Can the Iraqi opposition run a post-Saddam Iraq? asks Omayma Abdel-Latif Members of the Iraqi opposition attending the proceedings of the Davos Economic Forum were speaking with one voice. "It sounded as though we were reading from the same sheet of music," Ghassan Al-Atyyia, one of the Iraqi opposition members who attended the meetings, told Al- Ahram Weekly in a telephone interview from London. "There was common agreement on the core issues -- that we would rather see [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] resign than have a war and we want a united democratic Iraq," said the 53-year-old spokesman of the Democratic Centrist Tendency Movement, an Iraqi opposition group based in London. This display of unity, however, will be put to test next week when members of the "follow-up and arrangement committee" -- the result of the London conference held in December that brought together the major Iraqi opposition factions -- meet in the city of Arbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to discuss post-Saddam scenarios. If held, the Arbil meeting will be the second Iraqi opposition gathering to be held on Iraqi soil in 11 years. The first was held in the city of Salahuddin, also in northern Iraq, in 1992. "This meeting," says Al-Atyyia, who is due to attend, "is a step that will bring us closer to the goal of a better future for Iraqis". But observers note that the rosy picture of post- Saddam Iraq often painted by some sections of the Iraqi opposition is in sharp contrast with the moral and political standoff that the Iraqi opposition finds itself in. A decade after the Gulf War, the picture that has emerged is of a divided opposition that has been plagued by bickering and infighting and a deep lack of trust amongst its many factions. This image might prove all the more true if the long-awaited Arbil conference does not materialise. Speaking to the Weekly earlier this week, Salah Al-Sheikhli, spokesperson for the Iraqi National Accord (Al-Wifaq) and a prominent member of the opposition in exile, cast doubt on the chances that the Arbil conference will even be held. "There are strong doubts that this conference will ever happen," Al- Sheikhli said. "Many participants want the 65- member committee to be enlarged, and there is no clear sense among opposition groups as to what the agenda is, the purpose of such a meeting and the priority issues." There are still several key obstacles that continue to make the task of the Iraqi opposition all the more difficult. One is its ambivalent -- and often troubled -- relationship with the American administration. Another is that the opposition groups, particularly those in exile, have failed to develop grass-roots support in Iraq, and instead try to sell themselves on an American ticket to the Iraqi people. In the Arab world they have failed to cultivate ties and are considered by many as "traitors" who are ready to ally themselves with a foreign power against their own. The scope of this dilemma has not gone unnoticed within the ranks of the opposition itself. "The structural weaknesses and shortcomings of the Iraqi opposition are abundant and clear," said one independent Iraqi analyst based in Washington. "But this weakness should not be a justification for supporting Saddam." One key obstacle, however, which further complicates the situation for the Iraqi opposition, is that there is no clear idea as to what role it will assume in shaping a post-Saddam Iraq. While Al-Atyyia stressed that it would be a gross mistake on the part of the Iraqi opposition to act as though they were the new rulers of Iraq, he pointed out that the opposition's role at this stage was to "empower the Iraqi people and enable them to choose their rulers in free elections in the future". Some members of the Iraqi opposition, however, subscribe to the view of establishing a government in exile. For example, Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmed Chalabi makes no secret of his wish to be the head of an interim government in Baghdad should Saddam be ousted. But Al-Atyyia and others do not see this as a viable goal. "Most Iraqis in exile are not yet in agreement on little problems like creating a unified leadership. So how could they agree on a new government in exile?" he asked. In an attempt to put a gloss of unity over the schismatic Iraqi factions, some groups within the administration of US President George W Bush -- particularly in the State Department -- sponsored seminars, workshops and meetings for Iraqi expatriates living in the West under a programme called the "Future of Iraq Project". Shortly after the London conference ended, the State Department embarked on a series of steps aimed at involving the Iraqi opposition and representatives of various Iraqi communities in the anticipated process of change. Some 3,000 Iraqis, most of them INC members, will apparently be given military training at Taszar air base in Hungary by the US Army's European Command to develop what is described as the basis of a new Iraqi national army. Also last week, the United States hosted talks with a group of 11 opposition members, described by State Department officials as part of the Future of Iraq Project. The department refused to name the participants, but called them "oil professionals". According to news reports, the group discussed the problems that a future Iraqi government would face in rehabilitating and modernising its oil sector and examined energy policy options. Despite these developments, sources in the Iraqi opposition say that US attitudes towards the Iraqi opposition are still ambivalent. "The Americans, so far, have not committed themselves in a detailed way to the Iraqi opposition and their excuse is that the Iraqi opposition lacks the integrity and credibility to speak with one voice," said Laith Kubba, a prominent US-based member of the Iraqi opposition. The opposition, for its part, holds the American administration responsible for the disunity. "We are not united because the US administration, during the [President Bill] Clinton era, worked to divide us. They were not serious in toppling Saddam. So they pitted Iraqi opposition factions against each other," Al-Atyyia said. He underscored that this position has shifted with the current Bush administration. The Americans, he said, exercised tremendous pressure to have the opposition meeting held in London in December. According to Al-Atyyia, there was a sense that the Americans wanted this meeting to be "a demonstration of the unity of the Iraqi opposition and its faithful alliance with the US". Clearly, most of the members of the Iraqi opposition, particularly those in exile, have no qualms about their relationship with the United States. Though they are well-versed in the problems of American policies vis-à-vis the Iraqi opposition, the prevalent discourse is littered with such terms as "a contractual relationship", "a strategic alliance" and "the US as a catalyst for consolidating democratic practices in future Iraq". In the same breath, they brush off suggestions of alternative scenarios supervised by either the UN or Arab League. While they do not rule out that an American intervention might have an undisclosed agenda, the opposition still believes in common ground between the Iraqi opposition and the US. "Of course, a superpower will have its own national interests and its own agenda," Hazem Al- Youssefi, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party office in Cairo, told the Weekly. "The question is, where our Iraqi interests and American interests meet -- is there common ground?" He continued, "Yes, I think there is common ground, and it is basically that we both would like to have a modern, moderate, stable Iraq." "We are not calling for an American mandate," Al-Youssefi said. "But this will be a strategic relationship because we need the help of the Americans, the Arabs and everybody to rebuild Iraq." The relationship with the US administration is so pivotal to the opposition at this stage that the issue topping the agenda of the Arbil meeting, according to Al-Atyyia, is to formalise a position vis-à-vis the administration. Al-Atyyia is hopeful that the meeting will succeed in electing a leadership body comprising 10 persons that will be entitled to speak in the name of the Iraqi opposition and conduct discussions with the American administration on the future of Iraq. According to Al-Youssefi, the opposition, for its part, will create sub-committees -- political, economic and defence -- that can act as a liaison between opposition forces and the Iraqi people. Nonetheless, the opposition is still clueless as to how this change will come about. The prevalent rhetoric is that "once Saddam is not there, things will be different", but no specific agenda has been declared. Iraqi sources in Washington told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper on Tuesday that there are still discussions about the kind of political system the future Iraq will have, particularly in light of the fact that Iraq lacks the democratic traditions or representative institutions to conduct the change. Iraqi opposition sources predict that the period following Saddam's demise will be the hardest part of the transition. The sources expressed fears that the post-Saddam chaos might usher in a period of civil strife. Others, however, made less apocalyptic predictions, saying that after Saddam a transitional government will take over -- one in which all Iraqi factions are represented and which is supported by Iraqi civilian organisations and tribes. Iraqi observers, nonetheless, say that a lack of leadership is yet another major hurdle in the way of Iraqi opposition. "The opposition in Iraq and in exile failed to achieve an agreement on a figurehead -- a leadership that could unite the Iraqis in their struggle against Saddam Hussein," Tu'ma Al-Saadi, an Iraqi journalist based in London told the Weekly. One of the reasons for this, Al-Saadi indicated, is that there is no majority party that has enough influence over the opposition -- in Iraq or abroad. Second, he added, the United States has used some of the Iraqi opposition groups in exile as a tool to encourage some of Saddam's officers and scientists to defect. Among the various factions of the Iraqi opposition there has been an implicit plea to the Arab world to help the four million Iraqis who live in the diaspora to return to Iraq. The conspicuous absence of any representatives from other Arab countries in the talks between the opposition and the US raises the question of an Arab role in ensuring that the US adopts a formula for post- Saddam Iraq that will uphold Arab interests. "We wish we did not need the Americans or anyone. We wish we could do this -- the change -- ourselves. But Saddam has pushed us into a corner. We are not the ones who are inviting an American intervention," Al-Atyyia said. "And if the Americans win the war and fail to help us establish a free, democratic Iraq, this will backfire against the American administration. It will be more damaging to American interests than leaving Saddam in place." The question thus becomes one of legitimacy, according to Al-Sheikhli. "If the change of government comes through foreign intervention, the most important question here is who has the legitimacy to rule and speak in the name of the Iraqi people?" he asked. "Most importantly, who bestows this legitimacy upon the new regime? Is it the people of Iraq or the intervening forces?"
