The Sirens of Baghdad is a compelling 307-page novel by Yasmina Khadra - pen name of the former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul - about Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq in the wake of the American invasion. A young Iraqi student, unable to attend college because of the war, sees American soldiers leave a trail of humiliation and grief in his small village. Bent on revenge, he flees to the chaotic streets of Baghdad where insurgents soon realise they can make use of his anger. Yasmina Khadra’s book examines the effects of violence on ordinary people, showing what can turn a decent human being into a weapon, and how the good in human nature can resist and eventually overcome it.

In the next few paragraphs, I plan to mull over some of the latest developments in Iraq that either infuse new optimism or else create further dread in me. But I started wittingly with those two loaded excerpts from the book because they transport me back to the heady days of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Despite five years of sacrifice, bloodshed and suffering, those two foreboding statements continue to echo audibly - whether rightly or wrongly - in a majority of Arab and Muslim ears across the whole world from Pakistan to Afghanistan, and from Egypt to Yemen, about American and broader Western designs toward them. In my opinion, any tangible progress on any front is conditional upon addressing those very perceptions - for as we know in the world of politics, perceptions transform into realities and somehow boomerang against the future.

But more on that later! For now, let me dwell briefly on developments as I see them touching the lives of Iraqis today.

Despite explosions, suicide bombs and people still being blown up or else blowing up others, one piece of good news toward the end of last month was the unanimous passing by the Iraqi Parliament of the Provincial Elections Law. After endless procrastination since last February, negotiation prevailed over violence and this law was passed unanimously by the 190 members of parliament. It is the hope of many pundits that it would help heal the deep-running political, religious and gender-based fissures in the country and shore up the noteworthy security gains that have been achieved of late.

However, one fundamental setback of this law was that it passed not necessarily because of a newly-tapped surfeit of Iraqi goodwill but because it set aside for future debate the most divisive political issue over the control of the ethnically-mixed and oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk that has been a bone of contention between Iraqi Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, Christians and Kurds and exacerbated by the enforced Arabisation policies pursued through waffidins by the late president of Iraq.

However, another clear setback was the removal of Article 50 from an earlier version of the draft law that had secured 13 seats for Iraqi Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks and other minorities in six of the provinces. As the UN special representative to Iraq indicated at a news conference, the minority issue was a “dark cloud”. And this dark cloud has alarmingly manifested itself again over the past few weeks, with Iraqi Christians in the northern city of the Mosul being targeted by a systematic violence that ostensibly seeks to oust them from the area. With almost half the Iraqi Christian population of 800,000 having already fled the country since 2003, many witnesses reported the murder of Christians and the displacement of well nigh 2200 families (roughly 13,000 individuals) toward the Nineveh Plain, as well as nearby towns and villages such as Hamdaniya or Qaraqush and into Syria. It is difficult for me to determine at this stage who stands behind those crimes, or who aids and abets their commission, but commentators have mostly alluded to extremist al-Qa’eda like radical groups (one report refers to written threats by a ‘consultative council of Iraqi combatants’) persecuting non-Sunnis, to unnamed radical elements that have allegedly infiltrated an Iraqi army regiment in Mosul, and even to some Kurdish Peshmergas trying to alter the demography of the region ahead of the forthcoming provincial elections. But with Baghdad and Mosul bearing deep-vein Christian roots for centuries, it is imperative that this long-suffering and largely peaceful minority, as much as similar minority communities across the while country, be provided with their legal rights and safety nets. And whilst I remain resolutely against the formation of auto-defensive Christian militias in Iraq that might yield tactical results but no long-term strategic credits, I believe that it is the duty of the Iraqi government and occupying forces to ensure that those communities are not targeted for political, religious, ethnic or mercenary reasons and that Article 50 affecting their representation be re-instated into the Provincial Elections law at the soonest possible moment.
Such problems of refuge, displacement and fear targeting minority communities in Iraq have become eye-wateringly endemic. Whilst it is true that several hundreds of Iraqis have indeed been returning home from Syria, thousands more continue to register with the UN in Damascus in order to receive vital food aid - underscoring the recent hardships faced by this refugee community. The latest figures from the UNHCR revealed that some 13,000 Iraqi refugees had newly registered with the agency in the past three months (July till September 2008). The Syrian government states that there are 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, down from 1.5 million two years ago, but considerably higher than other NGO-led estimates. They are based largely in the Douma and Sayyide Zeinab suburbs of Damascus as well as the northern city of Aleppo.

Potential returnees receive a number of relatively generous financial incentives from the Iraqi government as well as a small sum from the UN-run Voluntary Return Grant. However, the UNHCR is ensuring that those returnees are fully aware that their refugee file will be closed once they leave Syria and they will require a visa from the Syrian embassy in Baghdad [its ambassador was accredited on 13th October] in order to be re-admitted into Syria again.

Another major issue that is shaping the fate of the country today is the future of the American troops in Iraq once the UN mandate expires on 31st December 2008. As many readers are aware, a draft pact known as Sofa, or status-of-forces agreement, had been reached between both sides which allowed US troops to stay in Iraq for three more years. It required US forces to pull off Iraqi streets by the middle of 2009 and leave the country altogether by the end of 2011 unless they were asked to stay longer. More critically, it ascribed certain conditions under which Iraq would have the right to try US service members in its courts for serious crimes committed while off duty. But the only blocs that have endorsed the pact without reservation are the main Kurdish parties. Crucially, the Shi'i alliance of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has sought amendments to the draft. Moreover, the followers of the Shi’i cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are deeply hostile to the pact and recently staged a massive street demonstration against it as they marched from their stronghold of Sadr City in the east of the capital to a nearby public square at a university.

However, it seems increasingly unlikely the Iraqi parliament would endorse the pact this side of the presidential elections in the USA on 4th November, and Iraqi officials have begun discussing a ‘Plan B’ under which they would ask the UN for an emergency extension of the existing mandate if the draft were not ready by the end of the year. The severity of this potential crisis over issues as far-reaching as sovereignty, state responsibility, legal jurisdiction and detainees was underlined by the US Secretary of State who warned Iraq from Puerto Vallerta that Iraqi forces cannot yet defend the country by themselves, and that Baghdad should accept the pact and the security that its 155,000 troops in Iraq provide not only for the country but also for its leaders. It is worth adding that there are today 17,000 detainees held at Bucca and Cropper Camps, two American detention facilities in Iraq, and their future fate also needs to be agreed upon between the American and Iraqi negotiators.

The Sofa controversy is unfurling at a time when US forces handed over responsibility for security in the Babil province - a vast and primarily Sunni province named for the ruins of ancient Babylon, but also dubbed the triangle of death - to Iraqi forces. This province, south of Baghdad, is the 12th of 18 provinces in which primary responsibility for security has been returned to Iraqi forces. With violence at four-year lows, only the capital Baghdad, four ethnically and religiously mixed northern provinces as well as Wasit province along the Iranian border still require day-to-day American patrols.

What is important in this context is not only that an agreement - Sofa in this case - is being drawn up between Iraqi and US governments. The fact that it is actually happening would show that the rules of engagement are perhaps slowly shifting in the Middle Eastern political sands. No matter what we think about the whole saga of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, or about the Iraqi leadership, it is an instance where an Arab government - beleaguered, and still very much at the mercy of the US troops - is making a stand and drawing a line in the very sand that hosted those foreign soldiers. This is a transmogrification of the colonial era mentality that put Western troops and officials above the law, and kept indigenous national and regional interests subservient to the colonial dictates of powers past and present.

I doubt any Iraqi political leader - certainly no Shi’i politician - wants the stigma of supporting the Sofa deal. As Rami Khouri wrote recently, if an agreement is concluded that tilts in the public eye too much towards the USA and allows troops, subcontractors and modern mercenaries to remain above the law of the land, we could end up suffering for years to come from a worsening of the state of this region, and by osmosis of the world, with more problems in such sectors as ethnic and sectarian strife, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, refugee flows, general security, and economic stress.

This inorganic complicity between American and Arab official interests was also made manifest by the rather abrupt haste with which Arab rulers - from Kuwait, Bahrain and Syria to Egypt, Jordan and the UAE - have almost been queuing up to refresh their ties with Iraq and re-establish diplomatic presences in the country after years of absenteeism and abstruseness. It seems the USA and most Arab regimes are primarily concerned about the spread of Iranian influence in Iraq and are mobilising to extend political recognition as a way of limiting Iranian and Islamist influence over this oil-pumping country.
All pacts notwithstanding, let me also point out that no matter who wins the US presidential election, America can only be on its way out of Iraq. Senator Barack Obama offers the most specific and speediest withdrawal plan, but even Senator John McCain who fantasises about a maverick “victory” will not be able to keep a large number of combat troops there for long. After all, without a major pullback from Iraq, the Pentagon will not have enough troops to fight in Afghanistan where the US is in danger of losing the real - not contrived - war on terrorism against Al Qa’eda and perhaps also the Taliban.
However, before leaving office, the Bush administration has to ensure at least that the Iraqi Shi’i-led government renounces its sectarian impulses and fulfils its commitment to integrate about 54,000 members of the Sahwas or Awakening Councils - Sunnis paid by America to provide security in local neighbourhoods - into the security echelons and other public services.
When all is said and done, I am confident that the savvy of my readers would inform them that the situation in Iraq is still precarious and subject to different political pressure points. One sensitive meter of the danger facing Iraqis is the situation of the media. The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists says about 135 journalists and 53 other media staff have been killed in Iraq since 2003, making it the deadliest conflict for reporters in decades. Recent reports coming out indicate that the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, a non-governmental local organisation that defends reporters, has unveiled a new hotline to protect journalists and reporters fearing for their lives. Already, in the two weeks since it was set up, this hotline helped thwart the killing of a number of reporters in Basra and elsewhere.
So how precarious is the current situation and where do we go from here? As a New York Times commentator opined recently, “Misguided and frightening, US policies have helped change those ordinary human beings into religious zealots and then monstrous terrorists. Iraq, I believe, was a microcosm of this transformation of a whole region. This is why I just hope that a future US Administration would help manage those cleavages and in the process not only help pacify regions of the world but also re-strengthening American presence globally. This is precisely also why I - unlike some people perhaps - would like to see the Iraqi misadventure come to a peaceful and successful conclusion. This conclusion will neither be a new Middle East nor a democratic state, but one where law and order would prevail and in the process disempower those radicals that are not only egging further violence but also hoping that its levels would increase and hence serve their dubious causes.”
When the Iraqis themselves are disunited, it is easier for outside elements to conflagrate the situation further with their own political bags of tricks. But Iraq today stands once more at another crossroads and its hazy future could sway in the direction of further fragmentation or come together toward a common good. What concerns me is that politicians - primarily Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’is, since they are the principal actors - are playing a zero-sum game that discounts the collective interests of the country. Whether by fear, interference by outside actors or self-interest and greed, they are catapulting the country away from a federal sense of cohesion that would usher in stability and are instead sowing further discord.
I started my article with two quotations from The Sirens of Baghdad that highlight the thoughts of many Arab and Muslim streets today. Whether those perceptions are well-founded is not the real issue today. Rather, what matters is for the next US Administration - be it Barack Obama or John McCain - to fathom the reality of the American interest in the region and act accordingly. Anything else would maintain if not strengthen this perception of anti-Arabism and anti-Islam and lead to constant conflicts between political ideologies, cultures, religions and instincts across wide chasms. In fact, any American politician appointed to a responsible position on Iraq / Middle East should read this book and learn from its cogent lessons.
I believe that the Arab and Muslim masses today are expressing their anger more by silence than by strident words. They witness the seemingly wanton hypocrisy of the hegemonies of the region, aided and abetted by local rulers whose interests are sometimes inimical with that of their peoples, and enhanced by meddlesome foreign countries that are either coveting the oil wealth and military harvest of Iraq, or else cross-fertilizing it with more dogmatism and bigotry. Either way, unless the situation is managed intelligently, such silence cannot be maintained forever: the sooner the mandarins of our foreign diplomacy convey the urgency of the new world to their masters, the sooner we might have some hope for peace not only in Iraq or the Middle East but also in the eerily inter-connected global world that is prey to many fault-lines.
I am often too scared to ask whether we need to wait for that next silent implosion to turn into another loud explosion before we learn from our egregious past mistakes. When will we hear the deafening masses that still keep silent as they cry aloud?

Almost in bemusement, my mind wanders to Cicero, one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. In one of his four orations against Lucius Catilina in the Senate, he warned cum tacent, clamant - and it might be worth checking out how little our philosophical attitudes have morphed since the pre-Christian times when Cicero uttered this admonition!

It was not so very long ago that the majority of the Lebanese people celebrated joyfully the brokering of the Doha Agreement that promised to put an end to the interminable chapters of political and physical violence.

One of the more unusual ways in which they tasted this hopeful sense of coming together was the introduction by Häagen Daz of the ‘Doha Agreement Ice Cream Cone’. For just LL 10,400, the Lebanese could buy a cone that was the result of a joint venture between the American ice cream giant in Lebanon and Qatar Airways. The promotion was expected to last so long as the mood in the country remained one of reconciliation - or at least until the politicians “started fighting again.”

However, I did not see those cones being sold at any of the outlets when I visited Beirut recently. Did I not look hard enough, or was it likely due to the fact that reconciliation had weakened as a marketable currency in the country?

Over the past three months, much has happened in Lebanon. The Lebanese got a new president at long last, and a national unity cabinet was put together that also amended the previous electoral law of 1960. Mind you, it did not grant Lebanese expatriates the right to vote in the next parliamentary elections, nor did it lower the voting age from 21 to 18 although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines anyone over 18 as an adult. Moreover, Presidents Assad and Suleiman also importantly agreed - at least in principle - to establish formal diplomatic relations, with Damascus and Beirut opening embassies in their respective countries for the first time in 64 years since independence from French mandate.

But in addition to those developments relating to the Doha Agreement, and even though ice cream cones are not easy to find in the market, there are a few hopeful efforts at reconciliation underway, all the way from the national all-factions dialogue under the aegis of the president, to the parallel efforts aimed at bridging the yawning gaps between bickering Christian political parties to the one-on-one meetings of bellicose political leaders such as those of Al-Mustaqbal and Hizbullah.

Yet, whilst all those sanguine efforts are trying to contribute toward the stabilisation of the country, tensions remain quite dangerously high. There are murderous attacks and inter-confessional spurts of violence occurring for instance across the northern town of Tripoli that is largely a Sunni bastion. An oft-quoted example is the recurrent violence between the Baal Mohsen district (that is pro-opposition) and Bab al Tabbaneh neighbourhood (that is pro-majority). There have also been bloody attacks against Lebanese soldiers as well as civilians on buses or in streets. Those examples exacerbate the fears of many Lebanese that darker clouds could easily re-appear on the horizon again After all, Tripoli is geographically close to Syria, and some pundits harbour the suspicion that an unsettled Tripoli could be used by Syria as justification to extend its influence over Lebanon or even send its army back into the country. Indeed, it is no mere detail that the highest-ranking Salafi Authority in Lebanon, Dai al-Islam Shahhal, warned against an incursion by the Syrian Army into north Lebanon saying it would open "the gates of hell and lead to what is similar to Iraq and its misery."

Meanwhile, in the midst of this ominous rumble of developments, the issue of the arms in possession of Hizbullah is also casting a dark shadow over any genuine reconciliation. Given that one man’s meat is another’s poison, literally half the Lebanese population consider that Hizbullah should disarm with its weapons coming under the control of the Lebanese army. The other half believes that they should stay with Hizbullah and its Shi’i Amal allies since they would be used in resisting Israeli aggression and occupation. And the major - though not exclusive - justification for resistance by those factions insisting on keeping their arms is that Israel detains the Shaba’a Farms as well as the Lebanese part of the village of Ghajar (with recent reports that Israel might return it to Lebanon next month) and Kfar Shouba hills that were meant to be returned to Lebanon - either directly or through an initial UN trusteeship - also in accordance with UNSC Resolution 1701.

But what are those Shaba’a Farms anyway?

The tiny sliver of lush land 25 square kilometres across is located at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and northern Israel. Israel seized those Farms from Syria in 1967 when it occupied the nearby Golan Heights. Ever since then, those Farms have been caught in a tug-of-war over ownership. Lebanon claims them, with the backing of Damascus, while Israel insists they are part of Syria.

The confusion over the borders actually dates back to 1923 when Britain and France, who held the mandates of the League of Nations over the territories now comprising Israel, Lebanon and Syria, failed to outline their borders clearly. Lebanon has accused Israel of refusing to return the Farms in order to benefit from the bountiful natural resources of the region, particularly its water resources. According to officials, the Farms hold 23 natural water sources and also strategic or military importance due to their altitude.

When UNSC Resolution 1701 brought an end to the 33-day war between Israel and Hizbullah in the summer of 2006, it called upon the UN secretary-general to propose a border demarcation for those Farms. The UN ruled that the withdrawal from Lebanon was complete and that the Farms were Syrian.

Nevertheless, in March 2008, the Lebanese geographer Issam Khalifeh published a book full of documents claiming the Farms were indeed Lebanese, including a 1946 deal in which Damascus recognised Lebanon's sovereignty over the territory. Attached to the report was a map with 48 border markers, but Syria has refused to let this paperwork be sent to the UN, perhaps because it did not wish to go down road of recognition and delineation of an international border.

All these are issues that are clearly weighing upon the Lebanese mindset, and in the process retarding any progress from a state of brittle uncertainty to one of relative stability. However, what is also clear to me is that the major objective of all the parties above all else are the parliamentary elections of spring of 2009 that might well decide which parties enjoy the majority of votes - and therefore of seats and of power. So whilst there is a government in place for running day-to-day affairs, everyone understands that the political focus today revolves truly around those elections.

But here is another hitch! In some sense, it is almost predictable what percentages, districts and seats the Sunni, Shi’i and Druze candidates would get in the parliamentary elections next year. The real guesstimate is the future number of Christian seats that will be obtained by the different Christian coalitions since their future is very much in play now - particularly given their divisions in an almost irredeemable - roughly 50:50 - ratio. Only last week, the Maronite patriarch, HE Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, expressed the hope that Christians would respond to the initiatives of the Maronite League and “would sit together because other sects have achieved reconciliation”, adding that “agreement among all the Lebanese is impossible.”

A straw poll conducted by Now Lebanon explored the reason hampering inter-Christian reconciliation. The results revealed that 38% thought it was due to electoral interests and the requirements of electoral mobilisation, whilst 14% thought that it was due to a lack of serious efforts to respond favourably to reconciliation endeavours, and a large percentage of 49% attributed it to lingering personal feuds among Christian leaders.

Those polls notwithstanding, I am convinced that the Lebanese Christians could play a central role in the forthcoming elections and that in the process would also hold the balance of power between the other political parties so they could then perhaps advance those community demands that have been ignored for long. Broadly put, there are now two competing Christian camps. On one side, Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces and Amin Gemayel’s Phalanges are still struggling for an end of Syrian influence and attempting to mobilise support for the need to restore a fully sovereign Lebanese state. They would claim to pursue this strategic choice by pressing Hizbullah to disarm and also by setting up an international tribunal charged with investigating Rafiq Hariri’s murder. On the other side of the Christian political divide, General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement has challenged the inert political system as a whole and broken its isolation by forging a controversial “understanding” with Hizbullah and by allying himself indirectly with the Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh.

The divisions between the two Christian camps are fundamental and stretch back decades in some instances. Today, the leadership of this community is at stake. General Michel Aoun wants to be that undisputed leader, which is why he is attacking the other leaders relentlessly, undermining the role of the Maronite patriarch and even sniping at the president. However, his position is becoming increasingly untenable. He is gradually losing the support of key allies in the form of the Metn leader Michel Murr and of the Armenian Tashnaq party, and as a consequence is trying to compensate his losses in Mount Lebanon by winning over some areas in the South (that he visited recently), as well as in Ba’albek and Hermel.

A third option to this bipolar configuration still remains unclear. What are President Michel Suleiman’s own plans? In his inaugural speech, he emphasised demands and concerns that are significant to the Christian community in Lebanon. Other than rejecting the naturalisation of the Palestinians and facilitating the return of the displaced, he highlighted administrative reform, decentralisation, empowering the presidency and ensuring better Christian representation in high-ranking civil positions. If he were to field his own parliamentary list, or support such a list, it would weaken Aoun considerably and lead toward the re-formation of the Christian camp. In fact, with his stewardship of intra-Christian reconciliation, the President holds a few cards and his influence could grow considerably and make significant differences in the forthcoming elections.

In fact, what is remarkable to me is that Christians and Muslims are seemingly reconciling more easily in Lebanon than the Christians themselves - a fact that not only underlines the virile tussle for power and control, but also that their continued bickering would run the risk of leading even further to their gradual erosion. After all, the political landscape keeps changing with the almost cyclical re-balancing of outside powers that are playing the Lebanese card of pitting the Lebanese against each other. In fact, the recent difficult hopes for conciliatory moves between the Lebanese Forces and Marada can only benefit the whole country politically even thought there is a lot of bloody history between both sides.

I am being cautiously optimistic that things will not change too dramatically in the country this side of the 2009 parliamentary spring elections. Barring any major eruptions of terror and mayhem, and with the parties using their networks to consolidate their own positions, I would argue that Syria is also waiting for the results of the 2009 parliamentary elections to see what leverage it will have internally. While internationally, it is also awaiting the results of the US presidential elections, as it knows that the US alone can determine Syria’s position as a regional player, its role in Lebanon, the advancement of its negotiations with Israel, and of course, its position vis-à-vis the international tribunal. I also suspect that Syria will probably make no concrete moves for now on diplomatic relations, and on most sensitive issues, including border demarcation, the Shaba’a Farms and Lebanese detainees. But one key concern for me is the fact that Iran might still prove to be the wild card that would interfere and upset the political applecart.

Ever since 11 November 2006, when a number of ministers resigned from the cabinet, Lebanon has witnessed assassinations, demonstrations, sit-ins, internal and external threats, a temporary military takeover of west Beirut, exacerbated tensions in the north of the country, attempts at re-enforcing the mechanisms of government and many internecine feuds that have been followed by attempts at dialogue and reconciliation. So what is all this doing to the whole country?

Lebanon is simply being weakened in major dribs and minor drabs, cleaving parts of the country from each other whereby different politicians claim to work for the one nation but pledge their allegiances to their own factions. Confessionalism, always a Lebanese misfortune, is increasingly overwhelming the political apparatuses, and in the process widening the chasm between different politicians and the ordinary people and altering facts on the ground. My constant dread is that a combination of internal divergences and external threats would lead to new rounds of bloody fighting.

After all, has this not happened before? It often saddens me that Lebanese politicians are so gifted in splitting hair and believing in the absolute truths of their own arguments let alone those of their regional or international supporters that they act as clan leaders rather than global politicians and in so doing turn deaf ears to a vox populi that aspires for peace, coexistence and harmony in the country. A divisive blend of religious myopia, political self-interest and nefarious outside interferences from all sides are together rending the country apart and stymieing the creative gifts of a people that talks about the oneness of Lebanon but ends up shaking that oneness at the seams. Does anyone pause to think of the whole picture?

Last week, following an agreement between Al-Moustaqbal and Hizbullah parties, the Lebanese have taken down the provocative posters. This is a move in the right direction, but will it augment the chances for peace? Or is it simply that the Lebanese sagas will continue until such time as there is a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement? Has Lebanon lost all control over its own geopolitics and is now a fallible pawn on the chessboard of international politics? The Arab World (no matter how one defines this amorphous term) is too divided in its interests to buttress up Lebanon, and the West is too greedy to care much about it either. So this small country is paying the price of international politics and local power plays.

Given such realities on the ground, is it surprising that the song Khalas (Enough) by the Lebanese musician and singer Nicholas Sa'adeh Nakhleh has become a chart-topper? After all, ordinary people are saying khalas, and I suspect they will also rally round his next song Unity once it comes out since it too will speak volubly to the majority of Lebanese instincts.

Torn between war and peace for so long, will Lebanon finally find peace? More to the point, will it be allowed to find it?