Bad news from Basra
My assessment of the battle for Basra has changed significantly. I still think that, in the subjunctive conditional tense, it was a reasonable piece of analysis – al-Maliki needed to do something[1] to start to establish his monopoly on violence within Iraq and I put material weight on his own seeming subjective assessment that he was politically and militarily strong enough to pull it off. But in the actual present tense, things are going the other way. (A disclaimer should certainly be appended at this point that this is all rather toward the punditry end of the spectrum rather than analysis so if that winds you up then skip it, but having picked that ball up I’m sort of committed to running with it).
John is right to be suspicious of this kind of “this looks like such a stupid idea that he must have some private information that explains it all” argument, and there was always the possibility that in fact, it just looked crazy because it was crazy – either a reckless desperation gamble, a wholly unrealistic assessment of the situation or a calculated attempt to precipitate enough of a crisis to force the USA to commit more resources. With the Maliki forces seemingly having made no progess toward their objective in Basra, and with rioting and curfews in Baghdad and actual armed battles in Kut, it looks like Maliki’s gamble is going badly wrong. Napoleon’s maxim is relevant here; “if you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna!” – having picked the fight, Maliki absolutely had to win it, and failure here is likely to mean political failure too.
It’s hard to see a good way out of this. John’s prediction record here is substantially better than mine, and he thinks that we settle back down to a lower-energy state of affairs, with some kind of renegotiated ceasefire, but I’m now less optimistic than that. It seems to me that Moqtada al-Sadr’s control over the movement bearing his name is weakening; the man himself is in Qom, Iran, studying Islamic scripture and trying to stay out of trouble[2]. Meanwhile, the Mehdi Army[3] has clearly been getting more and more restless over the six months of ceasefire and still seems to me to be potentially quite fissiparous. The really interesting question to which I don’t know the answer is; to what extent do the uprisings across Shia Iraq reflect different branches of the Mehdi Army supporting one another, and to what extent are they local flare-ups which were precipitated by the attack on Basra but not coordinated responses to it?
Finally, the use of airstrikes in urban areas is a tactic which is very difficult to either endorse or condone. It is needlessly destructive and almost never effective. And it creates homeless refugees. One thing we absolutely know from the African civil wars is that people who grow up in refugee camps tend to learn a violent pattern of behaviour; whether or not we are creating terrorists who will end up attacking us, the sheer proportion of the refugee population is very bad news for the future development of political stability in Iraq.
By the way, in my brief excursion onto “the pro war side” (as in, I was expressing a point of view which had the implication that the US troop surge might end up having favourable consequences – I note that something like my original post ended up being the Bush administration spin, although I swear I came up with it independently), I certainly learned something about the true nature of the anti-war opposition, however. Specifically, more or less everyone who had been my former comrade, continued to be perfectly polite to me and discussed the situation in a rational and civilized manner. A lot of people thought I was completely wrong in that analysis (I still think it was sensible and will defend bits and pieces of it, but I clearly missed the big picture) and said so, but I didn’t take it personally and am not thin-skinned, so there you go.
[1] It was sensibly objected to me in comments that I have in the past been rather harsh on “something must be done” type arguments. In this case, I thought an exception to the general rule was warranted, because it was a situation with a clear deadline – the beginning of US troop drawdown at the end of the surge, and this was enough to shift it from the “now or later” category into “now or never”.
[2] The alternative view is that Sadr’s claim that the ceasefire is still in force is a stratagem but I don’t believe this. Sadr’s actually much more of a politician than a soldier (and arguably more of a politician than an imam) and has a lot to lose from a collapse of the current government, not least that he would have to put his coalition
[3] Which used to be referred to as the “Mahdi Army”, and I think my pronunciation/spelling theory of geopolitics is relevant here.
On air strikes, The Globe and Mail (Toronto) is running a fine series this week called Talking to the Taliban, which is the result of interviews by an Afghan with 42 members of the Taliban. One finding:
The use of air strikes is not only unethical, it also creates enemies.
But Reverend Wright says that America kills innocent people with air power, and Reverend Wright is a scary black man, so Daniel and Tom S must be incorrect.
Reification watch: I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round. Nor do I get why being refugee-ised in this way is so much worse than by artillery, or for that matter by Those Bastards (for your own preferred flavour of bastard) just fighting into your house the old fashioned way.
(Note that I really do despise strategic air warfare, due to it essentially being “kill as many civvies as fast as possible” and also unrivalled in combining devastation with startling ineffectiveness.)
More to the point, I think it was Daniel Davies who pointed out that the example of Rwanda shows that if you put your mind to it, you can organise a hell of a pile of corpses with nothing more complicated than big knives. I therefore conclude it’s much more important to avoid war, rather than any particular tactic.
Getting to the point, the volume of refugees in and around Iraq is a really serious problem, and mostly the work of our new allies in NOIA, our old and current allies in Dawa/SCIRI/Whatever It’s Called This Week, and our new enemies in the Mahdi Army. And the Kurds.
The fact that literally all the political factions involved are bunches of ethnic cleansers should tell us something about our next move.
Meanwhile, I am slightly surprised that Daniel Davies considers my characterisation of his work as “tiresome look-at-me contrarianism” and “a lot of fucking total utter bollocks” to be “polite”, “rational” and “civilised”.
Meanwhile, I am slightly surprised that Daniel Davies considers my characterisation of his work as “tiresome look-at-me contrarianism” and “a lot of fucking total utter bollocks” to be “polite”, “rational” and “civilised”.
Among City gents that’s what passes for polite conversation. If you want to annoy him you’ll have to do the Megan McArdle bit about how anti-war types secretly relish huge death-tolls.
I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round
more likely, and airstrikes tend to deliver a greater tonnage of the nasty stuff, more inaccurately.
Meanwhile, I am slightly surprised that Daniel Davies considers my characterisation of his work as “tiresome look-at-me contrarianism” and “a lot of fucking total utter bollocks” to be “polite”, “rational” and “civilised”.
get your facts right you twat. You said “annoying look-at-me contrarian”, not “tiresome” and “absolute total fucking bollocks” not “a lot of fucking total utter bollocks”. The differences in nuance should be clear to all to see.
More seriously, that’s the sort of stuff that anyone should be able to put up with or they’ve no business opening their gob. I can hardly object to “look at me” as a description given the empirical evidence; I do like it when people pay attention to me and started blogging for more or less exactly that reason (like everyone else). I wouldn’t admit to “contrarian” if it carries an implication of insincerity, but I do make a point of trying to look at the opposite case to the one I’ve been thinking about recently and this was one of those occasions. I’m slightly disappointed that you or any of my readers find it “annoying” or “tiresome” but frankly I’m 35 years old so the time has probably gone for any major personality changes so the extent to which it makes sense for me to get wound up about that is pretty small too. Particularly in a week when people are accusing me of taking pleasure in hearing about thousands of deaths in Iraq.
BTW fn2 ends in mid-sentence. Sadr “would have to put his coalition” where, if it’s not an indelicate question? I presume the idea is that if he brings down the government he will have to create a replacement, or something like that. I’m not sure I agree – why is that his problem, particularly?
6: “put his coalition back together again” was the original sentence I intended to write, as AFAICS party discipline is more or less non-existent in the Sadr bloc, but I kind of tailed off while looking for references to the time he had to chuck out half a dozen of his MPs for talking to the Americans, and couldn’t be bothered finishing the sentence.
more or less everyone who had been my former comrade
Surely it’s “usual” comrade, not “former,” I hope.
@3: Nice to see that lack of irony shows no sign of going out of fashion on the Left… Unless, of course, it is irony piled on irony, but go down that road and no-one’ll know whether anyone means anything they say any more… and then … and then … blog-posting might stop being able to change the world!!
I still think that, in the subjunctive conditional tense, it was a reasonable piece of analysis – al-Maliki needed to do something[1] to start to establish his monopoly on violence within Iraq and I put material weight on his own seeming subjective assessment that he was politically and militarily strong enough to pull it off. But in the actual present tense, things are going the other way.
What a ridiculously academic style of writing. Sorry. To make things worse, I’m not even sure if the sentence you describe as subjunctive and conditional actually is subjunctive and conditional. “I think it was reasonable” is about as indicative as it comes. But if I were to point that out, I would be as academic as you.
This episode in Iraq is good evidence of the futility of analysis applied to chaotic conditions. However, one thing is certain. The carefully managed statistical claims of “success” for the US escalation (“surge”) will collapse in the face of open sectarian fighting, smoke pouring out of the US embassy compound, and a likely increase in US casualties.
The question remains how powerful the forces of US propaganda will be in the face of recent events. Fantasy has regularly defeated reality in the minds of the American public thus far. That is why McCain is doing well in the polls.
8: no, I see you all now as former former comrades. I didn’t really spend enough time on the Bushie side to make many comrades there.
it’s much more important to avoid war, rather than any particular tactic.
well yeah, I guess there’s a certain logic to that, but people don’t listen and keep starting wars anyway and then some of them develop this annoying tendency to cut every discussion of jus in bello short by muttering something along the lines of “war is hell” and if that is so why not turn the place into a parking lot/glass/nuclear wasteland to get the whole thing over with quickly all in the spirit of saving lives of course …
What about the ones who’ve never started a war in their lives, but think sometimes that a glass parking-lot might be preferable to a boot stomping on a human face, forever? Or is that just that Friday feeling?
“The fact that literally all the political factions involved are bunches of ethnic cleansers.”
“This is about a meeting that took place in the NW Baghdad district of Kadhamiya. Voices of Iraq says the meeting, organized by the Sadr organization, included 300 tribal leaders, Shia and Sunni, from throughout Iraq, but the meeting also dealt with local issues including a promised re-opening of the “Bridge of the Imams” that links this mainly Shiite neighborhood on the west bank of the Euphrates with its twin district Adhamiya, mainly Sunni, on the east bank. (There is a nice satellite map on the website of the Meeting Resistance film, which was mostly filmed in Adhamiya.) Among the main points in the final statement of the meeting: A demand for scheduled withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq; and a statement to the effect the foreign forces are responsible for the internal divisions that have plagued Iraq since the invasion.
Statements to VOI by participants indicated that there had been considerable groundwork for this meeting, including reciprocal visits between Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders. Moreover, it looks as if the organizers of this consider this more than just an isolated or local reconciliation event, because VOI leads its story like this:
The first Iraqi tribal conference wound up its proceedings on Sunday, in Kadhamiya, Baghdad, with the issuance of a final statement that demanded a schedule for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, and commitment to the return of those removed from their homes, and compensation for their damages.“ May I suggest that you rant less and read more? Everything above has appeared on this page at least once. This shit is getting really, really, really, annoying.
Al Sadr began to build his militia when he decided that the Americans were not leaving. The American authorities tried to take him out, but did not act quickly enough. This is a bitter struggle between a nationalist who wants to eject occupiers and a neo-imperial plundering expedition. Al Sadr may not survive, and Iraqi nationalism may also be a casualty of the war, but America will pay dearly for its hubris.
Everything above has appeared on this page at least once.
Yes. This is technically known as “spam”.
Further, it is far from secret that the Sadrists have good contacts with the New-Old Iraqi Army types in the Sunni insurgency, but this doesn’t make them the Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy Peace Campaign.
or a calculated attempt to precipitate enough of a crisis to force the USA to commit more resources
That’s was my slightly paranoid take on events.
Alex: “Reification watch: I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round.”
A quote from Lt. Colonel John Paul Vann, author of ‘A Bright Shining Lie’: ‘This is a political war, and it calls for the utmost discrimination in killing. The best weapon for killing is a knife, but I’m afraid we can’t do it that way. The next best is a rifle. The worst is an airplane, and after that the worst is artillery. You have to know who you are killing.’
However many innocent Iraqis have been accidentally killed by US Army troops and Marines, there’s probably several times that number killed by bombs. The USAF recently announced that it had fitted 500-lb bombs with GPS and laser-guidance mechanisms, to replace the 2000-lb bombs in ‘tight quarters’. Think on that – we’re dealing with people for whom the equivalent of ~700 hand grenades counts as a discriminate weapon.
IIRC, the first Lancet survey found that the leading cause of violent death was aerial bombardment.
There was a book written by a reporter accompanying a Marine unit in the initial invasion, way back in the ‘rice and flowers’ days of March-MAy, 2003. The blurb on the back cover stated that this unit was ‘the deadliest unit in the US Marine Corps’. Force Recon? Elite Death Commandos? Genetically enhanced cyber-grunts with plasma rifles?
Heavy Artillery.
Daniel, has there been any reliable information that Sadr has been in Iran? I know that this is alleged time and time again in the news; but this is the same news who’ll print administration allegations that Sadr is Iran’s proxy without mentioning the Iranian sources of the ‘Iraqi government. This makes a intra-Shiite struggle look like SadrIran vs. the Government of Iraq – not accidentally.
and then some of them develop this annoying tendency to cut every discussion of jus in bello short by muttering something along the lines of “war is hell” and if that is so why not turn the place into a parking lot/glass/nuclear wasteland to get the whole thing over with quickly all in the spirit of saving lives of course …
The coming McCain campaign in a nutshell. And there’s a very good chance it’ll work.
Barry: from my blog, November 2003.
Thanks, Alex – I was judging from the content of your statement, which IMHO indicated that you didn’t realize that.
Re 18:
The subtext of American military “strategy” is always recourse to superior force, usually technologically enabled. Thus, there is little consideration of the progressively less discriminating character of using more and more powerful weaponry.
The US military, working with the press, deliberately minimized disclosure of a sharp increase in aerial attacks in Iraq in the last year. The bill for using these tactics will come due when the relatives of the collaterally damaged seek their vengance.
It is the belief of American “conservatives” that our difficulties in Iraq are the result of insufficient brutality. Thus, if McCain is elected, we can expect to see vastly greater bloodshed. But this war will not be decided by weapons; it will be decided by people, and we have created a nation of angry people who are dedicated to our expelling us from their country.
If air power gets used in Iraq it’s obvious who’s using it. A whole city can be aware that Yankee Doodle is wrecking their shit again.
Daniel, has there been any reliable information that Sadr has been in Iran?
good point, not really. It was reported that he’d gone to Qom a while before anything blew up, but not sourced to anyone in particular.
Again, the factor of manpower here is crucial. If the American people-300 million strong-had volunteered or allowed themselves to be drafted, then the insurgency would have been crushed, through sheer force of numbers, and the bloodshed would have come to an end. But they have refused to lend themselves to the Bush regime’s schemes, which in turn has forced them to use air strikes, an inevitably gruesome and inadequate substitute. Sadly enough, in a backhand way the antiwar opposition has contributed to this situation, in part.
Yorkie,
So “literally all the political factions involved are bunches of ethnic cleansers.” is now “this doesn’t make them the Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy Peace Campaign.”
You’re welcome.
Again, the factor of manpower here is crucial. If the American people-300 million strong-had volunteered or allowed themselves to be drafted, then the insurgency would have been crushed, through sheer force of numbers, and the bloodshed would have come to an end. But they have refused to lend themselves to the Bush regime’s schemes, which in turn has forced them to use air strikes, an inevitably gruesome and inadequate substitute. Sadly enough, in a backhand way the antiwar opposition has contributed to this situation, in part.
I feel like the entire last five years have been building up to this comment. Wow. Congratulations, Jim, you’ve taken this thing to a whole new level.
What on earth is blogging going to be like after 4:50 pm on the 8th of March, 2008? Jim’s comment is a bit like Roger Bannister’s four minute mile – now he’s shown what’s possible, I’m sure that others will follow in his tracks and push the boundaries back even further. It’s exhilarating in a strange way.
2 points of interest on timing:
1. Cheney was recently in Iraq.
2. The new due date for secession of hostilities is the date currently set for Petraeus to report to Congress.
Maybe, just maybe, the administration believes that a Democrat will win the election and is therefore trying to “win” the Iraq war in the interim. (By “win”, I mean “kill all opposition to the current government”).
I’m assuming Jim’s comment is ironic in intent. But, per Daniel’s response, it almost doesn’t matter.
I am pretty certain the Mahdi Army has been involved in activities in certain parts of Baghdad that could be fairly described as ethnic cleansing. In fact, I am sufficiently certain of this to wonder why everyone appears to have forgotten their Boys’ Book of Iraq, which everyone outside the wingnut universe had managed to get by the end of 2006 or thereabouts.
In general principle, the fight for Basra was something that would have had to have been done if there had been a potentially-viable national government in Baghdad and a real possibility of winning the battle. But in the real world that’s just an exercise in complex hypotheticals.
American involvement is increasing. Not only Maliki’s credibility but also Bush’s, and McCain’s, and the neo-cons’ credibility are on the line. If a genocidal scorched-earth approach is the only one that will work, is that what we’ll see.
Ah, here we are. Here’s some more (partisan Sunni). Here’s Pat Lang on the topic. Here’s Patrick Cockburn. Here’s Juan Cole.
“If air power gets used in Iraq it’s obvious who’s using it. A whole city can be aware that Yankee Doodle is wrecking their shit again.”
Posted by Righteous Bubba ·
A very good point – there may be factions without number shooting, abducting and carbombing people, but there’s only one faction with armed aircraft.
So whatever spirit Jim’s comment was offered in, I think there are people who believe that sort of thing and think of it as a problem. I wonder if they realize that we know that sending 10 million Americans into Iraq probably could stabilize the country but we also know that’s neither desirable or on the table.
Is American occupation the only reason why the Mahdi people resist the government instead of getting integrated into it?
re: 31 and the Mahdi Army ethnic cleansing. The search term is “Abu Dira“, the “Rusafa Butcher”, the nickname of a legendary (and possibly mythical) assassin who was part of the MA and who allegedly massacred dozens of Sunnis every day in the southern districts of Baghdad in 2006. Al-Sadr has steadfastly denied that his militia have carried out massacres or ethnic assassinations (which is actually quite unusual for an Iraqi politician) but these denials shouldn’t be taken at face value.
I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round.
You raise an interesting question. But, considering the reaction to the bombing of Guernica, this is not a new issue.
People have an especial horror of being killed by bombs and poison gas. Who knows why?
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Is American occupation the only reason why the Mahdi people resist the government instead of getting integrated into it?
As I understand it, they stood to make significant gains in the elections in October.
… which is probably why they didn’t start this.
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sending 10 million Americans into Iraq probably could stabilize the country
I wonder why nobody thought of this in Vietnam?
I do wonder what Cheney’s visit had to do with the attack. Was it his idea, did he approve it, or (as is claimed) did he just receive Maliki’s unexpected announcement that the attack would take place? (I don’t think that we should accept that claim automatically).
To a degree, the whole world revolves around the U.S., though in many ways it doesn’t. In this case, it pretty much does, and I hope that we can hang this on Bush and Cheney.
Me: “Daniel, has there been any reliable information that Sadr has been in Iran?”
Daniel: “good point, not really. It was reported that he’d gone to Qom a while before anything blew up, but not sourced to anyone in particular.”
Thanks, Daniel. This is not trivial; it’s clear by now that the administration’s propaganda line is:
Government of Iraq, including parties which Officially were Not Formed in Iran, despite their stated history + all loyal Iraqis, including many heavily armed Sunni’s who are offically Not and Never Have Been Guerrillas Shooting at Americans
vs.
IranAlQaedaAlQaedainIraqSadr, who are all the type of guys who did 9/11, and would again if we don’t kill them now (not that we’re claiming that anybody did anything if pressed, just noting similarities). And who probably were responsible for almost all of the attacks on US troop, and horrific casulaties amongst civilians, not that were were horrific casualties amongst civilians.
Considering how dependent the US has been on Sadr’s unilateral cease-fire in order to claim progress in Iraq, it’s bizarre to the point of comedy that he’s held up by the US and its sad excuse for news media as some kind of a monster.
In an Iraqi context, he always struck me as kind of a piker.
Perhaps someone has already done this to death in Imperialism studies, but why-O-why does the supposedly manly urge to Empire have to walk hand in hand with shrill, hysterical paranoia? Living among my countrymen for the last five years has made me feel like Jane fucking Goodall. What the hell is wrong with these little monkeys? They alternately beat their chests and duck for cover, all in response to the same stimulus.
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I’d have omitted the words “this on”, myself.
And added the words “sour apple tree.”
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frankly I’m 35 years old so the time has probably gone for any major personality changes
Get a cat, it’ll change you overnight.
cat s/b brain parasites…
Juan Cole thinks that Cheney signed on to this, at least, though he thinks that it was probably Maliki’s idea. (One theory is that Maliki staged the attack specifically in order to put pressure on the US. The theory that this came as a surprise to “the Americans” probably means other Americans than Cheney. Just the Ambassador, SecState, and other flunkies.)
In any case, Bush and Cheney are fully signed on.
America is already deeply involved militarily, which pretty much destroys the “the surge worked” storyline. Beyond that, this seems to open a new era of increased chaos, pretty much destroying the idea that there has been progress in the last several years.
That sounds disastrous. Shouldn’t Obama and Clinton be preparing to go ballistic about this most recent failure? And if they aren’t, isn’t that a sign either that they’re too timid to be President, or that they’re unlikely to change policy much?
Though there are two ways it might turn out not to be a disaster, at least not from the neocon standpoint. One is that there’s a big turnaround militarily, and Maliki gains control.
The other is that a scorched earth bombing policy depopulates Basra and leaves Maliki in control of the wasteland.
OK, now. Bush: “I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq.”
And a very simple deduction, it is also a defining moment of the Iraq War, and the Bush Administration.
So if it goes badly, what will it mean? Will Bush say, “Oh, gee, I guess I failed”? One doubts that. Does he say “What does the Book of Revelation instruct me to do?” Much more likely. Does he say “What’s the point of having a tremendous supply of bombs if you don’t use them?” Can’t be ruled out. Defining moment, etc.
Alternatively, if it goes badly, will the Democrats be allowed to say that this was a defining moment? Probably not. Will they dare to? Probably not that either.
So just excuse me for being all crazy. It’s like some kind of dada Kabuki theatre with real bombs. Understanding it just makes you unhappier.
“Defining moment” doesn’t actually mean a moment that defines anything, though, does it? It’s merely a bullshit rhetorical trope meaning “this is important or at least dramatic, and I want to sound suitably portentious”.
So if it goes badly, what will it mean?
Hey, look over there! We’re bombing Tehran!
It seems to me that we could easily take Bush on his word and say “Yes, that WAS your defining moment”. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that. But what I expect from the Democrats is a measured and carefully hedged statement that means little or nothing.
Wait, Dsquared is younger than me? Fuck. And this is just going to happen more and more from now on, isn’t it?
John, you reckon the Bushies are likely to go apocalyptic on the Mahdis, but don’t they have a different “strategery” now – spreading enough money around to buy themselves some temporary peace and quiet? They can certainly find a few billion bucks to keep doing it until the election.
Buying people off was last week. Attacking Basra is this week. You don’t want your strategy to get predictable.
Yeah, for awhile I thought that the main Bush strategy was to buy everyon off until Nov. 10 and then start setting booby traps for the Democratic President. One theory is that Maliki didn’t like that and forced Bush’s hand.
Forgotten history: Bush sent the troops to Somalia between his 1992 election defeat and Clinton’s inauguration. The Bush family knows booby traps.
The raid on the Koresh complex in Waco was planned under Bush and executed very early in Clinton’s first term (Feb. 28). Reno hadn’t even been confirmed as Attorney General.
I am sorry for coming off as so stupid. All that I meant to comment upon was that there seems to be so much comtempt for Americans in this blog. If they are so evil and hateful, then why haven’t they pursued this war-and Vietnam, for that matter-to the bitter conclusion?
Grand Moff Texan: “Considering how dependent the US has been on Sadr’s unilateral cease-fire in order to claim progress in Iraq, it’s bizarre to the point of comedy that he’s held up by the US and its sad excuse for news media as some kind of a monster.”
As I’ve been saying above, the propaganda line from the Administration has clearly been that he’s a prime villain; at times the Prime Villain. The press, of course, usually goes along with it.
As for for claiming victory in the surge partially due to his cooperation, I have two theories, both valid, which are probably both operating at the same time:
1) The arrogance of this administration is infinite.
2) The whole purpose of the surge was to ‘kick the can down the road’ a year. Remember back in November, 2006, it was clear that the US public was sick of the war, and had inflicted losses on the GOP. Bush & Co had to do something; the status quo would clearly bleed them. So they came up with the rebranded Big Push (‘this time onto to Berlin) of WWI fame. It was spectacularly successful; it took them from Jan 07 to March 08. Now, the election season is in full swing, and things going to sh*t in Iraq (or going sh*ttier) is of far less importance to the administration.
Note that a primary target of the surge was the Democratic Congress, and that’s pretty well neutralized (perhaps coming into office pre-neutralized).
If you think of the surge in those terms, it’s been a successful operation, and the flaws become almost nonexistent.
@55 – There are 300 million Americans, Jim. Only few of them are pursuing any imperialist wars. Those who do probably are evil and hateful, but the rest of them could be OK; probably average human beings, more or less.
All that I meant to comment upon was that there seems to be so much comtempt for Americans in this blog.
In other words, you were changing the subject from the subject to the people talking about the subject.
I want my fucking bandwidth back, you knob.
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Wow, is Jim S. for real?
What I want to know is, is there a name for the specific fallacy where you accuse your opponents of holding some ridiculous belief, notice that they don’t act like they hold that belief, and then accuse them of inconsistency or hypocrisy for, in effect, failing to live up to your caricature of them?
I seem to recall seeing it described on this blog in the context of leftists who allegedly support a fundamentalist takeover of the US even though they hate fundamentalists. Oh, right, here, but no one seems to have come up with a pithy label.
Anwyay ol’ Jim has a pretty bad case of it.
Regarding contempt for Americans, the destruction of Iraq did not occur spontaneously. It has been executed and witnessed by Americans for over five years. What is the proper attitude toward people who have perpetrated and/or consented to this atrocity?
Iraq was unquestionably better of under Saddam than in its current mutilated state. America made Iraq a worse place to live than the evil dictator (our former ally) we deposed. That is a contemptible act.
All this nuanced analysis of the relative merits and morality of the conflict between the US and the various factions in Iraq is interesting. But, as far as I can tell, the surge was never meant to restore order to the country, but to restore order to the country until the approach of the elections. McCain will never be elected on an economic platform while the economy sinks into a protracted recession (or depression). But neither Clinton nor Obama will be elected on a platform of national security, even as the economy sinks into a recession. Evidently, the neocons hope to elect McCain on a platform of military Keynesianism.
What is the U.S. Endgame in Iraq?
Against this fragile backdrop it is puzzling that the United States would endorse such a high-risk operation, potentially jeopardizing the security situation and imperiling efforts to reach a national political accommodation, which was the animating rationale behind the troop surge from the start.
This article belongs in Atrios’ “Easy Answers to Easy Questions” series.
The answer is: “Endgame?”
Lemuel Pitkin,
The thread to which you linked is amazing. The comments actually serve as a better how-ever-many-years on its been recap of the wrongness of war supporters and the insights of war opposers.
My admittedly superficial impression is that Sadr’s “nationalist” ambition involves leading a Shiite-Sunni alliance of some sort, to rule Iraq, overthrowing the power of SCIRI/Dawa, which controls Maliki’s government.
The reports that the awakened Sunnis are unhappy with the Americans might have made it seem like it would be timely to demonstrate to the Sunnis, the useful power of the Mahdi Army.
This doesn’t have to be a prolonged struggle with Maliki, at this point. Just a demonstration that Sadr is in a very good position to take control of the two critical elements for an Iraqi State: the capital and the oil port. Having furnished a proof of concept, I would expect Sadr to negotiate status quo ante with Maliki in fairly short order, in order to regroup (Sadr’s militia Mahdi Army, although armed to the teeth and beyond, is probably not logistically well-enough organized to sustain a coordinated effort for more than a few days.
What follows is Sadr negotiating with the Sunni New Old Iraqi Army for set-piece assistance in the next go-around, which would be designed to be immediately fatal to the SCIRI/Dawa Maliki government.
After Sadr de-capitates the Maliki government, then the real civil war begins, as the Sunnis begin the long process of exploiting the defects in Shiite organization and lack of unity, to overcome vastly superior Shiite numbers.
I’d have contempt for anyone who a) dragged their country into war based on a flowchart of lies b) managed to fuck things up this badly, killing god knows how many thousands and c) hasn’t had the good sense to apologise, resign and jump in front of a bus.
Bruce@64 you’ve got the right pieces but the wrong order – ISCI/Dawa picked this fight with the Sadrists (who may or may not have splintered into a thousand glittering shards of sectarian thuggery), not the other way around. The demonstration is meant to be a Maliki and/or Dawa and/or ISCI one.
You must forgive me if I cannot summon any enthusiasm for this offensive. Yes, I suppose an Iraq ruled by a strong sectarian Shiite central government is preferable to an Iraq ruled by a patchwork of sectarian warlord fiefdoms, but Sadr didn’t abandon his ceasefire or spurn negotiations; Sadr isn’t dropping bombs on Basra; Sadr isn’t using the national Army (alongside Badr Organization) for partisan ends in anticipation of upcoming elections. In fact, Sadr looks positively restrained, calling for non-violent national protest and nationalist alliance between Sunni and Shiite. So I don’t feel much zeal for action against the enemy du jour.
Rather, I’m coming to wonder why we ought to spend any more American dollars or lives in support of the Maliki government, which, like every other party in the Iraq conflict, seems to see politics as a zero sum fight for power and resources, and armed conflict as continuation of politics by other means.
I was tepidly in favor of continued military presence on the basis of the Pottery Barn principle, but it looks like the conflict is spiraling out of our control, or perhaps long since has. As noted in another thread: the US military is just one milita amongst many, although one that attracts an inordiante share of roadside bombs. A new course: Withdraw the bulk of our forces, but maintain an over-the-horizon presence to act on intelligence re: al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, our real enemy there. As for the rest: I know no reason to prefer SCIRI and Dawa to the Sadrists—although I am interested in hearing some—and the rest of the Sunni insurgency evidently isn’t so reprehensible that we’re above bribing it.
I would welcome any arguments against the above, since, like most Americans, I’m woefully underinformed. I blame the shitty news media. And my own jaundice and apathy.
Daniel, perhaps you’ve allowed yourself to be seduced by the elegant Weberian phrase monopoly of violence too easily. Surely the point is that the government as a whole should have the monopoly of violence. Maliki is definitely not that government.
Just because Bush couldn’t bomb New Orleans in the aftermath of Katerina doesn’t mean we have a monopoly of violence problem in the U.S. In fact, to hedge against monopolizers of violence, most governments have in place some controls on the executive branch. For instance, there is a parliament in Iraq. Really.
I think you were misunderstanding the traditional Iraqi autocratic lunge for power as a stately move in the game of Weberian chess. Some Iraqi journalist, I forget who, once said, after interviewing a bunch of the exile leaders on the at that time Governing Council, they are all a bunch of little Saddams! Maliki is following in that less elevated path – a caricature whose attempt to identify himself with the one popular institution in Iraq, the Army, has blown up in his face, and confirmed the popular view that he is a buffoon.
The president also hailed the operation as a sign of progress, emphasizing that the decision to mount the offensive was al-Maliki’s.
“It was his military planning; it was his causing the troops to go from point A to point B,” Bush said. “And it’s exactly what a lot of folks here in America were wondering whether or not Iraq would even be able to do it in the first place. And it’s happening.”….
The fighting has sparked fears that a seven-month cease-fire by al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, regarded as a key factor in a dramatic drop in attacks in recent months, could collapse or that the U.S. military will have to bail out the Iraqis.
I certainly hope that this attack doesn’t threaten the ceasefire in any way. That would be bad.
Fucking HTML.
I certainly hope that this attack doesn’t threaten the ceasefire in any way. That would be bad.
Heh, Muqtada’s insistence on maintaining the ceasefire has shades of Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. War is not a consensus issue.
leinad@66, Maliki/ISCI/Dawa only think they picked this fight. Sadr has been setting this up, for months, if not years, baiting the trap recently with false reports of splintering factions, etc. will u’s description well sums Sadr’s long-planned response and the narrative Sadr’s protraying:
Sadr has his nationalist narrative ready to go, and is responding swiftly and in well-planned, calculated ways. This is not the response of a degenerating organization. Maliki/ISCI/Dawa were played—they may have suspected they were being played and gambled on being able to marshal sufficient force, or to draw the Americans in, but they have stepped in it.
If he’s true to form, Sadr will let them step back; when they do, Sadr will be stronger, by far.
All of the Iraqis are playing really complex games within games to achieve power and secure the oil. The Americans are there to play stupid and supply cash to finance the manuevering. It is really pathetic.
All of the Iraqis are playing really complex games within games to achieve power and secure the oil. The Americans are there to play stupid and supply cash to finance the manuevering. It is really pathetic.
This is a good insight. America has become so addicted to using overwhelming force that it has become politically retarded. America in Iraq is like a panting, sweating, overweight soldier with a gun in a dark room with a ninja.
This is a helpful thread, I think I now understand what is going on there: the puppet government was ordered by the puppeteer (visiting Cheney) to militarily eliminate their political opponent for being anti-American. Is that it in a nutshell?
(It’s still possible that Maliki will win his gamble, in which case the below is irrelevant or wrong. But at the moment that seems unlikely.)
What does the visit by Cheney mean? The first guess has to be that he gave the go-ahead, and that that he may have initiated the plan. Maliki’s attack fits the Bush team’s official pre-attack story two ways: 1.) “The Iraqi army is ready to take over”, and 2.) “Kill all the bad guys!”
On the other hand, the Bush team’s official story is usually only for domestic consumption by the Bush core constituency. If Cheney instigated or approved the attack, it may mean that he was letting his own domestic propaganda fool him as to the Iraqi Army’s capacities.
The new official Bush story is that Maliki did this on his own, and that that’s a good thing! Because we’ve been saying that they were ready to stand up so we can stand down. (The possibility that Maliki was deliberately trying to put the US on the spot must be ignored).
On the other hand, the attack has stalled and Americans are doing a lot of the fighting. The official story is to minimize this right now, but that can’t be done for long. The next official story could say (possibly even accurately) that Cheney tried to stop the attack, but that wouldn’t help, because it would make Cheney look weak (better wrong than weak!), and because it would still leave the overriding Bush story (“The Iraqis are taking over the fight”) destroyed.
So the only possible answer is: This shows we must attack Iran. You can still call it a defining moment then, without acknowledging that it was a “defining moment” of failure.
Daniel, perhaps you’ve allowed yourself to be seduced by the elegant Weberian phrase monopoly of violence too easily. Surely the point is that the government as a whole should have the monopoly of violence. Maliki is definitely not that government.
If I’ve been seduced, it’s by Hobbes rather than Weber. All I want to see here is a Leviathan rather than the current oligopoly; I’m past caring who that turns out to be.
Right on schedule: War with Iran May Have Begun with Offensive in Iraq
If Cheney instigated or approved the attack, it may mean that he was letting his own domestic propaganda fool him as to the Iraqi Army’s capacities.
Cheney is a blunderer, but he continues to wield power in the Bush administration. This is a major blunder that may completely collapse the Maliki regime. The Neo Cons are permanently intoxicated by their own propaganda of omnipotence. We are completely out of our depth in Iraq. Historians will rank the invasion of Iraq as worse than Vietnam in the listing of great American foreign policy follies.
This is a major blunder that may completely collapse the Maliki regime.
It’s also quite possible that the Bushies/Malikis will crash the Mahdis and that’ll be the end of that.
…for a while.
Once again…
read Badger.
That is, unless you can read arabic.
Me I can’t read or speak english, but I get all I need to know about the US from friends who read Pravda and Le Nouvel Observateur. Still of course I have my own opinions. And I say…
At times like this it would be nice if the U.S. had a two-party system. It would be even nicer if the Bush policy had collapsed during a hotly-contested Presidential campaign, because in that case the candidates of the opposing party could loudly point out that the “defining moment”, like the rest of Bush’s Iraq policy, has been a disaster. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Just me on my own site.
It’s also quite possible that the Bushies/Malikis will crash the Mahdis and that’ll be the end of that.
This is unlikely. I’ll give you some interesting evidence. If you look closely at the photos of Mahdi army militiamen, you will see that a third of them are carrying long-barrelled Kalashnikovs with telescopic sights. You will also see them firing from rests, the practice of a trained marksman. This means that they are not just street rabble firing wildly at professional soldiers. Their weapons and tactics have matured over the last few years.
Anyone walking into an alley in Basra facing a man with a sniper rifle will not live long. The only ways to sweep an urban area secured by entrenched snipers is to blast them out with heavy weapons. This is not feasible in a city of two million people.
Bush can either launch a bloodbath that makes Fallujah look like a Sunday picnic or he can watch Maliki lose.
Maliki=Abbas
Maybe they are better now, but 3-4 years ago I got the impression that they were lousy fighters – eager to die but not to kill and survive. Good martyrs, terrible soldiers.
Maybe they are better now, but 3-4 years ago I got the impression that they were lousy fighters – eager to die but not to kill and survive. Good martyrs, terrible soldiers.
The issue is are they good enough to hold ground against infantry assaults? The existing evidence says yes, unless the infantry have armored and aircraft support. So what would an armored and aerial assault against Sadr City, Al Sadr’s power base, look like? It would be an operation six times bigger than the attack on Fallujah, and it would kill over 100,000 people. It would be fought in the heart of Baghdad, with no hope of a press embargo. It would compel Sistani to get off the sidelines and call for a Shia uprising against America.
In Fallujah, the Marine units took 10% casulaties (combined KIA and WIA). Assaulting Basra and/or Sadr City would have a Tet-like impact on American public opinion in the middle of a Presidential election.
Petraeus has been hoist on his own low-casualties petard. He can’t increase pressure on Al Sadr without collapsing his card house of carefully arranged pacification statistics. We appear to be nearing the end game of the US occupation
I don’t believe in justice, but I do believe in a crude version of karma. We Americans aren’t going to be punished by an angry God for what we did and continue to do in Iraq, but our behavior does have consequences, not only for the 30% of the population that enthusiastically supports the war but for the rest of us, too. That isn’t exactly fair, but it is predictable. The God that is likely to damn America is not the Yahweh of the prophets but mere history, acting through a world of nations and people who are fed up with our arrogance. No point in accusing those of us who worry about that verdict of being insufficiently patriotic. You might as well complain about the Law of Gravity.
Again, perhaps they are better now, but back in 2004 in Najaf they didn’t inflict many casualties. Anbar people know how to fight, Sadrists only know how to die.
our behavior does have consequences
It is as though Americans never grasped the consequences of the invention of nuclear weapons. One can’t simply keep ratcheting up violence against the world and expect to get away with it. Sooner or later we will face a nuclear-armed adversary who will not back down. That is when America will get out of the Hegemon business.
Sadrists only know how to die.
America is afraid of Al Sadr because he wants us out of Iraq. He refers to us as “the occupier.” This contrasts markedly with Maliki’s attitude and the difference is not lost on Iraqis. Can you imagine how an Iraqi government soldier feels about shooting at people who want to drive Americans out of Iraq?
If hundreds of thousands of Shia take to the streets and demand that America leave, what will Petraeus do? Opinion polls show consistent Iraqi opposition to the occupation. A few more weeks of Maliki calling in US airstrikes on Sadr’s men will only further undermine the puppet government.
Well, if hundreds of thousands of Shia take to the streets and demand that America leave, Petraeus will say (as Bush and Cheney did before him) that these protests demonstrate freedom and democracy in Iraq.
Of course there will be unfortunate incidents with provocateurs shooting from inside the crowds, followed by unfortunate but understandable massacres, so that taking to the streets will quickly stop being popular pastime.
I don’t know if the Nazis ever had any trouble with Quisling, but puppet governments have a long history of causing problems for the erstwhile puppet masters. If we’ve got Maliki on a string, he’s got us on a string, too. The same string. We can’t dispense with him easily even though he is closer to the Iranians than a nationalist like Al Sadr, and he hasn’t even turned out to be the competent Saddam replacement the administration has been looking for since they noticed that they didn’t want a real democracy in Iraq. Maliki can only triumph with the help of American bombs, which means he will always be despised by his countrymen.
As the computer once remarked about global thermonuclear war, “Strange game. The only way to win is not to play.”
Nah, Maliki doesn’t have ‘us’ on a string, Jim. There’s the puppet (on a string) and there’s the puppeteer (holding the string). Simple as that.
This is unlikely.
For the love of Chirst, hh, you have no idea whether it’s likely or not.
A vastly inflated confidence in one’s knowledge of Iraqi politics is just as unhelpful on the anti-, as on the pro-war side.
[...] massive disconnect between the administration and the real world. While John Quiggin and Crooked Timber have been parsing the Basra fight in detail, and Juan Cole keeps gloomily rolling out the truth [...]
When all is said and done, Nouri al-Maliki can only remain Prime Minister and stay in power with the political support of Moqtada al-Sadr
orby using active US military support to quash and intimidate al-Sadr’s political base. By attacking al-Sadr, Maliki has abandoned the political path, and is attempting to preempt an unfavorable electoral result with military force.Americans in general and the Bush administration specifically continue to underestimate Moqtada al-Sadr and the depth of his popular support in Iraq. No one should be surprised that Maliki (who did not even live in Iraq for 23 years before the fall of Saddam), has far less popular support than a nationalist majority firebrand who both fought Hussein and now rails against the “foreign occupiers” of his country (that would be us).
The reason why this war never ends, is that the Bush/Cheney administration specifically and the American people generally do not want to admit that the face of “majority rule”, and “regime change” and “victory” in Iraq is the face of Moqtada al-Sadr. We get to leave Iraq when Moqtada al-Sadr takes over.
A realistic “End State” scenario is an “accommodated” (or if you prefer “co-opted” or “bought-out”) Moqtada al-Sadr, or someone just like him. A popular theocrat, elected into leadership in Iraq, still railing at the “Great Satan” from his bully pulpit to maintain his popular support, but behind the scenes working with the US at the precise intersection of US interest in a stable Iraq, and his lofty personal ambition for power on a world stage. This scenario is not optimal, ok – it is actually pretty shitty, but – It would work for Iraq and would work for us, if we would just work behind the scenes with Moqtada al-Sadr and let him get elected, and pay him enough to want to work with us.
Heh, Muqtada’s insistence on maintaining the ceasefire has shades of Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. War is not a consensus issue. leinad
“It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion” Inge
ns said:
What a ridiculously academic style of writing. Sorry. To make things worse, I’m not even sure if the sentence you describe as subjunctive and conditional actually is subjunctive and conditional. “I think it was reasonable” is about as indicative as it comes. But if I were to point that out, I would be as academic as you.
Bwahahahahahahahaha. Neither one of you amateurs could academicize your way out of a paper bag. The subjunctive is not a tense—it’s a mood.
100:
We get to leave Iraq when Moqtada al-Sadr takes over.
Unless he’s the reason we’re there in the first place. Unless the fear of him or someone like him is the reason we were tricked into going over there and wrecking just about the entirety of what was left of the American dream.
Keeping in mind just about everybody agrees the official version of why we went to Iraq is b.s.
Then probably the official version of why we’ll leave will also be b.s.
And there has now been some sort of ceasefire offer that the government has kind of acknowledged but apparently hasn’t had much effect.
text of the Sadr ceasefire statement is here
And that ceasefire was made by two senior pols from ISCI and Dawa, with Sadr in Qom, brokered by Brig. General Qassem Suleimani of Qods Force, IRGC, over Maliki’s insistance that there would be no negotiations.
Wow.
@106
Wow, indeed. Maliki is toast.
By the way, I completely disagree with abb1’s assessment of the fighting capability of the Mahdi Army. In all the news reports I’ve seen, they have been fighting in short skirmishes and then withdrawing. I am nobody’s idea of a military man, but as I understand it, that’s actually quite a difficult manouvre to achieve, because the difference between “withdrawing” and “running away” (which tends to get you decimated quickly) is that in the first, everyone has to do it at the same time and while maintaining covering fire. Which takes both discipline and nerve. So I don’t agree with the proposition that Sadrists “only know how to die”, which looks like triumphalism to me.
108: Yeah, that was the snarky John Dolan (aka ‘Gary Brecher’ War Nerd) take on JAM circa 2004-2005, they’ve performed pretty solidly by accounts, though this time they’re taking on an underprepared and infiltrated Iraqi Army, not the US.
What do you mean ‘triumphalism’?
No, but it’s true that they didn’t inflict many casualties in Najaf in 2004; a bunch of them got caught like sitting ducks in some cemetery and killed. They weren’t well-trained then, but maybe they are now.
Well, 2004 was a while ago. And if your militia sucks you aren’t going to survive four years of civil war in the Herbert Spencer/Thomas Hobbes/Han FeiZi wet nightmare that is Iraq.
The scope of Maliki’s blunder is becoming clear as more news leaks out. Reportedly, one of his top advisers was killed in Basra by a mortar attack, and US attack helicopters had to be called to drive off an assault on his headquarters.
Further evidence of Maliki’s powerlessness is the continued shelling of the Green Zone, which the US cannot stop short of massacring a large part of the Sadr City population.
None of this will stop Petraeus from brazenly reporting “improvement” resulting from his brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. Fantasy rules, and we are in the hands of fools.
Does this mean Maliki still won’t get a cut of the black market oil sales from Basra but he’ll have to keep paying Sadr a portion of the government’s oil revenues?
Well, it was a plan anyway.
How about the ISF’s performance? Geez, I bet those guys wish they had their own armor, artillery and air power. I don’t know why they don’t just buy some, even though oil production is only what it was 5 years ago, they take in a lot more money.
A bunch of yobs on a Saturday afternoon, talking about football.