The Iraq anti-coalition forces are completely correct to fight tooth and nail against establishing such a sham government, attacking US forces, its civilian mercenaries and attempting to keep any UN mission out.
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If there is any UN involvement, it has to occur after the US has completely withdrawn its military occupation and all of its private contractors. The UN could without at any direct US involvement, set up a mission of assistance as invited with which the Iraqis engage an international community directly, minus all US-UK intermediaries.
This poses a real problem for Iraq because it must put together a coalition on its own, against the US, in the middle of a US occupation and keep its own in-fighting to a minimum. It would seem to have to be dominated by religious clerics in conjunction with whatever is left of the former secular government because these are the only political authority left. It would be a very nice touch if such an anti-US coalition could manage to bring some of the current CPA in, after those members openly resign in protest against the US. This would lend at least some geo-political legitimacy to an anti-US Iraq coalition.
Iraqis need to get their shit together in a hurry and some how make their way to the UN as an ad hoc mission.
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This sounds sensible to me but I wonder whether it is possible given the differences even observers who are far away, like us, can see between competing Iraqi groups.
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In the north, it seems the Kurds have decided their cooperation with the Americans is both politically and materially useful and so, for now, they have no incentive to resist. If things were more peaceful in the rest of the country and the US’ ‘softer’ forms of domination stood in the way of Kurdish dreams of near total independence the situation might be different. But for the moment the only friend the Americans have in any serious numbers are in Kurdish territory.
Al Sadr leads a large movement, a small part of which is deployed as a militia, and has decided to take on the Americans directly through guerilla action. He is out-matched of course and cannot hope to tactically defeat his opponents. Even so, he has seized much of the political high ground and even in defeat (the “capture or kill” outcome Kimmit often speaks of) would achieve the lasting political victory of positioning his group as legitimate players – the only ones with the balls to stop talking and start shooting.
Grand Ayatollah al Sistani, in contrast, has been playing a bit of a game, criticizing the Americans and making threats about possible uprisings if “red lines” in Najaf and Karbala are crossed but taking no real action. It seems he’s hoping to simply lay low until the Americans leave –in other words, his approach to the problem of occupation is completely political (remember the civil rights style marches Sistani’s followers used to hold before things became extremely dangerous?). Although he is, by all accounts, a well respected leader, you have to wonder how well his ‘patience, patience’ message is being received by those who’re angry and sick unto death of the American presence – including many people who’ve been abused or lost loved ones or otherwise suffered directly.
Al Sadr’s uprising must trouble him for many reasons, not the least of which is the damage it’s done to his reputation as the guy staring down the American beast by ‘speaking truth to power’.
And these are just the groups and personalities I’ve taken the time to study with a good amount of attention. There are surely many others, perhaps equally if not more important in their region of the country.
Even so, I’m willing to bet that the three approaches illustrated above – collaboration – resistance – riding the tiger’s back – are duplicated to some degree amongst all the other movers and shakers and the millions who try to decide what they’re going to do as individuals.
If the major competing groups can decide upon the need for a UN mission – regardless of their differences on how to deal with the Americans – this would be the final blow to occupation. Ideally, this would mean the marriage of the military and the politcal approaches with al Sadr's Mahdi army keeping the pressure high with legitimate resistance while Sistani used his moral authority to approach the UN.
But given their substantial disagreements (some even hoping for the destruction of their rivals) you have to wonder how likely this is.
.d.