It's what the surge is achieving, according to the surge's architects and supporters. But what is it? What does it mean? The Center for American Progress' Brian Katulis asks some good questions about this strategy, and so does Ilan Goldenberg from the National Security Network.
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"Bottom-Up Reconciliation"
10 Sep 2007 09:08 am
Comments (8)
"Bottom-up reconciliation" means getting some Iraqis to kill other Iraqis we don't like. Unlike the ordinary kind of reconciliation, it doesn't involve getting different groups to get along with each other.
I don't think you even need to go that far, Henley. It might just mean thinning the herd of able-bodied young men so that whoever is left will be in weakened position as regards negotiations with the US. Mostly, I think we're just planning to wait for Iraq to kill its way towards a stable settlement and then make a deal with whomever is left. I admittedly remain unclear about whether this is the best strategy.
"Bottom up reconciliation" is code for rolling surrender, which ironically might be the best way out, along the lines of "Declare Victory and Go Home"
Can you draw a firm line, hell can you draw any line between the Sunni's we were fighting in Ramadi and Fajullah in 2004 and the ones we are arming and cooperating with today?
Sifting as best as you can through the reporting since the beginning of the war the Iraqi Sunni attitude towards foreign fighters seemed to be summed up as "useful idiots" to be pointed against the Americans and the Shi'ia. Kind of like Michael Vick's dogs, wind him up and send them to kill or be killed or with the Jihadi typically both. Once they stopped being useful (like actually trying to impose their version of Islamic state and killing Sunnis who resisted), well it is time to start putting them down. And if half of what we are told about Secret Police methods under Saddam was true--- Well it is not likely to be pretty.
But to the main point. Were the leaders of the Sunni Triangle ever calling for anything more than local control? And isn't what they are getting? For the relatively low price of ferreting out and killing foreign fighters?
Maybe somebody who actually knows something about Anbar can explain to me the internal power dynamics that differentiate between the Sunnis we were fighting in violent city assaults a couple years ago vs the ones we are arming today, from where I am sitting it looks like a lot of Marines got killed and still are being killed for a whole lot of nothing.
Bruce, I think you are right. This is the U-Turn phase of the war. We came in to depose Saddam Hussein, and we are now declaring that there is a light at the end of the tunnel because we are arming... former supporters of Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. will never get its bearings in this war because it has no natural ally in Iraqi society. On the one hand, the middle and upper class, upon which the U.S. depends in third world countries for its support, was heavily implicated in the Ba'athist structure. There was certainly a moment in 2003 when this group saw the U.S. as an ally, but the U.S. did everything it could to destroy that perception, led onward by hubris and the truly idiotic ideas of people like Chalabi. On the other hand, the people who have allied with the U.S. since 2005 have, wisely, used that alliance more as a cover under which to expand their power than out of any feeling of alliance. Sadr, the Badr brigades, Dawa, the whole Shi'ite Islamic power structure is fueled by the concerns of the poor and the unemployed on the ground - and that is a group antipathetic to the Americans for obvious reasons.
Along those same lines the Battle of Najaf in 2004 was seen as a desisive point to determine whether the central government could retain national control and resist Sadr.
Najaf battle a crucial test for Allawi
What's at stake is not just the control of Najaf, but perhaps Iraq's territorial integrity. Key territories in Iraq are controlled by armed groups opposed to central government control from Baghdad. Kurdish militias in the north are vying for control of the crucial oil field town of Kirkuk; Sunni insurgents, many of them loyal to Saddam Hussein, control much of the center and the Northwest, including the transit link to Jordan. And now, as Shiite militias in the south and Baghdad turn to armed confrontation,
Prime Minister Allawi, a Shiite, has chosen to exert power where it seems most likely the government will prevail. In Shiite Najaf, a religious tourist and university city where many residents support the interim government, defeating Sadr would be a small but significant step toward preserving the Iraqi nation-state.How well did that work out? Google pulled this up from Aug 17
The tribes were also opposed the two main parties comprising the ruling United Iraqi Alliance -- the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (now the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council) and the Al-Da'wah Party -- which control Al-Najaf and its security forces.Given that SIIC and al-Da'wah pretty much are the government, at least of this week, that is rather an odd formulation but indicative.
United States troops fought fierce urban battles in 2004 with the intent of establishing central government control. Three years later the cities are being returned to the same people we fought to 'liberate' them from to start with. Once again if anyone is more familiar with the internal power dynamics of the holy cities, well I am open for instruction. But that 2004 success is looking a lot more like a 2007 surrender. Which since US troops are by and large not being killed in the area is actually a step forward. (Total coalition deaths in Najaf and Karbala provinces since 2005? 18. Though 11 of those happened in 2007.
http://icasualties.org/oif/Province.aspx)
Questions for The General:
1.If Anbar is a case of bottom up reconciliation what Iraqui army units are stationed there and how are they cooperating with the Sunni militias in the fight against foreign fighters?
2.In Shia' south which local forces do you identiy as appropriate for the same kind of military cooperation and what forces would they be aiding us in attacking?
3.If the central government appoints a new governer in Anbar who is opposed by the sheiks, which side do we support?
4.Excluding the very limited Al Quaeda forces, how would you define who we are fighting for and who we are fighting against today?
All of the above may be correct, but the simpler Occam's Razor answer is that there IS NO "bottom up reconciliation".
It's just another lie.
And compared to the rest, a pretty small one.
Comments closed September 24, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Hey, are comments working? I think there may be a problem.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias | September 10, 2007 9:36 AM