http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/01/sectarian_violence.html

But the basic jist of it backs up what I was saying above.

‘As is true of practically everything about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the strategy of pitting Shiites and Kurds against Sunnis was not the result of careful planning. Its origins were, in fact, in a purely military response to the most important turning point in the occupation of Iraq—the complete collapse of Sunni security forces in which the U.S. command had placed such high hopes.

During an April 2004 offensive launched by the insurgents, most Sunni military units simply disappeared overnight. According to a June 2004 Government Accounting Office report, the number of Civil Defense Corps troops in Western Iraq, which included the Sunni strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, was estimated to have fallen by over 80%—from 5,600 to about 1,000—largely because of “collective desertion of units.” ’

In other words, my point was right. As of 2004 and, for that matter early 2005, the ‘Iraqi army’ was thoroughly infiltrated by the insurgency, badly trained, incompetent, badly equipped, and had poor morale. When faced with the insurgents, they just ran away.

Therefore: ‘American officers in Mosul, however, were not concerned with ethnic strife but with winning a war, or at least staunching their losses, and the peshmerga seemed like the only effective Iraqi instrument in sight for doing so. “They’re well-organized, fierce and get the job done,” a U.S. company commander in Mosul rhapsodized about them.

Later, the Kurdish militiamen would be joined by the fierce Shiite “Wolf Brigade,” whose founder reportedly considered the Sunni members of the Association of Muslim Clerics to be “infidels”. That unit tortured innocent Sunnis to force them to confess to being part of insurgent organizations—confessions which the local authorities recognized as having been coerced once the Brigade left the city. Nevertheless, in December 2005, NBC’s Richard Engel reported that the Wolf Brigade was considered to have been effective in Mosul. ’

IN EFFECT, therefore, what happened in the Summber/Autumn of 2005 (unremarked by the world press) was the dissolution of the Iraqi army, and its replacement by Shia/Kurdish militia.

As of now (i.e. early 2006) there is, strictly speaking, no Iraqi army (and one might imagine that the situation vis a vis the police force is not much better). Instead there is a Shia army, a Kurdish army and….well that’s it. Oh and a lot of very frightened Sunnis.

‘The US command still prefers Shiites and Kurds to police Sunni cities and towns.’

But that’s ok because ’ In October, a “senior military official in Baghdad” was quoted in another Tom Lasseter piece saying, “Maybe they just need to have their civil war. In this part of the world it’s almost a way of life.” ’

The article concludes:

‘But the fact that a senior American military official would resort to such a racist explanation to evade responsibility for creating civil-war conditions in Iraq only underlines the depths to which the United States has descended.’

We could still get workable local governments with local militias and local police. But at this point the places we’re having trouble, those would be insurgent local governments with insurgent militias and insurgent police. If they were represented in regional and national government they might not fight, but the US government would probably consider it a defeat.

And it’s not obvious to me at all that there was plenty of political cause for an anti-Franco insurgency. It was an agrarian, conservative Catholic country; socialists and anarchists have gone too far in the 1930s and the fascist reaction hasn’t, it wasn’t too brutal.

Granted, post-Stalin Soviet governments were not run by paranoid mass murderers, but people who’d seen the trains to Siberia running at full capacity were a bit wary of taking risks.

To use another example, I’d say there was plenty of political cause for an anti-Franco insurgency in Spain after 1939, but the situation was too hopeless. The Republic had been defeated, most of the best people were dead or in exile, no outside power was about to step in, and the repression following guerilla incidents was horrific. Didn’t stop the Spanish from opting for freedom the first chance they got, but as long as the old monster was alive…

The right wing NSZ (Nationalist Armed Forces) – it split in ‘42 or so with the moderate half joining the “Krajowa” (the other half was pretty much fascist). It had more members than the “Ludowa” though, at least prior to the split.

While they are very poorly paid by US standards, they are quite well paid by iraqi standards. Opinion polls and anecdotal evidence say they are respected by iraqis, though it of course tends to be kurdish soldiers who get respected by kurds and shia soldiers who get respected by shias.’

Well I’m not really disagreeing with you. I think the solution to the problem is to see that the problems of Iraq has changed. Initially, the Iraqi forces were badly paid, and despised. But as you pointed out (although I think they are still badly paid) unemployment has increased a lot since then, so it’s probably not as bad a job as it once was. In the same way, just because (as the rest of the economy disintegrates) it’s one of the few jobs still around, to join the army or police force is probably a lot less societally unacceptable than it used to be.

So in a sense the Americans have solved that problem. But at what a cost! The way the problem has been ‘solved’ of course is by the creation of a Kurdish militia and a Shia militia, both operating under the rubric of ‘the Iraqi army’: neither having any loyalty to ‘Iraq’, but only to Kurdistan in the one case and…well….Iran probably in the other.

And of course all the problems stated in the first paragraph STILL apply (double) to the Sunni areas.

Incidentally, when I used to write for the unlamented (by everyone except me) ‘no war blog’ i once semi-jokingly remarked that perhaps the Americans would return back to their Sunni-Ba’athist friends. After all, the Ba’athists and the Americans worked well together: the Americans still support Sunni extremists in Saudi Arabia, and Iran is now the new enemy of the minute. It seems I might have been right:

‘Three years after Washington ousted Saddam Hussein from power, some Shi’ite leaders and even U.S. allies say it is switching favor to the ex-leader’s Sunni minority to counter Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

U.S. officials say the efforts to “reach out” to Sunni Arabs are needed to undermine a violent insurgency they are waging and to foster a stable government.

But Shi’ite leaders brought to power by the U.S.-led invasion also see an attempt to clip their wings because of the influence over them of neighboring Shi’ite Iran.’

It’s not completely impossible that when all this nightmare has run its course in (say) 20 years time that the situation will end up much the same as it began, with a neo-Saddam, backed by the US, back in power.

But I still think a catastrophic civil war, which will probably enlarge and engulf the whole region (possibly with the use of nuclear weapons) is still the most likely scenario.

While they are very poorly paid by US standards, they are quite well paid by iraqi standards. Opinion polls and anecdotal evidence say they are respected by iraqis, though it of course tends to be kurdish soldiers who get respected by kurds and shia soldiers who get respected by shias.

If iraq survives as an entity then the iraqi army has some good will and might have a place. I think it’s possible iraq might survive as one or two nations, or maybe three, and many of the units we’ve trained might maintain continuity. I suspect our training hasn’t been all that useful but to the extent they have group morale they might keep going despite problems of pay and supplies.

It might be the best training that some of the shia militias get, despite its obvious flaws.

I can’t tell how likely civil war would be if we left. We have been nurturing ethnic conflict since that provides a need for us. Would they settle down without us? It might be possible if shia gave minorities enough reason to stay. I don’t know whether they would, without our influence. But they won’t while we treat sunnis as enemies and shia can at best be neutral.

Historians might date the civil war to the attacks on Fallujah/Najaf. We came back and destroyed Fallujah after our elections, but we agreed to stay ot of Najaf—shia agreed to a separate cease-fire.

‘Actual performance of the Iraqi forces seems to have been pretty good the last year. Reported problems tend to be those of excessive zeal (i.e. torture and assassination), not surrender or going over to the other side.’

From 2005:

‘Iraqi army and police units are deserting their posts after the recent escalation in insurgent attacks, according to reports from around the country yesterday.’

However, let’s bend over backwards to be fair and assume (wrongly in my opinion) that this is a dealable with problem.

Next problem: ‘Opinion polls make it appear that shias generally approve of iraqi army recruits. They feel liket he iraqi army is going to do good things. They like the idea of having an iraqi army.’

Well, perhaps. Or is it, perhaps, that they like the idea of a Shia dominated Iraqi army?

‘The Bush administration’s exit strategy for Iraq rests on two pillars: an inclusive, democratic political process that includes all major ethnic groups and a well-trained Iraqi national army. But a week spent eating, sleeping and going on patrol with a crack unit of the Iraqi army – the 4,500-member 1st Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Division – suggests that the strategy is in serious trouble. Instead of rising above the ethnic tension that’s tearing their nation apart, the mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population.’

The only question for me is: will historians, looking back, date the beginning of the Iraqi civil war to 2009? Or 2005?

Hand this checklist to a Saddam type and he’ll succeed.

Try to do this in the circumstances that the US army faced in Iraq and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Creating local militias? Intelligence operations by local police? Destroying the political cadre of your opponents? All counterproductive for a stable democratic process.

If you look at Iraq in this light you can see the contradictions. On the one hand you need the Peshmerga, Badr corps and the Mahdi army, on the other you need to disband them.

On the one hand you’ll need an old fashioned secret police to gather intelligence, on the other you need a public and transparent police force to maintain law and order.

Etc.

This military talk reminds me of the standard prejudices of the US army when they were exercising in Europe in the last cold war years. Naivite. Following orders. Silly plans.

Maybe the US army did better in Afghanistan because a lot of the planning was done by the CIA there.

That sums up the early response. We officially thought it was only a few thousand “dead-enders” who hadn’t figured out they’d lost yet. Kill enough of them that the rest give up and it’s no problem.

We want to think of ourselves as liberators that almost everybody supports. So if we find out that a significant part of the population opposes us, we then need some reason why so many people would be evil enough to oppose liberation.

US military assessment of readiness is the statistic usually quoted to support your view. An assesment produced by the same set of officers who mismanaged the situation in the first place.

Actual performance of the Iraqi forces seems to have been pretty good the last year.

Pick which to believe.

Who assesses actual performance?

When some of the same officers who mismanaged the situation in the first place say that the iraqi army is widely dysfunctional, while others of them say it’s had good performance, which do you believe?

Which ones would get rewarded for spinning, the ones who say it’s bad or the ones who say it’s good?

As far as Vichy goes, I think you’re right and the point is: if there is a political cause for an insurgency – the insurgency is not going away whether you eliminate their ‘infrastructure’ or not. You have to eliminate the cause or eliminate significant part of the population.

And if the insurgency is just a bunch of bandits not supported by the population, … well, then it’s not really an insurgency, is it?

A whole lot of iraqis are unemployed. And the pay is not bad. Could be dangerous, though. Police work is particularly dangerous unless you’re in a good area.

But military isn’t that bad. You get paid while they train you, and then you don’t have to desert until they send you to do something dangerous.

And there are incentives to stay in, although they chance of dying if the insurgents attack you is something like 16 times that for US troops.

Opinion polls make it appear that shias generally approve of iraqi army recruits. They feel liket he iraqi army is going to do good things. They like the idea of having an iraqi army.