Civil War

There's a lot to be said about David Patten's Middle East Quarterly article denying that Iraq is in a civil war, but let's just quote this for now: "However, it does not follow that Iraq is in a civil war. While the government is weak, there is no political force presenting it with a serious challenge. Iraq is, indeed, an unstable nation, but there is little danger of regime change, the ultimate purpose of a civil war."

While current conditions in Iraq don't otherwise resemble the American Civil War, it should give Patten cause that he could have been standing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in July 1863 saying "there is little danger of regime change, the ultimate purpose of a civil war" and concluded that only unpatriotic and ill-informed elements in the news media would want to say the USA was in a civil war.

Comments

I've never understood Republican verbal fetishes. It isn't civil war, it's just a situation where groups of people in a country remorelessly and relentlessly and without fear of criminal prosecution murder each other. In saecula saeculorum.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 29, 2007 8:58 AM

Patten has a Ph.D. in philosophy, so he engages in sophistry. He blithly tells us the government is stable (is it?) and that the U.S. must not make a premature withdrawal or Iraq will get worse. As has been noted lately elsewhere, he fails to discuss the negative aspects of staying.

Regardless, it would seem that all the Sunni Arabs need to do is to have some far too clever Iraqi philosophy Ph.D. write up an outline of a proposed replacement government. Then one of Patten's definitions of a civil war is fulfilled and, I guess, all of his arguments self-destruct.

Posted by Mudge | May 29, 2007 9:20 AM

Well, the American Civil War wasn't really a civil war sensu stricto, in the way that, for example, the English Civil War or the Russian Civil War were. There weren't really two factions fighting each other over who would rule the country, in the way that Whites and Reds or Royalists and Parliamentarians were. The idea wasn't to put Jefferson Davis in the White House; the idea was to split off the South to form a separate country. It was really more of a secessionary conflict.

Posted by ajay | May 29, 2007 9:30 AM

The naievity of the Bush administration and current conservative pundits is astounding.

(Too) many years ago, in High School, I studied Will and Ariel Durant's works on the repetitive patterns seen in nearly all revolutions; namely, overthrow of an existing government, followed by anarchy, and typically ending with a repressive military government capable of restoring security and order, at the cost of freedom.

How can they not understand that one crisis breeds another; that any regime incapable of ending anarchy will inevitably be replaced?

And why can't they look at our own American Revolution and understand that no country trusts a foreign occupying power -- even when the foreign power is generally benevolent (as the British were with regard to the American colonies). The fact that American Colonists were taxed less than British citizens didn't stop the cries for "No taxation without representation".

No people will tolerate destructive anarchy for long; nor will a majority accept over the long period that foreign occupying forces are acting primarily in the best interests of the local population.

Wave the flag and deny, deny, deny!

Posted by Justme | May 29, 2007 9:34 AM

Too clever by half, Matt. The US Civil War is called that simply because the US government won. Had the south won, it would be called something else, probably something along the lines of "The war of southern independence".

In Iraq, what force is either

-- trying to set up a separate, independent nation
-- trying to wrest control of the central government

I think you would be hard pressed to identify a contender for either one. The enemy is Iraq seems mostly interested in chaos - it's after a US withdrawal that you'll likely see factions after one (or both) things above really emerge.

At which point I predict that people like you will be utterly stunned that such a thing could happen with the US being involved.

Posted by James Robertson | May 29, 2007 9:41 AM

Argh - last sentence above, replace "with" by "without"

Posted by James Robertson | May 29, 2007 9:42 AM

The Kurds are trying to set up an independent nation. This is pretty basic information.

Posted by Bill | May 29, 2007 9:48 AM

My suspicion is that James Robertson is one of those who predicted flowers and the Islamic equivalent of hosannas and statues of Bush in the town square back in 2003.

I, for one, will not be stunned that one of the bad outcomes predicted by sensible folks in 2003 who argued against invasion (and subsequent occupation) occurs. I await Robertson's detailed discussion of how staying will prevent any such bad outcomes. I especially want to hear his explanation about how our continued occupation will convince the Shia to share real power with the Sunni, or shall we stay until all Sunnis are killed then commend the Shia on their wide breadth of support.

Our occupation has not been a strategic success to date on any level. Of course the irony that he suggests we stay for their own good when, in fact, the majority of Iraqis seek our withdrawal is lost on him. Call it paternalism or imperialism, he still thinks he knows what is best for the Iraqis and that they are merely delusional children. Merika knows best.

Posted by Mudge | May 29, 2007 9:59 AM

I've never understood Republican verbal fetishes - Jeff. Davis (sorry, couldn't resist)

Simple -- c.f. Lakoff, et al. (which used to be completely realized, without the help of Lakoff, et al., by liberals and conservatives alike -- hence the whole flap over liberal "political correctness"), s/he who controls the language of debate controls the debate.

Hence the GOP's efforts to make sure we never call a thing what it is. Even a loon such as Ward Churchill has a point here as to what the GOP, et al., are doing.

Posted by DAS | May 29, 2007 10:04 AM

Had the south won, it would be called something else, probably something along the lines of "The war of southern independence". - James Robertson

Ummm, y'all? ... actually, the civil war is often called "the war of Southern Rebellion" 'round these parts -- it's also called that way (with a different tone of voice) in parts of the Northeast.

Anyway -- Southrons should know from insurgencies. Even if the South "lost" the civil war, post-civil war there was an insurgency that defeated Northern efforts to not "reconstruct" but rather construct in the first place the still feudal South (which construction didn't end up happening until the New Deal). And since victors write the history, nu, we all know how "Reconstruction" is viewed. This, of course, is how the Iraqis will view the efforts of American carpetbaggers and Iraqi scalawags (collaborators) to rebuild after Saddam Hussein.

Maybe it's time to stage our own compromise of 1876 (in which, despite what your high school history classes told you about the South loosing the civil war in the 1860s, the South won the civil war, or at least reached a state of detante, more or less, modulo the South being nominally still part of the Union, giving the South what it wanted) with the Iraqi government?

Posted by DAS in Tally FL, formerly of the NYC Area | May 29, 2007 10:12 AM

"In Iraq, what force is either

-- trying to set up a separate, independent nation
-- trying to wrest control of the central government"

Radical Sunnis are trying to set up an "Al Anbar" state.

The central government is safe as long as the US is there. The contending parties in this civil war are working on the demographics in preparation of the US departure. They are enhancing their position by killing off or driving out the other side. When the US leaves, the factions which won the demographic war will have the facade of the democratically elected government to assist them in the end stages of the civil war.

Posted by Njorl | May 29, 2007 11:03 AM

In Iraq, what force is either

-- trying to set up a separate, independent nation
-- trying to wrest control of the central government

What Njorl said.

James, do you really believe that the Sunni insurgents aren't trying to wrest control of the government? Of course, right now they're not going to launch a frontal assault with the US armor, arty and air power looming, but the end game remains the same.

For the Salafists, it's to establish a radical Islamist state from which to wage jihad throughout the rest of the Middle East. For the Baathists/nationalist Sunni insurgents, it's to regain their position of dominance lost post-regime change.

The chaos serves a purpose, but is not the ultimate objective. Yours is a pretty short-sighted analysis on this one.

Posted by Eric Martin | May 29, 2007 11:17 AM

As a native Kansan, I get awful ticked when people forget that the Civil War was humming along for years before you Easterners got involved (and I'll be damned if it didn't look a whole lot like Iraq).

Posted by nitpicker | May 29, 2007 12:06 PM

Add to the sunni arabl guerrillas the kurds. And the various shiite militias, who are are wrestling over control of stuff, and willing to use either control of the central government or independent power bases, such as militias.

As for David Pattten, there's one operative principle: the people who lied us into this war have lied us through this war, and will continue to lie to us.

Posted by Barry | May 29, 2007 12:10 PM

Don't the Sunni insurgents tend to think Sunnis are the majority of Iraqis and thus they should run the government?

Posted by Reality Man | May 29, 2007 12:17 PM

-> Eric Martin

There is undoubtedly truth in your assertions. But I believe that there also are more fundamental issues that potentially predominate; namely, the desire for self determination, and desires by numerous long-repressed groups and leaders to have power.

The Sunnis won't have self-determination as a minority in a central government. The Shia are closer to the possibility of self-control than they've been in decades, and aren't about to relinquish majority control. The Kurds have little to gain from being part of a central government.

The various religious leaders, also repressed for decades, are threatened by a non-religious central government.

In the meantime none of the factions fully trusts the US. Each is suspicious of the alignment of any other faction with the US, drastically decreasing the potential that the factions can work with each other towards some compromise. As the body counts grow, so grows the drive for revenge while the potential for compromise plummets.

Good people here continually express fears over what might happen when the US leaves. But they neglect the issue of what will surely happen if the US doesn't leave.

---

Posted by Justme | May 29, 2007 12:34 PM

Ummm, y'all? ... actually, the civil war is often called "the war of Southern Rebellion" 'round these parts

And here I always thought it was called the "War of Northern Aggression" ...

Regarding the article, my favorite line is this one:

Shi‘i empowerment and effective Sunni participation need not be mutually exclusive, though.

It need not be so, and yet it is so. Funny how that works.

Posted by josephdietrich | May 29, 2007 1:02 PM

Justme,

I agree with what you wrote, I just don't see how this really differs from what I wrote:

But I believe that there also are more fundamental issues that potentially predominate; namely, the desire for self determination, and desires by numerous long-repressed groups and leaders to have power.

The Sunnis won't have self-determination as a minority in a central government. The Shia are closer to the possibility of self-control than they've been in decades, and aren't about to relinquish majority control. The Kurds have little to gain from being part of a central government.

I guess it's how you define "self-determination"? Are you saying that the Sunnis don't want to wrest control of the government, they just want "self determination" within the existing government? Care to clarify the difference?

But certainly the parts about the Shiites is true, as well as the other dynamics that you described (I've discussed the same aspects on numerous occasions). But I was only discussing the Sunni side of the street in my brief comment.

Posted by Eric Martin | May 29, 2007 1:15 PM

->Eric

It's probably a question of emphasis that perhaps I misunderstood.

Viewing the problem as primarily a problem of extreme Islamic fundamentalism seems to be in vogue on this side of the world. That, in turn, seems to
me to be buying in to the "war on terror".

I think there are much more fundamental human issues and needs involved -- it now seems that you and I don't disagree.

Posted by Justme | May 29, 2007 2:18 PM

Viewing the problem as primarily a problem of extreme Islamic fundamentalism seems to be in vogue on this side of the world

Oh, absolutely. And I've railed against that tendency on numerous occasions as well. See, we're more in agreement than we knew ;)

But if you re-read my original comment, I delineated between two main strains of Sunni motivation (admitting there are more sub-strains). For the Salafists, it really is about bringing to fruition an extremist view of Islamic fundamentalism. For the rest of the Sunnis, I'd say it's mostly about revenge, repulsion of an occupier and regaining the power/standing/influence that was lost when Saddam was deposed, and a Shiite/Kurdish bloc took over.

So, not "primarily," but there is an element of that for some of the Sunni groups (those that operate under the al Qaeda umbrella that they have adopted).

Posted by Eric Martin | May 29, 2007 3:19 PM

Pay the foolish Mr. Patten little attention. "It does not follow that Iraq is in a civil war." Too rich. Akin to his nightly bedwetting, Patten still tells his mother its not piss, just perspiration.

Posted by sy | May 29, 2007 4:41 PM

The phrase "Civil War" is in its origins a direct translation of the Latin expression Bellum Civile, which means "a war between citizens" (sc. of the same town, country, or state).

Is there a war going on in Iraq? Check.

Is it a war pitting Iraqi citizens against Iraqi citizens? Check.

Ergo, it's a civil war.

(Patten seems to think that 'civil war' has to mean 'revolutionary war' - as if the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars were the same sort of thing!!!)

Posted by lampwick | May 30, 2007 9:10 AM

Get out.

Get out as soon as possible.

Set up a meaningful screening process so that Iraqis who bought into the American occupation have the ability to emigrate to the United States.

The military you save may be your own.

Posted by Ephus | May 30, 2007 9:22 AM

If the US left the most likely outcome would be a Shia state (w/ someone like al Sadr as its leader) or ditto but w/ a Kurdish mini-state up north. That might not be in the interests of the US, but it's easy to see how such an outcome would come about (the Sadrists, unfettered, probably are popular and ruthless enough to take control of most of Iraq, but they might not want to take on the Kurdish areas).

If the US stays it can prevent this takeover from occuring, but who thinks the national government will ever become popular? C'mon already. The Bush administration talks as if it needs another year but five or ten probably wouldn't be enough. The best the US can probably do is create a caretaker government whose main purpose would be to prevent some other group from capturing the flag of sovereignty.

Policy makers should just admit that, in their opinion, the stakes are such that the US should put up with a thousand KIAs, $100 billion +, and however many Iraqi casualties result, each year, into the indefinite future, because for the US the alternative would be worse. Since they won't, and probably can't, it's only a matter of time before American voters pull the plug.

Posted by Kevin | May 30, 2007 9:33 AM

*****Patten has a Ph.D. in philosophy, so he engages in sophistry.*****

I guess that means that the site host, who has a 4 year degree in philosophy (hard sciences, folks!), is simply a practitioner of 'sophistry lite'.

Heh.

Posted by RW | May 30, 2007 9:35 AM

Well, I have a M.A. in Phil., an M.Div., and a J.D.

I guess that makes me a medium cup of shit served w/ a kick of wailing and gnashing teeth, all by a waiter who swears that he and his client make the very best steaming bowl of shit on the planet.

Back to the post....

The desire to have to couch or explain current crisis situations within a long-established definition or paradigm is, in large part, emblematic of the type of thinking that got us in this unholy catastrophuck in the first place. In fact, it was bound to have happened.

We're attacking and fighting a conventional, Soviet-opponent informed war, and conducted "diplomacy" by the very same rules.

None of it applies, of course, but hey, we're the only cock of hte walk, and we're gonna get that gawdamn square peg in that thar round hole if hell has to freeze over first!

Why it is that Western Liberals just assume that their socio-political conceptual scheme makes sense to a people and a region that doesn't have an event anywhere close to what the Enlightenment was, and don't even have a word that translates as "right" or "self" or "individual" just blows my mind.

There is one person who I heard who understood this....Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's former C of C).

Other than that, no one.

At least in a position to do something about it.

Posted by Darren | May 30, 2007 10:05 AM

Gentlemen and women: You should know better! Please define your terms before you start the debate. Here are some generally accepted criteria for a civil war:

There are six criteria for considering a conflict a civil war.

Q. Is the focus of the war control over which group governs the political unit?

Q. Are there at least two groups of organized combatants?

Q. Is the state one of the combatants?

Q. Are there at least 1,000 battle deaths per year on average?

Q. Is the ratio of total deaths at least 95 percent to 5 percent? In other words, has the stronger side suffered at least 5 percent of the casualties?

Q. Is the war occurring within the boundaries of an internationally recognized state or entity?

Of course, Iraq meets all six criteria.

QED

Posted by mccamman | May 30, 2007 10:14 AM

Even after all this time, I remember one of my High School Social Studies (as it was called at the time) lessons:
- The American Revolution was actually a civil war.
- The American Civil War was actually a revolution.
This based on what we were told were the actual definitions of revolution and civil war. I wonder which definition Patton was dealing with.

Posted by wj | May 30, 2007 10:39 AM

David Patten writing from his foxhole posits the idea that by properly defining what is occurring in Iraq will better enable us to restore stability. He then states "there is little danger of regime change, the ultimate purpose of a civil war" so there is no civil war in Iraq.

David is mistaken in limiting his definition. A civil war also can come about when one group decides it no longer wants to be governed by the present regime and seeks to cut out its own little nation like in the U.S. during the 1860s. That is what is happening in Iraq where the Kurds sit patiently waiting to carve out their slice; the Shiites work with the Americans to get the rest; and the Sunnis hope to gain a small piece for themselves.

David Patten is right when he says "there is no political force presenting [the Iraq government] with a serious challenge." True, as long as the USA keeps 200,000 troops in Iraq the present government will have no challege in the Green Zone. But is it in our national interest to expend our wealth and lives to maintain a Potemkin government?

Time to go. If fighting erupts, Iraq as a battleground threatens no other neighbors. When we leave, like the Brits did in India, there will be a resolution by the parties (probably a partioning) who no longer have the American card to play.

I cannot get out of my mind the words of the girl from Baghdad in her blog Badhdad Burning: "There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming." We've done enough harm, killed enough Iraqis, and caused millions to leave their homes. Is that why we went there?
t follows that it cannot be overthrown. wants to govern itself within a nation. is a fight between or among groups within one nation for self-determination. In the US the South did not want a regime change, it wanted its own nation.

Posted by Mat Conly | May 30, 2007 11:11 AM

It is telling that Mr. Patten is a Sergeant in the 3rd Infantry.

Who knows if he was ORDERED to write this piece of .. sophistry? It is Rove-Luntz textbook GOP message control, not military exposition.

What Patten is saying is "Let's not call it a "civil war" and maybe we can change the way that Americans think of our political-and poll-driven military "decisions" in Iraq, OK?"

"Because you and I KNOW there were several very public papers, including studies by the military's War College itself, and Op-Eds warning this was PRECISELY what would happen, and we said at the time it had no chance of happening, OK?"

"Better yet, let me, a SOLDIER, a GI actually SERVING say it, OK?"

Patten's positions and arguments are nothing but desperate attempts at stretching definitions to achieve GOP political ends.

Reality is different, and he and his masters and superiors know it.

Posted by Ed Johnson | May 30, 2007 11:26 AM

What pure and utter horseshit. While idiots blither about whether Iraq is technically in a state of civil war, the undeniable fact is that it is an utter quagmire with no realistic hope of true stabilization as long as our troops are deployed there.

Posted by MaverickModerate | May 30, 2007 2:28 PM

Mav,

the undeniable fact is that it is an utter quagmire with no realistic hope of true stabilization as long as our troops are deployed there

What do you think "true stabilization" will involve?

Otherwise keep yelling into the echo chamber.

Tim

Posted by Lang | May 30, 2007 3:29 PM

The central problem with Patten's argument is his claim that the Iraqi regime faces no serious threat of overthrow. What's the problem here? There is no regime in Iraq. The government is a shell and nobody treats it with any degree of legitimacy. The best way to describe Iraq is pure anarchy, with dozens of claimants to power at various levels of authority. The elected Parliament exercises no legitimacy in the country, certainly not among the Sunni. It's really just a battle royale, with each faction fighting each other. Control of the central regime is almost irrelevant because nobody would be able to exercise the kind of force necessary to solidify political power over the whole country. The last man to try was Saddam Hussein, and he had to kill 300,000 people to do it. In the end, there is no Iraq. It's a civil war, alright. But it's more like the civil wars in Congo or Liberia than in England or the US.

Posted by Elrod | May 30, 2007 10:47 PM

Elrod - Nail on the head my friend

The war in Iraq is more like a family squable over who gets to profit from what part of the failed state that was called Iraq

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