October 9, 2007
Iraq - some reactions
Thanks to everyone who took part in the impromptu Iraq discussion. I was pleased to see that the contributors span the ideological spectrum from "Bush is a war criminal" to "secure the oil and let the hopeless Iraqis slug it out" (I paraphrase obviously). Since much of the blogosphere seems to be chopped up into the ideological equivalent of gated communities, it’s good to see such a range of opinions.
As for myself, I think the discussion helped clarify my thinking a bit - although I don’t think I’ve yet found "the solution". Rather than comment on each and every posting, I thought it might be useful to react to groups of ideas that cropped up.
First - Belgium. I’m fond of the place myself, since I used to live there. And a couple of correspondents seem to regard it as a possible model for Iraq - as does Volker Perthes, whose article I linked to. I’m not convinced however. The temptations of federalism or even partition are obvious - and that may be where we end up eventually. But any attempt to force the situation might involve further mass movements of people and killings - which looked more like the partition of India and Pakistan than the creation of Belgium (which I seem to remember is the only revolution ever to have started in an opera house.) Also partition might invite outside intervention and therefore a wider war. Would Turkey tolerate an independent Kurdistan? How would the Saudis feel about an Iranian-linked Shiastan in the south?
I thought Felix Drost’s suggestions were thoughtful and positive. But I’m afraid also over-optimistic. I find it very hard to imagine Surge 2.0 being politically possible in the US. In fact, I think one of the problems with the neo-cons’ approach (I’m not saying Mr Drost is a neo-con, by the way) is that they not only failed to understand the politics of Iraq, they also failed to factor in the politics of the US itself. The American public has no appetite for another big push in Iraq - and I think that will be reflected by the next president.
Ann Zuspan’s suggestion of scattering largesse around the tribal areas, in the hope of fostering economic development and peace seemed to attract a lot of support. Again, I’m a bit sceptical. Its been very hard to establish the security conditions in which development aid can work. And given that there are so many armed militias all over the country - closely connected to all local power structures - mightn’t the US simply end up funding the civil war? (Arguably the US has already armed most sides in the civil war.)
So what can I say that’s positive? Well, I thought that Alex Evans’s insistence that the US and its allies (given the pace of British withdrawal, I’ll soon be able to drop that phrase about allies) should make a renewed and clear-headed assessment of their aims - and what is achievable - is clearly right. New "benchmarks" would have to go beyond the passage of this or that law - although they are small concrete signs of progress. They would have to go back to first principles - about what kind of regime is possible, what the west’s true security interests are; what levels of violence are "acceptable". This is a process known as "defining down success". Once we abandon wishful thinking we might be able to focus on avoiding the worst, rather than aiming for the best. The worst surely has to be defined in humanitarian terms - less killing and fewer refugees has to be the first goal - and I cant see that rapid American withdrawal contributes to that goal. After that come security interests - oil, Iran etc.
I’m also against linking benchmarks to a definite timetable for troop withdrawals. Of course, the US should be aiming to get out as quickly as possible. Dreams of permanent military bases in Iraq should be abandoned. But benchmarks plus a definite timetable sounds too much like providing the US with a fig-leaf for getting out, whatever the situation. (We gave the Iraqis their chance, but they blew it.) Somewhere in there is a middleground between the hardline Republican position - "we stay until we get the job done", even if the job is now clearly unachievable; and the hardline "troops out, now - and damn the consequences" position.
I’m afraid I’m not going to get the Nobel peace prize for that, however.
Gideon, I have resided attentively in both the US and Sweden so I can entertain even myself with the schizophrenia of my political positions. I have noticed allover the world that excellent education creates excellent human beings, such people will try to understand and will be welcoming, but “of those to whom much is given, much is required”. And so I believe we owe it to the people of Iraq not to turn our backs, like you yourself put it: The worst surely has to be defined in humanitarian terms.
Personally, to turn my back on them now, leaving their women in thralldom, their children poor and undereducated, their society fractured by hatred, terror and revenge, after having endorsed the removed of a secular dictatorship in which many of the liberties they had are now being phased out by political Islam, is wrong. How can it not be my moral obligation to make us stay? If that is my cultural arrogance speaking then so be it, perhaps our societies are no beacons of hope to anyone. In the end I find our energy security a secondary concern to the moral imperative; western liberal ideology, religious traditions and historical insights compel us all to care. If we leave Iraq behind, then so much for our vaunted ideals.
So that’s why I have to believe in surge 2.0, how can I not. And what is a hard - practical alternative? Losing the rice paddies of South Vietnam to communism didn’t affect the global price of rice much, but Iraq is another matter entirely and yet so many view this conflict in terms of Vietnam as if it is possible, economically viable, to leave this particular piece of the planet in this kind of disarray. Gideon, perhaps you could compel someone at the FT or the Economist (a publication that helped convince me to be in favour of the Iraq invasion) to try to somehow quantify the possible risks.
But there it is; to those readers who don’t share the moral imperative I would like to ask about the gas in their car, what about our transport infrastructure, or what about generating electricity or warming ones home this winter? Leaving means running an incalculable risk that our societies will have to bear.
By the way Gideon, if Britain withdraws there remain a number of nations with troops in Iraq, most of these are new democracies fresh from the experience of Soviet occupation which provides them with a different perspective on the importance of their alliance with the US. Georgia seeks to increase its troop strength to 2000, which for a poor country of only 4.6m people is a very substantial contribution. They see their presence in Iraq as a way to secure not just the freedom of the Iraqis. Or what about 120 Albanians, all of them Bush-loving Muslims?
Gideon, shouldn’t they have a nobel prize for journalism? You’re such a good mensch we’d all endorse you, you certainly deserve our fondness.
Posted by: Felix Drost | October 10th, 2007 at 4:14 am | Report this commentPlease let’s keep convincing ourselves that surge 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 10.0 are required.
In fact, let’s do away with the pretence that it is a surge at all. Just let’s say it is a permanent, high voltage current channelling American money, energy and blood into the Iraqi sand.
At least, in that way, other countries like Iran will be safer from the crazies in Washington and (much to the delight of oil producers), the oil price will be kept at the $70-$80 plateau that it has risen to, courtesy of the energy insecurity that the Bu$h regime has caused.
As for the Iraqis, they are damned anyway:-
After nearly two decades of bombing of Iraq by depleted plutonium which will poison their land and water for an eternity and make their babies come to this world with horrible cancers and deformities and after war and sanctions that made a country with living standards similar to Greece into a country of paupers, after igniting communal wars and arming all factions to kill each other, after causing the deaths of nearly a million Iraqis in the past 4 years and creating two million refugees, what hope is there for Iraq and what more compelling reason that “humanitarian” intervention and further surges should continue?
The only further use for that wretched land is to soak the sadist urges of the likes of Cheney and Co. and keep the rest of us safe.
Finally, I have to admire some people’s appreciation of the bizarre and the ridiculous. America’s allies are now reduced to Georgia (a country itself permanently on the brink civil war) and 120 Albanians (a crime-ridden armpit of Europe).
If only there were a Nobel Prize for having fevered imaginations!
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | October 10th, 2007 at 11:47 am | Report this commentSorry I meant depleted (which it isn’t) Uranium.
Might I suggest reading this brief explanation of this evil substance?
http://www.cadu.org.uk/intro.htm
Quote
Depleted uranium is chemically toxic. It is an extremely dense, hard metal, and can cause chemical poisoning to the body in the same way as can lead or any other heavy metal. However, depleted uranium is also radiologically hazardous, as it spontaneously burns on impact, creating tiny aerosolised glass particles which are small enough to be inhaled. These uranium oxide particles emit all types of radiation, alpha, beta and gamma, and can be carried in the air over long distances. Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years, and the presence of depleted uranium ceramic aerosols can pose a long term threat to human health and the environment.
Unquote
Posted by: Pacifist | October 10th, 2007 at 11:52 am | Report this commentP
Well, I don’t know what surge 2.0 is exactly, but I’m assuming it entails sending more troops to Iraq (maybe you can summarize what it is exactly). I don’t really understand how a smart person like yourself, Felix, could come to such a conclusion?
I think if we took a look at the history of Iraq (which I assume you know) and also at the other major Arab states we would realize that the current debate on Iraq we’re having is quite myopic.
Let’s say surge 2.0 works and stability is achieved. The Iraqi Army is functioning effectively and is now spearheading the security effort with American troops playing a secondary role. Oil production in Iraq has now reached pre-sanction levels, thus creating a viable Iraqi economy.
This is what we want right? We want Iraqi’s to provide for their own security and have a democratically elected government. We want them to have a free market so our companies, amongst others, can have access, right? This would be ideal for an American.
Yet, what do you think is going to happen when the Iraqi government can depend on its own security and economy? Won’t they become this magical liberal democracy that becomes our ally and functions as a bulwark against Islamic fanaticism in the region?
Any independent and democratic government in Iraq will be anti-American. In fact, if democratic elections were held in all the Arab states and Pakistan, anti-American governments would be the result. But in Iraq, an anti-American government would mean the ejection of American troops and companies.
Then, Iraq is bound to continue its cycle as a fabricated nation-state. The democratically elected government will fall, probably by some sort of coup (history hasn’t had it otherwise), and some dictator ascends to power (presumably the coup leader)
By the way, this cycle is not exclusive to Iraq; it’s pretty much the case with all the Arab mandate states. But in this case, my government is spending me and my fellow citizen’s tax dollars to continue this war that has hurt us in so many ways. It has hurt us geostrategically, it has hurt us economically, and it has hurt us socially.
I know I have presented my case pretty trivially, but I really thought I should emphasize how absurd and myopic the current mainstream debate on Iraq is. Don’t you think so?
This war was started because Americans (including myself) were deceived, and it continues today because we continue to be deceived by the allure of what we can achieve if we persevere.
Posted by: kian | October 12th, 2007 at 6:23 am | Report this commentI think Gideon is spot on about the need to “define down success”. It seems to me that most of the range of opinion that’s replied so far would be content, if not deliriously happy, with any solution that resulted at some point in an Iraqi state or states without Western military and with minimal continuing bloodshed. Having the oil under friendly control would be nice, and having a state ideologically allied to us would be nice, but these are secondary considerations now: even hostile states tend to sell their oil onto the world market somewhere, and having one more sponsor of Al-Qaeda isn’t going to tip the balance: they have plenty enough help in supposedly Western-friendly countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. If pushed, I would settle for pretty much any solution that got us out without a bloodbath, and (correct me if I’m wrong) I suspect most of us feel the same.
So the question is, what level of continuing US military involvement actually makes this eventual outcome more likely. This can be looked at as two separate questions:
(1) Are the Iraqis so implacably filled with sectarian hatred that there will be a bloodbath if they are given half a chance?
(2) If they are, is *any* US military presence whatsoever going to succeed in preventing it?
I don’t know the answer to (1), and nor, I suspect, does anyone else. Most Croatians and Bosnians were genuinely surprised when the civil war got quite as nasty as it did, and yet somehow it has been possible for some semblance of normality to return. It’s hard to predict how circumstances will affect the ebb and flow of hatred.
However, if a sectarian showdown is waiting to happen (and it seems more likely with every passing week) I have yet to hear a convincing argument about how US military involvement is either going to prevent it or mitigate it on anything more than a temporary basis.
Overall, therefore, I fall into the “get out” camp - not precipitately, but in a definite, planned way, leaving no room for anyone to believe that they can persuade the Americans to stay just a little longer while their own sect’s position improves.
Posted by: David Karlin | October 13th, 2007 at 10:08 pm | Report this commentIn response to number one: what qualifies as a blood bath? Because I was under the impression that that’s what has already occurred.
Posted by: kian | October 13th, 2007 at 11:35 pm | Report this commentFair point, kian, there’s been a bloodbath already. But it has the potential to get a lot worse if we start seeing mass ethnic cleansing of Shias and Sunnis in each other’s areas. Bad as things are, we’re not yet at the stage of all-out civil war, which promises casualties on a far higher scale, say as seen in the India-Pakistan partition.
I would say the question is still open as to whether the feuding is already so bad as to make that inevitable; but I also don’t see how the military presence is helping to make it less likely. One can reasonably argue that it’s keeping a temporary lid on the situation, but that’s a different (and I believe less relevant) question.
Posted by: David Karlin | October 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm | Report this commentDavid, let me first say that I agree with you: all troops out now. If you read my first post on this thread you will understand my position on the war.
But the civil war has been going on for some time now and some analysts say is even wearing down. The emigration out of Iraq and also the sectarian migration that has been going on inside Iraq - due to the sectarian fighting/civil war - has largely left the previously quarrelsome neighborhoods as homogenous sectarian sanctuaries. Thus, we’re seeing reports of a drop in violence (and Republicans exploiting it as much as they can).
Iraq has had its independence since 1958. Prior to that they were occuppied by the British (although with not nearly as many troops as we have in Iraq today). When the British decided that they had to withdraw their ground troops, they still maintained military control of Iraq through a system Iraqis called Hukuma al-tayarra (government by airplaine). Once the British Abandoned Iraq entirely (and this is in a nutshell) there wasn’t a blood bath. There was a bloody coup that ended the Hashemite monarchy the Brits installed and buttressed, but coups in Iraqi history are commonplace. Sort of like elections in the U.S., they occurr at regular intervals, an avg of 6-8yrs.
Here’s my point, we are hearing a lot of rhetoric that sounds very much like the League of Nations days. Sure, Iraqis are self-determined, but until they shed their barbaric and culturless ways, they won’t be able to govern themselves.
We are seeing the consequences of the WWI partition of the Middle East today, snd most acutely in Iraq. These countries don’t have a political foundation that unifies their populace and allows them to differ peacefully on lesser issues (lets say issues like an oil law, reversing debaathification, and all the other issues impeding national reconciliation).
There is no bloodless way of keeping this country together, as we saw with Saddam (who was the only leader in Iraqi history to be immune to the curse of the coups). Withdrawing our troops will not increase the violence substantially, or to any level that hasn’t already existed.
So yes David, we should get out asap. And I don’t think anyone can present a cogent argument that would suggest otherwise. I’m talking to you Felix
Posted by: kian | October 14th, 2007 at 10:00 pm | Report this commentMeanwhile, yet another senior American insider admits that it has all been a fiasco.
“There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,” he {Gen Ricardo Sanchez] told reporters in Arlington, Virginia.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2191316,00.html
More of the same, anyone?
P
Posted by: Pacifist | October 15th, 2007 at 11:10 am | Report this commentKian, I agree with you on everything, except probably on how we can best help to alter events for the benefit of the people in Iraq and around the globe. I think we can all agree that Iraq needs peace and justice, so Iraq needs to establish strong, fair and representative institutions; I don’t see how they can get such institutions that people respect without democracy. Democracy isn’t the ideal situation for a peaceful Iraq; it is a vital ingredient, or there won’t be peace until someone like Saddam crushes all opposition (is that the only alternative?)
In order to help those institutions establish themselves, the rule of criminal gangs and armed political militias has to end; it worked ok so far in the Sunni areas; hence a surge that works with the local people against the thugs could work in the south as well. I’m not optimistic at all, political will is lacking, the odds are against peace. Some of the most unsavoury people on the planet are making $90 for each barrel of oil and its all thanks to the suffering in Iraq. Peace in Iraq can cause the price of oil to tumble to below $30; for those who run the show from Riyaad, Moscow or Tehran that will be a dramatic setback; we shouldn’t expect much from them. Leaving Iraq anything but a liberal democracy would be a victory for them. I strongly believe that the vast majority of the Iraqi people desperately wants peace, that there are relatively small ethnic, religious, foreign operated, etc, etc group who are vying for power and influence, that a showing of unity and force can shut them down. That if we don’t we’d hand power over to them who represent the Iraqi people not at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102101577.html?nav=rss_email/components - that’s what I suggested they’d do; no actually I didn’t suggest it: I believe it is the inevitable logical next step if there is hope yet for Iraq.
Kian, maybe I am terribly naieve and even myopic, one cannot see ones own blinders. We’ve talked about the problems of the wider Middle East before, and yes Iraq isn’t isolated at all from pan-Arabic and pan-Islamic aspirations. Everyone is trying to force Mesopotamia in their own mold and seem to care little about the fate of the people themselves. That’s why they need democracy, so they can determine their own fate.
My apologies for the late and rather haphazard (am rather tired) response, I enjoy our exchanges. Also, I still believe the Ayatollah Montazeri is a good guy! People can change for the better
Hopefully we get a chance to further discuss the politics of Iran sometime; the more I learn about it the less I understand.
Posted by: Kian: Felix' response | October 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 am | Report this commentGideon, all things considered it seems I wasn’t over optimistic but spot on where I wasn’t over pessimistic. Turns out there is plentiful support both in the US and from the allies that count for the fight against Shia groups allied with Iran while the Sadrists stay out of the fray. The challenge has become separating the Shia extremists from the population.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020202072.html?nav=rss_email/components
Also John McCain looks set to become the Republican candidate as his consistent support for taking responsibility in Iraq has brought him into focus as the only candidate who hasn’t been populist on that or any other critical issue. For any Atlanticist his ascent is heartening.
Representative democracy in Iraq is still a far ways off and terrorists will seek to influence the US elections against McCain by trying to escalate the killing of Iraqi civilians. In the coming election season we shall witness the extent to which Iran really can shape events.
So, when are you going to tackle the Olympics?
Posted by: felix drost, amsterdam | February 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 pm | Report this comment