The end of major combat operations

Is it your position that the situation in Iraq for the average Iraqi will get better or get worse if the occupation forces withdraw? I ask because the usual response from world human rights organizations to a situation that spawns a massive refugee problem is to call for peacekeeping forces.

‘the average Iraqi’ is an interesting concept – is he/she Sunni or Shia, secular or Islamist, Arab or Kurd? Is it possible to have an ‘everyday’ or ‘man in the street’ perspective in a country gripped by a sectarian conflict/occupation vs. insurgency tag-team?

For some Iraqis the current situation is tolerable, some even flourish and prosper yet for other groups the situation is so dire that they must flee. Who are we staying in Iraq for?

Are there any, but any good alternatives by now in Iraq? Withdrawal in the face of this quagmire seems logical, but giving it just a moment’s thought, it’s really not very appealing. The safe bet is Iraq will descend into furious chaos and the neighbouring countries will likely be sucked in: Iran, Turkey, Syria, even possibly Saudi Arabia. Anyone think that is going to bring security and stability? To Iraq? To the greater Middle East? To say nothing of the really important thing: The oil market?

‘refighting’ it? What, like just reload the previous level and make sure you harvest more tiberium and vespene gas this time so you can build more grunts?

Get real, Soru, the real war was a political one that the US lost hope of winning when they were unable to create a minimally effective government to fill the power vacuum. This is now a sectarian conflict that the US can’t adequately concieve of, let alone restrain.

…then given that the military forces and money are available…

rather a big given, no?

Soru: “Some confusion here: if war is military operations, and military operations have achieved all they, by their nature, could, then the war is not lost, but won: the maximum possible has been acheived.”

Uh, no. Assuming the usual definitions of winning and losing.

‘“Some confusion here: if war is military operations, and military operations have achieved all they, by their nature, could, then the war is not lost, but won: the maximum possible has been acheived.”’

I may not be getting this point, but by this definition then Hitler won World War 2, yes?

As long as they remain, the occupying military forces can be expected to act, in reaction or anticipation, to amplify whatever level of violence would otherwise be present. In climatological terms, they are both forcing and feedback elements.

We can debate the calibration of the feedback coefficient forever, but in this case the contribution of the forcing component ought to be uncontroversial.

Um. Major combat operations would mean establishing bases and supply lines.

Since nobody advocating withdrawal is really arguing that a all-out civil war would be an unlikely result, how is it that the U.S. doesn’t have a moral obligation to remain and prevent that from happening?

The “you’ve done enough damage, now go” position might be supportable if there were somebody else to step in and take over and do a better job, but there is no somebody else–is there?

And why, by the way, do you not also declare Afghanistan a clear defeat and call for a withdrawal there at the same time? After all, that war is now even older than the one in Iraq and it, too, shows no signs of being over soon. The insurgency and combat operations continue and, if anything, the Taliban are somewhat stronger than they were a couple of years ago. If stalemate -> defeat -> withdrawal for Iraq why doesn’t the same logic apply to Afghanistan?

if war is military operations, and military operations have achieved all they, by their nature, could, then the war is not lost, but won

Brilliant. Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf must be kicking himself for not coming up with that one.

‘Since nobody advocating withdrawal is really arguing that a all-out civil war would be an unlikely result, how is it that the U.S. doesn’t have a moral obligation to remain and prevent that from happening?’

The argument is that, for better or worse, that the US is exacerbating ethnic tensions and has helped to cause the civil war. For once I’m on the side of Abb1. It may well be the case that a US withdrawal might lead to civil war. This might lead to many dead.

But the British withdrawal from India also led to a de facto civil war that left MILLIONS dead. But hardly anybody argues nowadays that somehow India’s problems would be lessened had the British stayed.

‘And why, by the way, do you not also declare Afghanistan a clear defeat and call for a withdrawal there at the same time?’

This is not a foolish question. Whatever good the Americans and the rest have done has clearly already BEEN done and it is not at all clear that the occupying forces are now going to achieve anything more. And, as you say, the presence of the Americans (etc.) is helping to bring about the return of the Taliban. In other words, yes, absolutely, it’s getting to be about the time when ‘we’ think about withdrawing. Maybe not right this minute, but in two or three years definitely.

I don’t know what will happen if the US pulls out, it is unlikely to be a peaceful settlement between the factions, but as such a settlement is beyond the US’s power in Iraq to begin with I don’t see any point in the US staying around, wasting more money and lives, blowing up more civilians and losing more credibility and respect than they have already.

Slocum: “Since nobody advocating withdrawal is really arguing that a all-out civil war would be an unlikely result, how is it that the U.S. doesn’t have a moral obligation to remain and prevent that from happening?”

On the same moral grounds that the man who raped your daughter does not have a moral obligation to hold her in ‘protective custody’ in a cage in his basement, and to ‘give her therapy’ whenever he feels.

“how is it that the U.S. doesn’t have a moral obligation to remain and prevent that from happening?”

You’re assuming that this prevention is possible. First responders at an emergency are trained to look out for themselves first – there’s no point of trying to save another if you have no hope of success and you are likely to injure or kill yourself trying.

I cannot think of a plausible series of circumstances which would conclude in a happy US withdrawal from a peaceful Iraq. Basically, you’re looking at a choice between massive Iraqi bloodshed and chaos, or massive Iraqi and US bloodshed and chaos.

Or to say the same thing more briefly: would you like a pony with that today?

abb1 and hidari are arguing that a withdrawal would probably in and of itself improve the situation in Iraq. (Or, in hidari’s case, it might lead to an Indian/Pakistani breakup style scenario with millions of dead, but so be it).

I admit I don’t know what might or might not transpire after a full withdrawal of Coalition forces (you know, Americans). I am not very hopeful, but I could be wrong.

But quite apart from that, is it realistic (which, take note!, isn’t the same as desirable) to assume that the US will stop viewing the area as a critical national security interest? The oil remains there, and oil supplies remain critical. Also, Israel.

And if the US — regardless of who is President — continues to perceive Iraq, and its oil, as a vital national interest, how will the US ever be able to carry through a full withdrawal? And if there is no full US withdrawal, how will the US presence in whatever form it will take (redeploying to Kurdistan, Kuwait and/or the Emirates or Saudi Arabia) not play a continuing role in any post-US occupation power struggle in Iraq? How will US troops anywhere in the Middle East not be a target? And how will this not continue to drive US military action on a (ir)regular basis?

“maybe it will even be as disastrous as the fall of Singapore and Malaya in 1942”

Rare instance of hyperbole from Dan. 100,000 losses? A General surrenders? Admiral drowns? 2 capital ships lost? Come off.

Actually, despite the ‘never again’ rhetoric, the British did a good job of re-taking Malaya and Singapore, then holding on to them, then establishing and defending a friendly regime. The long-term political disaster for the Brits from Singapore wasn’t the ending of colonialism, but losing the Aussies to the Yanks.

hidari: But the British withdrawal from India also led to a de facto civil war that left MILLIONS dead. But hardly anybody argues nowadays that somehow India’s problems would be lessened had the British stayed.

Stayed indefinitely? Of course not. But does ‘hardly anybody’ argue that it couldn’t have been handled better by the British? That a million dead was, somehow, the best that could have been done?

Andrew: I cannot think of a plausible series of circumstances which would conclude in a happy US withdrawal from a peaceful Iraq.

The argument from lack of imagination (“I can’t imagine how X could be true”) isn’t a very strong one. And, anyway, it’s not the case that a “happy withdrawal from a peaceful Iraq” is the only possible goal. Simply not allowing a full-scale civil war to break out seems more than worthwhile. Leaving an Iraq that still has ethnic tensions and some level of ethnic violence but that also has an elected government strong enough to defend itself and control its territory (possibly with some level of continuing outside help)–that doesn’t seem beyond imagining, does it? An Iraq that ends up something like Bosnia or Kosovo? We didn’t really end up with a ‘peaceful happy Bosnia’ or a ‘peaceful happy Kosovo’ (and, of course, withdrawal still isn’t complete from either of those, and who knows when it will be) but intervention was still worthwhile.

It strikes me as odd to believe it’s justified to intervene to stop a civil war, but also that it’s justified to withdraw and allow a full-scale civil war to commence based on the idea that it’s going to happen sooner or later anyway so we might as well get out of the way.

It seems to me that the argument to stay or go has to be primarily from an Iraqi (and an Afghan) perspective. That is, whatever course of action seems most likely to result in the best outcome for the Iraqis and the Afghans (even if ‘best’ is least bad of the alternatives)–the U.S. has some obligation to pursue that course rather than just get the hell out based on its own interests.

It appears the ME players are trying to sort things out themselves. Our stance that they need the coalition to help them is humiliating to any proud Iraqi.
CAIRO, Egypt – Egypt wants an international conference on Iraq this week to call for a three-month cease-fire between Iraqi forces and insurgents, according to a draft resolution. But Iraq strongly objected to the idea on Monday.

I’ll say no more for the moment, as Leinad and Chris Williams between them have made me rethink quite a few things. You may well have saved me from making a fool of myself on my own blog, so thanks, chaps…

Just to follow on Leinad and others:

It is not the case that the U.S. has either the right or the duty to militarily occupy any country on Earth whenever we believe that such an occupation is more likely than not to improve the lives of its inhabitants.

‘Stayed indefinitely? Of course not. But does ‘hardly anybody’ argue that it couldn’t have been handled better by the British? That a million dead was, somehow, the best that could have been done?’

So you are seriously arguing that the British should have stayed longer in India, even though the mass of the Indian (or, if you want, Indian/Pakistani) people did not want them there?

Interesting historical footnote:

‘Britain had set a timetable for withdrawing both its troops and administration from India. Winston Churchill rose to speak in the House of Commons.

“The government by their fourteen-month time limit have put an end to all prospect of Indian unity,” he said, denouncing this cut-and-run philosophy as “Operation Scuttle.” “How can one suppose that the thousand-year gulf which yawns between Muslim and Hindu will be bridged in fourteen months?… How can we walk out of India in fourteen months and leave behind us a war between 90 million Muslims and 200 million caste Hindus? … Let us not add–by shameful flight, by a premature, hurried scuttle–to the pangs of sorrow many of us feel, the taint and smear of shame.”‘

http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20070205&s=younge

It isn’t just the presence of American troops that inflames the situation. It is the apparently accurate perception that the Americans never plan to leave. America has built huge permanent bases in Iraq and is currently building the world’s largest embassy in Baghdad. The rhetoric of the Bush administration changes from week to week, but the tendency of our actions is quite consistent. Though the administration would certainly perfer to do so with fewer troops, Bush and Cheney have every intention of occupying Iraq forever.

If the Americans made a binding and credible declaration of their intention to leave after certain benchmarks were achieved, the insurgents would lose a great deal of their appeal and it would become possible to cut deals. Iraq would probably remain a mess, perhaps for a fairly long time; but the struggle would be about how the Iraqis chose to order their lives and not about evicting an invader. There would be hope for all sides.

I presume that the Saudis have told the Americans that should the Americans get out, they will become involved to stop Iranian influence. So I presume the American Administration knows reasonably well that withdrawal will lead to bad consequences.

On the other hand, it’s pretty clear to me that not withdrawing now will only be a delay; so better to withdraw now and face the consequences before they get even worse.

Basically it’s a lose-lose situation. Nothing is known with certainty, so it’s very difficult to argue which – staying or going – will create more problems for the Iraqis, or for that matter for the Americans or Brits.

It’s true what Soru says above:
“refighting it could make a difference”
an exciting prospect for all concerned!
But maybe the real plan is something more like waiting until Hilary Clinton takes office to truly “end the war”, so that she can then be coronated as the saviouress of all mankind. This would be predicated on her articulating strings being held by the same hands generally that clumped wooden GWB onto the world stage, back in ’00.
The actual mission accomplishing having taken place long before, all that’s left now is holding action, keeping things in turmoil, Iraq collapsing at a slow steady pace, and thus unthreatening in any realistic degree to Iraq’s “neighbors” in the “Middle East”.

Nothing is known with certainty, so it’s very difficult to argue which – staying or going – will create more problems for the Iraqis, or for that matter for the Americans or Brits.

But the threshold for militarily occupying another country is much higher than “probably more likely to help than hurt”. I would argue that it’s not much lower than “unquestionably vital to our national survival.” If the costs and benefits of staying vs. leaving are unclear, that is a very strong argument for leaving.

“it could be worse; John Howard has given me the distinct impression on a number of occasions that the Australian presence there certainly won’t be dissuaded by such minor setbacks as the Yanks going home.”

Posted by dsquared

Yeah, well, the Shiites (inluding the government of Iraq) just might have something to say about that.

novakant in #8 doesn’t appear to have noticed that he was answered in advance by stuart in #2

not –

just imagine the scenario:

we leave, as in total withdrawal, things go genocidal – how in hell are peacekeeping forces ever going to even get back in, considering the fact that the world’s largest army, heavily fortified and with military infrastructure in place is having huge problems even now? The only ‘solution’ would be Yugaslavia type bombing, but, apart from the ethical and political problems this would create, that’s just not going to work in Iraq. So in fact we wouldn’t be able to do anything. If your proposing withdrawal you’ll have to live with that.

The only ‘solution’ would be Yugoslavia type bombing…

High-altitude bombings have nothing to do with it, because Iraq is not going to have an efficient hi-tech anti-aircraft defense system for a long time.

And what do you think the Americans do there now, you think they come and separate fighting fractions like cops in a pub brawl? No, they don’t. I don’t think they do (or can do) anything to prevent sectarian violence. I suspect often they exacerbate it. Too much firepower.

Sorry sg, I was attempting to compress 20 years of history into a facetious phrase, and that’s hard to do without losing a degree of clarity. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough that I was talking about the point of view of the UK government.

To compress once more: in 1940, the Australian armed forces were highly integrated into the British empire, and went where they were put. By 1943 the Australian political establishment had made some very clear policy statements, and even more clear deployments of forces, that they saw the USA as their principal external ally. They looked to MacArthur to save them from the Japanese, not Mountbatten.

I’m not an expert on this, but I get the impression that the significance of Gallipoli has been over-stated in the Australian historical imagination. AFAIK, the AIF went where it was sent for the remainder of WW1, for example.

As for ‘gained’, I am talking about geopolitics and state power, not in any wider sense of the word.

It seems likely that US presence/support gives one group a strong incentive to attack rather than compromise.

But the reason there was a Sunni insurgency was — in part and only in part — because if the US was expelled, Sunni elites could dominate the country as they had done before (or so they think). So pro-insurgency Sunni leaders want the US out. Most Shi’ite leaders do not compromise fully on key political issues because the US is there to battle the Sunni insurgency for them. A US withdrawal or threatened withdrawal is intended to force the Shi’ite leaders to compromise such that the Sunni leaders prefer a settlement to continued fighting. But absent a guarantor that the Sunnis will not resume fighting to gain more after a US withdrawal and that the Shi’ite will not reneg after Sunni demobilization, the logic is weak.

Sadr through a wrench into the works — one that should have been anticipated by the US — because he became frustrated with the US’s imperial/impartial policies that frustrated Shi’ite autonomy and power.

In short, the ‘force the Shi’ite leaders to compromise by having the US plan to withdraw’ plan was always risky but seemed better than the ‘stay the course’ plan.

But we should not expect Iraq to be more peaceful after a US withdrawal.

(I haven’t had a chance to read James Fearon’s Foreign Affairs article, so I wonder if he makes it too.

Frankly, I’m not a big fan of this theory that the Sunnis fight because they want to keep dominating other groups.

For one thing, it doesn’t appear that the ruling elite before the war was exactly a Sunni cabal, Tariq Aziz is a Christian, for example. That was a predominantly secular elite; if anything – nationalist rather than sectarian.

I don’t think a lot of Anbar hicks felt like they were dominating the Shiites before the war and I don’t think they’re fighting to dominate them now. It’s just that after the war they were heavily assaulted by the Americans who brought Kurdish and Shiite collaborators with them; this is how it all started. Or at least that is my impression.

D’oh: 1st paragraph, replace second ‘Sunni’ with ‘Shia’.

Steve LaBonne: Whatever will happen after we withdraw, our continued presence is only delaying that “whatever”, not preventing it- and with continuing calamitous loss of Iraqi lives in the meantime.

By this logic intervening in Bosnia and Kosovo was also a mistake (as would have been intervention in Rwanda, as would be any intervention in Darfur) because it would only be ‘delaying’ rather than ‘preventing’ slaughter. Do you really think that no war can ever be prevented by being delayed long enough that conditions change or diplomatic efforts can succeed?

Do you think that the war in Kosovo, which was prematurely interrupted, must therefore eventually be resumed and fought to its conclusion with just as much blood as would have been the case had there been no intervention?

If anybody wants to talk about moral obligation, the only moral course I can see for the US to follow is to get the hell out now, and then, when the dust has settled from whatever horrors may ensue.

In other words, no matter how bad we anticipate the slaughter would be if the coalition forces left, it’s still the ‘moral’ course to get out of the way, let it happen, and wait for the dust to settle (the dust from bulldozers digging and covering up new mass graves, perhaps)?

(and if there are to be any peacekeeping troops that can prevent or mitigate the horrors they sure as hell will have to NOT come from any country involved in the invasion and occupation)

But there are no other countries (seriously, are there?) that have both the will and military capability to intervene to prevent a full-blown civil war. To insist that ‘other countries’ must do the work is to assure that the work would not be done.

Not, I should add, that intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo was exactly a smashing success in any case…

Doctor Slack and Steve Labonne are of course right. to add one other point: the usual end to a civil war is that somebody wins it. And that can’t happen as long as we’re there. American troops are totally incapable of brinigng peace or stability to Iraq, but they are quite capable of preventing anyone else from doing so.

And I say that as someone who was opposed to this war from day one.

Yeah, I guess I’m painting a little too broadly when I say it’s only the hawks pushing this line of thinking. But I’m still not particularly impressed by it. For instance:

Tell it to the Iraqis when the shit really hits the fan, that you never took those concerns seriously.

When the shit “really” hits the fan? Seriously, can you tell me how the blind flailing of a heavily-armed occupation force is supposed to improving things for the average Iraqi? FWICT, the people actually living under the occupation are having some trouble seeing the upside.

When the shit “really” hits the fan?

The situation is dire and I’m the last person who would want to minimize the suffering that’s already going on in any way. But it is possible, and in my view very likely, that the humanitarian situation will get much, much worse if we leave without any political reconciliation among the parties in sight – as in large scale ethnic cleansing, full blown genocide and all out war between the factions. While the US is not very good at controlling the situation now, it seems to me that they at least prevent such a situation from becoming reality.

See, I’m really torn on this: if we could be certain that the US presence is actually making things worse and a withdrawal would make things better, then of course we should argue for withdrawal – I just don’t see any way of knowing this for sure. Instead I see the US presence, as ineffectual as it is, as a safeguard against something much worse. But even if we withdraw, we have to have some strategy for dealing with a possible humanitarian catastrophe and I do detect a certain callousness in some people who don’t even want to discuss the possibility of this happening or are resort to simply saying it’s Bush’s fault – which it is, but that doesn’t help the Iraqis much.

But now we’ve FINALLY started to discourage this kind of thing, attacking these miltias strongly.

As Petraeus himself well knows, that means absolutely squat except as part of a long-term counterinsurgency strategy leading to a real political settlement. If we ever were, we are certainly no longer in any position whatsoever to broker any such thing. So this kind of talk is sound and fury, signifying nothing. I share doctor slack’s annoyance with its prevalence.

Abb1: I’m not talking about a ‘Sunnis Control Iraq’ conspiracy because they, y’know, actually did, in the form of Baath party, the elite of which was overwhelmingly Sunni and drew much of its support from Sunni provinces.

While most these guys are dead, fled or hiding, and they must know there’s little chance of bringing back the good old days, but it’s also more than likely that they will largely switch to blowing up Shias should the US depart as they need to be able to wrangle so kind of decent settlement in the long term (as the current government’s given them nothing) and their military expertise and scads of surplus munitions are about all they’ve got to bargain with.

I’m sorry Abb1, you’re wrong about this. While notionally secular and pan-Arabistic, the Iraqi Baath party was a Sunni-dominated party; a trend which accelerated under Saddam, where it’s heartland and recruiting core was built around the Al-Tikriti clan and its allies around Tikrit and the Sunni majority provinces of Niwanah and Salahuddin.

Saddam’s Baath party oppressed Iraq’s Shia majority for decades, culminating in the brutal supression of the post-Gulf War revolts and the genocidal policies pursued against the Marsh Arabs (note that revolts only broke out in the Kurdish North and Shia South).
This isn’t a conspiracy, Sunnis have been heavily represented in Iraqi governing classes and institutions since the Shia revolts of 1921.

‘Sunnis have been heavily represented in Iraqi governing classes and institutions since the Shia revolts of 1921.’

Although it should be added that this was with the connivance of the British, whose ‘divide and rule’ policy has had such stellar results not only in Iraq, but in Africa and elsewhere.

Yes, but someone upthread was talking about the kind of domination that for hundreds of thousands of Sunnis is worth fighting and dying for. That’s the kind of domination I’m skeptical about, not the ‘my uncle knows Saddam’s bodyguard’ kind.

Roger, I’ve made it abundantly clear that I am rather dissatisifed with the way Bush is conducting the occupation, yet still view it as a lesser evil than total withdrawal as soon as possible. As far as ‘cutting the bs’ is concernd: tell it to the Democrats – they are in a position to constructively influence the way the occupation is conducted as they have power over the war funding. In fact, even from a purely partisan view of the matter, I think it would be wiser to call Bush on his incompetence and publicly demand a change of policies. But obviously you can only constructively criticize the way the occupation is run, if you are not already committed to withdrawal.

One thing that annoys me about these discussions is that the Iraqis themselves are never quoted, either in the form of opinion polls (which show consistent majorities for withdrawal) or in the form of political communiques from the various fighting parties. Juan Cole has something on his website that might be of interest here:

‘On 26 March, a jihadist website posted a letter written by Izzat Ibrahim, the general secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party (Note: one of the best armed and effective of the insurgent armies), urging “Arab rulers to unite in fighting the enemies of Iraq and assisting the noble Iraqi resistance.” The letter was related to the Arab summit held last month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

A summary of the letter follows:

The polite and emotional letter written by Izzat Ibrahim, who considers himself to be the commander in chief of the Iraqi armed forces, is addressed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the other Arab rulers to the summit held in Riyadh in March 2007. In the letter, Ibrahim places his “faith and confidence with the Arab rulers in the holy and proud land of Saudi Arabia to take action against the tyrant occupiers of Iraq who have killed, maimed, and displaced more than 4 million people since April 2003, erasing the social, financial, moral, and civilized existence of the Iraqi people.” The writer accuses “the enemy of assisting Iran in a historical way to destroy the Iraqi nation and its identity and turn it into a Shiite Iranian controlled region.”

He further charges that “the American imperialism, Zionists, and the Shiite Iranians are building a base in Iraq for the Khomeini Safavid revolution to expand into Arab countries, changing its identity, and dominating the entire region.”

Ibrahim reiterates the fact that “the noble national resistance movement is the only legitimate representative of the Iraqi people” and calls for a “boycott of the (present) government of agents and traitors who came to Iraq to kill and displace Iraqis.”

He places “the historical responsibility of Iraq on the shoulders of the Arab rulers facing up to God and history.” He adds that “the brave resistance of the Iraqi people is one of the greatest achievements in the history of the country, fighting the strongest power on earth and forcing the enemy to run away.”

In conclusion, he praises “the great sacrifices of the resistance” and vows to “continue the struggle until victory,” hoping that “the Arab leadership will stand firmly with the Iraqi people.” ‘

This makes clear that the Ba’ath is indeed an Arab nationalist party BUT that the Ba’ath position is that the Shia majority in Iraq aren’t ‘really’ Arabs because they are being used as a proxy force (allegedly) by the Persian/Shia Iran.

Rather ironically from a Western point of view, the Ba’athist position is that the Iranians and the US are ‘really’ on the same side, as they are both imperialists who wish to sideline the Sunnis.

“Suppose they were forbidden from exercising these rituals and they revolted. This, then, wouldn’t be the case of Sunni domination any more than a million other similar revolts in the ME.”

Abb1: I suggest you read up on this, because they were prohibited conducting their rituals – the Ashura pilgrimage (you know the one with all the public religious S&M stuff) in Karbala was banned along with several other similar pilgrimages, clerics were driven out of the country or killed, most famously Muqtada al-Sadr’s father, Mohammed Sadiq – a big cheese in Shia clerisy. This isn’t to say that Saddam was big on Sunni clerics either: his criteria was loyalty to him not religious fervor and it’s for that reason he persecuted the Shia, fearful that their fanaticism and their co-religious relations with Iran would lead them to co-operate against him.

As I’ve said upthread, this isn’t pure sectarianism, nor does it have to be to become divisive and lead to a civil war. For most of this period, everyday Iraqis, as Riverbend and others attest didn’t care about factional issues like this, but the aftermath of the invasion has lead to the rise of religious and political leaders on both sides who are avowedly sectarian, and the chaos and grudge-settling of the post-invasion period has helped fuel these leaders and latent sectarian feeling across the country – the upshot is that now people are being ripped out of cars and shot at checkpoints or blown up on the steps of their mosques, killed solely because of their sectarian identity.

Needless to say this makes me decidely less optimistic about the future of Iraq, withdrawal or otherwise.

Hidari: Yeah, there’s a whole realm of ironies about the US mission in Iraq that media pundits won’t even touch – witness Maliki (adn before him, Al-Jaafari) hugging Amadinejad and signing co-operation agreements on infrastructure, border negotiations etc – Iraq even accepted an Iranian offer to train some of their soldiers before the US quickly put the kibosh on that.

OT: Al-Durri, the highest-ranking uncaptured Baathist is pretty obviously carrying some serious Firanji ancestry to go by his ginger whiskers and pale, freckly skin.

Leinad, what you describe in post 96 sounds like a formula for a stable, non-secular state broadly similar to Iraq before the war. It sounds like the recipe the Sunnis offer is the only type of state which won’t spin apart under the control of secular gangsters in Kurdistan or the Shiite area, and the only bulwark for the many minorities – religious and ethnic – against Shiite domination religiously and ethnically.

To me this doesn’t sound – on the face of it – like evidence in favour of the claim that Sunnis are trying to dominate Iraq on religious or racial grounds. It makes it sound like the secular group with its roots most clearly in Arab nationalism (and historically socialism, right?) is the group most interested in keeping Iraq together as a functional state.

This has been Abb1’s point all along in these kinds of debates (if I may put words in your mouth, sir): when the US or UK come along and “correct” local nationalist tyrants, the locals then have to rediscover their nationalism in order to rebuild a state capable of representing itself, and the cause of their human rights is set back by years. In Iraq the best people to do this were the Sunnis, who had the experience and the power; but because of this oversimplification of their role no-one is willing to help them, which leaves a big nasty chaotic patch of trouble which lots of secular warlords are rushing to fill, and makes the ultimate job for whoever is going to unite the country that much harder.

sg: Yes and no, mostly no. Somewhat clumsily I’ve only given the political position of the two main parliamentary Sunni blocs, and ommitted that they’d also like Kirkuk and Mosul to remain Arab (and this means Sunni Arab), something the Kurds are quite piqued about given that said cities had been heavily Arabised by Saddam, etc. That is pretty clearly a matter of trying to regain Sunni predominance, in an oil-rich area to boot. That a centralised representative government could better handle oil distribution and ensure a measure of equity doesn’t neccessarily mean that the people pursing it are interested in equity and representation for their own sakes.

Furthermore, those groups aren’t neccesarily representative of the insurgency as a whole and they are asking only for what is in the remotest sense politically achievable – other actors in the insurgency, particularly those of Al-Douri’s persuasion aren’t likely to be satisfied by achieving representative influence in the post-Invasion government, particularly as it means sitting down with Khomeinite hangers-on like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Such aims don’t fit my definition of “keeping Iraq together as a functional state”.

Bear in mind that I was initially arguing against Abb1’s assessment that the civil war was likely to wind down if/when the US leaves and that discussion turned into me trying to prove to him that Sunnis dominated Iraq under Saddam and oppressed Shi’ites (not a particularly controversial position I would have thought), so apologies if I seem to wander a little.

“In Iraq the best people to do this were the Sunnis, who had the experience and the power;”

Well here we come to the whole de-Nazification dilemma, but with an Iraqi twist: sure the Sunnis had more experience and power (which neatly proves my point that they were predominant in Saddam’s regime) but they were utter wankers for most of it (or at least, following the policy of utter wankers) and they’d spent much of that time being utter wankers to people outside their sect, for whatever reason. Now normally you could just pull the quiet re-Nazification thingy, but 1) the Yanks had sold this on getting rid of the Baath for good, 2) they thought they had a capable ruling elite in Chalabi and co, 3) they rapidly found that after sacking the Baathists that a whole bunch of fundy Shias were taking over much of the country (Bremer: “Who are these people?”) who were threatening to wreck everything if the Baathists were re-employed in anything approaching substantial numbers. Ooops.

‘who was reporting in that first communique? – It’s mighty wierd labelling Jaish al-Madhi (the Madhi army, en anglais) ‘pro-Iranian’, as Sadr’s antipathy towards the Iranians and their backers is legendary.’

Yeah I know that. But my point is that to the Sunni ‘resistance’, ANY Shia in Iraq is ‘pro-Iran’, and therefore, fair game.

The reports are translated, presumably accurately from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafkarat_al_Islam ‘The Islamic Memo’.

I don’t know exactly who this represents.

Novokant, I don’t get the logic of this: “But obviously you can only constructively criticize the way the occupation is run, if you are not already committed to withdrawal.” Uh, I can’t imagine that even the U.S. isn’t committed to withdrawal sometime. Perpetual occupation is known as colonization.

I’d turn your sentence around and say that you can constructively criticize the occupation ONLY if you are committed to withdrawal. The two goals converge. Instead of winning, the goal, for the U.S., has to be withdrawal with a minimum of violence for the Iraqis. And, of course, the coalition forces. Which is why I think that list f benchmarks is what should be emphasized, along with the Dems holding fast on a timeline. If the project can’t be done on a timeline, it simply can’t be done.

Well leinad, I am not particularly sold on any particular view of Iraq pre-invasion, and was really just nitpicking your description of Sunni goals (which read like a quite reasonable set of policies). I certainly agree with your description of the leaders of Iraqi politics pre-Invasion as “wankers.” However, given that their composition was at least vaguely multi-racial and multi-religious, and also included both sexes (I recall the Science Minister or some such was a woman, and women in Iraq could work as professionals, for example) in distinct opposition to the policies of other Sunni political parties in the region, it still seems a bit much to suggest that the prime motivation of that particular bunch of wankers was secular. Sure, they might have been empowering Sunnis over others, but there is some evidence at least that they had a broader goal than just Shia-whacking, and maybe the Sunni were best suited on average to pursuing that goal.

From an interview with

A: The best hope of stabilizing Iraq lies with the Iraqi politicians, who are much cannier and more flexible than we acknowledge, and of course have a much better understanding of the limits and possibilities of local politics than any foreigner has. Shia and Sunni Arabs in Iraq have a strong sense of Iraqi national identity that they can use to avoid civil war. The Coalition’s continued presence in Iraq deters politicians from making the necessary compromises with their opponents, since they rely on us to bail them out. Despite our best intentions, the Coalition often interferes in politics because we do not approve of a candidate’s human rights record or attitude toward us. We invaded talking about democracy; we should, therefore, respect the results of elections, empower local politicians, and allow them to make compromises. This will probably create an Iraq that is more Islamist, less humane, and less progressive than the Coalition would like, but it is the best chance we have. I don’t believe that our presence is improving the situation. There is very little that the Coalition is achieving or is able to achieve in Iraq—and we need to empower Iraqi politicians to discover the solutions that we have failed to find.

sg: I don’t mean to be rude but you could do well to read what I’ve written above. That essentially was what I’ve been arguing the whole way through: Sunni sectarianism wasn’t pursued for its own sake, but it nonetheless occured and accelerated under Saddam as he grew more paranoid over Iran and the Shia – and now has erupted and spread amongst normally secular Iraqis.

Abb1 seems to think that it’s a ‘conspiracy theory’ to point out that Sunnis were predominant in Saddam’s Iraq, and that Sunnis they used that dominance to oppress the Shia, positions I took issue with because they’re devoid of historical support.

Roger, I agree that it is a ‘piecemeal melange’ of diverging interests and that the motivation of the Bush admin is questionable at best. Politically the situation in the US is very confused and there is a lot of disingenuity
involved. Indeed conservatives have been making comparisons of the terror going on in Iraq to crime in US metropolitan areas in order to put lipstick on the pig. Or alternatively they just blame it on the nature of ‘the arabs’. The Bush administration seems to now officially promote the idea of ‘acceptable levels of violence’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j_Soe-jhJ0

probably so that they can start pulling back to their bases while being relieved of their moral duty to the Iraqis.

So basically everybody is preparing themselves for disengagement of one type or another, which would lead to another underfunded and underresourced failed state such as Afghanistan (+ western Pakistan), if we don’t reach a viable solution before the plug is pulled. And I don’t see how that could be in anybody’s interest.

Abb1, when I read through your posts the white-black thing in the USA was exactly what I thought of.

We don’t have official government discrimination against blacks at all in the USA, but we have a lot of whites who do it. It could be argued that poor blacks tend to suffer worse institutional problems than equivalently poor whites, because of racism. That argument might be wrong and it might be hard to document it either way, but lots of americans would at least think of the argument before you remind them of it, whether they reject it or not.

And yet we aren’t having race wars in this country. Blacks may not get a fair deal here but they get a good enough deal that open armed resistance would predictably do worse.

The sunni/shia split may not be primarily religious but more ethnic, as our white-black split is ethnic. (Professional blacks who’re fully integrated into professional-culture get along just fine with professionals and can mostly handle nonprofessionals. The issue isn’t so much how people look as how they behave and what resources they have backing them.) So secular probably isn’t the point. Just as you can point to Rice and Powell as evidence that the GOP isn’t dominated by whites, shias in the Saddam government show….

So, suppose the Ba’ath party was allowed to run candidates in the iraqi legislature. To the extent that only sunnis would vote for them, they wouldn’t get a majority. Would the level of representation they could get be better than open revolt? Maybe.

Part of the problem is that essentially everybody in iraq thinks the iraqi government has no power. They mostly don’t control the iraqi army. They don’t control their budget. They have little influence on the foreign occupying army. How can they negotiate with anybody?

New poll:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=2954716&page=1

78% of iraqis oppose our presence.
51% call it “acceptable” to attack coalition forces.
31% blame the violence primarily on coalition forces, 9% blame it on George Bush personally, 18% blame it primarily on al qaeda.
88% of shia and 97% of sunnis say they “aren’t confident in” US and british forces.
60% of shias and 94% of sunnis say that reconstruction has been ineffective or nonexistent in their areas.

Back in 2004 a poll reported that 51% of iraqis thought the increased violence against iraqi police was an attempt by US forces to persuade others we should stay in iraq, while 40% believed it was an attempt to persuade police not to cooperate with the US. To blame attacks on police on us, they’d have to think we were doing covert missions pretending to be iraqis, or we were hiring iraqis to attack people for us…. It’s an iraqi conspiracy theory, believed by a majority of those polled in 2004. A poll in late 2005 said that 80+% of iraqis wanted us gone. 70+% of them wanted the iraqi government to tell us to go. 60+% of them thought the iraqi government actually would tell us to go. but 80+% of them thought we wouldn’t go no matter what the iraqi government said.

The latest poll sampled more sunnis than they expected, and less shia and kurds. That’s happened every time. They always get more sunnis and fewer others than expected. They speculate that maybe the population estimates are wrong and it’s something like 28-35% sunnis, and 48-52% shias, and maybe 15% kurds.

The numbers obviously matter. If it’s 60% shias and 20% sunnis, that’s 3:1. The shias can dictate terms and the sunnis will have a hard time stopping them. If it’s 50% shias and 30% sunnis, that’s less than 2:1 and the sunnis have a fighting chance to carve out a pretty big place for themselves. Isn’t it interesting that we doubted Saddam’s government’s estimate of 35% sunni, but after all these years we still haven’t organised anything like a decent census?

The sunni/shia split may not be primarily religious but more ethnic, as our white-black split is ethnic.

No, they are the same ethnicity, they are all Arabs; it’s like anglos-catholics and anglos-protestants. And the government in Iraq was Arab-nationalist, it was trying to suppress sectarian divisions, not to inflame them.

And yet we aren’t having race wars in this country.

But they didn’t have sectarian wars either before the invasion. I don’t think 1991 rebellion was sectarian, it was a rebellion against the government, against secular government.

Now, imagine that the US is occupied by Mexico and the occupiers start forming whites-only paramilitary squads and sending them into predominantly black areas to control the population there, to arrest, interrogate, etc. Pretty soon you will have race wars. And that’s exactly what I think has happened there.

Abb1, I think your interpretation fits the known facts. It’s justifiable to hold that opinion.

But it isn’t proven, and the interpretation that there are real ethnic differences between sunni and shia in iraq (just as there were between protestants and catholics in the USA in 1790) and that those differences have been politically etc important at various times is also justifiable and fits the known facts.

Soon after we invaded, iraqi bloggers were saying that they all got along, that lots of sunnis married shias, that it wasn’t a big deal. I think they were telling the truth as they saw it.

But long before the invasion the CIA World Factbook put the sunni-shia-kurd split as very important. It took awhile for me to look at the factbook data as a schematic to analyse where a nation’s weaknesses are, where they’re exploitable. But the factbook talked like the sunni-shia-kurd split was a giant exploitable weakness, and americans were talking sunni-shia-kurd from day 1. We acted like the sunnis were all Ba’athists and vice versa, that they were the bad guys who’d been exploiting everybody else, that they were the ones to punish. We acted that way consistently. We made a deal about Najaf but we killed pretty much everybody we trapped inside Fallujah.

Was there really ethnic tension there all along? Or did we work hard to create it where it hadn’t been before? I don’t see how to tell. Certainly we worked hard for it, but that doesn’t say how hard we had to work, it doesn’t say to what extent it was there already.

I guess the important question is how much the violence is self-sustaining after we aren’t around to stoke it. and that’s hard to predict. If as some iraqis claim we’re the ones who’re financing it, our clandestine people might go right on paying for it after our military pulls out. So it’s real hard to get good data about how much it’s us and how much it’s them.

But if we did it by accident, out of sheer incompetence, there’s a fair chance things will calm down after we leave. If we’re doing it on purpose then we can find ways to keep doing it on purpose. Even if it’s them they might come to their senses.

So I can’t tell how much you’re right, and I can’t tell how much difference it would make.

Was there really ethnic tension there all along?

Of course there was tension (sectarian tension, I still don’t believe there’s any ethnic difference); I don’t doubt tension, I don’t doubt disparity.

What I doubt is this idea that ‘the Sunnis were ruling/dominating/oppressing the Shia before the war and now they fight to resume that domination/oppression’.

um, what?

the Rwandans managed to kill 800000 people in 3 months mainly with machetes; the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia were committed mostly by ragtag militias armed with Kalashnikovs – you don’t need any sophisticated military means to commit mass slaughter

the Rwandans managed to kill 800000 people in 3 months mainly with machetes; the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia were committed mostly by ragtag militias armed with Kalashnikovs – you don’t need any sophisticated military means to commit mass slaughter

You do when the victims are armed as well as you are.

Everybody has IEDs. Nobody has armor that can withstand IEDs. Hard to get great mobility and concentration of forces.

What gives a chance for genocide is that 3/4 of the population depends on the imported staples that the government provides. And the iraqi government recently announced that there was too much unrest in Anbar for them to continue food shipments. Unless they could bring in food through saudi arabia or maybe jordan or possibly syria they might starve.

abb1, jthomas is right, and let’s not forget water. I’m sure there are lots of regions that could have their water supplies disrupted, which would indeed equate to mass slaughter making what we have seen so far look like a pillow fight. Those who think things could not be *much* worse have a dangerous lack of imagination. It’s interesting, though, that no one seems to be addressing my main point, concerning the likelihood of other nations being drawn in.

It is always easier to disrupt water supplies than to ensure them, and if the government itself is seeking to do this, it will be very hard to contravent from outside. It is interesting that you think outside forces will not intervene militarily to help the Sunnis, but that they will be able to pull off massive and continuous rescue operations in defiance of the government. The latter requires the former at a minimum. Somalia, among others, showed how bringing in food supplies does not necessarily mean people get fed, and that was with US military backup, and a government not opposed to relief per se. I generally have a higher opinion of your contributions here than most, abb1, but I think here you’re just arguing what you want to believe.

I don’t know, Somalia is a different case, there they were doing the ‘nation building’ thing; punishing ‘bad’ warlords and helping the ‘good’ ones.

IIRC in Afghanistan they used to just drop stuff from the airplanes, those yellow packages, remember? What’s wrong with that?

No, still I don’t believe the Saudi government would jump into the mess, genocide or not. They just don’t do it, Saudi Arabia is not an ordinary state. Their role – their only role in the world – is protecting Mecca and Medina, everybody understands that. Not that I believe there would be a genocide in the first place.

Iran now is not under sanctions, they are playing Russia, China and Europe against the US; that’s their game. I don’t think they would risk it. They would be very careful.

you’re just arguing what you want to believe

Well, yes, I want to defend this particular position. You hear everywhere that if the US troops leave there’s going to be an Apocalypse. I don’t think it’s that obvious, but if no one ever defends the opposite pov it becomes a common wisdom. I don’t think this one deserves to be a common wisdom.

jthomas, I actually don’t think amnesty is that important. Grant amnesty to whom? We sure don’t know who most of the insurgents are, and, I think if the Iraqi Shia knew, they would kill them. Early in the occupation, when amnesty first came up, I proposed that insurgents should be subject to punishment, but their guilt had to be established to a legal standard. I think this will rarely be possible, so it achieves most of what amnesty does without forcing either the US or the Iraqi government to retroactively legitimize the insurgency. Added benefit: it asserts the supremacy of law. And, of course, the government always has the option of not pursuing every case it could prove.

abb1, I think we just have very different pictures of what is possible in this case. I do not see yellow boxes of water from the sky fixing this. But I hope I’m wrong. I would love to see the US withdraw and everything if not work out at least not worsen. But I’m skeptical. The current stalemate is far from the worst outcome possible.

Martin, without amnesty, any sunni politician can get any other sunni politician disqualified by getting somebody to rat on him. You can’t run a representative government for all iraq without sunni politicians.

If the sunnis do an unconditional surrender then you don’t need an amnesty. If it’s anything other than unconditional surrender then they’ll insist on an amnesty because otherwise it’s unconditional surrender. Sure, the government doesn’t have to detain them years later for what it suspects they did during the occupation. But if it can, then they’re at best second-class citizens.

I don’t know quite how to put this. imagine that at some time the US government decided that it was illegal to be a registered Democrat (or Republican, take your pick, whichever party you’ve ever registered for). And after a great deal of effort it gets established that they don’t really have the power to make that stick. Would you settle for the government promising that it won’t punish members of your party without a fair trial first? On the grounds that they don’t want to retroactively legitimise your party and they want to uphold the supremacy of law?

The argument here is whether it’s better to try for reconciliation or whether it’s better to push hard for unconditional surrender. The US government accepts only surrender. Either the USA changes that stand, or the USA withdraws, or the sunnis unconditionally surrender, or the fighting goes on.

While the sunnis appear to have very little representation in the international media, still I don’t think we could get away with diverting their water. What would they do, divert the euphrates?

We could though cut off the food. They depend on the iraqi government to ship the food in, and the government could simply claim there’s too much violence for the shipments to get through. Which they have in fact claimed. “Those stupid sunnis, they’re so violent they starve themselves!” “Sure we’d like to send in humanitarian relief, but it’s a war zone. We can just barely get the troops in to attack insurgents, we can’t possibly send in food. Once the insurgents are killed off then we can restore food shipments.”

But for that to work we have to seal the borders to prevent food coming in from neighboring sunni nations. We’re making a solid attempt at that too.

That was true for Mao, too. Take away his thugs with guns and very soon he would have been forgotten.

And looked how well he ruled. He won, of course, because he was up against clearly uncaring thugs with guns. Sadr is up against a half-organized democracy, a much different thing.

Do you think the FBI should give up and let the Mafia take over US streets because they have guns and are nasty? Because it’s just too hard and icky and takes too much thinking to keep it from happening? Except, it seems to largely work.

the simple fact is: you don’t know

jthomas, if you’re insisting on a legal standard of evidence, as I proposed, “ratting out” will not usually be sufficient.

Well, when they’re negotiating the sunnis can depend on the shia courts to require a legal standard of evidence that will keep them from getting executed. Would you settle for that, if it was your neck on the line? There was no amnesty for nazis because there was an unconditional surrender. If we’re willing to wait for an unconditional surrender then we don’t need an amnesty, of course. it’s just a question how long that will take.

They don’t have to divert the Euphrates, just contaminate it.

That’s specifically forbidden by the koran. Of course that might not stop them, if they could keep it secret. But if you look at a map the euphrates runs through sunni land into shia land and joins the tigris where it runs through shia land to the gulf. They’d do better to divert the river.

You’re right that it would take a whole lot of food coming in to make a difference. And the US military has a priority to seal the borders. I can just see the european news reports. The humanitarian aid convoys coming in with Red Cross symbols painted on top of each truck, and the US planes swoop in and the fireballs start going up, and then the transmission cuts off….

And then the next day the transmission shows the planes in the distance and the signal breaks up because they’re jamming, and the humanitarian aid column sends no more signals ever again….

And then we stage a press conference and show that the trucks were carrying contraband — wheat — and so we were completely justified in destroying them….

It will do wonders for our diplomacy.