Hakim's visit to Anbar

(Note:  my computer crashed just as I finished the first version of this post... don't have time to write it up in nearly the depth as the first time.  Sorry.)

Amar al-Hakim, son of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim and the likely next head of the Shia faction SIIC (nee SCIRI), recently visited Anbar province along with about 40 other Shia figures to meet with the Sunni tribal shaykhs of the Anbar Salvation Council. His goal was to push the idea of federalism on the Sunnis.  The general tone of the coverage of the visit is nicely captured by this AP report:

In a major reconciliatory gesture, a leader from Iraq's largest Shiite party paid a rare visit Sunday to the Sunni Anbar province, delivering a message of unity to tribal sheiks who have staged a U.S.-backed revolt against al-Qaida militants.

What these reports for some odd reason neglect to add is that the mission was an utter failure.  As al-Hayat reports today, the Anbar Salvation Council absolutely and completely rejected the idea of federalism, both in general and in all of its details.  Al-Hayat quotes SIIC leaders saying that they will take this as a "maybe."   

The assembled leaders of the Anbar Salvation Council, it's worth stressing, are the most compliant group of Sunni leaders which could possibly be assembled.  Given their current relationship with the United States, they would be expected to be far more forthcoming to such proposals than would any group of, say, insurgency leaders.  They weren't, speaking volumes about the current state of Sunni-Shia relations.  While Amar's decision to travel to Anbar was certainly interesting and well worth attention, their forceful rejection of his initiative would seem to be at least as newsworthy.   Arab media coverage (unlike most of the American media coverage I saw) typically mentioned that the Shia figures came to Anbar under heavy American military protection - a sensible precaution, if true, but one which would cut against the current carefully cultivated image of Anbar as a newly peaceful safe haven.

Meanwhile, there's been a whole raft of absolutely fascinating statements and interviews from Iraqi Sunnis recently - including a dossier of complaints by the 1920 Revolution Brigades against the Islamic State of Iraq, an interview on al-Jazeera by a leader of Hamas Iraq (without his face being concealed), and lengthy interviews with Reform and Jihad Front spokesman Abd al-Rahman al-Qissi and Jaysh al-Rashidayn spokesman Adil al-Zahawi.   I'll try to sum those up later this week. 

Comments

[bb]

"Anbar Sheiks Warmly Embrace Iranian Puppet Federalism Proposals". Now wouldn't THAT be a story?

Honestly AA - the Iranian "puppet" SIIC (!) had a public (!) meeting with the Sunni Anbar Awakening (!) at which Federalism (!) was discussed? That was quite a big story on its own in both Iraqi and western framework, but it didn't get much coverage either? Surely there is much going on behind the scenes which you are not canvassing?

[aardvark]

Of course - that's why I said this was a big story which deserved to be covered. SIIC outings to Anbar to chat up Sunni shaykhs don't happen every day. But the failure of the meeting is also an important point - otherwise one comes away with entirely the wrong impression about where things might be heading.

Speaking of behind the scenes, the al-Hayat article offers some juicy hints: Ali Hatem warned Ahmed Abu Risha that he wasn't authorized to make any decision on his own. That suggests that just maybe some of the ASC are more puppety than others, and there's continuing internal tension there.

[bb]

Sure, but it's jumping the gun to declare the talks a failure based only on newspaper reports? Or did the parties hold a press conference?

It would be good if you could give us a fuller translation of the article. That reported quote from Ali Hatem about Abu Risha being warned he was "not authorised to make decisons on his own" seems extremely mild under the circumstances of Sunnis meeting publicly with the SIIC!

[Fabius Maximus]

"the Anbar Salvation Council absolutely and completely rejected the idea of federalism, both in general and in all of its details"

Does this mean that they are now obeying the central government? Collecting taxes? Unrestricted access to their areas by Army and security forces? Following the national laws?

If they continue to operate their own state, perhaps we should pay attention to what they do -- not what they say.

[Lurch]

When you said your computer "crashed" do you mean it just did the MicroShaft two-step and you had to reboot? If I may make a suggestion, please consider working up your posts in Word and then cut & paste to the blog template. Word has a pretty good spellcheck and grammar editor, which keeps an eye over your shoulder and the resulting document makes a handy file copy in case you ever have to refer back to it.