992.
41. It should be noted that the Kurds have an
additional significant income deriving from adding a
surcharge on (smuggled) Iraqi fuel passing through their
territory into Turkey.
42. The CMM was
established in the mid-1990s. The Hashimite prince Ali
bin Hussein, grandson of the deposed king Feisal of
Iraq, is the leader of this movement.
43. See
respectively al-Hayat, July 15 and August 13, 2002.
44. Nazila Fathi, "Iraqi Cleric, a Hussein foe,
Finds Support Within Iran," New York Times, August 4,
2002.
45. Howard Schneider, "The Last Thing We
Want Is a Confrontation," New York Times, February 28,
2002.
46. See Talabani's statements in al-Hayat,
August 21, 2002.
47. See the statements of
SCIRI's representative in Iraq and head of its military
wing Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim in al-Hayat, August 13, 2002.
48. See text of the declaration on the web site
of Iraqi Future
Affairs Institute.
49. See text of the KDP
draft constitution in al-Zaman, April 28, 2002.
50. The constitution stipulates that the Kurdish
region includes the provinces of Kirkuk, Sulaimaniya,
Irbil as specified by their administrative borders
before the government’s redistricting in the 1970s; the
province of Dohuk; the districts of Akra, Sheikhan,
Sinjar and the sub-district of Zimar in Ninawa province;
the districts of Khaneqin and Mandali in Diyala
province; and the district of Badrat in Wasit province.
Ibid.
51. Especially in the areas mentioned in
the above-mentioned footnote.
52. Peter W
Galbraith, "Protect the Kurds," Washington Post, August
11, 2002.
53. Karl Vick, "Iraqi Kurds’ Plan for
Constitution Draws a Warning," Washington Post,
September 27, 2002.
54. Ibid.
55. See
statements of Mudr Shawkat in al-Hayat, July 26, 2002.
Significantly enough, the Iraqi Communist party and the
Da'wa party have objected to any US intervention in
Iraq. In fact, as reported by al-Zaman, an alliance of
opposition groups have formed the Iraqi National Forces,
whose aim is to overthrow Saddam Hussein without foreign
intervention. It reportedly includes: the Iraqi
Communist party, the Da'wa party, the Arab Socialist
Ba'ath party (Iraq Command), the Group of Mujahedin
Ulema in Iraq, the Islamic Action party, the Iraqi
Democratic Grouping, the Socialist Party in Iraq, the
Arab Socialist Movement, the Turkomen Democratic party,
the Assyrian Ethnic Organization, plus other independent
political and military figures. See al-Zaman, June 25,
2002.
Robert G Rabil served with the
Red Cross in Lebanon, taught at Suffolk University and
currently is the project manager of Iraq Research and
Documentation Project at the Iraq Foundation,
Washington, DC. He is the author of the forthcoming book
Embattled Neighbors: Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the
Elusive Peace by Lynne Rienner Publishers. The author
extends his thanks to IRDP research team.
This article is reprinted from Middle East
Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal [vol 6,
no 2, 2002]. Copyright MERIA. For a free subscription to
MERIA, write gloria@idc.ac.il. To see all MERIA
publications, visit http://meria.idc.ac.il. To see the
work of MERIA's publisher, the Global Research in
International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, visit
http://gloria.idc.ac.il.
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