from: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0409war-postwar09.html

Iraqi exiles express concerns about nation's next government

Ethnic, religious, political differences loom

Daniel Gonzlez
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 9, 2003 12:00 AM

With U.S. troops and tanks storming Baghdad and Saddam Hussein's regime on the brink of annihilation, Jabir Algarawi and other Iraqi exiles are wondering what their government will look like in the future.

Will a freely elected democratic government that respects the rights of Iraq's diverse religious and ethnic groups replace Saddam's repressive and brutal dictatorship?

Or will postwar Iraq be more of the same? A country dogged by foreign intervention and fragmented by bitter ethnic and religious rivalries.

"Liberating Iraq is going to be easy, what comes next is going to be the hard part," said Algarawi, executive director of the Arizona Refugee Community Center in Phoenix.

Algarawi, 36, a former chemistry student in Iraq, fled to the United States in 1993 as a political refugee after participating in the failed 1991 civilian uprising to oust Saddam from power.

In February, the U.S. State Department invited Algarawi to participate in a two-day meeting to discuss the future of Iraq's civil society. Twenty-five Iraqi exiles from around the world representing different ethnic and religious groups participated, Algarawi said.

Wary of foreign influences

Like most Iraqi exiles, Algarawi will be thrilled to see Saddam's regime gone, but he is wary about foreign occupation.

"Of course we accept the coalition troops to stay there for a while to help the Iraqi people hold free elections," Algarawi said. "But it should be up to the Iraqis who should run Iraq."

He also worries about future U.S. intervention in Iraq.

"A lot of Iraqis believe Saddam is a guy brought to power by the CIA and they want to know, is the CIA going to do the same thing again?" he said.

Sam Darmo, the Arizona representative of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, said he wants to see postwar Iraq become "an example of democracy in the Middle East." The Assyrian Democratic Movement is one of seven Iraqi opposition groups recognized by the United States.

For Iraq to become that example of democracy, Saddam's repressive dictatorship must be replaced with a freely elected government that respects the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, rejects the development of weapons of mass destruction and favors peaceful relations with neighboring countries, Darmo said.

"The most important thing is we want a secular government," Darmo said. "We don't want a religious government. We want a free and democratic government with equal representation of every single group in Iraq, including the four main ethnic groups, the Assyrians, the Arabs, the Kurds and the Turkmen."

Many factions to please

But Colin Elman, a political science professor at Arizona State University who researches the global causes of war and the conditions for peace, said uniting Iraq's fragmented ethnic and religious groups under a central government won't be easy.

"The trick is going to be building a federal system of government that allows these kinds of aspirations to be fulfilled and maintain Iraq as a single geopolitical entity," Elman said. "That's a very tough act to pull off."

Iraq was created by the British following World War I and is made up of several distinct groups, each with its own specific and oftentimes competing interests, Elman said.

For example, the Kurds, concentrated in northern Iraq, desire to form their own independent state - an idea fiercely opposed by neighboring Turkey, he said.

"The first likely train wreck will be what happens in the north between the Americans, the Kurds, the Iraqis and the Turks," Elman said.

Another thorny issue that threatens to divide Iraqis will be postwar Iraq's relationship with Israel and the Palestinians. Under Saddam, Iraq, a mostly Muslim country, has been a strong supporter of the Palestinian military, putting it at odds with U.S. foreign policy.

Although he despises Saddam, Algarawi, a Muslim, favors the creation of a Palestinian state and hopes postwar Iraq will continue to support the Palestinians.

But Darmo, an Assryian Christian, wants postwar Iraq to develop a closer relationship with Israel, one more in line with U.S. foreign policy.

"The new Iraqi government should recognize the right of Israel to exist and Palestine to exist and promote peace between Palestine and Israel," said Darmo, 47, who left Iraq in 1974 after he refused to join Saddam's Baath Party.

Optimistic outlook

Ewan Gewargis, 67, an Iraqi exile living in the United States since 1973, agrees there will be conflict between religious and ethnic groups in postwar Iraq, but he believes it will be short-lived. He worked for an insurance company in Iraq.

"We know at first there will be confrontations between groups, but very soon there will be a kind of government that works to serve all the people of Iraq. That's the kind of government we expect," said Gewargis, host of an Assyrian radio program broadcast locally on KXEG 1280 AM and carried worldwide on the Internet.

He said he hopes the rights of Christian Assyrians and other minority groups will be protected in the constitution and represented in the new government.

He believes the reconstruction of Iraq should be led by the United States, not the United Nations as the British and others have suggested.

The United States, he said, "is the only savior of the Iraqi people and the only government that should be trusted by the Iraqi people," Gewargis said.

Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or at (602) 444-8312.