Iraq: US occupation faces crisis of its own making

Three laws passed by the Iraqi parliament on February 13 embody the looming crisis. The legislation consisted of the government’s 2008 budget, an amnesty for thousands of Sunnis who have been detained during counter-insurgency operations and, finally, the definition of the power-sharing arrangements between the federal government in Baghdad and provincial authorities and the naming of October 1 as the date for long-overdue provincial elections. In January, a law was enacted that went some way toward lifting US-imposed restrictions on political activities by former members of the Sunni-dominated Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

US ambassador in Iraq Ryan Crocker hailed the bills’ passage as “important steps forward”. The parliament, he declared, “deserves congratulations from all of us”. The truth is that the legislation was accepted only because of intense pressure on a number of major factions in the Iraqi establishment to accept a curtailment of their ambitions. In many cases, political groupings have been compelled to accept policies that fail to meet the guarantees they were given by US officials and officers in exchange for cooperating with the occupation.

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