Toward that goal, the nearly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq will stay for an indefinite period until the Iraqi military and police are strong enough to defeat armed anti-government militias on their own, said U.S. president George Bush in a June 28 nationally televised speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Meanwhile, one of the unintended consequences of the U.S.-led assault on Iraq, the broadening fight of the Kurds for national self-determination, continues to unfold. Leaders of the two main Kurdish parties announced they will form a united government in the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.

According to a June 22 Associated Press report, Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, announced that Egypt would be the first Arab government to restore relations with Baghdad. Jordan’s foreign minister announced that Aman would follow suit “very soon.” Zebari said he was hopeful diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would be restored too.

The Arab League’s secretary general was set to visit Iraq at the end of June in connection with reopening the organization’s mission in Baghdad.

Damascus also has plans to reopen the Syrian embassy in Iraq after 23 years of broken ties, said the Wall Street Journal. Washington continues to pressure the Syrian regime to stop being “unhelpful” in preventing the use of its territory for trafficking of militia fighters and weapons into Iraq.

Calls for cooperation with the U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad are increasingly coming from former critics of the Bush administration’s policies on Iraq. In a June 21 Washington Post opinion column, for example, United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan called on participants in the Brussels conference to send a “loud and clear message of support for the political transition in Iraq.” Annan said there are more than 800 UN personnel in Iraq. The conference statement urged participating states to “re-establish or strengthen diplomatic relations with Iraq at the earliest possibility.”

“Whatever our differences in the past, the world understands that success in Iraq is critical to the security of our nations,” said Bush in his June 28 speech. The casualties among U.S. troops—over 1,700 killed and 12,000 injured—are worth the sacrifice in fighting the “global war on terrorism,” he said. Bush also highlighted the remark German chancellor Gerhard Schröder made the previous day at the White House that “a stable and democratic Iraq is in the vested interest of not just Germany, but also Europe.”

Canada’s foreign ministry announced that its envoy to Jordan would double as ambassador to Iraq. Madird, which withdrew its troops from Iraq last year, will send a new ambassador to Iraq soon, AP reported.

On June 14 Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani took office as the president of the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region. He said the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan would form a united government there. Since 1991 the two parties had administered separate parts. A unified slate of the two won the second largest bloc of seats in Iraq’s National Assembly elections in January. The Kurds also won a majority in provincial elections that include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and have pushed for the city’s incorporation into their autonomous region.

At the same time, U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that Pentagon officials have held secret talks with leaders of armed groups linked to the former Baath Party regime of Saddam Hussein that carry out bombings not to overthrow the Iraqi regime but as bargaining leverage. U.S. Gen. George Casey said the talks are primarily aimed at “bringing these Sunni leaders…into the political process.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home