The Allawi Era

When not obsessing about the election over the past 48 hours I have, for book purposes, been revisiting the Iyad Allawi Era in Iraq, from July 2004 to February 2005. This has gone down, I think, as something of a "lost period" in America's war effort for a couple of reasons. For one thing, during pretty much his entire term in office -- and certainly during his non-lame-duck months -- the American press was dominated by the 2004 presidential election. Part of the election dynamic was for the debate over Iraq to become very ossified with Kerry and Bush just trading the same barbs over and over again in a way that discouraged people from paying attention to changes on the ground. The other thing, however, is that attention to the Allawi Era simply doesn't do much to advance the political arguments of either of our main teams in Iraq.

The thing about this period is that, though neither Democrats nor Republicans are eager to admit it, what Bush was doing during this time was essentially exactly what "mainstream" "moderate" administration critics say the administration should have been doing. Allawi -- a secular Iraqi Arab of Shiite ancestry who used to be a Baath Party member -- was a decent candidate to try and bridge the sectarian divide in Iraq. His policies, moreover, were aimed at just that. His administration tried to roll back de-Baathification, and during the Allawi era you had Sunni Arabs serving in the government security forces operating in Sunni-populated areas. While attempting these measures of Sunni conciliation, Allawi also fought the Sunni insurgency, but he also fought Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia.

Moderate administration critics put a lot of emphasis on Bush's failure to attempt such policies during Year One of the war, but tend to neglect the fact that these policies actually were tried during Year Two.

And they didn't work, at all. Allawi came to be seen not as a unifying, reconciling figure, but as an object of universal disdain -- an American puppet. Sunni Arabs were happy to grab the hand he extended to them and join the security forces, but only in order to infiltrate the Iraqi government and work on behalf of the insurgency against the collaborationist government. The fight against Muqtada was perfectly successful at killing Mahdi Army members in large numbers, but simply denuded the government of popular support in the Shiite community. Heading into the elections, Allawi had essentially no popularity and his party was overwhelmingly rejected at the polls despite American efforts to aid his campaign in favor of more sectarian formations.

Since his time in office, clearly, things have, in a sense, only gotten worse and worse. But it was during the Allawi Era that the fundamental futility of the American mission became clear. The problem in Iraq wasn't that there was "an insurgency" or "a militia" that needed to be defeated by American forces. The problem in Iraq was that Iraqi society had nothing resembling a political consensus about the legitimate terms of the state. Given such a consensus, American troops would be unnecessary. Absent such a consensus, American troops were useless. And, clearly, forming such a consensus was going to be an extremely difficult task.

Obviously, the argument can be made that if these strategies had been implemented sooner they might have worked better. Be that as it may, it's notable that nowadays plans for Iraq coming from the right (Fred Kagan, Ralph Peters) tend to amount to an espousal of a return to Allawi-ism and that there's no reason to think that trying this again will work out any better.

Comments

[N]owadays plans for Iraq coming from the right (Fred Kagan, Ralph Peters) tend to amount to an espousal of a return to Allawi-ism and that there's no reason to think that trying this again will work out any better.

And indeed, there is reason to think things might even devolve faster than they're devolving now. Now that the Shiite militias have gotten entrenched, I would think another Allawi would be intolerable to them.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 7, 2006 1:05 PM

The problem in Iraq was that Iraqi society had nothing resembling a political consensus about the legitimate terms of the state. Given such a consensus, American troops would be unnecessary. Absent such a consensus, American troops were useless. And, clearly, forming such a consensus was going to be an extremely difficult task.

Exactly right.

The problem is - how do the Iraqis arrive at such a consensus? So long as factions of Iraqis think they can get a better deal by continuing the violence, we won't acheive such a consensus. The purpose of our being there, and the purpose of our training the Iraqi security forces, is to reduce the ability of Iraqis on both sides to be able to acheive their aims through force. It is only if they don't believe that violence will lead to a better deal that the factions will sit down and acheive that consensus.

Posted by Al | November 7, 2006 1:28 PM

But let's make the opposing case as strong as possible. Let's imagine 325,000 American troops, an immediate Allawi government, no disbanding of the Iraqi army or deBaaaathification. Somebody would have immediately gone on TV and said: there's nothing to see here. Go about your business. Nothing's changed. In that case, there would have been enough of a consensus to form a consensus because nobody would have feared running into a death squad on the way home for collaborating with the infidel occupiers. It's not enough to point to the mess Iraq's become and say "it was always inevitable." At the time I wouldn't have made that bet unless I was given 2-1 odds. Anarchy is generally the exception and not the rule.

Posted by ankoors | November 7, 2006 1:29 PM

ankoors: Clips of Bremer trying to keep the
"asshat" stamp off his forhead aside, the frontline piece (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/) from a couple weeks ago makes this point pretty forcefully.

Posted by max | November 7, 2006 2:38 PM

Thank you for bringing up the term "legitimate". The concept of legitimacy has often been ignored by pundits when discussing the Iraq War. Yes, legitimacy is a soft term that's difficult to define, let alone implement. That, however, does not make legitimacy any less vital to America's policy goals. Given the way the war was initiated (on false pretenses and before the inspectors were allowed to do their job), there was never any chance of our invasion being viewed as legitimate by the Iraqis.
I thought we had a chance to possibly regain some legitimacy during the 2004 election. I'm guessing, however, that our reelection of Bush only cemented the view that Americans had ulterior intentions in Iraq.

Posted by Nordy | November 7, 2006 3:18 PM

AI,

What I'm trying to see is how the security forces themselves achieve legitimacy so that can serve the refereeing function you describe. To a lot of us, it looks like the US efforts at training and arming this group are doing nothing but creating yet another shia militia.

Posted by julian | November 7, 2006 3:48 PM

Another, related point, is that while the US military did a horrendous job with counterinsurgency in the first year or more of the war, in the last year or so (as units have gone back for 2nd rotations), they've in general done a much better job. The recent book Fiasco does a good job of laying out the changes in thinking in th Army and in tactics on the ground during the war.

Again, though, the change in tactics has done nothing to alleviate the continuing slide into chaos.

Posted by Doug T | November 7, 2006 4:40 PM

not sure what I think of this. IIRC, wasn't the first choice for interim PM, by the UN guy, Mehwran Shahristani (sp?), and then the Bushies vetoed him for some reason, and forced the UN guy to choose Allawi? What I'm wondering is why the US vetoed Sharistani in favor of Allawi, and might things have been better of Sharistani had been in power, rather than Allawi? Probably a stretch, but I still wonder why the Bushies vetoed Sharistani.

Posted by roublen | November 7, 2006 10:46 PM

A tremendously important post. This lays it out. No military solution without a political solution. And we've already failed with our political solution.

Posted by dynamicinfo | November 8, 2006 12:55 AM