Iraqi monarchy to be revived?

pv vivekanand

"What a preprosterous idea!" that is how a source
close to Prince Hassan of Jordan responded when asked
whether the prince was gearing up to be the king of
Iraq after Saddam Hussein is toppled.
"Do you think Prince Hassan is the type of person who
would ride on an American tank into baghdad to rule
Iraq?" asked the source.
the very idea of restoring the hashemite monarchy in
post-war iraq came up in july when prince hassan, the
brother of the king hussein of jordan, turned up at a
meeting of Iraqi dissidents in London.
Although he insisted that he was attending the meeting
in his personal capacity, his very presence sparked
suggestions that he had made a deal with the americans
under which he would be installed as king of iraq
after saddam is ousted.
The deal, it was alleged, involved jordan joining the
american war camp against Iraq and offering military
facilities to the US military to launch strikes
against the kingdom's eastern neighbour in a course of
events leading to prince hassan taking over Iraq with
american backing.
hassan was expected to become the king of jordan but
his brother king hussein turned around a few days
before his death in February 1999 and named his son
Abdullah as his heir.
Hassan was of course disappointed. Howevdr, the pragmatic
scholar and intellectual he is, he pubicly declared
that he backed abdullah as the new king of jordan.
since then, Hassan came to be known as a king without
a throne, and the purported idea of him being named
king of iraq suited the minds of many.
american sources have confirmed that restoration of
the monarchy in iraq was one of the "many" scenarios
being considered.
however, there are many questions that are not
answered.
these include:
-- will the iraqis themselves accept a monarchy?
the hashemite monarchy was in power in iraq from 1920
until 1958 when it was overthrown. today's iraqi
generation has been for long used to the baathist
leadership and presidency, which came to power in
1968, with saddam hussein assuming power in 1979.
as such, restoration of a ruling family that today's
generation is not familiar with faces major hurdles.
The direct descendant of the Iraqi branch of the
Hashmite family is Sharif Ali Bin Hussein, who
attended the London meeting with prince hassan in
july. sharif ali heads the Constitutional Monarchy
Movement, which, as the name implies, would give the
restored hashemite family a titular power, with the
actual executive powers lying with an elected
government.
The most favoured american plan for immediate post-war
iraq is a military administration headed by a
civilian.
However, that plan seems to have run into trouble
facing rejection by the iraqi dissident groups, which
are insisting that they should be given power in
post-war iraq.
Two Iraqi groups, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP)
based in northern Iraq and the Shiite Supreme Council
for islamic revolution in Iraq (Scriri) said this week
that Washington had agreed to give the anti-Saddam
groups power in Iraq after the war.
The reported American change of mind to accepting to
allow the Iraqi opposition to rule a post-war Iraq
stems from a realization that Washington would never
be able to secure international legitimacy for a US
occupation of that country.
Earlier US plans called for a military administration
of post-war Iraq.
The country was to be administratively divided into
three sectors - the Kurdish north, the Shiite north
and the mixed central region, including Baghdad, the
capital.
The Bush administration had also firmed up the people
who were supposed to be in charge of the three
sectors: A woman ambassador and a serving general and
a former lieutenant-general, with each assigned to
three sectors of a post-war Iraq - the northern
Kurdish region, the central region including Baghdad
and the Shiite
The woman, career foreign service diplomat Barbara
Brodine, last served as the US ambassador to Yemen and
handled a difficult phase in Washington-Sanaa
relationship after the bombing of the USS Cole off
Aden in 2000 attributed to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda
group.
The other two are: Lieutenant-General John Abizaid,
who is of Lebanese origin, and former
lieutenant-general Jay Garner, who served as the US
Army's specialist in missile defence and space-related
affairs.
The Iraqi opposition groups vehemently opposed the
plans, but Washington did not seem to be taking them
seriously. Obviously, the assumption was that these
groups would fall in line once the US military takes
firm control of Iraq.
On the international front, the US obviously hoped to
secure a UN Security Council resolution endorsing its
occupation of Iraq disguised as "administrative
control."
However, France and Russia have vowed that they would
deny
the US such legitimacy since it would also mean that
they were endorsing the legality of the US war against
Iraq that does not have Security Council
authorisation.
It was the French and Russian threats of veto that
dissuaded US President George W.Bush from seeking
approval of a new Security Council resolution and
insist that Resolution 1441 of November was enough to
launch military action against Iraq.
On Friday, one day after the war was launched, French
President Jacque Chirac threatened to veto any UN
resolution to let the US run Iraq after the war.
He said that allowing Washington and London to oversee
the creation of a new government in Iraq would reward
them for starting a war that flouted the supremacy of
the UN Security Council.
France would veto any attempt in the United Nations to
"legitimise the military intervention (and) ... give
the belligerents the powers to administer Iraq,"
Chirac said. "That would justify the war after the
event."
Chirac made his position known after British Prime
Minister Tony Blair called on the other European Union
countries to support future moves at the UN to forge a
post-Saddam "civil authority in Iraq."
On Saturday, Russian joined France in opposing the US
move.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said he expected
Washington to seek retroactive approval for their
action from the United Nations after Iraqi resistance
had been crushed but that Russia would oppose it.
"Attempts will undoubtedly be made in the UN Security
Council to find ways which would help legitimise the
military operations and the post-war (political)
set-up in Iraq," he said.
"We will follow this very carefully and we will not,
of course, give legitimacy to this action in the
Security Council," Ivanov said.
"I don't think Iraq needs a democracy brought on the
wings of Tomahawk (missiles)," he said.
In northern Iraq on Saturday, the KDP annoucned
Washington had a change of heart and had abandoned
plans to install a temporary US military
administration in post-war Iraq.
"There will be an interim Iraqi administration
immediately after the liberation," a senior KDP
official said, adding that the decision was taken
during tripartite talks in Ankara between American,
Turkish and Iraqi opposition representatives
Hoshyar Zebari of the KDP affirmed that initially, the
Americans had hoped to impose a military
administration which would not involve Iraqis.
But the US "abandoned that idea during the talks," he
said. "It will not exactly be a government, more an
authority which will be responsible for public
services," he explained.
"Power will gradually be transferred to this
authority, which will be able to negotiate with the
United Nations and with countries donating aid,"
Zebari said. "It will prepare the ground for a court
of justice and help establish a constitutional
assembly to draw up a constitution."
Abdul Aziz Hakim, deputy head of the Tehran-based
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), said US representative Zalmay Khalilzad had
announced the change of plan.
Hakim said Khalilzad told them the opposition would
now take control "from the outset."
The reported American change of mind reflects
Washington's thinking that it might not be a good idea
to take its confrontation with other world powers any
further and further undermine the credibility of the
UN Security Council. "Defying the Security Council and
going ahead with its unilateral war against Iraq was
the biggest blow that the UN has ever received,"
commented a European diplomat.
"To continue along the same line and impose its own
rule in Iraq would only worsen the international
crisis, particularly at a time when the US is hoping
for world support in rebuilding Iraq and in mending
fences with European powers like France, Germany and
others."
"Unilateralism could be taken only to a point without
actually triggering a world crisis of massive
proportions worse than those prevailing today," added
the diplomat. At the same time, the "new" American
position to allow the Iraqi opposition to rule
post-war Iraq might be a smoke screen that would veil
the actual power that Washington would wield there in
post-Saddam era.
"What is stopping the US to pull its strings and have
some puppets who would obey orders?" said an Arab
diplomat.
That might not be that easy, given the
behind-the-scene struggle among Iraqi exiles to gain
power in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Leading the pack is Ahmed Chalabi, a former banker in
Jordan with a dubious reputation. Chalabi, a Shiite
who enjoys the backing of several leading figures in
the Bush administration, has made no secret of his
ambition to succeed Saddam. But he faces stiff
opposition from other exile groups such as the
Iran-backed Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, the Iraqi National Accord backed
by the Central Intelligence Agency, and the two main
Kurdish groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and
the Kurdish Democratic Party as well as the
Constitutional Monarchy Movement.
Meanwhile, the US plan for post-war Iraq would involve
someone who would have mission similar to that of
General Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw the
rebuilding of Japan after World War II.
US officials have affirmed that American officials,
both civilian and military, would be in charge of
post-war Iraq's affairs "as long as it takes" to
create a situation where Washington could hand over
power to an Iraqi civilian government.
What stands out in the proposed nominations is the
reported inclusion of Brodine, a woman, as
administrator of Baghdad.
Washington is being totally insensitive to the
feelings of Iraqis and the Arabs at large and it is a
perfect recipe for continued instability in Iraq since
the Iraqis would not accept a woman at the helm of
their affairs.
The decision might indeed be rooted in considerations
of Bodine's efficiency and experience in the Middle
East, but it could not but be seen as a total
disregard of the sensitivities of the people of Iraq
as well as the male-dominated Arab World at large. If
anything, it would be seen as adding insult to injury
among the Arabs, who have vehemently rejected the US
war against Iraq.
Definitely, the purported plan does not seem to have
taken into consideration Iraqi cultural, historical,
and religious sensitivities.
Iraq is indeed a secular state and Iraqi women
afforded full rights of participation in all levels of
society. However, the installing of a government run
by a non-Arab, non-Muslim woman will definitely wound
the pride of the people of Iraq.
Although modernised, tribal customs still run deep in
Iraq and tribal leaders and sheikhs would not accept
to deal with a woman who would be telling Iraqis how
to run their lives .
Iraqis agree.
"Iraqis will react to it aggressively," said an Iraqi
trader in the UAE, noting that life in Iraq, as in
most other Arab countries, is dominated by males and
Iraqis have never dealt with a woman occupying any
high political office. "The Iraqis would be the last
among the Arabs to accept that a woman running their
country," said the trader.
Another Iraqi, a business executive, laughed at the
idea. "How do you think a woman would be able to deal
with the tribal leaders and sheikhs? They would never
take orders from a woman. They would simply boycott
her."
If anything, Iraqis have an added reason to be hostile
to American female diplomats. Many Iraqis have not
forgotten that it was another American woman
ambassador, April Glaspie, who, they believe, nudged
Saddam into believing that Washington would remain
neutral if he were to invade Kuwait and was thus
implicitly encouraged to order his military across the
border to the emirate in August 1990.
"We already had an American woman leading us into
disaster," said another IraqI, a banking executive.
"If it had not been for (Glaspie's) misleading
comments, Saddam would have thought twice or thrice
before invading Kuwait and brought the catastrophe
upon the entire country."
"Why should the Iraqi need another American ambassador
who could be doing the same things all over again
although in a different context, time and place?"
asked the executive.
That might indeed be true. But do the Iraqis have any
choice?