在什叶派圣城纳杰夫，大阿亚图拉正忙于推进一项宗教议程：阿里·西斯塔尼、穆罕默德·伊沙克·法亚德、巴希尔·纳杰菲和穆罕默德·赛义德·哈基姆组成了 al-marja' iyyah （在所有宗教事务上绝对权威的来源）。 他们是一致的：什叶派宗教政党，选举的大赢家，必须执行伊斯兰教法（伊斯兰）——事实上，这是政党的首要任务之一。 这并不意味着西斯塔尼想要——或需要——控制伊拉克的神权政治：这意味着由世俗人民领导的什叶派宗教政党本身将诞生一个伊拉克伊斯兰共和国。

西斯塔尼的代表在过去几天一直强调，对大阿亚图拉来说重要的是所有人的平等权利。 根据他的高级助手穆罕默德·哈布比的说法，未来伊拉克宪法写作的首要任务是“保护所有公民，无论是多数还是少数的权利，因此他们在法律面前都是平等的”。

大多数什叶派学者坚持美国人必须远离新宪法的制定。 无论美国人喜欢与否，伊斯兰教法都将凌驾于民法之上。 剩下的只是程度的问题：伊拉克的伊斯兰教法将统治一切的程度有多深——除了规定女性不得与男性握手之外，音乐只有“不是为了享受”才被允许，而且女儿继承的遗产少于儿子？

Sistani will have the last word as far as who will be the new Iraqi prime minister, not to mention the turbulent process of drafting the permanent constitution. He will refuse to allow the Kurds a veto power over the constitution – something they already have thanks to an administrative law passed by the Americans. Baghdad sources confirm that a key reason for Sistani to “bless” the Shi’ite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) was that he was assured a primordial role in drafting the constitution. Moreover, Sistani himself is infinitely more popular and respected than the two main Shi’ite parties, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Da’wa Party. For the majority of Sunnis and even for some secular Shi’ites, they are Iranian agents: during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the SCIRI was on Iran ‘s side, ie against Saddam. Without Sistani’s “blessing”, these parties would never have been voted for en masse on January 30.

那些油呢？

现任财政部长和 SCIRI 成员的阿卜杜勒·马赫迪 (Abdel Mahdi) 与达瓦 (Da'wa) 的易卜拉欣·贾法里 (Ibrahim al-Jafaari) 一样，仍然是总理的有力竞争者。

On December 22, Mahdi – with US Under Secretary of State Alan Larson by his side – told the National Press Club in Washington in so many words, and to the delight of corporate US oil majors, that a new oil law would privatize Iraq ‘s oil industry. The new law would allow investment in both downstream and “maybe even upstream” operations, meaning foreigners could become de facto owners of Iraqi oilfields. No wonder Mahdi has been touted by US corporate media as the next best candidate for prime minister after “the Americans’ man”, former Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) asset and current Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

除了当时的国际新闻社报道外，目前正在撰写一本关于经济入侵伊拉克的书的外交政策焦点学者安东尼娅·尤哈斯 (Antonia Juhasz) 是唯一一个敲响警钟的人：华盛顿是否有可能做出与 SCIRI 交易——石油换动力？

This is the fine print that President George W Bush’s freedom rhetoric does not cover. Iraq may have a new “elected” National Assembly and a new Iraqi constitution may be written in the next few months. But the fact is that during 2005 the US remains in total control. Follow the money: US$24 billion funded by American taxpayers toward the reconstruction, plus all the rules that have been passed by the US that control Iraq ‘s economy, plus the military occupation.

Both the billions of dollars and the maze of rules are controlled by auditors sitting in every Iraqi ministry for five years, all of them appointed (and controlled) by the Americans. The only thing that the Bush administration does not control in Iraq is unlimited, no-holds-barred access to oil – which anyone familiar with Vice President Dick Cheney’s world view knows to be the key reason for the invasion and occupation of Iraq .

The whole point of an indefinite, muscular US military presence in Iraq (14 military bases, more than 100,000 troops, the massive embassy in Baghdad , the CIA -trained ” Salvador option” death squads) would be to protect US corporate interests in the oil industry. But the possibility of a law privatizing Iraq ‘s oil coming to pass under a UIA-dominated government is less than zero – for two main reasons. In terms of Iraqi nationalism, this would spell political suicide to either the SCIRI or the Da’wa Party: most Shi’ites who voted in the elections, following Sistani’s dictum, thought they were voting for the US to leave, for good. And in geopolitical terms, all the Shi’ite religious parties have close connections with Iran , which, encircled by the US from the east ( Afghanistan ) and west ( Iraq ), would find innumerable creative ways to turn the Americans’ lives into a living hell.

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One of the key – if not the key – challenges for the new Iraqi government will be a US demand to negotiate a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), the agreement that stipulates the legal status of US garrisons. A cursory look at a world map will teach Iraqis to be extremely careful not to fall into a trap. There are insistent rumors in Baghdad that a SOFA will not be negotiated in 2005: the responsibility will fall to the permanent government that will be elected next December. This is one more indication of the irrelevance of the new elected government. The Pentagon anyway has already determined it will keep 120,000 troops in Iraq into at least 2007, even if a withdrawal is demanded tomorrow.

Predictably, the Shi’ites don’t want the US military to leave – at least for now. Ibrahim al-Jafaari, the Da’wa Party leader and strong contender for one of the three top posts, has repeatedly said this would lead to a bloodbath. But both Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the SCIRI’s No 1, and interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni, agree: the US military must begin a substantial withdrawal by the end of 2005.

Shi’ite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr is just waiting to pounce. It’s increasingly possible that the Sadrists who contested the elections may capture something like 7% of the seats in the new assembly. They’ve already said they will demand an immediate timetable for total US withdrawal. Muqtada wants the Americans out and he wants them out now. That’s also exactly what disgruntled, religious Sunnis want. This spells a possible alliance between the Shi’ite urban proletariat and middle-class religious Sunnis – one more nail in the coffin of the myth propagated by the Bush administration that the resistance against the occupation is dominated by “terrorists”. Significantly, Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, the leader of the powerful Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars ( AMS ), has said he is in close contact with the Sadrists.

An extraordinary new development in Baghdad is that now the AMS is floating a clear proposal: we accept the new elected government as legitimate, as long as it sets a definitive timetable for US withdrawal. Although this is what the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want, nobody – no Shi’ite party, no Kurdish party, not even Sistani himself – is contemplating it at this stage. Baghdad sources tell Asia Times Online that the AMS would even issue a 追杀令 （宗教法令）如果新政府以书面形式确定美国退出的日期，则呼吁结束抵抗——联合国作为监督者。 如果属实，那肯定是导致巴格达狙击手退役的唯一方法。

你想要的不是你得到的

UIA 发言人表示，什叶派联盟将在 275 个成员的议会中占据一半席位，即略低于 140 个席位。 他们需要 182 人才能独立执政，无需联合。 库尔德人相信他们将获得大约 65 个席位：这只是因为逊尼派投票从弱到不存在。 （选举结果原定于周四公布，但因重新审查一些投票箱而推迟。）

谣言四起的巴格达一致认为，真正的坏消息将意味着什叶派占据 140 个席位，库尔德人占据 75 至 85 个席位，而阿拉维则占据其余席位。 巴格达的逊尼派非常悲观：看起来坏消息的情景——什叶派/库尔德人的滑坡——即将发生，库尔德人吹嘘他们可能已经占领了多达 75 个席位。

UIA 可能是什叶派主导的，但它包含 20 多个团体、运动和政党——基督徒、土库曼人，甚至逊尼派和库尔德人，包括巴德尔组织（前巴德尔旅，由伊朗革命卫队训练），伊拉克真主党运动和伊拉克土库曼人伊斯兰联盟。

唯一具有最低稳定性的伊拉克政府将是 UIA/库尔德联盟。 这不太可能发生，即使发生了，它也会让温和的逊尼派阿拉伯人进入开放的游击队模式。 UIA 中的什叶派宗教政党想要伊斯兰教法。 白宫依靠库尔德人否决伊斯兰教法。 相对世俗的库尔德人痴迷于松散的联邦制和一个完全成熟的自治库尔德斯坦省。 他们只想要库尔德斯坦爱国联盟领导人贾拉勒·塔拉巴尼 (Jalal Talabani) 的总统职位。

现任外交部长、和蔼可亲的库尔德·霍希亚尔·扎巴里 (Kurd Hoshyar Zebari) 表示，安抚逊尼派的唯一方法是为他们提供三个关键职位之一——总统、总理或国民议会议长。 这可能还不够。 逊尼派阿拉伯人知道库尔德人支持战争和对伊拉克的占领，十多年来一直是美国事实上的保护国。 逊尼派阿拉伯人也知道，美国人目前唯一的土著盟友是库尔德部落：例如，库尔德第 36 指挥营帮助海军陆战队进攻逊尼派阿拉伯法卢杰。 许多逊尼派，甚至温和派，都认为库尔德人是叛徒。

What the Kurdish tribal chiefs really want is the ultimate prize: they want independence (it could even be some kind of US-Israeli protectorate) and they want Kirkuk ‘s oil. All of this, for them, is non-negotiable. Supposing Turkey – a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally dreaming of being accepted by the European Union – buries the Kurdish dream, and the Americans cannot deliver, it’s fair to assume that even the Kurds will abandon the Americans.

与此同时，在仍处于瓦砾堆下的纳杰夫，人们普遍担心最终相同的前中央情报局资产阿拉维将继续担任总理。 阿拉维已经控制伊拉克安全六个多月了。 他的新伊拉克国民警卫队是萨达姆安全保障的混合体——并非巧合的是萨达姆的手下出没：毕竟，阿拉维也是前复兴党人。

由于布什政府需要一个冷酷无情的伊拉克警察国家，不仅要打击抵抗，还要打击针对全国恶劣生活条件的各种新出现的抗议活动，阿拉维确实是“美国人的人”，正如他在巴格达所熟知的那样。 他的硬汉形象将是他说服 UIA 他应该继续担任总理的主要论据。 但巴格达消息人士告诉亚洲时报在线，这无论如何都是表面上的：只有天真的人可能会认为华盛顿-绿区轴心并没有控制前三名职位的选择。

不投降

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布什政府的剧本是众所周知的：伊拉克从“暴政”中“解放”出来，“叛乱分子”正在与民主作斗争——选举是其中的第一个表现。 这些是事实：伊拉克被征服了，而不是解放了； 新政府在经济和石油问题上将没有任何发言权； 抵抗是与占领国而不是民主作斗争。

西斯塔尼将选举卖给了虔诚的什叶派群众，作为结束占领的第一步。 在接下来的几个月里，他的承诺将受到开创性的现实考验。 投票中的什叶派明确表示，他们投票是要驱逐美国人，而不是让他们合法化。

如果库尔德人获得太多权力，如果什叶派名单瓦解，如果美国继续建设其庞大的军事基地——这意味着他们将长期留在伊拉克，得到傀儡政府的支持——逊尼派抵抗肯定会成为全国性的逊尼派什叶派抵抗运动。 至于“恐怖主义”，据巴格达消息人士称，绝大多数温和的世俗逊尼派和什叶派相信“头号恐怖分子”阿布·穆萨布·扎卡维正在被中央情报局旨在加剧种族紧张局势的黑色行动中利用。

Many Israeli and American intellectuals and officials are already busy preparing global public opinion, calling for an independent Kurdistan . One of the top-flight propagandists is ambassador Peter Galbraith, one of the negotiators of the Dayton accords and currently a professor at the National War College . Independence is what the Kurdish leadership wants. Kurds hate the idea of Iraq : the Iraqi flag is practically forbidden in some remote mountainous areas. Kurds refuse to hand the control of their borders to Arab troops from Baghdad . Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger is enthusiastically calling for a Kurdistan , a Sunni center and a Shi’ite south. Why not three weak countries instead of one strong, united Iraq ? It’s divide and conquer all over again.

The key reason for the war was control of Iraqi oil, supported by the installation of strategic US military bases. The key question now is which Iraqis will embrace the agenda of the Bush administration. Secular, moderate Sunni observers in Baghdad simply cannot believe the Shi’ite leadership will maintain public support for the rest of the year without telling the Americans to leave.

Moreover, the majority of Iraqis – those who voted and especially those who didn’t – are not willing to surrender their oil, their economy and their land to corporate America . The popular resistance, on a national level, tends only to increase. Shi’ites – from Sistani to the SCIRI – better not enter into a Faustian pact.