[Dean's World] Aziz P: failure in Iraq?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Aziz P:
failure in Iraq?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1171571240.shtml


   I hate that there seem to be no good options in Iraq. Staying?
   Surging? Withdrawing? All options seem to do nothing to address the
   underlying problem of violence and strife.

   But one of my assumptions has been that however bad things are, they
   could be worse - and would indeed be worse should US forces leave.
   Which is why I've been against outright withdrawal. I do unequivocally
   reject the argument that opposing a "surge" in troops amounts to
   endorsing failure, an argument that the Administration's water
   carriers have been making with ferocity. If you can't acknowledge that
   liberals debating the war do so out of the same desire a solution that
   results in less threat to the United States, and instead bleat about
   "victory" without thought to what form it must take as constrained by
   events on the ground, then we can't and shouldn't debate it. We are on
   different planets. Best of luck to you.

   But surges aside, withdrawal is really the important issue, and on
   that one I've bought into the standard argument that chaos will ensue.
   But will it? To be honest I have never evaluated that assumption
   critically. Shouldn't there be some discussion on that?

   Yes. [1]Robert Dreyfuss provides it. In an article at WM he argues
   essentially that the presence of US forces at present does nothing to
   materially impede ethnic violence anyway:

     First, the United States is doing little, if anything, to restrain
     ethnic cleansing, either in Baghdad neighborhoods or Sunni and
     Shiite enclaves surrounding the capital. Indeed, under its current
     policy, the United States is arming and training one side in a
     civil war by bolstering the Shiite-controlled army and police.

     In theory, Baghdad is roughly divided into Shiite east Baghdad on
     one side of the Tigris River, and Sunni west Baghdad on the other
     side. But in isolated neighborhoods such as Adhamiya, a Sunni part
     of east Baghdad, and Kadhimiya, a Shiite enclave in west Baghdad,
     ugly ethnic cleansing is proceeding apace. The same is true along a
     necklace of Sunni towns south of the capital, in an area that is
     predominantly Shiite; in mixed Sunni-Shiite towns such as Samarra,
     the largest city of predominantly Sunni Salahuddin Province, north
     of Baghdad; and in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad. In these
     areas, it is facile to assert that U.S. troops are restraining the
     death squads and religiously inspired killers on both sides. And it
     would be impossible for us to do so even with a much greater
     increase in American troops than the president has called for.

   Plus, the violence is resource-limited and can't sustain itself:

     Neither the Sunnis nor the Shiites have much in the way of armor or
     heavy weaponsâtanks, major artillery, helicopters, and the like.
     Without heavy weaponry, neither side can take the war deep into the
     otherâs territory. âTheyâre not good on offense,â says Warren
     Marik, a retired CIA officer who worked in Iraq in the 1990s. âThey
     canât assault positions.â Shiites may have numbers on their side.
     But because the Sunnis have most of Iraqâs former army officers,
     and their resistance militia boasts thousands of highly trained
     soldiers, theyâre unlikely to be overrun by the Shiite majority.
     Equally, the minority Sunnis wonât be able to seize Shiite parts of
     Baghdad or major Shiite cities in the south. Presuming neither side
     gets its hands on heavy weapons, once you take U.S. forces out of
     the equation the Sunnis and Shiites would ultimately reach an
     impasse.

   Further, the imminent issue of Kirkuk also owes much to the American
   presence:

   in the event of an American withdrawal, the Kurds would find it
   exceedingly difficult either to take Kirkuk or to declare
   independence. An independent Kurdistan would be landlocked, surrounded
   by hostile nations, and would possess a weak paramilitary army
   incapable of matching Iran, Arab Iraq, or Turkey. If Kurdistan were to
   secede without gaining Kirkukâs oil, it would not be an economically
   viable nation. Even with the oil, the Kurds would have to depend on
   pipelines through Iraq and Turkey to export any significant amount.
   Nor would Turkey, with its large Kurdish minority, stand for a
   breakaway Kurdish state, and the Kurds know that the Turkish armed
   forces would overwhelm them.

     Conversely, under the U.S. occupationâor, perhaps, because of
     itâthe Kurds apparently feel emboldened to press their advantage in
     Kirkuk, despite the dire consequences. And if the United States
     were to adopt the idea floated by some in Washington of building
     permanent bases in Kurdistan, it would embolden the Kurds further.
     (The threat of a Turkish invasion is the chief deterrent to any
     move by the Kurds against Kirkuk, but as long as the United States
     maintains a presence in Kurdistan, the Turks will be reluctant to
     check the Kurds, for fear of running into U.S. troops.) Thus, by
     staying or by creating bases in Kurdistan, the United States is
     more likely to foster a Kurdish-Arab civil war in Iraq.

   And finally, let's not dismiss the forces of unity that Do exist
   within Iraq and which can serve as the basis for reconciliation:

     Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington, Iraq is not a
     make-believe state cobbled together after World War I, but a nation
     united by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, just as the Nile unites
     Egypt. Historically, the vast majority of Iraqis have not primarily
     identified themselves according to their sect, as Sunnis or
     Shiites. Of course, as the civil war escalates, more Iraqis are
     identifying by sect, and tensions are worsening. But it is not too
     late to resurrect some of the comity that once existed. The current
     war is not a conflict between all Sunnis and all Shiites, but a
     violent clash of extremist paramilitary armies. Most Iraqis do not
     support the extremists on either side. According to a poll
     conducted in June 2006 by the International Republican Institute,
     âseventy-eight per cent of Iraqis, including a majority of Shiites,
     opposed the division of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines.â

     In addition, the countryâs vast oil reserves, conceivably the
     worldâs largest, could help hold Iraq together. Iraqi politicians
     are currently devising a law that would ratify the central
     governmentâs control of all of the countryâs oil wealth. Even the
     corruption that now cripples Iraq tethers Iraqi political leaders
     to the central government and to the idea of Iraq as a
     nation-state. âNone of the big players really want civil war,â says
     an Iraqi military official closely affiliated with Ahmad Chalabiâs
     Iraqi National Congress. âNone of them want to give up the regular
     flow of funds that they get now from corruption.â

     What most Iraqis do seem to want, according to numerous polls, is
     for American forces to leave.

   Dreyfuss does mention President Bush's main argument that Al Qaeda
   will set up shop in Iraq, and rightly dismisses it. Abu Aardvark has
   been [2]making the [3]same argument numerous times that the threat of
   an Al-Qaedastan is simply [4]not credible. [5]Al-Qaeda benefits
   immensely from US forces' presence in Iraq and withdrawal WILL deal
   Al-Q a blow; that point simply cannot be denied.

   There's a lot more in Dreyfus' article that really should be read in
   full; most people simply make the assumption that withdrawal is
   equivalent to failure. But if withdrawal does remove obstacles to
   Iraqi stability and security, then withdrawal really means victory.
   It's a question that the intellectually honest amongst us must grapple
   with to justify our assumptions of doom.

References

   1. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0703.dreyfuss.html
   2. http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/10/what_osama_want.html
   3. http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/08/alqaeda_in_iraq.html
   4. http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/10/the_atiyah_lett.html
   5. http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/10/the_atiyah_lett.html