Chaos beyond the Green Zone

Kurds were a more obvious presence. Once US occupation began, Kurdish presence in Baghdad was progressively pronounced. They had benefited from 12 years of autonomy (another name for no fly zone) and were opening up offices in Baghdad like people who knew the future. But did they know the future? Last week the building they occupied opposite my guesthouse was blown to smithereens. Melted glass from the building flew across the street, and wrapped around electric bulbs, now preserved like Chinese eggs.

This is the state of play in which India’s special representative to the Middle East, Chinmoy Gharekhan, has ventured into Iraq.

It is just as well that New Delhi has decided to peep into Baghdad. After all, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Washington in July, New Delhi should be in possession of some evaluation of which way Iraq is drifting.

Time was when there were Indian businessmen in the Kurdish north, in Baghdad and Basra, Indian students in Najaf. But the extraordinary violence that has gripped a 100 km radius around Baghdad has left no businessman or any other contact in place. The Indian embassy has been more or less closed for over a year. A junior official has just been posted to gauge the situation. He will probably guide Gharekhan around Baghdad.

The safest place in Baghdad these days is, of course, the high security Green Zone. Here the Americans will provide a detailed briefing, introduce him to former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the man who tricked the Americans into this war, Ahmad Chalabi. Whoever cares to listen to him in Najaf, Chalabi’s line is that if he had not goaded the Americans into invading Iraq, the Shias would still have been groaning under Saddam’s yoke. Probably true.

For those with ears close to the ground some intriguing developments have been taking place in Baghdad. Visitors from Washington have been making a beeline including handpicked journalists and scholars with Muslim names.

What, indeed, was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice doing in Baghdad in her flak jacket and bullet proof hat? Surely she has not come to boost the morale of troops. That is Donald Rumsfeld’s job. If she had to meet individuals, in the new cabinet, for instance, they could have been transported to Washington or even Amman. Was she in Baghdad to meet folks in captivity, ones who cannot be flown out without causing a scandal?

It is interesting that a few days after Rice’s departure, with extraordinary suddenness, some supposedly embarrassing photographs of Saddam appeared not in the American press — fingers would have been readily pointed at the calculated leak — but in British tabloids. The first photograph showed him in his underpants. How did this set of photographs reach the tabloid? Some guards leaked it? A more plausible guess is they were leaked with a purpose.

Before I look into the reasons for the leak, let me take you back to a memorable conversation I had with an ayatullah in Najaf last year. After a brilliant analysis of the situation in Iraq, he asked the following question: where is Osama bin Laden? Then he proceeded to reply “Mahfooz” or “protected”, “in place”. “Where are the US troops? Mahfooz! Where is Saddam Hussein? Mahfooz!”

The point he was making was this: in the coming months or years, all or any one of these elements can be brought into play against Shias, Sunnis, anyone. “We have no illusions,” he said.

In the photographs Saddam is looking robust, extremely fit. The photographs have been brought into play at a time when the insurgency has reached a crescendo and Hummam Hammoudi, aide to a senior cleric in the cabinet, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, has been chosen to chair the constitution drafting committee. The new constitution is expected to be drafted by August 2005, paving the way for national elections by January 2006.

Two things are proceeding side by side — escalating violence throughout Iraq outside the Green Zone and constitutional progress inside. If the interim constitution drawn up last March is any guide, there will be much acrimony.

The Kurds will insist on their autonomous north, their territory having been stretched up to Diyala, 40 miles north of Baghdad. Kurdish has been recognised as one of the two languages, the other being Arabic. This at a time when Turkey too is beginning to recognise the Kurdish personality. In fact southeast Turkey is becoming indistinguishable from northern Iraq!

Will the Shias insist on Shariah law or go along with the formulation in the interim constitution — that the Quran will be only one of the sources of the new constitution.

Shias at the moment appear to be in the driver’s seat. The prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafri, is a Shia. Now, the chairman of the constitutional committee is a Shia. The Shia militia, Al Badr, is being extensively employed. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi visited Najaf to meet Shia leaders.

Are the images of Saddam Hussein designed to check the Shia momentum, to keep the Shias within defined parameters? Also, are the possible links with Saddam Hussein an indication of US desperation with the insurgency?

Did Rice speak to the Baathists at the highest level (including Saddam) to help control an insurgency which has spiraled beyond all worse case scenarios?

In any event, Gharekhan would do well to return via Tehran where Kharrazi knows more about Najaf’s thinking on Iraq’s future than any other leader. From the Green Zone he will pick up situation report — and spin to camouflage a hopeless situation as far as the insurgency is concerned.