The two faces of the Honor Front
AlHayat prints a summary of interview remarks by "Abu Azzam" (real name Thamer) AlTamimi, spokesman for the "Iraqi Honor Front" whose formation was announced recently, now describing Tamimi as head of the Front's political office. There are interesting contrasts compared to the image of the Front presented in the earlier interview in AlArab.
The main point in the AlHayat summary is Tamimi's stress on the fact that the front will include not only "technocrats", tribal leaders, and Awakening leaders, but also previous members of armed factions "that fought against AlQaeda" (not even any mention of armed resistance to the occupation, only to "AlQaeda"). Tamimi mentions in particular that the Front includes former members of the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution, and the Army of the Mujahideen. These are described as people that used to fight AlQaeda, and that now are going to participate in the political process. In the AlArab interview, Tamimi repeatedly used the expression "give up armed activities at this stage", referring to armed resistance to the occupation, and to the fact that this is being given up only for "this stage".
The second point is that the AlHayat picture has Tamimi and the other Honor Front personality Ahmed abu Risha repeating a couple of stock-phrases: "the political process in a constitutional form" (Tamimi); and "the political process in a legal and constitutional framework" (Abu Risha), with no suggestion that there is anything temporary about it. This contrasts with the AlArab interview, where Tamimi is quoted:
The third point about the AlHayat picture is that there isn't any mention of planned attitudes to occupier-sponsored legislation. In the AlArab interviews, Tamimi said they would stand firmly opposed to any laws connected with the occupier, including the Oil and Gas Law, while in the AlHayat summary there isn't any mention of that at all.
So we have a choice: Is this an initiative looking for tactical advantage from a temporary abandonment of armed resistance, for its own good and autonomous reasons? Or is it a group of people that have sold out to the occupation-sponsored process entirely, for some so-far unknown price? If the latter is the case, then the AlArab interview was for the purpose of creating a veneer of nationalism for electoral purposes; if the former, then the Al-Hayat piece was part of a continuing effort to bamboozle the occupier into thinking of them as allies.
For me, I will go out on a limb and say I don't think the answer is necessarily obvious. What I do think is that this Honor Front initiative is pretty clearly the fruit of that series of "reconciliation" meetings that included the meetings at a Dead Sea resort in Jordan in November 07, and similar meetings before and after that. Fragmentary reports at the time suggested the American go-betweens had in mind some kind of combination between "reconciling" with the nationalist armed resistance, and these "bottom-up" Awakening schemes. As I noted after the Dead Sea meetings in November, our eyes and ears in Washington went completely silent on this process. Even though it was known who organized the Dead Sea meetings (former State Dept big-shot Richard Murphy), no one ever bothered to report so much as a "no comment" from him, let alone attempt any follow-up). And now that the Honor Front has been announced, it seems we can look forward to more of the same from our eyes and ears in Washington: Silence. That way you don't see Washington's fingerprints on this at all.
The main point in the AlHayat summary is Tamimi's stress on the fact that the front will include not only "technocrats", tribal leaders, and Awakening leaders, but also previous members of armed factions "that fought against AlQaeda" (not even any mention of armed resistance to the occupation, only to "AlQaeda"). Tamimi mentions in particular that the Front includes former members of the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution, and the Army of the Mujahideen. These are described as people that used to fight AlQaeda, and that now are going to participate in the political process. In the AlArab interview, Tamimi repeatedly used the expression "give up armed activities at this stage", referring to armed resistance to the occupation, and to the fact that this is being given up only for "this stage".
The second point is that the AlHayat picture has Tamimi and the other Honor Front personality Ahmed abu Risha repeating a couple of stock-phrases: "the political process in a constitutional form" (Tamimi); and "the political process in a legal and constitutional framework" (Abu Risha), with no suggestion that there is anything temporary about it. This contrasts with the AlArab interview, where Tamimi is quoted:
"We are convinced that the current stage is the stage of political activity, and there is no place for weapons at the present time. Otherwise why would we abandon arms and resort to politics. And for that reason I call on armed groups to leave their armed activities in the current stage, and to take up politics, and in this way we will work toward the expulsion of the occupier".So where the AlHayat picture is of a group firmly commited to the "legal and constitutional", the AlArab picture is of a tactical move.
The third point about the AlHayat picture is that there isn't any mention of planned attitudes to occupier-sponsored legislation. In the AlArab interviews, Tamimi said they would stand firmly opposed to any laws connected with the occupier, including the Oil and Gas Law, while in the AlHayat summary there isn't any mention of that at all.
So we have a choice: Is this an initiative looking for tactical advantage from a temporary abandonment of armed resistance, for its own good and autonomous reasons? Or is it a group of people that have sold out to the occupation-sponsored process entirely, for some so-far unknown price? If the latter is the case, then the AlArab interview was for the purpose of creating a veneer of nationalism for electoral purposes; if the former, then the Al-Hayat piece was part of a continuing effort to bamboozle the occupier into thinking of them as allies.
For me, I will go out on a limb and say I don't think the answer is necessarily obvious. What I do think is that this Honor Front initiative is pretty clearly the fruit of that series of "reconciliation" meetings that included the meetings at a Dead Sea resort in Jordan in November 07, and similar meetings before and after that. Fragmentary reports at the time suggested the American go-betweens had in mind some kind of combination between "reconciling" with the nationalist armed resistance, and these "bottom-up" Awakening schemes. As I noted after the Dead Sea meetings in November, our eyes and ears in Washington went completely silent on this process. Even though it was known who organized the Dead Sea meetings (former State Dept big-shot Richard Murphy), no one ever bothered to report so much as a "no comment" from him, let alone attempt any follow-up). And now that the Honor Front has been announced, it seems we can look forward to more of the same from our eyes and ears in Washington: Silence. That way you don't see Washington's fingerprints on this at all.
posted by badger at 10:35 AM
1 Comments:
“So we have a choice: Is this an initiative looking for tactical advantage from a temporary abandonment of armed resistance, for its own good and autonomous reasons? Or is it a group of people that have sold out to the occupation-sponsored process entirely, for some so-far unknown price?”
It is very hard to escape the conclusion that the leaders of this so-called Honour (?!) Front are collaborators who have sold out to the occupier. However, it makes sense for them to market themselves as patriots, whose retreat from armed resistance is merely temporary and tactical. I dare say an element of rationalisation is involved as well.
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