MASHHADANI SAYS SEIZE MOMENT TO END INSURGENCY,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 000267 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/30/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ SUBJECT: MASHHADANI SAYS SEIZE MOMENT TO END INSURGENCY, BUILD UNITY Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT S. FORD, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Leading Sunni Arab Tawafuq bloc figure Mahmud Mashhadani told Poloff January 29 that his group favors Nadeem al-Jabiri for the prime ministership but is more focused on the dynamics of the next government than its members. Mashhadani said that Tawafuq strongly supported the creation a national security council for all key security decisions, and he called for creating joint committees in security ministries to follow day-to-day employment decisions. Mashhadani recommended expanding the post of human rights minister as another way of assuaging Sunni Arab concerns. With a national unity government of that type in place, he said, the justification for the insurgency would wither away. He recommended setting a deadline for insurgents to come into the government or be considered terrorists. He supported keeping the constitution as-is, but moving to establish "administrative decentralization" in Iraq before taking a step as drastic as federal region formation. Mashhadani cast the Tawafuq Front as a largely Islamist, anti-Ba'athist bloc that considered Kurdish secession essentially a fait accompli. He emphasized repeatedly that Sunni Arab insurgents had come to consider the U.S. an ally, not an enemy, in the struggle against Iran, and he urged the U.S. to seize the opportunity to end the insurgency. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Leading Tawafuq Bloc figure Mahmud Mashhadani and Poloff discussed government formation and the vision of Iraq's largest new Sunni Arab electoral bloc in a January 29 meeting. Mashhadani is the official spokesman of the National Dialogue Council, which banded together to form the "Tawafuq (Consensus) Front" with the Iraqi Islamic Party. The group won 44 seats in the December elections and is by far the largest Sunni Arab bloc in the new parliament. Mashhadani offered the following views: -- SHAPE OF NEXT GOVERNMENT: Mashhadani said Tawafuq fully supports the principle of a national unity government. It considers the concept of a "national security council" to unite figures on key decisions to be the perfect solution to drawing support behind the next government. Under such a formula, Mashhadani said, the position of prime minister becomes less important. Mashhadani made several recommendations on ways to ease the path to consensus over cabinet posts. First, he argued for expanding the importance of the human rights ministry in the next government as a way of assuaging fears of security service abuse. He said the organization ought to be made a full ministry and the minister considered the bearer of a "sovereign" portfolio. Second, Mashhadani recommended that each security ministry be made to form an oversight committee including Shia, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds to oversee employment. Lastly, he recommended that all parties agree on a government action plan. -- TOP GOVERNMENT POSTS: Mashhadani said Fadhila leader Nadim al-Jabiri struck him and others as the least sectarian candidate for the post of prime minister. Nevertheless, he said, Tawafuq would be prepared to agree with any prime minister the Shia alliance nominates provided a national security council is formed. Mashhadani all but conceded the presidency to Jalal Talabani and said he expected Iraqi Islamic Party leader Tariq al-Hashimi to become speaker of the parliament. -- ENDING THE INSURGENCY: Mashhadani said that the elections and government formation offered a major opportunity to end the insurgency. The elections, he said, have removed a major justification from the insurgency. If a national unity government is formed, he argued, a grace period should be announced allowing all insurgents to put down their arms and join the political process and security services. After the end of that grace period it should be made clear that those who continue to fight are all terrorists. -- THE "CHANGING" INSURGENT MINDSET: Mashhadani said the Sunni Arab community had gradually come to the conclusion that Iran and its agents, not the U.S. represent the greatest threat to Iraq, not the U.S. Most insurgents have come to consider the U.S. an ally, not an enemy, he said. It is the Badr Corps they fear. Pointing to his glass of water at the Rashid Hotel restaurant, Mashhadani said if a Badr Corps member had served it he would wonder whether it was poisoned. On the other hand, he said, "when I hear a U.S. tank rolling down the street I sleep well at night." The key to dealing with the insurgency is recognizing this changing mindset and finding a way to separate the nationalists from the al-Qaeda fanatics, he said. Zarqawi has succeeded with major BAGHDAD 00000267 002 OF 003 financing in recruiting Iraqis to do his bidding, Mashhadani said. The result is that the lines between al-Qaeda and the nationalist resistance are blurred. The U.S., he argued, should consider funding the Islamic Army, a major Iraqi-only wing of the insurgency, to help it draw fighters away from Zarqawi and clarify the line between these two trends. At that point, the Islamic Army could be reintegrated into the Iraqi security services. Mashhadani lamented that the U.S. is incapable of looking "objectively" enough at the situation to see the merits of this plan. -- DEALING WITH AL-QAEDA: Mashhadani argued that the U.S. should seize the truce being offered by Osama Bin Laden. The truce offer was a major mistake by Bin Laden, he said. "You take the truce. America is a great nation, it's not going anywhere. No one can question your power. But Al-Qaeda, it won't be around anymore by the time the truce is over." -- DESCRIBING TAWAFUQ AND ITS ALLIES: Mashhadani said the Tawafuq Front is under attack because insurgent Ba'athists consider it a rising alternative to the Ba'ath for the Sunni Arab community. Mashhadani said that assessment is right on. The Tawafuq Front is largely Islamist and 90 percent of its candidates suffered in one way or another by the Saddam regime, he said. The group was happy to see Salah Mutlak leave and form his own front because Mutlak's presence only confused the group's message. Mutlak is a secularist, he said, and he is also a blatant opportunist who can be silenced with money or a ministry, especially now that his real political weight has been made clear by the elections. Mashhadani said numerous members of Mutlak's list have already defected to the Tawafuq Front and Mutlak is bound to lose more because he has embezzled large amounts of campaign donations. -- KURDISH INDEPENDENCE: Mashhadani said Iraq has struggled to find a place for the Kurds for too long. They are clearly headed toward independence, he said, and they should be allowed to secede. Kirkuk will almost certainly join Kurdistan because it is the only way for their nascent state to be viable, he said. This issue can be solved politically provided the rest of Iraq's political struggles are worked out justly. He warned against allowing the Kurds to manipulate the demographics in Kirkuk in a way that only drives the area's Arab inhabitants toward greater defiance. Mashhadani said he expected the Iranians to act to prevent Kurdish independence. He said he believed that Talabani was in touch with Iranian intelligence officers and was being manipulated into allowing the Iranians a larger role in Iraq in exchange for Kurdish independence. -- SLOWING DOWN FEDERALISM: Mashhadani said he believed that federalism was the right form of government for Iraq, but he argued that it had to be implemented gradually to avoid creating unrest and regional panic. He warned that even the Shia masses are far from behind the idea, citing the Fadhila Party and Sadrists as extremely reluctant federalists. The Sunni Arabs would rebel if the issue were pushed too quickly, he said. Most dangerously, he said, Saudi Arabia would act dramatically to fund the insurgency before it would allow the rise of a Shia-dominated oil-rich southern region likely to support and train Shia dissidents in Arabia. Mashhadani said he ultimately saw regions that joined Basra, Maysan and Thi Qar in one group; Baghdad, Diyala, and Babil in another; Ninewa, Anbar, and Salah al-Din in another; and the remaining Shia-dominated governorates together in a final group. -- KEEP THE CONSTITUTION AS IS: Mashhadani argued that the constitution should remain unchanged but the provisions for a law on federalism should be frozen, or at least fulfilled by establishing "decentralized rule." Under such a construct governorates would be give large authority to handle services while running the local police force. Subsequently, two governorates could band together administratively. Eventually, regions would form and Iraqis would be made to understand that federalism was only an elaboration of the decentralized governance that had served them well. -- HOW IRAQ CAN SOLVE THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PEACE PROCESS: Mashhadani then offered what he said was a long range analysis on the peace process well beyond the thinking of his colleagues. Only the Palestinian refugee problem is truly insoluble, he said. There are simply too many refugees to resettle in the small amount of West Bank and Gaza territory. The solution? Mashhadani said Iraq would ultimately be prepared to allow Palestinian refugees to settle in the ample farmland that rims the Tigris and lies in largely Sunni Arab areas. In one swoop, he said, the Sunni Arab Palestinians would find a home and Iraq would gain a greater demographic balance to Iraq between Shia and Sunnis. BAGHDAD 00000267 003 OF 003 ¶3. (SBU) BIOGRAPHIC NOTE: Mahmud Mashhadani claims to be the founder and current official spokesman of the National Dialogue Council. He was born in 1948 in al-Tarmiya, Baghdad and is a retired medical doctor with a degree from Baghdad University. Mashhadani's political awakening came in the late 1950s, reading Ba'athist pamphlets to an illiterate cousin who had joined the then-secret party. Mashhadani said he never took to the Ba'ath, instead falling under the spell of Gamal Abd Al-Nasser. Mashhadani was an avid Nasserist all through the Nasserist regime of Iraqi President Abd al-Rahman Arif, ultimately dropping pan-Arabism after the disaster of the 1967 war. In retrospect, he now says, Iraq would have been far better off had it never overthrown the monarchy. Mashhadani turned to Islam after his disillusionment, but he avoided the Muslim Brotherhood because of what he saw as an overbearing ideological framework that prevented free thought among its members. He became a Salafist, a trend of Islamic fundamentalism, because he saw it as the freest form of Islamism. ¶4. (SBU) BIOGRAPHIC NOTE CONTINUED: Mashhahdani served as a medic in the Iraqi Army and then ran a medical clinic in Baghdad. He was imprisoned for a year and a half in 1980 after expressing opposition to the Iran-Iraq War. He was imprisoned in 2000 for a year on the accusation of contact with Iraqi opposition figures in Kurdistan, an accusation he admits was true. Mashhadani says that he participated in a coup plot with Saddam's official doctor Raji al-Tikriti. He says his role in that plot is still not widely known. His uncle (named Fadhil NFI) is a former Ba'athist currently in U.S. detention. KHALILZAD