UK AMBASSADOR PROPOSES MEDIATION FOR IRAQ'S

S E C R E T BAGHDAD 001756

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/26/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: UK AMBASSADOR PROPOSES MEDIATION FOR IRAQ'S
CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW, OTHER KEY ISSUES

Classified By: Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (S) British Ambassador to Iraq Dominic Asquith described
May 23 to the Ambassador and Commanding General (CG) a plan
to prod Iraq's national party leaders to agree to a joint
vision and set of principles. Iraqi leaders would then
translate their agreement into a public declaration with a
credible implementation and monitoring mechanism. In
Asquith's view, a direct approach to party leaders seeking
this over-arching political decision would "scatter the
horses," and so he recommended instead that the UK and US
governments insert an independent international mediator to
help the Presidency Council or Policy Council on National
Security (PCNS) to "midwife" a consensus-building process on
constitutional amendments. Meeting initially just to build
confidence and personal understanding, Asquith argued, would
draw Iraqi leaders "into the lobster pot," which then would
allow for substantive discussions on constitutional review.
At the end of the negotiating process, the PCNS could
publicly declare consensus on the constitutional amendments.
Ideally, just before Iraqi leaders would make this
declaration, the US, UK and their international advisor could
persuade them to take the process one step further by
"pulling the strands together" into a political consensus on
a range of issues that fall outside the constitution but
prove integral to Iraq's stability. Asquith said he believed
this plan could overcome a challenge inherent in the current
process of securing agreement issue-by-issue, which often
excludes some parties from the negotiations and creates an
appearance that "side deals" are merely "plunked" on the
PCNS. Asquith said his plan would engage all of the major
parties, and thereby invest them in the broader political
process.


2. (S) The Ambassador acknowledged the value of achieving
top-level consensus on the central issues, and of
strengthening the institutional processes required to attain
this consensus. However, the Government of Iraq (GOI) must
move quickly now, and Asquith's plan seems elaborate, complex
and time-consuming. The more frequent meetings of the PCNS
are positive and should be encouraged, but the PCNS cannot at
present serve as a mechanism to achieve progress on crucial
issues; conversely, it could actually cause delay because it
currently lacks three key leaders -- Masood Barzani,
Abdulaziz Al-Hakim, and Jalal Talabani. The Ambassador
argued that by reaching agreement on pressing issues
one-by-one, such as the hydrocarbons law or
de-Baathification, the GOI can build significant forward
momentum. Moreover, the coalition must address some issues,
such as those affecting the Kurds, directly with individual
parties, instead of through a broader grouping or one
particular framework. The Ambassador also averred that many
other issues, including a constitutional referendum, require
the input of too many parties to be construed as "side deals."


3. (S) The CG said that while a political statement of
agreement may have value, the coalition must focus now on
substance. It has proven difficult to urge movement from the
GOI on practical concerns, let alone politically charged
issues like new legislation. Thus it does not make sense now
to spend political capital producing a joint declaration
which the coalition could better spend simply brokering
agreement topic-by-topic. Asquith's plan, the CG asserted,
does not appear realistically attainable.
CROCKER