Islamic Leaders Urged To Back The Arab Initiative For Iraq.

*** The Western Desert Of Iraq Is Said To Be Rich In Natural Gas & Palezoic Oil; Anbar Was Never Properly Studied By The High-Tech Geologists Of Multinationals

*** East Baghdad Can Potentially Prove To Be A Super-Giant; It Was Once Studied By Mobil For Development On A Large Scale

*** The Oilfield In West Baghdad Has A Complex Geology But Can Become A Big Producer; Central Iraq Can Have A Major Export Pipeline To The Port Of Aqaba - Once Promoted In The Reagan Era By Bechtel And Don Rumsfeld

** An Arab-ICO Initiative Can Be Matched By A Positive Iran Diplomacy For A Peaceful Iraqi Neighbour

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia and fellow members of the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), Egypt and other Arab states have been urged to discuss the future of Iraq in the context of an Arab League-sponsored initiative for reconciliation among the main factions of the country. Iraq is to figure prominently at an extraordinary summit meeting of the Islamic conference Organisation in Makkah on Dec. 7-8.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been behind the Arab League's initiative which on Nov. 19-21 featured a preliminary conference of Iraqi factions held in Cairo. They agreed to convene a series of League-sponsored conferences in Iraq from late February or early March 2006.

The US and European powers (EU3), which have been negotiating with Iran over the latter's nuclear development programme, have backed the League initiative and want to see a lasting solution in Iraq. The US and its allies now want to see the insurgency in Iraq coming to an end so that they can withdraw troops from the country before a Neo-Salafi insurgency becomes a national movement.

The US and Britain have tentatively set an objective if a partial troop pull-out in 2006. They and other allied powers contributing troops to the multinational force (MNF) in Iraq have been alarmed by the Neo-Salafi suicide bombings in Amman which killed many people at three hotels on Nov. 9 (see news21cIraqPull-OutNov21-05).

The three suicide bombers of the Amman hotels were Iraqis from the Sunni Arab Triangle and Iraq's western province of Anbar. And so was the wife of the third bomber who survived and was captured by the Jordanian security forces.

The vast province of Anbar borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It was not until the Nov. 9 attack that al-Qaeda Organisat-ion for Jihad in Mesopotamia of Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi sent Iraqi suicide bombers to a neighbouring country. Until then, the traffic of suicide bombing volunteers used to be an Iraq-bound pipeline of young human resources. Now it appears to have become a two-way traffic, not only boosting the Neo-Salafi insurgency in Iraq but also endangering the neighbouring countries.

According to a highly-placed APS source, the US is inclined to keep a lower military profile in Iraq from next year, gradually pulling troops out of the country but at the same time speeding up the training of Iraqi military and security forces. The British and other allies are expected to do the same in the coming year (see sbme6bbIraq-4-USoutDec5-05).

A Saudi source tells APS the Arab League initiative "must be backed by a broader Islamic umbrella". Hence the importance of the ICO summit meeting in Makkah. The source says this is necessary to encourage the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq to become more committed to the political process, with parliamentary elections due there on Dec. 15.

The US and the EU3 agree with Saudi Arabia and Egypt that there must be "a sustainable balance in Iraq" between the various communities, including the oil-rich Kurds in the north and oil-rich Shi'ite Arabs in the south. Potentially, the Sunni Arab centre of Iraq could become rich in both oil and natural gas. According to US geologists, Baghdad is sitting on a huge oil reservoir to its east.

The US and the EU3 also agree with Saudi Arabia and Egypt that there must be a sustainable balance between an Arab-ICO initiative and a positive Iranian diplomacy for a peaceful and stable Iraq, a country in peace between the Kurds and each of the Shi'ite and Sunni Arab communities and among all the communities. If the Sunni Arabs accept the federal approach, called for in the new Iraqi constitution and voted for on Oct. 15 by the majority of Iraqis, they could become the catalyst for a durable union and pluralism among the communities. The quest for a positive Iranian diplomacy was led by US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad whose planned trip to Tehran was confirmed on Nov. 29 by the US State Department. This is the first direct US-Iran contact since 1979, when diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran were severed. Khalilzad's mission in Tehran now is limited to Iranian help in the stabilisation of Iraq; but the opportunities this offers both sides can potentially be huge (see sbme6bbIraq-4-USoutDec5-05).

So far, however, the Sunni Arabs only accepted the current Iraqi political process in order for them to get the constitution to be amended after the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, as they could not get a two-thirds majority in three provinces in the Oct. 15 referendum. Their current resolve to amend the constitution - i.e., to eliminate the provision for a federal system - seems to stem from what Kurds and Shi'ite Arabs say the determination of some Sunni Arabs to rule over the whole of Iraq again. All previous governments since Iraq was created in the 1920s were dominated by Sunni Arabs, including the ruthless fascists of Saddam's Ba'thist regime which was overthrown by the US-led invasion of the country in April 2003.

The Essence Of Arab-ICO Action: Strategists in regional affairs among those in Saudi Arabia in charge of external relations believe the Ta'if approach which has finally succeeded in Lebanon, with Syria out of the way after 29 years of military occupation and political control, will not be enough for Iraq. They say the approach must be Arab as well as Islamic, with the US and its allies helping behind the scenes.

The 57-state ICO, representing a 1.4 billion-strong Muslim World, is overwhelmingly Sunni in a vast part of the globe where the Shi'ites of the Ja'fari (or Twelver) order account for less than 10%. The Ja'fari Shi'ites only ruled once before Imam Khomeini established a theocracy in Iran in the early 1980s. That was during the ancient Safavid dynasty (see surveys on the Shi'ite world serialised in RIM).

The tragic early aspect of the American project for Iraq, as APS Energy Group President Pierre Shammas put it to a conference earlier this year, is that "the US forces descended on this country as a jumbo trying to land into the narrow alleys of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves... Once it crash landed and without a road map [for nation-building], it failed to find directions, to the extent that wherever it went it fell into more trouble..."

What made the American project in Iraq look particularly tragic, Shammas added, was the fact that the US "descended right into the land where the first conspiracy theory in history was born". Today extremists from some Shi'ite parties, as well as Sunni Arabs in the opposition or in the insurgency, accuse the US presence in Iraq as being part of a "Zionist-American conspiracy". One notable example was a BBC debate on Sept. 23 during which each of the Iraqi and Iranian discussants had his own conspiracy theory, with one describing Iranian meddling in Iraq as being part of "a Safavid conspiracy" against the Sunni Arabs. Dr. Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab leader, went as far as accusing Iran of having sent to Iraq spies to cause a Sunni-Shi'ite war.

The Saudi Role: Saudi Arabia has been behind the Arab League's initiative for Iraq. US backing for the Saudi role came after a visit to Washington in September by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who on Sept. 22 publicly said he had been warning the Bush administration on previous days that Iraq was hurtling towards disintegration, a development which he said could drag the whole region into sectarian war. In a meeting with reporters in New York, he said of Iraq: "There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together. All the dynamics are pulling the country apart". He said he had carried this message "to everyone who will listen" in the Bush administration. His message, a most pessimistic comment by a Middle Eastern leader, was in stark contrast to the generally upbeat assessments which the White House and the Pentagon had been offering in previous weeks. Prince Saud said: "We fought a war together to keep Iran out of Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason".

Prince Saud, in Washington for meetings, blamed several US decisions for Iraq's slide to disintegration. Primary among them was designating "every Sunni as a Ba'thist criminal". (Saudi Arabia styles itself as the protector of Sunni Islam, but it follows Wahhabism and its royal regime is threatened by Neo-Wahhabis such as bin Laden and Neo-Salafis such as the Jordanian Zarqawi and Zawahiri, bin Laden's Egyptian deputy).

Saud's remarks, at times harsh and at other moments considered, were emblematic of a conflicted Saudi-US relationship. He met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New York, where he said US officials responded to his warnings by telling him they successfully carried off the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30, and "they say the same things about the constitution" and the situation in Iraq. "But...unless something is done to bring Iraqis together, elections alone won't do it", he said. "A constitution alone won't do it".

Speaking to reporters at the Saudi Embassy in Washington on Sept. 23, Prince Saud said: Iraq's potential division into a Kurdish state in the north, a Sunni Arab state in the centre and a Shi'ite Arab state in the south would "bring other countries in the region into the conflict". (Turkey has long threatened to forcefully prevent Iraq's Kurds from declaring independence). He added: "This is a very dangerous situation".

While Prince Saud did not mention the Bush administration directly when he criticised the de-Ba'thification process, he was referring to an order issued by US proconsul Paul Bremer soon after the 2003 fall of Saddam's regime. Bremer banned all members of Saddam's largely Sunni Arab Ba'th Party from holding government jobs.

Prince Saud said he did not believe Iraq was engulfed in full-scale civil war but the trend was moving in that direction. Asked what Saudi Arabia feared most about the trend, he said: "It will draw the countries of the region into the conflict and that is the main worry of all the neighbours of Iraq".

The Iraq war and occupation have cost more than 2,115 American lives, countless Iraqi lives and over $200 bn of US money. There has been little progress in stopping a bloody Sunni insurgency which began soon after the March 2003 invasion. Prince Saud said the Sunni-Shi'ite division was not pronounced under Saddam, a Sunni, but was inflamed when the post-war US occupation authority disbanded the Iraqi army and banned the Ba'th Party. He urged the Shi'ite majority to reach out to Sunnis and reassure them they will be treated as "equal citizens". He did not see a purposeful US policy to divide Iraq but "this is what is going to happen if things continue as they are".

Saud did not urge Iraqis to reject the constitution but said the key would be how it was implemented. He said the Bush administration and his government agreed Iraq should be free, prosperous and united. But he said when he raised concerns about growing political divisions in Iraq, the Americans noted that many had doubted the wisdom of holding elections, which turned out well, and they expressed confidence the constitution would be effective.

Prince Saud repeated apprehensions he made about Iran in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Sept. 20. He said Tehran was increasingly interfering in Iraq by providing money and weapons to Shi'ite Arabs in Iraq. He voiced his government's concern that Iran might renege on its pledge to support a nuclear-free Middle East. However, he indicated his preference for dialogue to solve the nuclear issue with Tehran, rather than taking it to the UN Security Council. He said Saudi Arabia enjoyed frank and candid relations with Iran, adding: "[Saudi Arabia believes] Iran has great potentials to become a stabilising power in the region". He said Riyadh would continue its dialogue with Tehran on the WMD issue. "We are confident that we can reach an understanding, taking into account the interests of all countries in the region".

Zarqawi's War: The threat of further massacres was sharpened recently as the architect of much of the killing, Zarqawi, declared a "full-scale war on Shi'ites all over Iraq, wherever and whenever they are found". Iraq's hardline Sunni religious group, the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), responded to Zarqawi's declaration with a mild public statement in which they "advised" him to desist. The remark did not go unnoticed in Shi'ite Arab neighbourhoods which bore the brunt of the pain. Falah Jiad, a Shi'ite ice cream shop worker in Shu'la, another Shi'ite area in Baghdad suicide bombed on Sept. 14, was quoted by the media as shouting: "How dare they say it so weakly? It makes us think that they accept Zarqawi's attacks on us".

Shi'ite religious commemorations, deeply resented by the Sunnis, mainly by the Neo-Salafis, are filled with religious fervour, wailing and blood-soaked shirts caused by ritual self-flagellation. On Aug. 31 the agony of Shi'ites was all too real. Over 1,000 died in a stampede on a bridge leading to the Kathemiya shrine in northern Baghdad, the burial place for the Ja'fari Shi'ites' 7th Imam, Moussa ibn Ja'far al-Kathem. The stampede was caused by a rumour that Zarqawi's suicide bombers were among the crowd.

The rise of Iraq's Shi'ites from an oppressed majority to power was accompanied by rivers of blood. In August 2003, a car bomb killed Shi'ite Ayatollah Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim and 80 other people outside the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. In March 2004, a series of co-ordinated bomb attacks killed more than 180 people in Karbala and Kathemiya as Shi'ites celebrated the 'Ashoura' - the last of ten days of mourning of the Shiites' Second Imam, Hussein ibn Ali. Before becoming leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi wrote to bin Laden saying Iraq's Shi'ites were "the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy and the penetrating venom". He said they had to be attacked mercilessly in order to "drag them into the arena of sectarian war" and arouse Sunnis in Iraq as well as the rest of the Arab world. Zarqawi failed in this so far.

A coalition of Shi'ite Arab parties won an overwhelming victory in the Jan. 30 elections and installed a religious Shi'ite PM, Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. The Kurds won a large slice of the interim National Assembly seats and government portfolios. The biggest losers were the Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the elections. The Kurds and Shi'ites then forced through a constitution over the objections of Sunnis who regard federalism as an attempt to carve up Iraq at their expense.

Far from being a step towards a democratic future, many fear the new constitution will stir more Sunni resentment and feed the Neo-Salafi/Ba'thist insurgency. The Aug. 31 Shi'ite commemorations for the death of Imam Moussa al-Kathem were an obvious flashpoint. Neo-Salafi insurgents fired mortars and rockets at the pilgrims, killing several people.

Iraqi authorities later said they had prevented several suicide bombers. But Shi'ite anger has so far been put under control by advice from figures such as Grand Ayatollahs Sistani, Said al-Hakim and Ishaq al-Fayyadh - senior religious men in Najaf who want to avoid the mistakes of the 1920s, when the Shi'ites rose up against British occupation only to be crushed and excluded from power for more than eight decades.

Riyadh Urges Iraqis To Unite: Saudi Crown Prince Sultan, who held talks with Iraqi PM Ja'fari in Riyadh on Nov. 29, called on the Iraqi people to stand together in the face of the trying times. He said: "We love the Iraqi people and hope they will stand united for the betterment of their country and to protect it from all evil".

Ja'fari had earlier met with King Abdullah and discussed with him the current developments in Iraq. He thanked the king for his efforts to bolster Iraq's unity. Among the topics Ja'fari discussed with King Abdullah and Prince Sultan was the ICO summit in Makkah and the Saudi-proposed Islamic initiative. Also discussed was the outcome of a recent visit to Saudi Arabia by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the pillars of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy who heads the powerful Expediency Council (EC). The EC is pushing for a moderate approach to the nuclear issue so that it is resolved with the Western powers peacefully.

Prince Sultan said the Iraqi government was capable of restoring the country's security and stability. He described Iraq's new political experiment as a difficult one but hoped that the Iraqis would be able to overcome all difficulties.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Prince Sultan, Ja'fari said his visit to Saudi Arabia was aimed at strengthening the deep-rooted relations between the two Arab neighbours. He commended the kingdom's "noble support" of Iraq at difficult times. He said: "I have visited the kingdom in 1991 while I was in the opposition and several times after the fall of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein".

Ja'fari said terrorism was the common enemy of both Saudi Arabia and Iraq. He said the joint stand of the kingdom and Iraq would have great impact on the Arab and Islamic worlds. He said he had explained to King Abdullah and Prince Sultan the present situation in his country, adding: "We discussed the political situation and experiment in Iraq, its future and present security developments". Ja'fari said the talks also focused on strengthening trade relations between the two countries. He appreciated the understanding shown by Saudi officials during the talks.

ICO Summit Urged To Adopt Unified Islamic Calendar: Ali Manikfan, an Indian scientist and prominent Muslim scholar, has urged the Muslim heads of state meeting in Makkah on Dec. 7-8 to discuss a unified Islamic calendar which he established and which could be followed by all Muslim countries. This could be a key towards further rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as between the Shi'ite minority and Sunni majority in the Muslim world.

Manikfan, founder of the Calicut-based Hijra Committee of India, was on Nov. 24 quoted by Arab News as saying a political decision on the matter would enable Muslims across the world to celebrate Eid al-Fitr on the same day. Leaders of the ICO (which is also known as Organisation of Islamic Conference - OIC) will meet in Makkah in an extraordinary summit.

High on the summit's agenda is the strengthening of Islamic unity and solidarity. Manikfan told Arab News: "Eid Al-Fitr should be celebrated on the first day of the lunar month of Shawwal. Muslims around the world are now celebrating it on three different days due to the lack of a unified calendar".

Manikfan, who has devised a lunar calendar for the whole world, said this year's Shawwal 1 was Thursday Nov. 17, when people in Saudi Arabia and other GCC states and Arab countries celebrated Eid al-Fitr. Muslims in many other countries celebrated it on Nov. 18 or on Nov. 19. Manikfan said: "This is wrong".

Manikfan, who was born into a Maldivian aristocratic family, is fluent in 16 languages including English, Arabic, French, Russian, German, Persian, Sanskrit and Latin. Apart from astronomy, his fields of interest include marine biology, geography, traditional shipbuilding, education, fisheries, agriculture and horticulture. He was in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 22 to perform Umrah. He said Muslim scholars had misunderstood a Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, which said Sumoo Liru'yatihi wa 'Iftiru Liru'yatihi (Fast when you see it - Ramadan crescent - and end the fast when you see it - Shawwal crescent).

He said: "The Hadith actually means the date should be based on the lunar calendar. Islam is the most advanced and scientific religion. It's impossible to believe that the Prophet would instruct his followers in this age of science and technology to search for the new moon with their naked eyes when lunar and solar dates can be determined in advance on the basis of scientific calculations".

Manikfan said a mistake made in the past should not mean Muslims have to live with it forever. He added: "When we realize it is a mistake, we must have the courage to correct it in order to protect the common interests of the Islamic nation". According to Arab News, Manikfan hopes that Saudi Arabia "will take the lead and prepare a unified Islamic calendar for distribution in all Muslim countries".