Legend has it than when Sheikh Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar - Iraq's new president - sat down with several tribal sheikhs at the height of the Falluja crisis in April, he got straight to the point. "I know who you are and where you come from," al-Yawar, a leader of the giant Shamar tribe, is said to have announced. "I know what you're about. Don't give me this religion talk. This is your chance to find a solution or to be obliterated."
Almost all the versions of the story surrounding the negotiations breaking the siege of Falluja underscore the most important current lesson of politics in Iraq: it still takes a tribe.
It took al-Yawar, the softly-spoken 46 year old with the backing of one of Iraq's largest and most powerful tribes, to bring some calm to an otherwise intractable situation. It now seems that the Americans and the UN's nation-builders have accepted that tribal relations defined by centuries-old customs and alliances may yet again be the most coalescing force in Iraq.
As president, al-Yawar stands for the essence of Arabism - he represents the most traditional of Arab institutions, wears the most traditional Arab dress. He is also a symbol of the Iraqi nationalism born out of the 1920 revolt that gave birth to modern Iraq, and is re-emerging under the US occupation.
As a sheikh of the Shamar tribe, he presides over branches that include Sunnis in the north and Shi'a in the south of the country. His family's tribal seat in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, on the border with the Kurdish region, has fostered his close ties to the Kurds. And his general comfort with the west - he studied petroleum engineering in Saudi Arabia and later at George Washington University in Washington and speaks fluent English - has helped build a firm understanding with Iraq's American and British caretakers.
He is not the only tribal leader to be flourishing. Last summer, Sheikh Yunis Hamed al-Lateef sat down in the gilded hall of Baghdad's Alwiyah club and reflected on how quickly his fortunes had turned. Just months earlier, the chief of the Utbah tribe had feared for his life at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime. He had struggled to quell the inter-tribal conflicts sown by the regime, and found himself a pawn in the government's attempts to control the Iraqi heartland. But as he sat down in the exclusive country club dressed in ceremonial clothing he told me: "People have finally realised just how much political power the tribes have... We've learnt a lot, we're organised, and we are ready."
By some estimates, there are as many as 2,000 tribes in Iraq, organised in various clusterings. No one knows exactly how many Iraqis are members of tribes, or continue to take their tribal identity seriously, but it probably runs into the millions. Tribal identity is more important in small towns and the countryside than it is in big cities, but even in the metropolis tribal backing can count for a lot.
Like most Iraqi tribes, the aristocratic Shamar were once dismissed as quaint relics of Arab history - former nomads who dominated the camel trade. Yet during a year of occupation they have re-emerged in the countryside to deliver protection and some semblance of law and order. In the cities, they have promised to lend nascent political parties legitimacy and votes for future elections.
It is basic physics. The political parties have just arrived and have no real legitimacy, and neither do the exiles. In the meantime, there is a power vacuum and the tribal leaders are filling it. Al-Lateef, for example, serves as the real police chief, judge and mayor in the Aziziya region, despite the authorities appointed by the occupation. On any given day, he presides over property disputes, family squabbles and criminal tribunals. He has worked to defend tribal lands from looters and created alliances to extend security and co-operation.
The Shamar and other tribes have been accused of giving safe haven to key Ba'athist leaders since the fall of the regime. Tribal leaders insist that tribal law does not protect criminals and outlaws. But some acknowledge that they are still bound by the age-old law of dakheel - the offer of protection to any stranger who presents himself to the tribe.
Centuries ago, tribes and sub-tribes formed as collectives to pool resources and provide protection. With the arrival of the British-backed King Faisal in 1921, tribal power continued to be critical in the hinterland but receded in the cities as the new government attempted to modernise the country.
Under Saddam Hussein, who is from a Tikriti tribe, tribal relations were reinvented as he sought to play tribes off against each other. He lavished those who supported him with resources and denied others basic services like water, electricity, and fertiliser. In the 1980s, Saddam banned tribal names from the public record, but by 1991 had proceeded to co-opt the power of the tribes.
Al-Yawar is the most modern face of those tribal legacies. He is well read, with a knack for gadgets, and understands the tribal mind as well as the western one. Still, al-Yawar did hesitate at joining the Iraqi governing council (IGC) last year. When members of the coalition provisional authority (CPA) first approached him in Saudi Arabia to serve on the IGC last summer, he took some time to decide. The connections to an occupation would be troubling and he would have to clean up after the CPA's mistakes. As a successful mobile phone salesman who had spent his formative years in Saudi Arabia, life was quite good. And though he had contacts with people in the opposition to Saddam, he was an outsider to the core group of Ahmad Chalabi, Iyad Allawi and others. It took his uncles, Humaidi and Muhsin, both high-level sheikhs in the Shamar tribe, to convince him of his duty to serve as a tribal leader.
Al-Yawar's grandfather, Ajil, was a major power player in Iraq two generations ago. He features in Gertrude Bell's memoirs: "When I saw him I reckoned him foremost of the Shammar sheikhs in character and influence," Bell wrote. "He was a powerful, magnificent creature." He proved his power when, after being humiliated by Colonel Gerard Leachman, he decided to join the 1920 revolt, helping up-end the power spectrum and, in the process, setting the stage for the creation of the nation of Iraq itself.
Decades later, al-Yawar's uncle was a leading chieftain in Mosul, seat of the northern branch of the Shamar. Now it is Ghazi al-Yawar's turn. In the past year he has often found himself battling to calm the tensions between Sunnis and Shi'a and has encouraged many in the resistance to drop their arms.
"I try to convince them that things have changed remarkably and we risk missing out if things continue like this," he told me in his house in Baghdad earlier this year. He has not been shy of criticising the Americans either.
As president, al-Yawar is largely a symbol for Iraqis - many of the reins of the new government after 30th June will be handled by the more elusive prime minister, Iyad Allawi. But al-Yawar's rise has brought him recognition and backing from Iraq's streets. At least for now, many Iraqis believe, the occupation is finally acknowledging the real politics on the ground.
