IRAQI PREMIER PROMISES JOBS FOR SUNNIS FIGHTING AL-QAEDA.

During a March 19 visit to the Sunni-dominated Baghdad neighborhood of Al-Amadiyah, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki promised jobs for those Sunnis who are fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq, international media reported. Al-Maliki said the government will "open the doors of all the establishments to welcome" the men who are fighting Al-Qaeda.

Al-Amadiyah is known as an Al-Qaeda in Iraq stronghold and its residents have expressed loyalty and support for former President Saddam Hussein. "I am proud of the efforts of the sons of this neighborhood. We will welcome our sons who are challenging terrorism and injustice. They will have suitable jobs. What they have done is amazing," al-Maliki said. Thousands of Sunnis have allied themselves with U.S. and Iraqi forces as part of the awakening movement in an effort to root out Al-Qaeda in Iraq. SS

RECONCILIATION CONFERENCE ENDS IN IRAQ CAPITAL WITH CALL FOR UNITY. The two-day reconciliation conference in Baghdad ended on March 19 with a final communique that "condemned terrorism and extremist ideologies, and urged the promotion of national unity," Iraqi media reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 17 and 18, 2008). Tashin al-Shaykly, a spokesman for the conference, told "Voices of Iraq" that "The conference's preparatory committee, through the state's Ministry for National Dialogue, will table the recommendations reached by the conference participants to the council of ministers and parliament." Despite the positive statements emanating from the conference, several high-profile leaders and political blocs refused to attend. Muqtada al-Sadr's political bloc, Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National List, and the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament, all boycotted the conference. SS

IRAQI GOVERNORATES LAW APPROVED. The Iraqi Presidential Council on March 19 approved a law allowing provincial elections to take place, international media reported the same day. On March 17, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Baghdad to urge Iraqi leaders to make greater political progress.

A press release by the council said, "there would be no changes to the law" and "[the Presidential] Council has exercised its right to review the law, delaying its implementation, and that it would now take effect."

On February 27, the council's three members, President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tariq al-Hashimi and Adil Abd al-Mahdi, vetoed the law after failing to reach a unanimous decision on whether to approve it (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 28, 2008).

The main sticking points were provisions in the legislation

that allow the prime minister to remove regional governors from office. Abd al-Mahdi, who heads the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), vociferously objected to giving the prime minister more authority, instead demanding more power be placed in the hands of the governorate councils. The approval of the law paves the way for provincial elections, which the UN announced will take place on October 1 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 15, 2008). SS

As I've said for years now: the Iranian public is our one great asset in this struggle with the mullahs, so little desire from me to alienate them on the nuke issue, where we seem to give everyone in the region our okay to pursue nuke energy but not Iran. We know what the fix is on their nukes: transparency in return for guarantees of no hard kill.

Our fear is entrenched leaders fearing their own, armed with nukes and a desire to create some splendid little diversion abroad that gets them the continued dynamic of U.S. antagonism, which in turn allows them to keep justifying their repression at home.

But we're getting that scenario anyway, without tapping into the one asset we should access: their public.

So the key question becomes, How to access this population in a way that it's their demands, not poisoned by association with or support from us, that drive the internal political process.

Shortest answer to me? We promote growing connectivity, which will be more eastward than westward in implementation, and we deny them an enemy, pushing their sources of new connectivity (India, China, Russia) to temper their behavior.

We can either accept the East's desire to make their money and get their energy from Iran and bring them into the enforcement mix that way, or we can try to keep them out and push them to enforce on the basis of no economic gain.

I personally like incentivized partners, and I like to take advantage of stuff like this: "But now, almost nine out of 10 [Iranian] voters surveyed want the top political position [Supreme Leader] to be accountable to voters, the poll found."

Remind you of recent Cuban polls that said 87% want to pick their next leader?

But what this approach takes is a whole different attitude on the part of the U.S. regarding enforcement. Right now we see ourselves as the only sheriff in town, and so everyone plays all angles on us instead of our targets, with the end result being we're the ones largely being contained.

And I find that an annoying end to the Bush administration.

Survey Says Iranians Favor Free Election Of Their Top Leader
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 9, 2008; A17

As Iran's brief election campaign for parliament heats up, a new public opinion poll shows that the vast majority of Iranians would like to directly elect their supreme leader in a free vote -- and be able to replace him.

The power of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has long been at the heart of political debate in Iran, because the supreme leader can veto legislation, presidential actions, judicial decisions and candidates for office. Iran's top political position has basically become a lifetime job, even though a panel of 86 religious scholars elected every eight years has the right to dismiss him. Khamenei has held the job since 1989.

But now, almost nine out of 10 voters surveyed want the top political position to be accountable to voters, the poll found.

The survey shows limited interest in the current political choices for parliament, with about one-third of voters preferring neither reformists nor hard-line conservatives. Among those polled, only 8 percent favor conservatives, and 22 percent want to vote for reformers. One out of four voters surveyed in all 30 provinces said they did not know who they would vote for in the election on March 14.

Although more than 80 percent of those polled said they would vote, Iranians are not inspired by any of the candidates, the poll concluded.

The poll was carried out last month by the nonprofit Terror Free Tomorrow and D3 Systems Inc., an international polling and research group.

"The most interesting result is that Iranians are expressing a desire for a more open and democratic system. The fact that they are not enthusiastic or inspired by the ballot choices shows a level of discontent," Kenneth Ballen, president of Terror Free Tomorrow, said.

Conservatives are expected to win the parliamentary contest, in part because hundreds of reformist candidates were disqualified from running. The poll found that more than two-thirds of Iranians believe all reformist candidates should be allowed to run, with 10 percent supporting the decision by a religious council to bar them.

"This survey confirms what any visitor to Iran notices right away, and that is people's utter lack of inspiration with their political system and political candidates," Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said.

Iran's parliamentary election is a harbinger of the presidential election next year. The United States and the European Union have increased diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran partly in the hope that Iranian voters would turn against hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who faces reelection.

Terror Free Tomorrow is a nonprofit advocacy group whose advisory board members include the former 9/11 Commission co-chairmen -- former Democratic congressman Lee H. Hamilton (Ind.) and former Republican governor Thomas H. Kean (N.J.) -- as well as Republican presidential candidate John McCain and former Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). The organization undertakes public opinion polls to determine what policies could be most effective in countering extremism. It is funded by independent, public and family foundations, such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

D3 Systems, based in Vienna, Va., has been polling in Iran since 2004. It carried out the survey of more than 1,000 Iranians by telephone from within the region. The two groups conducted another poll in Iran last June.

Ahmadinejad gets a boost from the new poll. On the economy, 42 percent of Iranians polled believe the economy is headed in the right direction, up from 27 percent in June. The Iranian president's populist economic policies have elicited criticism from parliament and other hard-liners.

More than three-quarters of Iranians polled favor normal relations and trade with the United States, but Iranians are less supportive of concessions to the West than they were in the 2007 poll by the same groups.

The three most important steps Washington could take to improve relations with Tehran are withdrawing its forces from Iraq, increasing visas for study and work in the United States, and a trade deal between the two countries, the poll found.

"The previous poll . . . showed that people were more open to the idea of Iran offering concessions" in exchange for abandoning a nuclear weapons program, Ballen said. "That's dropped from 80 percent to 70 percent."

Just over half of the Iranians polled favor developing nuclear weapons. Since June, the proportion of Iranians who believe that that goal is "not at all important" has dropped from one-third to one-fifth.

At the same time, 70 percent of Iranians told pollsters that they favor an arrangement in which Iran would receive aid and investment in return for allowing inspections and guaranteeing not to develop nuclear weapons.

About six out of 10 Iranians also said they support the Iranian government's military and financial assistance to Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iraq's Shiite militias and the Palestinian militant movements, the survey reported.

Fewer than one in four Iranians polled said they are willing to recognize Israel even if the Palestinians get full statehood, while 45 percent said they would support the recognition of Israel as part of a broader deal with the United States, down from 55 percent in June.