Friday, December 01, 2006
Iraq Alternatives Revisited
The confining of military alternatives to more, the same, or less troops -- or to shifting force objectives from combat to training -- is both defeatist and overly simplistic. As I suggested in a recent blog (November 9), the institutionalization of something like the CAP system employed by the Marines in Vietnam might be helpful in some areas. I also suggested that if the problem is that mixed populations are at one another's throats, perhaps we could make it more possible to encourage and protect the further separation of people along ethnic lines. This can be accomplished even in mixed cities such as Mosul or Baghdad because of the marked tendency of different sects or ethnic groups to concentrate in certain neighborhoods.
Building on these thoughts, I want to reconsider a suggestion by American officer in Anbar province that was recently reported. He pointed out that American forces were not making progress in the province. They were apparently dying for no purpose. He said that perhaps it would be wise to remove American forces entirely.
This suggests that an alternative strategy would be based on a division of the country analytically along the following lines:
(1) Relatively peaceful except for attacks on Americans and those considered collaborators
(1a) Sunni
(1b) Shi'a
(1c) Kurd
(2) Embattled: mixed areas
The pacification effort would then proceed in two stages.
STAGE ONE
In Sunni provinces such as Anbar, it may be found that violence is largely directed at Americans and those considered to be collaborating with them or other outsiders (for example, police forces recruited in other parts of the country). In such provinces (or portions of more complex provinces), an attempt should be made to work out local peace agreements predicated on the withdrawal of American and other outside forces. Local leaders in these provinces would then be asked to guarantee the peace in the area after the withdrawals. For those persons or groups that are not satisfied that they will be protected by such arrangements, it might be agreed that the present "occupying forces" would assist in their evacuation from the province.
Some Shi'a provinces of the south and east could fit into the same category, even though at present violence levels against any "enemies" may be relatively low. Nevertheless, similar agreements should be worked out in these areas. This would have the benefit of transferring security almost entirely away from the foreigners. This kind of local guarantee of security already exists in Kurdish areas. All that would need to be done here is to make more explicit the boundaries of responsibility.
This approach should be possible in more than half the country, an area that includes perhaps half of the population.
Negotiation for full central government control in "areas under agreement" of these kinds could be left to a later stage, probably well after American and other Coalition forces have left the scene.
STAGE TWO
The rest of the country would then be analyzed, intellectually and by agreement, into smaller territorial units in which cohesive ethnic or sectarian groups (in a few areas Turkoman as well as those mentioned) would agree to take on the responsibility of ensuring the peace. In Baghdad, the units would be neighborhoods (which are steadily becoming less mixed as the fighting continues). Support for the reassortment of people on a more micro level to make this feasible would be offered along with relocation camps for those not able to benefit from such arrangements. As described in the November 9 blog, installing CAP units might make self-defense more feasible for local people who might otherwise feel surrounded by enemies. The use of foreigners in this role would be advantageous in those communities in which it has been reported that locals have come to trust government forces even less than the foreigners. Limiting CAPs to these situations would have the added advantage of keeping all foreign forces in a more limited area in which supply and reinforcement would be more feasible.
Moving from this stage to full government control in these areas would take a longer time, since the pattern of territories so defined would not fit the political units recognized by the central government. But at least the problem should be more manageable than it is at present.
IN PARALLEL
In parallel with this pacification of populated areas, Coalition forces should concentrate on the protection of infrastructure and infrastructure projects (oil and water pipelines, sewerage treatment plants, electric grid capacity etc.) These efforts would bring immediate benefits for all and would involve less need for offensive operations in highly populated areas than is now the case. It is the offensive, anti-terrorist operations that have brought the coalition forces into such a negative relationship with the population that most Iraqis are said by public opinion polls to wish the foreigners to leave as soon as possible. Unless we improve our image by more positive works and less intrusive attacks, no strategy can succeed.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Insurgency or Civil War? When Will It End? How Will It End?
Today's paper discusses at great length the controversy over whether what we have in Iraq is a civil war or something else. The Bush people do not want to say "civil war" because they fear that the American public would be even less likely to back the effort in the long run if it were so designated. The difficulty in deciding this matter is compounded by the fact that violence in Iraq represents several different types of "things" at once. There are revenge killings at every level, from personal to sect to Iraqi versus American. There are planned killings by Sunnis against Shi'as, but also of groups within each of these groups against one another, and occasionally (in Mosul and Kirkuk) against Kurds as well, or Kurdish Islamists against the secular Kurdish majority. There is also a lively "war" of the nationalists and their Islamist and Shi'a allies (temporary or not) against the Coalition forces (a nativist movement if you will). To me, this is the "real war". To us it is an illegal war against the opponents of a duly established regime; to the insurgents it is a war of national liberation.
Whatever we may call it, today's paper also brings some of the most discouraging news we have heard for a while. It quotes from a SECRET study by the Pentagon. (We read a lot of SECRET stuff in the papers these days; I wonder what the country would do if it was really in a "serious" war again and it made a critical difference if papers stamped SECRET got out as easily as they seem to today?) The study concludes that the insurgency is able to raise all the funds that it requires for its present level of activity from within Iraq. Funds are obtained primarily by kidnapping and smuggling, especially of petroleum. The importance of the demonstrated ability of the insurgents to support themselves within Iraq is that many observers, including myself, were hoping that the time would come when the millions stolen by Saddam and his people and the weapons caches they had placed around the country would begin to dry up. This evidently is not happening. Indeed, for a while the insurgents did rely in part on these funds and supplies (primarily brought in from Syria). But the report says that such outside sources are no longer necessary. The report also confirms the excellent organization and resiliency of this primary insurgent movement.
Again I will remind readers that because the Sunnis are a minority does not mean they are the inevitable losers in a sectarian war. A much smaller sectarian minority has managed to dominate Syria for many years. A much smaller percentage of the Sri Lanka population has managed to fight off its government for years, and even within its own Tamil minority, it has had to contend with a large, less extremist Tamil group including many in government. Tutsi minorities famously dominate their societies in Rwanda and Burundi. If, then, the real enemy in Iraq remains the Baath-Sunni alliance (and to add confusion, some former Baath are in fact Shi'as), then the result of sectarian violence plays right into their hands. Sectarian violence has confused the Americans, causing them to fight the best organized competitors to the Baath in Iraq, the Mahdi Army. Every member of this Army we kill, the fewer the Baath nationalists will have to kill after the Americans leave. AND by shifting our attention in this way, the Baath is able add to the calls from the American home front to bring the soldiers home. (They know what they are doing; they read our papers.)
As and when we eventually leave, the Baath-Nationalist-al Qaeda forces may be able to fill in behind us. As they begin to exert control over larger and larger areas, the only group standing in the way of a restoration of a refashioned Baathist tyranny will be the Iranians. At first, they will try to help their co-religionists by increasing support for Shi'a militias. But if this is not enough, they will send in regular army units. These forces will be the best available to save Iraq from itself, preserving, ironically, the constitutional state that we erected. But although they will have much better trained and equipped forces than the locals, their efforts may eventually fail for some of the same reasons ours have been failing. For the more they actively intervene, the more the old Baath will be able to turn nationalist fury against Iran, as Saddam was able to do in spite of atrocities against his own people. Iraqis of all kinds would again be mobilized against foreigners, this time labeled the "Iranian-American alliance". Or so the story might unfold.
