Iraq and Afghanistan

Defeatism, the Comeback of the Republican Guard, and American Atrocities

In today's NYT Op-Ed section two of the editors Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert follow the dark thoughts of Nicholas Kristof in yesterday's Times with requests that we accept the inevitable and get out of Iraq. There is much to recommend this policy, as I have suggested earlier. Yet it is incumbent on serious commentators to develop avenues and means to achieve results other than those they fear, or at least to phase the withdrawal in ways that preserve as much as possible of our original goals.

In Falluja an Iraqi General in Republican Guard uniform has been brought in to restore order. After days of shelling and bombing, the Marines are moving back to blocking positions. As discussed last night on Lehrer, this will be seen by many Iraqis, as well as much of the Arab world, as a defeat and retreat for U.S. forces. This could have incalculable results in Iraq and elsewhere. Yet as they also said, it was probably the best alternative for the United States. What has not been mentioned is the fact we seem to be equipping and launching an Iraqi army that may soon grow rapidly into an uncontrollable competitor to coalition forces in Iraq. If the general could put together a force of 1100 almost over night, what else might he do on a broader canvas? Again, this may be the way to go. I hope someone has thought it through.

The disgusting mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. reservists is being shown on television throughout the world. There is no way to undo it. Court martials, if they come, will be buried on back pages. The fact seems to be that we put together a lot of untrained and now low morale troops to try to make over Iraq's society. Better planning would have avoided this. Yet "these things happen in war". The answer to this is that if we cannot adequately train and discipline our troops, then we should not get into these adventures, and if we do we should cut them as short as possible.

Decentralized Knowledge Base: Decentralized Action

Two contradictory pieces of information in today's NYT.

The first, a news article, tells me that Saddam's regime organized the forces and supplies that are being used in the present campaign against the Americans well before the fall of Baghdad. Even the suicide campaign was so organized, with even colonels in his Fedayeen being groomed for later suicide action. The outfits they wore, complete with bombs, were manufactured and stockpiled before the war. If this accounts for a large part of our problem, and it may, this suggests two things. (1) The struggle against our forces is primarily a nationalist rather than a religious struggle. The tutelage of the Baath party in fascist ideology is well known. (2) The supplies and numbers of people willing to take part in this effort might dry up. If not, we need to understand how recruits and supplies are now obtained.

The second, an Op-Ed by an apparently knowledgeable observer, claims that the resistance in Falluja is primarily based on the tribes of the city and its environs. While they were treated well by Saddam, he never trusted them. They form a world of their own. From their perspective, the worst thing an outsider can do is kill one of theirs, for then they must exact revenge on the killers. (She thinks that failing to understand the tribal structure of much of the society is an important root of our problem.) The short-term solution might be to reduce the killing of Fallujans and offer compensation for their losses following tribal custom in settling disputes.

This leads to two pieces of meta-advice referring back to the points made in yesterday's submission to this log.

First, greater effort must be made to "map" Iraq geographically and stratigraphically in detail. We must learn where and in what condition -- attitudinally, economically and otherwise -- the many subgroups that we label "Iraqis" live. We must know their traditional and current leadership structures. This data must be gathered, collated, and organized in such a way that it can be communicated down to all levels of our security and civilian forces and acted upon. The result may be a mosaic of actions that it hard to handle bureaucratically, but the effort needs to be made in haste. One imagines that most of this knowledge already exists with the American camp, but it doubtful that it is getting to where it is needed most.

Second, and in effect developing the point made yesterday, we need to organize and protect our security and development efforts on a local level, transferring the effort to Iraqis at radically different rates depending on the situation. "Secure areas" for both development and political development should be carved out slowly and gradually blended together where they come to join one another. Obvious starting points are in the Kurdish areas. But even here we must go far beyond the blanketing of areas with labels like "Kurd". For these areas, too, consist of a mosaic of different subcultures and allegiances. Knowing these will be the basis of any secure progress we may be able to make.

This is the first message I am trying to send. It is a brother site to thoughts.html at the same address, but we will try to develop a different identity for it.

This is the first edition of my new blog. Like the first it will have a good deal to do with International Relationsm and right now with Iraq.