IRAQI POLITICIAN DISCUSSES EFFORTS TO FORM

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 BAGHDAD 000452

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/08/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINS IR IZ
SUBJECT: IRAQI POLITICIAN DISCUSSES EFFORTS TO FORM
"NATIONAL FRONT" TO SOLVE IRAQ'S POLITICAL CRISIS

REF: 2006 BAGHDAD 4180

Classified By: Political Counselor Margaret Scobey for reasons 1.4 (b)
and (d).

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Summary
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1. (S) Council of Representatives (CoR) member Nadim
al-Jabiri (Shi'a coalition - Fadhila),advisor to the
Minister of State for Tourism and Antiquities Baha al-Mayah,
and Judge Hussein al-Musawi of the Supreme Criminal Court
outlined to PolCouns on February 8 their efforts to form a
"national front" to solve Iraq's political crisis and
confront Iranian influence. They claimed to have the support
of Sunni political leaders and all branches of the insurgency
except al-Qaida, as well as of Arab states and Turkey. On
the Shi'a side, they said they had the support of Fadhila,
were in advanced negotiations with the Sadrists, and were
approaching Dawa leaders. Acknowledging that these groups
made strange bedfellows, al-Jabiri outlined points of shared
interest including withdrawal of foreign troops and the
elimination of Iranian influence from the Iraqi government.
He presented PolCouns with a two page document laying out 23
pillars of the national front, including a phased withdrawal
of foreign troops over two years, strengthening the central
government and postponing further debate on federalism for
four years, and comprehensive reforms in Iraq's security and
administrative institutions. They emphasized that the
national front was not anti-U.S. but rather shared the goals
of fighting al-Qaida and countering Iranian influence. This
initiative faces obvious challenges, many of which they
identified, and the breadth and depth of support for it are
unclear. The indigenous and cross-sectarian nature of the
initiative is encouraging, however, and we look forward to
further engagement with al-Jabiri and others and to
evaluating the extent of support they have. End summary.

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The Need for a Political Solution
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2. (S) Al-Jabiri began with an analysis of Iraq's situation.
He said that the U.S. had made two strategic mistakes during
the occupation period that contributed to Iraq's current
crisis. First, he said that selection of the Governing
Council based in part on ethnic and sectarian "quotas" had
set a terrible precedent for subsequent Iraqi politics by
leading parties to define themselves by sect and ethnicity.
"Iraqis needed freedom," he argued, "not quotas. The people
who benefited from the quota system were the people from
outside Iraq. The U.S. gave Iraq to people tied to Iran."
The second strategic mistake, according to al-Jabiri, was
Bremer's dissolution of the Iraqi army. "The army was an
institution of the state, not of the regime," he claimed, and
the situation of those who lost their jobs needed "a true
answer, not what Maliki is doing now."


3. (S) Al-Jabiri stressed that Iraq needed a political
solution. Characterizing the formal reconciliation process
as Maliki's version of a political solution, he belittled it
as a series of "festivals" rather than an effective political
process. The reconciliation dialogue, he continued, had "not
reached the groups who are carrying weapons." These groups
were not willing to come to the table, he claimed, because
they were deeply suspicious of the current Iraqi government,
which they viewed as a tool of Iran.

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The Solution: A National Front
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4. (S) The solution, al-Jabiri claimed, was to dissolve the
three large parliamentary alliances - the Shi'a coalition,
Tawafuq, and the Kurdish alliance - into their constituent
parties and to form a cross-sectarian, multiethnic "national
front" of willing parties and individuals. He said that he
and like-minded colleagues had devoted the past eight months
to developing this idea and seeking the support of
politicians and Iraqi groups inside and outside Iraq, as well
as of regional Arab countries. He claimed to have the
support of "all Sunni political leaders," including Tarik
al-Hashemi, Mahmoud Mashhadani, Khalaf al-Ayyan, Adnan
al-Dulaimi, and Salih al-Mutlaq. As an example, he said that
al-Hashemi had appointed a representative to the front's
"coordinating committee." He also claimed to have the
support of Harith al-Dhari and seven of the eight resistance
groups that operated under the umbrella Mujahideen Shura
Council, including the Baath party but not including
al-Qaida. Leaders of the seven groups, he said, were
fundamentally nationalists who had entered into a marriage of

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convenience with al-Qaida in order to counter the U.S. and
the "Iranian-dictated" government the U.S. had helped usher
in. As soon as these groups felt that their nation was
headed in the right direction, al-Jabiri claimed, they "would
turn on al-Qaida and wipe it out."


5. (S) Al-Jabiri acknowledged that the front needed more
Shi'a participation. Fadhila supported the idea, he claimed,
and the Sadrists "were almost there." Al-Mayah clarified
that the Sadrists had accepted the idea "in principle" but
that further negotiations during the upcoming weeks would
take place to overcome several sticking points. Al-Mayah
said that they had presented the idea to Ibrahim al-Jafari
but had not yet received a reply, and that they were going to
present it to Prime Minister Maliki in the near future.
Engagement with the Kurds, al-Jabiri said, would "come
later." Al-Mayah emphasized that they were taking a "dual
track" approach with Iraqis, working both inside and outside
the CoR. In terms of regional states, al-Mayah claimed that
the national front proposal had the support of Turkey, Syria,
Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf states. Finally, al-Mayah, who
speaks excellent English, said that he had recently shopped
the idea at some offices in the U.S. Congress and that he and
al-Jabiri had presented it to British Embassy officials in
Iraq.


6. (S) Acknowledging that groups such as the Sadrists and
the Sunni resistance made unlikely bedfellows, al-Jabiri and
al-Mayah said that it had taken some effort to find common
ground between them, but that indeed they shared key
objectives. The first objective was the need for withdrawal
of coalition forces, i.e. an end to the "occupation." The
second point was the need for a government and political
structure that protected Iraq's national interests and
countered pervasive Iranian influence. Al-Jabiri gave
PolCouns a two page, 23 point statement of the principles of
the national front that represented the points of agreement
(full translation in paragraph 11). It calls for, among
other points, ending the "occupation" over two years;
reforming Iraq's security and administrative institutions;
creating a strong central government and postponing further
debate on federalism for four years; disarming and
demobilizing the militias and integrating their members into
civilian life; adopting the policy of amnesty; and rejecting
violence and terrorism.

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Challenges
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7. (S) Al-Jabiri, al-Mayah, and al-Musawi acknowledged,
implicitly or explicitly, a number of key challenges the
"national front" idea faced in order to come to fruition.
First, they noted that they needed to convince more Shi'a
politicians to join the effort. Asked by PolCouns if
Sistani's apparent resistance to the splintering of the Shi'a
coalition would stymie their efforts, al-Jabiri replied that
the marja'iya realized the problems with the current
political alignment and were no longer insisting on Shi'a
unity. In saying that the Kurds would "come later," they
implicitly recognized that they would not easily accept the
front's nationalistic goals, including preservation of Iraq's
"Arab-Islamic" identity. Al-Jabiri said that Kirkuk needed a
"national solution" and expressed his support for the
Baker-Hamilton recommendation that resolution of Kirkuk be
delayed. In the context of Kirkuk, he noted that the
SCIRI-Kurdish alliance would be difficult to overcome.
Finally, al-Jabiri and al-Mayah both identified the personal
security risks politicians who expressed support for the
national front would face. Many would fear to join, they
said, "because there would be an order for their death from
Tehran." On the positive side, al-Jabiri noted that there
was a willingness to discuss ideas like the national front on
the Iraqi street, even if politicians were afraid to discuss
it in public. He said there was no comparable discussion of
the idea six months to one year ago.

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Several Shared Goals with U.S.
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8. (S) Al-Jabiri and al-Mayah took care to emphasize that
the front they were building was not antithetical to U.S.
goals and indeed desired a good relationship with the U.S. in
the future. They argued that the front actually shared two
key U.S. goals, namely fighting al-Qaida and countering Iran,
and that it would work within a democratic governance
framework. Al-Jabiri respectfully criticized two current
elements of U.S. strategy, the Baghdad security plan (BSP)
and the push for a "moderate front." The BSP, he argued,
would not succeed because it tried to impose a military
solution for what was essentially a political problem. The

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insurgents and terrorists, he said, would simply lie low or
move somewhere else for three months. He characterized the
moderate front as a U.S. initiative that would make sectarian
groups like SCIRI more powerful. "Do you really consider
SCIRI 'moderate'?" asked al-Mayah.


9. (S) Although they asked at one point for U.S. help in
protecting politicians who supported the national front
movement or in facilitating "secret votes" in the CoR (so
that its supporters could vote without being identified),
al-Jabiri and al-Mayah did not use the conversation to press
for U.S. support as much as to describe their initiative.
While PolCouns corrected them several times (e.g., noting
that the BSP had political, economic, and social components
in addition to the military plan, that the moderate front was
not a U.S. initiative, and that the Prime Minister conceived
of the reconciliation process more broadly than the
conferences),she was mainly in a listening mode. She told
them that the U.S. welcomed constructive multiethnic and
cross-sectarian efforts to make political progress and
emphasized that such efforts had to take place in Iraq's
constitutional framework. She said that we would study their
proposal carefully and looked forward to continued
discussions. Al-Jabiri, al-Mayah, and al-Musawi thanked
PolCouns for listening to their initiative and asked that
Embassy staff take care to protect their identities when
discussing the initiative with others.

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Comment
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10. (S) This approach is al-Jabiri's second to the Embassy
on this initiative; he and CoR speaker Mashhadani broached
the idea with the Ambassador in early November, though he had
not yet developed it to the same extent (reftel). We believe
the "national front" initiative reflects a genuine effort at
trying to develop common ground among a number of groups,
both inside and outside of the political process, for whom
Iraqi nationalism is a motivating force. It may also serve
as a vehicle for Fadhila to try to boost its national
influence at SCIRI's expense. The indigenous and
cross-sectarian nature of the initiative, as al-Jabiri
presented it, is encouraging. However, it clearly faces a
number of obstacles, many of which al-Jabiri and al-Mayah
identified. Although they did not mention it, we also
question the extent to which Sunni political leaders would
truly back this initiative, as it would require them to
subsume their egos into a larger project. We look forward to
further engagement with al-Jabiri and other leaders of this
"national front" initiative and to evaluating the extent of
support they have. End comment.

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Basic Principles of the National Front
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11. (SBU) Embassy translation of the 23 point statement
follows.

The National Front Basic Principles


1. Maintaining the national unity of Iraq, its people, and
maintaining its sovereignty and not dividing it politically,
economically and administratively.


2. Maintaining the Arab-Islamic identity of Iraq.


3. Rejection of the policies of sectarian ethnic and
religious Quotas.


4. Ending the state of occupation in all its forms in
accordance with the following timetable:
--A. Ending all manifestations of the foreign occupation in
all Iraqi cities during the first year
--B. Ending the state of foreign occupation in all forms and
the removal of all of its various consequences during the
second year.


5. Dissolving the militias and armed groups simultaneously
in accordance with the following procedures:
--A. Withdraw all weapons from all militias and armed
groups.
--B. Dismantle all organizational structures of all militias
and armed groups.
--C. Rehabilitation of militia and armed group elements in
civil institutions.


6. Reforming security and military institutions on the
following basis:
--A. Building the institutions on pure national basis:
--B. Disallowing politicization of such institutions.

BAGHDAD 00000452 004 OF 004


--C. Affiliation with security and military institutions
must be based on experience, technical and scientific
qualifications.
--D. Former and present security and military institutions
are the cornerstones of stability in Iraq and for maintaining
its security.
--E. Maintaining military traditions and not violating it.
--F. Rehabilitating these institutions and arming and
modernizing them.


7. Reforming civil administrative institutions on the
following basis:
--A. Liberating it from political control and election dues.
--B. Appointment in administrative positions (Deputy
Minister and below) are to be made in accordance with
administrative policies and on the basis of experience,
efficiency and specialization and not on the basis of narrow
sectarian, partisan and personal loyalties.
--C. Reforming the existing administrative system in Iraq
--D. Introducing the necessary technologies in the
administrative institutions to raise the standard of
performance.


8. Building a civil modern State based on citizenship and
law.


9. Rejecting violence and terrorism in all forms.


10. To reconsider the strategy of building the form of the
Iraqi State according to the following basis:
--A. Activating decentralized administration for four years.
--B. If decentralized administration succeeds, then it is
possible to discuss the federal option on a nationally agreed
basis.
--C. However in both cases, there should be a strong central
government in place capable of pulling the sides to it and
preserving national unity.


11. Transforming the present semi-presidential system in
Iraq into a parliamentary system based on
the principle of balance between the legislative and
executive powers.


12. Adopting market economy for the Iraqi experiment with a
limited interventional role for the State similar to the
liberal experiments known in the west after the Second World
War.


13. Constructing balanced relations with all countries based
on mutual interests and noninterference in internal affairs.


14. Although resistance is a legitimate right for all
peoples including the Iraqi people, however the violence and
terrorism inflicted on our people cannot be considered
resistance.


15. Reconsidering the permanent Constitution to an extent
that achieves the highest possible level of national
consensus.


16. Adopting a periodical peaceful transfer of power.


17. Natural resources belong to the Iraqi people and are to
be managed by the central government. Their revenues shall be
utilized on the principles of justice.


18. The Front adopts the policy of amnesty and transparency
in addressing the escalating problems in Iraq.


19. The Front aims at spreading social peace and ending the
escalating state of violence and terrorism.


20. The Front shall ensure providing basic services to the
citizens such as electricity, fuel, drinking water and the
like.


21. Comprehensive national reconciliation is the only option
for providing security, stability and social peace in Iraq.
This Front is preparing a step directed to national
reconciliation.


22. The Front shall undertake to fight the escalating
financial and administrative corruption in the country.


23. Joining this Front is open to all Iraqis believing in
the national project and the basic principles of this Front.
KHALILZAD