Robert Fisk
London
Independent
Friday, February 9, 2007
For the first time, one of Iraq's principal insurgent groups
has set out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American
and British forces to leave the country they invaded almost four
years ago.
The present terms would be impossible for any US administration
to meet - but the words of Abu Salih Al-Jeelani, one of the military
leaders of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement show that
the groups which have taken more than 3,000 American lives are
actively discussing the opening of contacts with the occupation
army.
Al-Jeelani's group, which also calls itself the "20th Revolution
Brigades'', is the military wing of the original insurgent organisation
that began its fierce attacks on US forces shortly after the invasion
of 2003. The statement is, therefore, of potentially great importance,
although it clearly represents only the views of Sunni Muslim
fighters.
Shia militias are nowhere mentioned. The demands include the
cancellation of the entire Iraqi constitution - almost certainly
because the document, in effect, awards oil-bearing areas of Iraq
to Shia and Kurds, but not to the minority Sunni community. Yet
the Sunnis remain Washington's principal enemies in the Iraqi
war.
"Discussions and negotiations are a principle we believe
in to overcome the situation in which Iraqi bloodletting continues,"
al-Jeelani said in a statement that was passed to The Independent.
"Should the Americans wish to negotiate their withdrawal
from our country and leave our people to live in peace, then we
will negotiate subject to specific conditions and circumstances."
Al-Jeelani suggests the United Nations, the Arab League or the
Islamic Conference might lead such negotiations and would have
to guarantee the security of the participants.
Then come the conditions:
* The release of 5,000 detainees held in Iraqi prisons as "proof
of goodwill".
* Recognition "of the legitimacy of the resistance and the
legitimacy of its role in representing the will of the Iraqi people".
* An internationally guaranteed timetable for all agreements.
* The negotiations to take place in public.
* The resistance "must be represented by a committee comprising
the representatives of all the jihadist brigades".
* The US to be represented by its ambassador in Iraq and the
most senior commander.
It is not difficult to see why the Americans would object to
those terms. They will not want to talk to men they have been
describing as "terrorists" for the past four years.
And if they were ever to concede that the "resistance"
represented "the will of the Iraqi people" then their
support for the elected Iraqi government would have been worthless.
Indeed, the insurgent leader specifically calls for the "dissolution
of the present government and the revoking of the spurious elections
and the constitution..."
He also insists that all agreements previously entered into by
Iraqi authorities or US forces should be declared null and void.
But there are other points which show that considerable discussion
must have gone on within the insurgency movement - possibly involving
the group's rival, the Iraqi Islamic Army.
They call, for example, for the disbandment of militias and the
outlawing of militia organisations - something the US government
has been urging the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to
do for months.
The terms also include the legalisation of the old Iraqi army,
an "Anglo-American commitment to rebuild Iraq and reconstruct
all war damage" - something the occupying powers claim they
have been trying to do for a long time - and integrating "resistance
fighters" into the recomposed army.
Al-Jeelani described President George Bush's new plans for countering
the insurgents as "political chicanery" and added that
"on the field of battle, we do not believe that the Americans
are able to diminish the capability of the resistance fighters
to continue the struggle to liberate Iraq from occupation ...
"The resistance groups are not committing crimes to be granted
a pardon by America, we are not looking for pretexts to cease
our jihad... we fight for a divine aim and one of our rights is
the liberation and independence of our land of Iraq."
There will, the group says, be no negotiations with Mr Maliki's
government because they consider it "complicit in the slaughter
of Iraqis by militias, the security apparatus and death squads".
But they do call for the unity of Iraq and say they "do not
recognise the divisions among the Iraqi people".
It is not difficult to guess any American response to those proposals.
But FLN [National Liberation Front] contacts with France during
the 1954-62 war of independence by Algeria began with such a series
of demands - equally impossible to meet but which were eventually
developed into real proposals for a French withdrawal.
What is unclear, of course, is the degree to which al-Jeelani's
statement represents the collective ideas of the Sunni insurgents.
And, ominously, no mention is made of al-Qa'ida.
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