SPEAKING FREELY A farewell
to Iraqi arms? By Stanley A
Weiss
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
LONDON - Amid the
carnage and chaos of Iraq, a well-armed militia is
the closest thing any ethnic, religious or tribal
group thinks it can have to an insurance policy
for its own survival. But as each bombing and
assassination pushes Iraq deeper into all-out
sectarian war, Iraqis are learning an old lesson
of multi-ethnic societies - private armies
organized in the name of self-preservation only
risk ensuring their own destruction.
For
Iraq's Sunni minority, the insurgency remains
their bargaining chip for regaining a slice of the
power they enjoyed under Saddam
Hussein. But each new attack
only risks a Shi'ite-Sunni civil war - one that
the vastly outnumbered Sunnis would surely lose.
Among the Shi'ite religious parties, the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
wields the paramilitary Badr Brigade, armed by
Tehran's Revolutionary Guards. But a campaign of
assassination and torture against Sunnis -
reportedly by the Badr-controlled Interior
Ministry - only hardens Sunni resolve to resist
Shi'ite rule.
By repeatedly unleashing his
Mahdi Army against coalition forces, the young
firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has become Iraq's
leading hardline Shi'ite nationalist. But by
clashing with rival Badr forces and forging
tactical alliances with Sunnis, Sadr has added to
his list of mortal enemies.
Finally, the
Kurds of northern Iraq, with their 100,000
peshmerga fighters, may finally fulfill
their dream of independence. But reports of
peshmerga terrorizing Arabs and Turkmens in
multi-ethnic cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk risk
intervention by Turkish or international forces.
Though comforting to their brethren, these
private armies deprive Baghdad of a basic tenet of
any sovereign state - a monopoly on the use of
coercive force. So how can Iraq avoid the fate of
such countries as Lebanon, Sri Lanka and even
Pakistan, where powerful militias, rebels and
warlords function as states-within-a-state? Or
Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Muslims, Croats and
Serbs still hunker down behind their own armies?
A survey of insurgencies and civil wars
around the world shows that armed groups can be
demobilized, disarmed and reintegrated into
civilian life - provided the new insurance they're
offered is better than the old militia they have.
No compromise, no peace. Successful
demobilizations start with a broader political
settlement that addresses core grievances. In the
tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh,
rebels have given up their fight for independence
in exchange for greater autonomy and a larger
share of oil and gas revenues. In Macedonia,
ethnic-Albanian rebels laid down their arms after
being promised new protections for their culture
and language.
The lesson for Iraq: Sunnis
are unlikely to be pacified until the country's
de-Ba'athification policy is eased to afford them
a greater political voice and until the
constitution is amended to give them a more
equitable distribution of oil revenues.
Reconciliation, not retribution. From El
Salvador to Sierra Leone, war-torn countries have
often forged a more peaceful future by pardoning
the past. In Colombia, more than 10,000 right-wing
paramilitaries have disarmed under the promise of
full or partial amnesty. Iraqis should embrace the
proposal of outgoing president Jalal Talabani -
general amnesty for insurgents, except for foreign
jihadists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Farewell to arms There are
several ways that Baghdad could gain better
command and control of militias and disarm rebel
groups. For Shi'ites and Kurds in the new Iraqi
Army who remain loyal to their Shi'ite and Kurdish
masters, Baghdad should consider Afghanistan's New
Beginnings program, which seeks to break the chain
of command between soldiers and warlords through
retraining and a stronger defense ministry.
For the Kurdish peshmerga, an
unlikely model is Kosovo, where the
ethnic-Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation
Army have been converted into a lightly armed
civil defense corps under North Atlantic Treaty
Organization supervision, but which Kosovars see
as the future army of an independent state.
Although the peshmerga will surely resist
disarming, even temporarily, such a defense corps
could make Kurdish independence more palatable to
Turkey, Iran and Syria, each with their own
restive Kurds.
For the Sunni insurgency
and Sadr's Mahdi Army, a money-for-guns program
could offer each fighter a cash incentive for
disarming. To avoid repeating the mistakes of
Nicaragua and Liberia, where fighters turned
disarmament into a business that fueled more
violence, Baghdad might replicate another
initiative in Afghanistan that offers public-works
projects to communities where militias give up
their guns.
To rebuild trust among Iraqis,
gunmen would surrender weapons under foreign
monitors, similar to the commission that last year
verified the disarming of the Irish Republican
Army. For militias that did not disarm
voluntarily, government forces should disarm them
forcibly, as the army of the Democratic Republic
of Congo is now doing with help from United Nation
forces.
Ultimately, the successful
demobilization of Iraqi militias will depend on
their reintegration into society. As part of the
peace accord that ended 11 years of civil war,
Sierra Leone provided more than 75,000 former
fighters vocational training or tuition-free
education. When UN peacekeepers left this month
after a six-year mission, the rehabilitation of
rebels was credited with sustaining peace in the
war-ravaged country.
Sooner or later,
Iraqis will realize that their militias don't
provide the insurance they advertise. If later,
Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds alike will pay a heavy
price in a catastrophic sectarian war. If sooner,
all Iraqis could find even greater security in the
many models for turning soldiers back into
civilians.
Disarming sooner also has its
risks. But, in the end, it is the only premium
worth paying.
Stanley A Weiss is
founder and chairman of Business Executives for
National Security, a non-partisan organization
based in Washington. This is a personal
comment.
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
