Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka
Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
~ them after that date is still fuzzy.
The Iraqis are clearly eagerto get control
at least of Mr Hussein and other high-profile
detainees likely to be tried by their special
war-crimes tribunal. Salem Chalabi,
an American-educated lawyer in charge of
setting up the new court, said this week
that he hoped to be able to issue arrest
warrants for up to 100 detainees by June
30th. No date has yet been set for any warcrimes
trial. Mr Hussein's is unlikely to be
among the first. Mr Chalabi suggests it
might not start for another couple of years.
For many Iraqis, Mr Allawi's strongest
card is his reputation as a strongman who
has promised to bring back security. He
has kept the groups run by former exiles
on board by promising to convert their militias
into the core of a national rapid-reaction
force. And he is speeding up the re- .
cruitment of former loyalists of Mt., Iran
Hussein's Baath party and army, who .
have been at the heart of the insurgency.
Meanwhile, President Yawar is focusing
on winning over the tribal warriors. A
scion of the powerful Shammar federation
of tribes, which straddles the border with
Syria, Mr Yawar could help stop the flow of
jihadi zealots into the country. Some of his
followers in Mosul, in the north, and in
Baghdad have taken to the streets to fire
guns in support.
Not everyone is on side. The Kurds are
disgruntled because the UN Security
Council resolution, which endorsed the
new government, made no promise of fed-
The Revolutionary
Guards are back
TEHRAN
Iran's conservatives are now underpinned by military ideologues
THE ramshackle traffic police in Tehran
are nowadays backed up by muscular
paramilitaries in camouflage fatigues. Dozens
of seats in parliament and a brace of
top posts have recently been filled by exservicemen.
The generals have stopped
eralism; nor did they get either of the two President Muhammad Khatami's reformist
grandestjobs in the new administration.
government from putting a showpiece
airport into operation. The Iranian Revolu-
Losers and bombers
tionary Guard Corps (IRGC), set up more
But the biggest losers, so far, are the reli- than two decades ago as an ideological
gious groups. Some, like Dawa, a mixture counterweight to the less politicallyof
Shia clerics and layme,n, have gone minded (and now less well-equipped) regquiet.
Others remain vicious. Young fol- ular army, may be quietly taking control.
lowers of the turbulent cleric, Muqtada al- The reformists, once dominant but
Sadr, still harass the American-led forces, now being squeezed out of power, fear so.
though some 800 of them, according to Last year their conservative opponents
some reports, may have been killed in the helped a former guardsman become Tehpast
two months just in the Baghdad slum ran's mayor. In May, another was apwhere
he gets most of his support. Mr Sadr pointed to head the broadcasting monopsounds
interested in President Bush's offer oly. One reformistnewspaper reckons that
to go into peaceful politics. Butitis unclear, some 90 out of 290 deputies in Iran's new
in any case, who controls his movement. parliament have a "background in revolu-
The Sunni Islamist rebels, who supply tionary and military institutions".
car-bombers and suicide squads, are These rising men get on well with Ayaharder
to win ')Ver. Many of their cells tollah Ali Khamenei, the conservative "suconie
under an umbrella group, the Is- preme leader" who is resented by some of
lamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance, which his fellow clerics. But in General Rahim Saderides
Mr Allawi's team as a fig-leaf for favi, the IRGC supremo, he has a loyal ally.
"the hidden occupation". Car-bombs are In a recent speech, the general strayed from
still going off regularly, with at least 17ex- the specifications of Iran's latest missile to
plosions in the first fortnight ofthis month ... the importance of "efficiency" and
On June 17th, a suicide-bomber blew up ."accountability", favourite themes of Mr
some 35 Iraqis, mostly would-be army re-' Khamenei, whose name is invoked in barcruits,
in Baghdad. The majority of those racks everywhere.
being assassinated are Shias, whom the The IRGC'S top brass is flexing its mus-
Sunni jihadis denigrate as "apostates". cles. In May, it forced Tehran's new airport
Don't expect Mr Allawi to get on top ofthe to close, in protest against the governinsurgency
in ajiffy. _
ment's decision to ask a consortium of for-
eigners (Turks)to run it. Athome, its agents
track dissidents. In Iraq, it seeks to influence
fellow Shias. Western diplomats
reckon that an Iranian diplomat who was
assassinated in Baghdad in April may once
have been a guardsman.
Promoting the IRGC may be part of a
conservative response to the clergy's own
waning prestige. Last month, Iran got its
first lay parliamentary speaker. When Mr
Khatami, a reformist clergyman, stands
down next summer, powerful right-wing
ayatollahs may try to manoeuvre a lay
conservative into his place.
Reformists also look askance on the
IRGC'S commercial activities. The previous,
reformist parliament tried in vain to
probe the alleged misuse of IRGC jetties for
smuggling goods into the country. A prominent
trade liberaliser, Khosro Nasirzadeh,
reckons that more than $9.5 billion-worth
of goods are smuggled into Iran every year.
Some 72jetties, he thinks, operate illegally.
General Safavi, more than the carping
clerics, now appears to be Mr Khamenei's
natural ally. On issues like Iraq, Iran's
strained links with the European Union
over nukes, and the extent to which "un-
Islamic" social mores can be rolled back, he
takes a hard line. The alliance's biggest test
is over how to respond to outside pressure
over Iran's nuclear programme. Last autumn,
the IRGC obeyed Mr Khamenei's order
to open sensitive sites to UN inspectors.
Sincethen, the UN has complained of inadequate
access, while America's claim that
the IRGC has a nuclear programme of its
own-for military purposes-has become
more insistent (see next article). _
54