"I think we are winning. Okay? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05
"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.
Looking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies' (IISS) Web site led me to this parliamentary testimony by their resident Iraq expert, Toby Dogde: Written evidence submitted by Dr Toby Dodge: "Iraq: The Origins of the Present Crisis" 29 July 2004.
The testimony is from 10 months ago, so it's dated in a number of ways. But it still has some valuable observations. Dodge winds up his statement encouraging the British Parliament to increase its support for the Americans in Iraq because of the bad state of things there.
He criticizes the early reliance on Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi and his worthless group of exiles (my emphasis):
With this limited expertise on Iraq the coalition became worryingly dependent upon the small group of Iraqi exiles it brought back to Baghdad in the aftermath of liberation. They were meant to provide several functions. First, they would become the main channel of communication between the wider Iraqi population and US forces. They would also, in spite of being absent from the country for many years, become the chief source of information and guidance for the American administrators struggling to understand and rebuild the country. Finally, and most importantly, they were set to become the basis of the new political elite. It was the exiles that were to form the core of Iraq's new governing classes. However, this reliance has brought with it distinct problems. The formerly exiled political [parties], dominated by the Iraqi National Congress, have brought with them a very distinctive view of Iraqi society. This describes Iraq as irrevocably divided between sectarian and religious groupings mobilised by deep communal hatreds. This "primordialization" of Iraq bares little resemblance to Iraqi society in 2004, but appears to be very influential in the political planning that has gone on since 9 April 2003.
The heavy reliance on organisations like the Iraqi National Accord (INA) and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) has further exacerbated the divide between Iraqi society and US forces.
Notice that the development of more civil-war-like clashes indicates that the "primordialization" is now taking shape in the wake of the Bush administration's failures in handling the insurgency. That's the postmodern approach to foreign policy: we create our own reality.
That's not just rhetorical. Relying on the viewpoint of the exile groups, the occupation authority constructed a political process that is having the effect of remaking Iraq in that image. Dodge could see that process underway in 2004 (my emphasis):
The confessional basis to choosing the IGC [Iraqi Governing Council set up in 2003] caused much heated debate in Iraqi political circles and across the newly liberated press in Baghdad. Arguments focused on the way members were chosen, for their sectarian affiliation not their technical skills, and the dangers of introducing divisive confessional dynamics into the highest level of Iraqi politics. To quote Rend Rahim Francke, the Iraqi Ambassador-in-waiting to Washington DC:
". . . a quota system based on sect and ethnicity undermines the hope of forging a common Iraqi citizenship by stressing communitarian identity and allegiance at the expense of Iraqi identity . . . anyone who wishes to be involved in the political process must first advertise an ethnic, sectarian or at least tribal identity, and play the ethnic and sectarian card. Proclaiming one's `Iraqiness' is no longer sufficient: one has to `declare' for a communal identity. This puts Iraq well on the road to Lebanonization . . ."
Juan Cole reports on a recent interview with three Iraqi political leaders that seems to support this argument in large part: Islamism versus Secularism in Iraq: A Debate Informed Comment blog 05/26/05.
And this news report suggests the process is advancing at a relatively fast pace: Proposal to divide Iraq into semi-autonomous states gains ground by Nancy A. Youssef, Knight-Ridder Knight Ridder Newspapers 05/24/05.
As Iraq begins writing its new constitution, leaders in the country's southern regions are pushing aggressively to unite their three provinces into an oil-rich, semi-autonomous state, a plan that some worry could solidify Iraq's sectarian tensions, create fights over oil revenues and eventually split the nation.
The idea for grouping Iraq's 18 provinces into states first appeared in the U.S.-brokered interim constitution, which allowed up to three provinces, excluding Baghdad and Kirkuk, to become "regions amongst themselves." So far, only the Kurds in the north have created such a region.
As the Kurds gained more power in the newly elected centralized government, the Shiites began discussing a region of their own to counter what they thought was too much political power for the Kurds, analysts said.
"They way they played it out, Kurdistan was a behemoth with a disproportionately high amount of power in Baghdad," said Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in Shiite Islam.
It's no accident that Juan Cole gets quoted a lot in articles like this. He's one of the few real experts on Shi'a Islam in America. And he's both willing to play the role of "public intellectual" and very good at it. His Informed Comment blog is really an amazing resource. Many academics wouldn't think of putting out their work for free on a daily basis like he does. And it's high-quality work, as well.
Back to Dodge's 2004 statement, t
here are an increasing number of number games going on with the Iraq War. But one that matters is this (my emphasis):Troop numbers and tactics have hampered the nature and quality of the law and order that American troops have been able to enforce in the aftermath of the cease-fire. In the run up to war Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki in a Senate hearing calledfor "hundreds of thousands" of troops to guarantee order. The RAND corporation, in a widely cited study on state building, published in the run up to the invasion, compared US interventions in Germany, Japan, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. It concluded that occupying forces would need between 400,000 and 500,000 to impose order on Iraq. At the moment there are only 137,000 US troops attempting to impose order on the country, this is clearly not enough to achieve the type of sustainable order state building requires.
The understandable tactics adopted by US troops, a combination of heavily armed motorised patrols and large fortified bases, means that the military presence became detached and largely remote from the Iraqi population. As the daily toll of US casualties mounts American forces are increasingly perceived of as weak and their presence in and commitment to the country as temporary. This general impression helps to explain why Baath loyalists began to reorganise in the spring of 2003 and why the remnants of Saddam's security services, sensing an opportunity to take advantage of US force vulnerability, began launching hit and run attacks with increasing frequency and skill.
Dodge has quite a few interesting things to say about the insurgency. But I was particularly struck by this one, which is different that what we've been hearing from the Pentagon and our "press corps" (gosh, how could they get something like this wrong?) about the city of Fallujah, which the US military has since levelled. Dodge writes (my emphasis):
The final source of violence is certainly the most worrying for the CPA and the hardest to deal with. This can be usefully characterised as Iraqi Islamism, with both Sunni and Shia variations. Fuelled by both nationalism and religion it is certainly not going to go away and provides an insight into the mobilising dynamics of future Iraqi politics. An early indication of the cause and effect of this phenomenon can be seen in the town of Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad. In spite of assertions to the contrary, Iraqis did not regard Falluja, prior to the war, as a "hotbed of Baathist activity". On the contrary, Falluja had a reputation in Iraq as a deeply conservative town, famed for the number of its mosques and its adherenceto Sunni Islam. In the immediate aftermath of regime change Iraqi troops and Baath Party leaders left the town. Imams from the local mosques stepped into the socio-political vacuum, bringing an end to the looting, even managing to return some of the stolen property.
The fact that this town became a centre of violent opposition to US occupation so soon after liberation is explained by Iraqis I interviewed as a result of heavy-handed searches carried out by US troops in the hunt for leading members of the old regime. Resentment escalated when two local Imam's were arrested. Events reached a climax when US troops broke up a demonstration with gunfire resulting in reports of seventeen Iraq fatalities and 70 wounded.
The repeated violation of the private sphere of Iraqi domestic life by US troops searching for weapons and fugitives has caused recurring resentment across Iraq, especially when combined with the seizure of weapons and money. It has to be remembered that as brutal as Saddam's regime was, it never sought to disarm the Iraqi population. The deaths of six British soldiers in June 2003 in the southern town of Majar al Kabir, although almost certainly carried out by Shias, can also be explained in a similar fashion. It was preceded by a British army operation designed to recover weapons by searching houses. The resentment this caused erupted when a heavy deployment of British troops was replaced by a small number of lightly armed military police.
Say what? Saddam never tried to disarm the population? I wonder what the National Rifle Association's Second Amendment zealots would do with that little factoid?
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