Tesi Jim
Hoagland su Wash. Post:
contro linea Rice-Khalilzad di
inclusione sunniti nel governo
per appoggio a curdi e sciiti
per forte decentramento
regionale.
- Irak è da 30 anni in stato di guerra civile: 1987 campagna
contro curdi, poi contro sciiti del Sud; adesso continua - (anche se le azioni sunnite vengono chiamate “ribelli”,
quelle sciite “guerra civile”). - Se sciiti si scatenassero contro sunniti, sarebbe un bagno
di sangue che provocherebbe l’intervento di potenze regionali (Stati arabi sunniti). - Curdi vogliono essere lasciati soli; anche sciiti sono per
autonomia del Sud. - Curdi e Sciiti contro ritorno a violenza di forte Stato
centrale. - Amministrazione Bush, che persegue l’obiettivo irrealistico
della riconciliazione pacifica basata su concessioni ai sunniti estremisti,
deve tenerne conto. - Un lasco federalismo che conserva l’Irak per l’oggi come
concetto, per il domani come una possibilità, è inevitabile e desiderabile. - USA hanno interesse alla relazione strategica coi curdi,
che hanno bisogno di USA per impedire che Turchia li spazzi via, - e non concedere troppo ai sunniti (tipo pressioni per dar
loro il min. Interni) per evitare guerra civile e che sciiti si appoggino
all’Iran, - come dimostrato da vicende bomba a santuario sciita
di Samarra.
By JIM HOAGLAND
The Washington Post
March 2, 2006
Iraq has endured civil war for 30 years. It has not suited Western policymakers or the media to call it
that, nor to face up to the implications of the appalling sectarian violence
and ethnic cleansing that this long conflict has generated. That must now
change.
What peace there was in Iraq before the
American invasion was the peace of the graveyard. Saddam Hussein’s
forces launched the genocidal campaign against the Kurds in 1987. The Shiite
south was the target of mass murder and environmental warfare throughout the
following decade. That history of violence lives on in today’s bomb blasts
destroying Shiite shrines and the equally despicable "retaliatory"
butchering of Sunni civilians.
When Sunnis kill Shiites on a wholesale
basis, American front pages, news broadcasts and official policy statements
call it insurgency. When Shiites kill Sunnis, it’s called civil war or, more
teasingly, imminent civil war. There is an
unacknowledged psychological basis for this seemingly irrational
differentiation of massacres. Diplomats and reporters know that if the Shiite
majority were to rise in a sustained onslaught against the Sunni minority,
the resulting bloodbath would be horrendous — and could spark regional
intervention.
The neighborig Arab states have helped shape
the perception that Shiite violence is somehow different — and more dangerous
— than the violence used at first by Saddam and now by Sunni guerrillas,
whether they are Baathist remnants, the Wahhabi fanatics of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi or a combination of the two.
The Kurds and Shiites are determined that
their populations will never again be subjected to organized brutality from a
strong central government. Their determination needs to be taken into account
more thoroughly by the Bush administration, which pursues an unrealistic vision
of peaceful national reconciliation in Iraq.
The Kurds take a Garbo approach: They want
to be left alone. The Shiites increasingly see the same degree of autonomy
and separation from the center as the answer for the south as well. A
genuine decentralization of power — a loose federalism that maintains Iraq
as a concept for today and a real possibility for tomorrow — is both
inevitable and desirable at this point.
That means that the U.S. has every
interest in maintaining a strategic relationship with the Kurds — who will
need American help to keep Turkey from taking them over — and a tolerable
working relationship with the mainstream Shiite forces. To promote an enforced
phony national reconciliation built on concessions to Sunni extremists to wean
them from violence is self-defeating.
The Bush administration has made increased
Iranian influence in the south a self-fulfilling prophecy by
misunderstanding and mishandling Shiite nationalism. The normally adept
U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, continued that pattern by
publicly threatening the Shiites with the halt of U.S. aid if they do not agree
to a "cross-sectarian" — code word for Sunni — interior minister
in the new Cabinet.That was overreaching, as
the turmoil ignited by the demolition of the Shiite shrine last week quickly
demonstrated. The
blast was apparently carried out by professional sappers in another attempt to
provoke the "civil war" that has thus far been avoided — at least in
the headlines and presidential statements, if not in fact.