Sorry, dude, I wish we lived in a time when it would be unusual for various sorts of war supporters to write off the Sunnis in just such a way. Unfortunately it isn’t so. But I’m pleased to hear you’re not of that school.

Because as the rest of us know here on planet Earth, the US desparetely doesn’t want a civil war in Iraq…

It even more desperately doesn’t want a general insurrection against the occupation of Iraq, the possibility of which prompted the whole current political process to begin with. The decision to risk civil war by creating an ethnically-riven military and government was made a long time ago—and if you think those insitutions are meant to act as anything but proxies for American power, you’re kidding yourself.

“Unbalanced enemy of reality”? Seems to me I’ve heard phrases like that before, usually levelled at people who doutbed the various rationales offered for the Iraq invasion and raised warnings that it would probably end in disaster. You’ll have to forgive me if it doesn’t carry much wait for me, from you, in this context.

[The “meth pipe” reference is a nice touch, though… but surely it would be more applicable if I were a red stater? Okay, okay, low blow.]

But to answer your meritless question, yes, if the US treated the Sunnis like Saddam and Turkey treated the Kurds, that’d be pretty bad. Same for the Shii’tes. But you kind of out yourself as an unbalanced enemy of reality when you say things like “Shiite proxies”. Because as the rest of us know here on planet Earth, the US desparetely doesn’t want a civil war in Iraq and if the Shiites started a civil war, they certainly would not be the US’s proxies.

Can you make that claim with a straight face? The US Marines make no such claim.

Do not complain that “the Sunnis” are being bombed, when bombs fall on a specific building in a specific town, if you do not want to hear that “the Sunnis” are harboring terrorists, when one neighborhood somewhere harbors a half dozen terrorists. I’m allowed to operate at the same levels of abstraction as you guys, am I not?

We are not treating “the Sunnis” in any way at all. We’re dishing out the bombs and infrastructure repairs in a locally detailed manner. Don’t pretend otherwise.

So, you would regard similar treatment of the Sunnis as brutal, unjust and entirely evil—be it by the US Army or Shiite proxies? It’s just that it kind of looked like you were trying to imply the Sunnis should smart enough not to resist and that such treatment would be justifiable as insurgency reduction.

Now, the answer to your question. Modern governments have three possible answers to the problem of guerilla warfare:

1. Collective punishment (which is usually only effective if you’re willing to imprison, kill or run off entire populations),

2. An overwhelming political advantage (allowing a government to infiltrate, isolate and dismantle an insurgency), or

3. Muddling through with some awkward mixture of conventional and “unconventional” tactics until one side or the other tires (in cases of occupation vs. native insurgencies it’s usually the occupier).

Going into a situation where you need (1) pretty much makes for a war criminal unless you have some overwhelmingly urgent security threat to contend with. Finding situations in which (2) will work is exceedingly difficult: the only two examples I know of in the 20th century that involved major Western powers were the British in Malaya and the Americans in the Phillippines, and both worked because the insurgent movements came pre-isolated . The Iraq adventure has so far contained elements of (1) and (3)—with often bizarre and usually unpromising results—and virtually nothing of (2) [the current “political process” was not only pretty much forced on the Americans but is reported to have played out largely in the isolated, cut-off world of the Green Zone—which is why disputes over Iraq’s “Constitution” have the feel of kabuki theatre to me].

Perhaps you should re-read, or just read, my other posts. I had assumed no one would use the word “deserve” to actually mean that the Kurdish people, those who were defenseless and had nothing to do with the insurgencies “had it coming”. Rather “deserve” was a poor choice of words meaning the Kurds could expect Turkey and Saddam to respond in a brutal, unjust, and entirely evil manner as they did.

Anyway I thought people might be interested in David Hirst’s view of this and other things: (I guess I’m now blogwhoring). Hirst has always been one of the sharpest of middle eastern commentators, and his views although they may (or then again may not) turn out to be too pessimistic, should probably be taken into account.

The money shot: ‘Iran will be the main beneficiary of US failure and the long-overdue accession of the Shia majority, its coreligionists, to political ascendancy in Iraq. The increase in regional clout it derives from this will be used at America’s expense. The mullahs have long been readying themselves for a great reckoning. With their new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, readiness seems to be mutating into active desire. He and those around him believe that only the US stands in the way of Iranian regional dominance and that the US, seen as defeated in Iraq, is now a “sunset power”.’

Also: ‘On the other hand, no one invested greater expectations in the Iraqi adventure than Israel. US success, it thought, would transform its strategic position. But with US failure, Israel will grow more repressive against the Palestinians, and more ready for military action against Iran. Should the US itself deal with Iran in the same violent and partisan fashion as it did Iraq, the adverse consequences of that new adventure will outstrip those of the earlier one. For there is no reason to doubt that Iran’s response, from both itself and its strengthened Shia and Islamist allies in the region, will be the devastating one it constantly promises.’

Ghastly wording. I see both examples as ignominious.

jet: What are some successful, Doctor Slack approved, historical examples of insurgency reduction?

Now, that looks almost like an outright dodge. Which, I suppose, shouldn’t surprise me; it’s all very well to talk tough from behind a keyboard about how such-and-such people should expect to be “dealt with harshly”… until you come to realize the sort of company it puts you in.

But you know what? I’m not willing to let you off the hook. I will answer your question, happily, but only after you answer mine.

To repeat (I’ll modify slightly to take the Armenians out of the equation):

Can we conclude from your post that you are defending Turkish treatment of the Kurds? Or by the same logic, that you think Saddam’s Anfal campaigns were a good thing?