When the topic of Iraq comes up in conversations with my friends and acquaintances these days (which is sadly increasingly rare) I generally encounter one of two types of attitudes. The first one, from people on the political left and center, is one of utter exasperation and hopelessness. Not only have we lost, we’ve failed so badly that we may as well leave the stadium and get to our cars as fast as possible to avoid the traffic jam and the inevitable rowdiness soon to be displayed by the opposition. The second attitude, from those who still inexplicably cling to the right-of-center view on Iraq, is one that features mindless tu quoque utterances: “Well, at least it is better than Saddam.” What I fear, however, is that both sides are so frustrated that they no longer care what is going on over there. Even as Bush’s poll numbers plummet, more American soldiers die, and death squads roam Baghdad’s streets (something that even laymen easily predicted two full years ago), the conflict is ever evolving. It is imperative that we recognize that evolution and not think that it is simply business as usual over there. It is in fact getting far worse every day, and in historically predictable ways.
Three articles published on Sunday collectively do a fine job of bringing us all up to speed on where things stand at the present and why adding 20,000 additional troops is nothing but the final desperate maneuver of a man who was always ten steps behind. The first article comes to us from Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City. In it he describes how the Bush administration is rounding up all the people that it originally thought didn’t understand the situation in Iraq, and is now asking them to salvage what little they can of the mess.
Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Minerals. Unlike many of his compatriots in the Green Zone, the rangy, retired American ambassador wasn’t fazed by chaos. He’d been in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, Phnom Penh as it was falling to the Khmer Rouge and Mogadishu in the throes of Somalia’s civil war. Once he received his Halliburton-issued Chevrolet Suburban, he disregarded security edicts and drove around Baghdad without a military escort. His mission, as he put it, “was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them.”He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned…
Desperate for new approaches to stifle the persistent Sunni insurgency and Shiite death squads that are jointly pushing the country toward an all-out civil war, the White House made a striking about-face last week, embracing strategies and people it once opposed or cast aside. [Link]
Now that the Neocons and “swamp drainers” have been discredited, it is time for the pragmatic adults to clean up their mess. These are the same pragmatic adults who were accused of not understanding the real threat of terrorism by the idealogues who lost their reason to fear, post 9/11. Part of the new plan for Baghdad is what the people worth listening to were saying all along. That is what makes the present bloodshed even harder to witness:
The plan unveiled by Bush last week calls for many people who lost their jobs under Bremer’s de-Baathification decree to be rehired. It calls for more Sunnis, who were marginalized under the CPA, to be brought into the government. It calls for state-owned factories to be reopened. It calls for more reconstruction personnel to be stationed outside the Green Zone. It calls for a counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes providing security to the civilian population over transferring responsibility to local military forces.
Carney believes such measures could have been effective three years ago. Today, he worries they will be too little, too late. [Link]
A Neocon who supported the war but who has long since turned on Bush, Newsweek’s Farheed Zakaria, proclaims in his newest column: “We Might ‘Win’, But Still Lose.” Among the anecdotes in his article that are the most revealing about the current situation is this one:
Administration officials have pointed to last week’s fighting against Sunni insurgents in and around Baghdad’s Haifa Street as a textbook example of the new strategy. Iraqi forces took the lead, American troops backed them up and the government did not put up any obstacles. The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger concluded that the battle “looked like a successful test of unified [American-Iraqi] effort.”
But did it? NEWSWEEK’s Michael Hastings, embedded with an American advisory team that took part in the fighting, reports that no more than 24 hours after the battle began on Jan. 6, the brigade’s Sunni commander, Gen. Razzak Hamza, was relieved of his command. The phone call to fire him came directly from the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite. Lt. Col. Steven Duke, commander of a U.S. advisory team working with the Iraqis, and a 20-year Army veteran, describes Hamza as “a true patriot [who] would go after the bad guys on either side.” Hamza was replaced by a Shiite. [Link]
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p>Even now, we are witnessing the removal of people who would be most effective in making any difference over there.
The last of the three articles I’d like to point out is in The Guardian. It is the MUST READ article of the three as it best explains just how much the situation in Iraq has evolved. Both sides are playing us for the upper hand in the ethnic cleansing wars that will follow our eventual departure. That is the main reason why adding 20,000 troops is an ultimately flawed strategy:
One morning a few weeks ago I sat in a car talking to Rami, a thick-necked former Republican Guard commando who now procures arms for his fellow Sunni insurgents.
Rami was explaining how the insurgency had changed since the first heady days after the US invasion. “I used to attack the Americans when that was the jihad. Now there is no jihad. Go around and see in Adhamiya [the notorious Sunni insurgent area] – all the commanders are sitting sipping coffee; it’s only the young kids that are fighting now, and they are not fighting Americans any more, they are just killing Shia. There are kids carrying two guns each and they roam the streets looking for their prey. They will kill for anything, for a gun, for a car and all can be dressed up as jihad…”He was more despondent than angry. “We Sunni are to blame,” he said. “In my area some ignorant al-Qaida guys have been kidnapping poor Shia farmers, killing them and throwing their bodies in the river. I told them: ‘This is not jihad. You can’t kill all the Shia! This is wrong! The Shia militias are like rabid dogs – why provoke them?’ “
Then he said: “I am trying to talk to the Americans. I want to give them assurances that no one will attack them in our area if they stop the Shia militias from coming…”This man who had spent the last three years fighting the Americans was now willing to talk to them, not because he wanted to make peace but because he saw the Americans as the lesser of two evils. He was wrestling with the same dilemma as many Sunni insurgent leaders, beginning to doubt the wisdom of their alliance with al-Qaida extremists…
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p>Another insurgent commander told me: “At the beginning al-Qaida had the money and the organisation, and we had nothing.” But this alliance soon dragged the insurgents and then the whole Sunni community into confrontation with the Shia militias as al-Qaida and other extremists massacred thousands of Shia civilians. Insurgent commanders such as Abu Omar soon found themselves outnumbered and outgunned, fighting organised militias backed by the Shia-dominated security forces. [Link]
In Sunday night’s interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, an interesting fact was revealed. Apparently Bush is currently reading a book about France’s occupation of Algeria. It was recommended to him by Henry Kissinger. I can’t help but think how such intellectual curiosity comes four years too late.
Let’s keep educating ourselves about Iraq and not tune it all out. One day we will be the leaders that we’ve currently lost faith in and we’ll have to apply the lessons learned here.
(emphasis mine)
Riiiight…Abhi (great post on your part, btw), see, first that would require Bush to acknowledge that something can evolve, and his track record on that isn’t real good either…
Apparently Bush is currently reading a book about FranceÂ’s occupation of Algeria.
my friend greg cochran was talking about the algeria analogy 3 years ago.
Great post Abhi – good job in taking it beyond the disaster/better than Saddam impasse! I’ve been talking to some folks over at other blogs (I admit it – I’ve been cheating on SM) that discuss the war and it’s sad to see the conversation always degrade into these polar camps.
Of course we would not be having these problems in Iraq if Al Gore was in the white house.
I wonder if Ralph Nader still thinks there no difference between Gore and Bush.
The insurgency and the civil war ( its about time it was classified as such) is a worst case scenario come true. What Irag needs is another Saddam, not one with genocidal aspirations, but someone who has the cajones to end the strife and bring peace between the communities. What we are seeing now is the Iraqi equivalent of gangs. Young men who have no jobs, given a gun and the moral qualification to use it. If a leader ( not one as weak and self centered as the incompetent al-maliki)emerges who can keep control of the armed forces and stand up to Moqtada Al-Sadr only then does Iraq have a chance. Although i believe his drive and strength should be on par with Syria’s erstwhie premier ‘Hafiz al-Asad’. This type of leader would probably make mass arrests and quite a few executions. But this doesnt look like a problem a Gandhi or MLK can solve.
Nice post. But one thing that is not mentioned but of great importance as to how things will turn out is the Iran-Syria connection to the Shia. As long as there is external support that funds one faction there will be a trouble. Why wouldn’t Iran try to escalate the infighting even if some Shia political leaders are willing to compromise? Why wouldn’t a worse form of Lebanon type of govt be formed by Iran/Syria. It is very cost effective for Iran to do so as to avoid bigger threat from US/West.
Stabilization would only postpone the conflict. It is better to split the country along Shia/Sunni/Kurd factions. Iraq’s borders are artificially created anyways.
kesh, you are in the realist camp. someone like Mubarak will stabilize the country. but it won’t happen for a few years or at least as long as Bush is the WH. no WMD, no democracy –> no public reason to invade iraq –> Bush and neocons can’t hide their faces anywhere then.
Personally, I do not understand why people do not understand one fact. The military is not made for police keeping. It’s mission is to kill, i.e do damage. The whole military industrial complex is setup to provide the military soldiers, navy sailors, marines, airmen etc… weapons to kill. Heck, our own military cannot even keep American citizens in control. During the Katrina stabilization process, it took a 3-star general to fly in and tell the troops to lower their weapons and start giving a helping hand. If our soldiers treat our own citizens this way during times of duress, think what they would do to Iraqis.
What the President of the United States just told us that 20,000 troops aged 18-21 primarily (maybe higher) that went through 3 months of boot camp, 6 months of technical schooling in their profession (infantry, etc…), limited 6 month counter-insurgency training, possible prior deployments to Iraq WILL attempt to quell a Civil War. My first thought is Yeah, right! What can we do? Repent. Ask forgiveness. Talk to Europe. Talk to our allies. Engage the world. Has Bush heard of the term DIPLOMACY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently Bush is currently reading a book about FranceÂ’s occupation of Algeria. It was recommended to him by Henry Kissinger. I canÂ’t help but think how such intellectual curiosity comes four years too late. Battle of Algiers is considered to be one of the best work of documentation of France in Algeria. It is a damning movie in a pseudo-documentary style.
Top policy makers at Pentagon saw that movie before “shock and awe”. But then why did they repeat the same mistake…………guys. Here are some excerpts:
All from Wikipedia.
I believe it is fitting, today, to share the wisdom of a man who’s vision, compassion, and perseverance is sorely needed in these times. The Reverand, April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York City:
By the way, the latest issue of the NYR has a telling piece on the human catastrophe of the occupation which includes a review of Nir Rosen and Anthony Shadid:
Lebanon also experienced mass middle & upper class flight during its civil war and the subsequent erosion of vital institutions which Hezbollah has aimed to partly replace.
“In Sunday nightÂ’s interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, an interesting fact was revealed.”
Actually, there were MANY interesting facts revealed about Bush, and none of them too comforting.
First of all, great post Abhi. I’ve been waiting for sometime to participate in a discussion like this. Several things popped into my head as I read the post and comments.
First, I was decidedly against the invasion of Iraq and I disagree with this Administration’s stand on most issues. I fall into the category described in Abhi’s article and it has only gotten worse over the past several weeks. This largely has to do with the Administration’s reaction to the Baker-Hamilton report. The administration all but ignored all the major recommendations of the only centrist strategy presented on the Iraq conflict. How am I supposed to feel any less than exasperated when it is clear that those running the war still have no patience for a dissenting views here at home, leave alone in the diplomatic arena?
I watched Pelley’s segment on 60 Minutes last night. I found it very alarming. It seems as though the President’s “let history judge me” outlook is totally ignoring the requirements of the short and medium term. I also think it’s kind of hypocritical of him to think it historical terms with respect to the war in Iraq, but not in the same terms when it comes to the destruction of a great American city and global climate change. I got the feeling that he has resigned to the fact that he will ignore opposing views for the next two years and leave it to the next guy, or rather generation, to clean up his mess.
Finally, though I often get frustrated with the sophistry of Tom Friedman, I recommend that everyone read his op-ed from last week. He wrote about how the Administration’s war effort has placed the entire burden of Iraq on the military and their families without demanding any sacrifice from the rest of us. This sentiment resonated with me. Outside of reading articles and getting involved in informal political debates, the Iraq war has hardly affected my day to day life. That is the biggest failing of this administration. They went to war without getting a broad commitment for change, probably because it would have been impossible to get such support. But the fact that they started the war without the committment of the citizenry should have been a sign that a drawn out conflict would not be sustainable.
To me, the really hopeless part about this is the absolute unwillingness of our political parties to operate in good faith here. I personally would not have been against this war from the beginning on the merits. I believe that we DID have a moral responsibility to save Iraq from Saddam Hussein, since the American government was substantially responsible for first installing him. It is completely moral and just that the blood of his victims should trouble us. I still believe a well-planned war that was truly aimed for that end would have been worth fighting.
But I was against this war because, from the beginning, there has been a shock lack of honesty and openness about the cost, objectives, strategy, and governance of this conflict. From the very beginning, discussion about these very important elements of any war have been quashed (admittedly, by both parties). As a result, we entered this war without asking the fundamental questions necessary for the public to evaluate our involvement. Indeed, those of us who asked those questions quickly found our patriotism maligned and our views dismissed. So we started firing the guns without actually ever defining the goals of the war. We planned a nation-building operation on the fly, and we eschewed the advice and expertise of the nations and organizations who had actually had experience on this end. So now we reach this this point where thousands of troops are sitting around in tiny, bristling enclaves around Iraq with virtually no well-articulated reason for their further presence other than the utterly idiotic and meaningless phrase: “to win”.
And yet even today there’s no attempt to work things out in good faith. Information is routinely hidden. The war continues to be funded outside the normal budget process. Falsehoods are uttered as fact, often by the White House but even more often by the popular conservative media. Bipartisan structures are convened to come to consensus, only to have their recommendations slapped away like flies. In today’s political landscape, the White House still acts as though cooperation with Democrats is tantamount to surrender to “the terrorists”. So there is nearly no hope of coming to any sort of compromise here. The proponents of this war have decided that the only choice is between victory or death, both domestically and in Iraq. So the choice is either to wage a tedious, difficult campaign to FORCE the troops home (most likely through incredibly distasteful policy solutions like cutting funding) or to let Bush burn through lives and dollars to satisfy his absolutist stance.
Faced with that domestic situation, who WOULDN’T feel bleak about this war?
the problem now is 1. iran is empowered 2. no wmd’s 3. no stability endangering democracy
I read Bush’s “surge” speech as a warning to Iran, with whom we are at war but have been too timid to respond. Iran, like Saddam, enables terror, but unlike the Saudis cannot be negotiated with (arguable point), and the strengthening of their hand has been the most serious unexpected consequence of this war, not unlike the way we strengthened the soviets by defeating nazism. So bush will take churchill’s advice and try to defang iran b/f they become too big (like N. Korea). He will be met with great resistance as even churchill was called a warmonger after the “iron curtain” speech.
bush still thinks (correctly) that getting rid of saddam was critical to the war on terror despite the fact that he had no wmd’s since 1. he could easily reconstitute them 2. he may have shipped them off prior to the war 3. he made is intentions toward the US known when he tried to assassinate our president, among other things. Bush follows the 1% doctrine.
i think rummy wanted to get rid of saddam while minimizing american casualties, and he succeeded at the expense of stability in iraq. by allowing sectarian violence to take root before democracy, rummy put at risk wolfowitzÂ’s neocon dream. but all is not lost.
Manju, do you seriously think Saddam may have ‘shipped off’ his WMDs? What is the basis for the speculation (genuinely curious)?
Also, given the Iraq situation, is it realistic for the US to contemplate military action against Iran and/or Syria? The list of allies will be shorter for any further escalation, methinks.
This is an already discredited notion. Saddam was a tyrant but only terrorized his own people. America doesn’t care about self-contained terrorism. Saddam was secularist who would have executed Al Qaeda agents as well as Iranian agents within his borders. The only “terrorists” he openly supported were the families of Palestinain suicide bombers sent against Israel (after death monetary support). Use of the world correctly in this case is incorrect.
I don’t know. There have been multiple reports. I once heard Georges Sada, a General under Saddam, claim with absolute certainty (on Jon Stewert’s show) that this occurred. David Kay also bought up the possibility.
I don’t think an occupation is realistic. But the iraq war was very succesful up to that point. I don’t know how successful airpower will be in terms of destroying their nuke program (there are rumors that Israel may use tactical nukes) but if it is feasable, I think Bush will try to get it done. Politically, Ahmadinejad’s fanaticsim is Bush’s best friend. He may be able to lure them into a greater war than they are already waging, and that would justify an american invasion/bombing. Maybe that’s what the raid on their consulate was about. Plus, the saudis and much of the rest of the region are really worried about Iraq.
It is utterly frustrating that people still refuse to let go of the alleged nexus between Saddam and Al Qaeda. On the other hand, the same administration says nothing about the real paymasters of the Taliban, namely the Pakistan administration (disclosure: I’m an Indian national).
” Saddam was a tyrant but only terrorized his own people “
Thanks for laying out, in just a few words, the primary rationale of a certain part of the anti-war constituency. The one which is not rabidly left wing but does care about the sufferings of the different peoples of the world. So it was OK as long as he was terrorizing his own people?
” America doesn’t care about self contained terrorism “
Historically, let’s say it doesn’t. But a certain American president departed from that for good. And you oppose it? Interesting that the man who is changing the immoral way America has long callously stood by, while others across the world suffered, is the one who is getting all the brickbats from people who would congregate in a heartbeat to protest the injustice meted out to marginalized people all over the world.
In fact you want to steer America back to the age of inconsequential diplomacy as exemplified by Baker Hamilton rubbish.
” Saddam was secularist who would have executed Al Qaeda agents as well as Iranian agents within his borders “
This is no secret. Are you telling me this administration is so ignorant to not know the above? I’d like to ask you what would your plan have been to deliver millions of suffering Iraqis from the stranglehold of brutal Saddam and his equally cruel sons waiting in the wings to follow him, without losing a few more generations to the hell of despair and torture? Thank god for George W Bush. And of course we haven’t been all altruistic about this adventure. We will have accomplished something strategically unparalleled in US history. But for that you need patience and a long term view.
He was a great friend of America when he was killing commies in Iraq and waging war against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. Besides the invasion of Kuwait, his other big mistake was this:
His enmity towards Israel doomed him. The neocons were baying for his blood for years.
Bush may (I predict he will) still come out ahead. America has all the cards. It can afford to make even big mistakes and still win in the long run. Unlike Vietnam, Iran has no superpowers as allies. Bush has many sunni arabs on his side now and even China and Russia are distancing themselves from that crackpot Ahmadinejad’s Iran. India had distanced itself even before he came to power. America is succeeding in isolating Iran. There is too much at stake: Oil. Privatizing Iraq’s vast Oil resources, to the advantage of american oil companies, is the Grand Prize.
To the best of my knowledge, Bush never suggested that he planned to go after all world dictators alphabetically. The primary rationale for the war was WMDs and War on Terror. The removal of Saddam is certainly an accidental benefit, but again it is debatable if Iraq is better off without him.
Come on, don’t be juvenile and put words in my mouth. I am analyzing it objectively from an American foreign policy perspective. The North Korean dictator and the leadership of Sudan are terrorizing their own people every bit as badly as Saddam terrorized his. Why don’t we stop them? Because we are selfish and it is better for us to not stop them. In Iraq’s case the right wing thought it was better to intervene for selfish reasons. There wasn’t a moral component to it.
I oppose incompetence and ignorance and those that confuse the two with morality.
Really, your comment would have been just as significant if you had just written that one line.
Terrible (#21), of course the administration would have known such things that seem obvious to everyone. But that’s not what they said, did they? The insinuation was that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Why couldn’t Bush try to build up a consensus for regime change to achieve the humanitarian and strategic goals that you point to? And how long you do think is long term going to be?
and the kuwaitis and israelis, our allies.
this is true of pat buchanan and other realists but the neo-cons, including rummy, challenge this view. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to see how regional terrorists (say Hamas or hezbollah) could want to attack us too (because of our support of israel).
True, so would N.Korea…but we still worry about tem giving WMD’s to terrorists.
I’d remove the quotes. there’s also Abu Nidal,PLF, MKO, Hamas, ansar al islam, Abdul Rahman Yasin (helped bomb wtc in ’93).
IMHO, the role of the American press, both conservative and liberal, in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the run up to Iraq was quite crucial in mobilising public opinion in favour of the war. The liberal press has been wise in hindsight, but they were quite happy to go along with the administration and did not ask too many uncomfortable questions when they should have.
I’d remove the quotes.
Agree, so would I. There doesn’t have to be any equivocation on whether Palestinian suicide bombers are terrorists or not.
I think everyone assumed, including the Clintons, that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD’s…and this alone justifyed a war in the eyes of mainstream democrats. His behaviour toward the UN seemed to “confirm” this. I think he really wanted to world to believe he had stockpiles because that was a critical to his power. He succeeded.
here is a pretty harsh (deserved) article on the pro and anti-war punditry and the media treatment of them…
I think Pat Buchanan saying “The age of American Empire is over” on the McLaughlin group show, says it all (or probably Buchanan writing on opinion piece on Antiwar.com )
I would urge people to check out Prof. Juan Cole’s Top 10 Myth’s about Iraq 2006 His top one is …
If you think that Juan Cole is America hater then check out 6 brutal truths about Iraq by, Gen. Willian Odom
One of his truths
The sign of hubris is that US thinks that its presence has some kind of “effect” on keeping Iraq togather. This hubris is going to get more American soldiers killed, while US presence remaining irrelevant to the conflict, as it is now.
The stupidest thing about Iraq I hear on TV is about this “are we winning??” WTF?? Its a civil war between two parties and US is not one of them. How can the US win?
think everyone assumed, including the Clintons, that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD’s…and this alone justifyed a war in the eyes of mainstream democrats
Oh, give it up already!
Why has no paper of record in the US, felt the need to interview Muqtada Al-Sadr??