Fun With Civil War

Via Ilan Goldenberg, we see that Shiites don't like our new insurgency-arming plan: "The largest Shiite political coalition in Iraq demanded Tuesday that the U.S. military abandon its recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi police, saying some are members of 'armed terrorist groups' and are engaged in killing, kidnapping and extortion under the guise of fighting the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq."

I'm in no position to say exactly what the true facts of the matter are, and probably nobody in the United States is (which is, of course, part of the problem) but the existence of the controversy, rather than the merits of anyone's arguments, is the crux of the issue here. Absent political reconciliation, forming opportunistic alliances with disparate Iraqi groups just amounts to fueling the civil war. Iraq's government doesn't like our new Sunni allies, and our new Sunni allies don't like Iraq's government either. At this point, there's little or nothing we can do to make them work out their differences peacefully, but for the love of God we could at least stop pouring gasoline on the conflict.

Comments

"could at least stop pouring gasoline on the conflict."

If this gasoline is part of the reason behind the 50% drop in Iraqi civilian casualties last month, perhaps more gasoline is in order.

Posted by Fred | October 3, 2007 9:09 PM

"...for the love of God we could at least stop pouring gasoline on the conflict."

Agreed.

NOW, can we reconsider the wisdom of "General Betrayus". After all, this is "his" strategy and he and everyone he "represents" (literally and figuratively) is trying to "sell" us on the idea that this is a "rational" policy that will "succeed".

In retrospect, perhaps we'd have been better off spending the next "6 months" having the MSM debating every nuanced syllable of General Petraeus's "new way forward" rather than getting to the heart of the matter.

I for one thank God that the Move-On "distraction" momentarily saved us from such an enormous clusterfuck. I say momentary, because I'm certain they'll find something else equally worthless to blather on about.

Posted by Rihilism | October 3, 2007 9:17 PM

Fueling the civil war is a feature of this tactic. In other words it's a strategic decision. Well that might be too strong because it's too simple. If we attack Iran then it's probable that our forces will get into a lot of direct combat with various Shiite groups. Perhaps such will escalate to the point where we might make a definitive tilt towards the Sunnis. So it's a strategy meant to account for contingencies.

Every other Middle East state wants the Shiites put back in their place. The damn Persians too. They all dislike if not fear a "shiite axis". It's little appreciated that an attack on Iran by us will be accepted quite well from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. Not publicly of course but behind the scenes.

Posted by rapier | October 3, 2007 9:19 PM

"If this gasoline is part of the reason behind the 50% drop in Iraqi civilian casualties last month, perhaps more gasoline is in order."

Not that I concede your "statistics", but perhaps they're running out of people to kill.

Posted by Rihilism | October 3, 2007 9:20 PM

"....It's little appreciated that an attack on Iran by us will be accepted quite well from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan...."

Sun Tzu would be SO proud. Brilliant, simply brilliant. Can't see any downside whatsoever...

Posted by Rihilism | October 3, 2007 9:27 PM

If this gasoline is part of the reason behind the 50% drop in Iraqi civilian casualties last month, perhaps more gasoline is in order.

1. If the 50% drop lasts for any length of time, great. Right now, you sort of sound like the crappiest player on the junior high C-team who, having sunk one lucky three-point shot from way back, won't shut up about his NBA draft potential. (Metaphor disclaimer: I know only the barest minimum about basketball or any other sport.)

2. Even with the much-touted 50% drop, we're still talking a thousand dead Iraqi civilians a month.

Posted by James Gary | October 3, 2007 9:38 PM

There are false facts?

Posted by Joseph | October 3, 2007 11:04 PM

I have to agree. This whole business of recruiting some Sunnis to be on our side was just intended to "fake" a reduction in insurgent activity so Bush could proclaim the surge working - since it was obvious almost up to September that it wasn't.

But beyond that, the whole point of our being in Iraq AT ALL is to enable us to invade Iran and seize the Khuzestan oil fields. The original plan was to attack Iraq, then Syria, then Iran - or maybe Iran and then Syria - I don't think they even had that much of a plan - just the intention.

The "little" problem with that plan is that Bush never expected the Iraqi insurgency to be as bad as it is, let alone a civil war. The civil war is welcome to the Israelis, of course, since destabilization of the ME is their game plan. But for the oil companies and for Bush to enable a nice clean invasion of Iran, it's a problem - albeit one he doesn't really care that much about, since it's not going to cost him anything.

He can still attack Iran, relying initially on the Air Force and Navy and Marine. But sooner or later, he knows the Army will have to go in as well. Probably the only reason the attack on Iran hasn't happened yet is because some people at the Pentagon keep telling him that sooner or later, the Army WILL have to go in - and then they'll get clobbered by the Shia militias.

Presumably Dr. Lani Glass, the Israeli military officer in charge of planning the Iran invasion, is telling Bush the same thing she told the news media: "We can defeat Iran. But is America willing to pay the price?"

Note: not "is Israel willing to pay the price?"

So they're bumbling around trying to figure out how to destroy Iran AND get the oil fields without getting the entire US military in Iraq destroyed.

It's a problem, no doubt about it.

But in the end, we know Bush will shoulder all such problems aside - and give the order. After all, as I said, it's not going to cost him anything. In fact, the worse the Iran war is, the better for the war profiteers. Just as the war profiteers have cleaned up in Iraq while US soldiers are killed and maimed, so, too, they will clean up in Iran even if the US loses 50,000 dead soldiers and 100,000 maimed.

It's that simple.

And since NONE of the war profiteers are running for office, they really couldn't care less if the GOP loses in 2008 over a bungled Iran war - because they know the Democrats want those campaign contributions and bribes just as much as the Republicans do, and the Democrats will keep that war going for another five or ten years.

The oil companies don't care - the price of oil will spike once the Iran war starts, so they can easily wait for another ten years to actually get control of the Iraq and Iran oil fields. Even if they never do, well, again, what did it cost them for Bush to try?

People need to understand that certain people benefit from all this - and this is why these things happen.

Take those people out - and these things wouldn't happen.

Except of course they'd be replaced by somebody else in five minutes.

No problem - take THOSE people out, too.

As Remo Williams trainer, Chiun, used to say, "Armies cause problems by killing many - when the solution to all problems is to kill one - the right one."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 3, 2007 11:12 PM

You know, once the Serbian forces killed or removed all of the Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica, the death rate dropped there too.

Posted by Reality Man | October 3, 2007 11:34 PM

Even with the much-touted 50% drop, we're still talking a thousand dead Iraqi civilians a month.
Posted by James Gary

I don't think the public outside the Lefties and Euroweenie followers cares much at all about dead Iraqi Arabs. And for good reason. The Shiite Arabs and Sunni Arabs are determined to kill one another, and any of us they can kill safely.

Meanwhile, the Kurds, by not acting like Arabs, have built a safe, flourishing part of Iraq by not going after Americans or Arabs. Are we to credit ourselves with virtually 0 Kurd deaths? No. That is the Kurd's doing. Just as the 1,000 or so "innocent civilians" of Arab-on-Arab violence plus the 25,000 casualties they have inflicted on mostly Americans in the "Coalition" are 98% the Arab's fault - Sunni, Shiite, Al Qaeda - not ours.

THe whole "caring act" about enemy civilians is a pretty recent thing. No one weeped for the innocent slave owner families when Sherman did his March and burnings. 'Cept other Confederates. Few cared that "nobel peace-loving Nazi families" were being killed despite them not wearing uniform - as a consequence of Germans backing Fascism. Nor was the Left exactly bawling it's head off for the 80 million civilians the Commies killed over 8 decades..

Posted by Chris Ford | October 4, 2007 12:36 AM

And nobody's gonna care when you die, Ford.

Prove that.

Off yourself by Tuesday before lunch.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 4, 2007 2:33 AM

So, if I understand Chris Ford correctly, the best way for the US to pacify non-Kurdish Iraq is to kill everyone in it?

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 4, 2007 4:16 AM

"THe whole "caring act" about enemy civilians is a pretty recent thing."

And that's a bad thing . . . how?

It strikes me that concern about non-combatants is a good thing.

Posted by Joel | October 4, 2007 5:56 AM

Roger Cohen has a column that uses Matt Yglesias quotes for an example of the abuse neo-cons are getting -- essentially, he writes, neocons in 2007 have become what liberals were in 2003 -- a term of abuse.

According to Cohen, this term of abuse is now being unjustifiably applied to "liberal hawks" like him.

The most dishonest part of Cohen's column is this:

"Beyond that, neocon has morphed into an all-purpose insult for anyone who still believes that American power is inextricable from global stability and still thinks the muscular anti-totalitarian U.S. interventionism that brought down Slobodan Milosevic has a place...."

which he conflates with the insult of anyone arguing "like Christopher Hitchens, that ousting Saddam Hussein put the United States “on the right side of history.”.

I have heard relatively few criticisms from the liberal blogosphere about the Balkan intervention (except some reconsideration of tactics). The criticisms of liberal hawks was the weakness of their case, their lack of shame for the consequences of a war they advocated and their inability to distinguish the situations in Iraq and the Balkans in the 1990s.

These strawmen arguments are so obvious and so annoying. Cohen must know better, but he hopes a good portion of his audience doesn't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/opinion/04cohen.html?hp

Posted by Ben Brackley | October 4, 2007 7:34 AM

"If this gasoline is part of the reason behind the 50% drop in Iraqi civilian casualties last month, perhaps more gasoline is in order."

Didn't you hear that statitic is a lie? The Pentagon just changed the way they count casualties. Now, it only counts if an Iraqi civilian is shot in the back of the head. If an Iraqi civilian is shot in the front of the head, it doesn't count, thus the 50% drop in deaths.

Posted by shoeless | October 4, 2007 10:11 AM

Absent political reconciliation, forming opportunistic alliances with disparate Iraqi groups just amounts to fueling the civil war.

Wouldn't political detente be sufficient? It's pretty obvious that we're not going to get real reconciliation, but if random, militia-lead violence becomes somewhat-predictable violence-as-negotiating-tactic, it seems like that would probably be enough to stave off civil war. For that to happen all the major parties need to be well armed enough that none can simply be massacred by the others at will.

This is obviously a holy-shit-I-can't-believe-this-is-an-option idea, but that's kind of where we're at in Iraq atm.

Posted by TW Andrews | October 4, 2007 10:16 AM

"Didn't you hear that statitic is a lie? The Pentagon just changed the way they count casualties."

The drop in civilian casualties was reported by the Iraqi government, not the Pentagon. As the Financial Times reports, the trend is confirmed by Iraq Body Count as well.

Posted by Fred | October 4, 2007 12:10 PM

"For that to happen all the major parties need to be well armed enough that none can simply be massacred by the others at will."

Doesn't work like that. The fact that your ten guys are well-armed doesn't help if you're opposed by twenty well-armed guys.

Especially if you think the twenty want you dead regardless.

And vice versa.

As I've said before, the civil conflict will continue until either exhaustion sets in - which is the most likely outcome - or the smaller of the parties is supported (by more than just guns and money) by some external entity who can actually even the odds body-wise or in some other strategic manner.

The Sunnis cannot be "massacred" at will NOW. But they can be ethnically cleansed into their own enclaves, which is happening. Worse, they can be kept from having any oil revenue or any authority in the government at all, let alone equal to what they used to have. Thus, they have no motivation to stop fighting. The Shia have no motivation to stop fighting because they have the upper hand, given that they have the "legitimate government" (hah!) and official US support (and Iranian support) and they outnumber the Sunnis.

It could very well lead to an attempt to "massacre" the Sunnis, but that will almost certainly bring in external Sunni actors like Saudi Arabia in some way.

More likely, the violence will simply continue, but not reach the proportions of an African-style "genocide" due to the inter-religious family and tribal relations common in Iraq. We're not talking strictly clear-cut African-style tribal divisions here. It's more complicated than that.

But quite a few people are going to die until both sides decide it's just not worth it any more and decide to come to some sort of accommodation - in order to move ahead together with looting the country "legally".

And there's ZERO the US can do to influence that. Even deciding to come down totally on the side of the Sunni against the Shia - which would look ridiculous among other problems - wouldn't help at this point.

The US could say, I suppose, "Okay, we're gonna nuke Baghdad and the holy cities if you guys don't agree". Well, you know, that simply isn't going to happen. And all it would do is drive the fight "underground" in some way and let it break out later in other ways.

Face it, the main actors have to settle it and they have to settle it their way.

It's unlike the Israeli-Palestine situation where Israel has nuclear weapons and a vastly superior military and thus clearly has an unassailable position. There the UN, US and the world could pressure Israel to disarm its nuclear weapons and then issue security guarantees to Iran. That would be inclined to pressure the Israelis to come to a resolution more accommodating with the Palestinians.

Now, in Iraq, if the Sunni insurgents are really strategically and tactically smart, as they seem to be, they WILL put enough pressure on the Shia to back down somewhat. I suspect this will lead to the "exhaustion" at least on the Shia side which might lead to a usable reconciliation.

The same tactic could be used by the Palestinians - but they don't seem to have the same capability as the Iraqi insurgents - possibly because many of the Iraqi insurgents have military backgrounds and Palestinians don't, never having had a national army in the sense of Iraq.

Bottom line: the civil conflict In Iraq will continue and there's absolutely nothing the US can do about it, from either inside or outside the country.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 4, 2007 11:28 PM

The fact that your ten guys are well-armed doesn't help if you're opposed by twenty well-armed guys.

Really? But just a short while ago, you wrote:

"Give me a hundred motivated and trained men and the necessary supplies, and I'll have Israelis begging to give up Palestine and go back to Germany in a year."

Is it that you think there's only about 200 Israelis?

Or that they're only armed with spears and shields?

I think you should hire your 100 guys and give it a shot.

Posted by SoCalJustice | October 4, 2007 11:36 PM