Will the meeting in Baghdad bring peace?

THE international conference to be held in Baghdad on March 10 is a welcome first step towards curbing the horrendous violence in Iraq, which risks destabilising the whole region.

It will provide an opportunity to judge whether the political will exists - inside and outside the country - to check the slide towards anarchy and partition and rebuild Iraq as a unitary state, able to take its rightful place in the Arab and regional system.

Four bloody years after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain - a criminal neo-colonial aggression by any standards - we are at the start of a healing process.

The Baghdad conference will bring together Iraq's neighbours as well as Egypt and other members of the Arab League and of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, as well as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.

It was preceded a week earlier, yesterday, by an important bilateral meeting in Riyadh between King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, signalling the determination of these two political heavyweights to take the destiny of the region in their own hands, rather than leave it to the interventions of external powers.

The fact that representatives of Iran, Syria and the United States - probably at ambassador level - will be sitting at the same conference table in Baghdad is a sign that realism is beginning to prevail in Washington, after years of ideological blindness.

No one should expect the road ahead to be easy. There are bound to be setbacks. A group such as al-Qaeda - which hopes to acquire a base in Iraq from which to pursue its wider agenda - will certainly seek to sabotage the peace process.

Others, too, may have unsatisfied ambitions and may wish to continue fighting. But the convening of the conference means that the world has at last woken up to the dangers of allowing Iraq to rot.

In my view, there are at least six requirements for peace to take hold.

1. First is a recognition by all Iraq's neighbours that they have nothing to gain - and a good deal to lose - from further conflict. This will surely be one of the prime aims of the Baghdad conference and of the meetings which are expected to follow in the coming weeks, possibly at foreign minister level. As all these neighbours have different ambitions and different vital interests, agreement will not be easy.

Agreement

2. Equally necessary will be an agreement between the various factions and militias inside Iraq that the time has come to put away their guns.

A lot will depend on whether a formula for power-sharing and revenue-sharing can be negotiated among Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, and whether enough pressure can be brought to bear on these communities by Iraq's neighbours and by outside powers to make an agreement stick.

This, again, will not be an easy task. Some extremists may want to pursue the programme of ethnic cleansing which has already begun but which is by no means complete.

There are prize localities in Iraq which both Shi'ites and Sunnis would like to hold. Others may seek revenge for blood already spilled. For all, a spirit of compromise - and a faith in Iraq as a unitary state - will be necessary.

3. The Kurds, who have so far enjoyed considerable immunity from violence, will need to be persuaded that their best future will lie, not in full independence, but in a wide measure of autonomy within a reborn Iraqi state.

The Kurds aim to annex Kirkuk and hold a referendum to determine whether this oil-rich city should be governed by Baghdad or by the local Kurdish government. Such a referendum would be a mistake.

It will provoke the violent opposition not only of Iraqi Shi'ites and Sunnis, but also of Turkey. The Kurds should be prudent and reflect that the best is sometimes the enemy of the good.

4. Another requirement for peace to take hold in Iraq would be for the United States to announce a firm date for the total withdrawal of its military forces.

Robert Gates, America's new defence secretary, has recently suggested that the US would like to keep long-term bases in Iraq, on the model of its bases in Germany, Japan and elsewhere. But, after the terrible destruction the US has inflicted on Iraq, any such bases would be targets for hostile forces.

The US does not need military bases in Iraq to protect its interests. In fact, the only way to recover its authority and credibility with Iraqis is for the US to declare that it has no ambition to stay in Iraq or to dominate the country or its oil in the future.

5. A fifth requirement for peace and security in Iraq is the rebuilding of a national army strong enough to tame the militias, but not so strong as to alarm neighbours such as Iran and Kuwait who have suffered from Iraqi aggression in the past.

The US is putting a great deal of effort into training Iraqi troops and police. But this task would be better done by the Iraqis themselves. The daily brutal killing of conscripts and policemen is proof of the danger of too close links with the occupying power.

6. Finally, a major international programme will be needed to help resettle the four million Iraqis - exiles and displaced persons - who have fled their homes and, in many cases, now live in great distress. No time should be wasted in raising funds for such a programme - with the US providing the bulk of the money. Evidently, years of effort will be needed to efface the ghastly legacy of the Iraq war, one of the greatest crimes in recent history. Gulf News

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Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs