Winning in Anbar

Petraeus made reference just now to a report from several years ago which described the war in Anbar Province as "lost." Now, obviously, he wants to say things are totally turned around. And certainly the situation has changed a great deal. But hasn't it essentially changed because we substantially surrendered to the insurgency? It used to be that we were fighting the insurgents, trying to establish the authority of the Shiite government, and they were fighting back against us. Now we're paying the insurgents, not trying to establish the authority of the Shiite government, and they're not fighting against us any more.

That's certainly good news for American soldiers serving in Anbar, but that just goes to show the wisdom of trying to bring goals in line with reality, not that can-do spirit can produce victory everywhere.

Comments

I wonder how much we would have to pay Sadr's militiamen to provide neighborhood security and stop firing rockets at us. Maybe someone could ask Crocker and Petraeus. Eighty years ago T.E.Lawrence wrote that the British convinced the Arab tribes to fight on their side against the Turks with truck loads of gold. Bush must not have been awake that day in history class.

Posted by Th | April 8, 2008 12:16 PM

Where the hell is that Anbar? I had it here just a second ago...

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | April 8, 2008 12:20 PM

It also shows the rhetorical value of declaring "victory" even if what actually happened is that you "brought your goals in line with reality." And that is because a less favorable name for such a process could be "surrender", and people tend to like "victory" a lot better than "surrender".

Posted by DTM | April 8, 2008 12:27 PM

But hasn't it essentially changed because we substantially surrendered to the insurgency?

What the hell? No. Either you're just making up crap to support your get-out-whatever-the-consequences dogma or you've got your head in the sand.

The situation in Anbar changed because AQI overreached and the general Sunni populace revolted. The old enemy is largely vanquished, but the US military neither defeated nor surrendered to it -- our armed forces played a supporting role while Sunni tribesmen did the bulk of the fighting and most importantly, the Anbari population at large denied AQI sanctuary.

In AQI's place we now have new entities -- the fair-weather "allies" we're bribing. If they turn against the central government in earnest, everyone's screwed. There's good arguments to be made that the gains are unstable, the long haul looks bleak, and we should scram while the gettin's good. I wish you'd make *those* arguments instead of spinning dishonest fantasies. But maybe I'll have to go somewhere else if I want anti-war arguments grounded in reality.

Posted by Creamy Goodness | April 8, 2008 12:34 PM

Anbar was once safe haven for foreign terrorists, and now it isn't?!? Violence has vastly declined, and eventually the Marines will leave as the province falls under Iraqi control. I don't understand your attempt to affect the domestic political debate by rearranging the facts. But I think it's noble that you try with Anbar province. That's probably the hardest place in Iraq to make US involvement look bad, so I respect that, sir.

Posted by LT Nixon | April 8, 2008 12:37 PM

Creamy Goodness and LT Nixon: the fighting against US troops in Anbar was much more than "foreign terrorists". The local Sunnis carried the bulk of the fighting until they tired of the foreigners. The Awakening Councils are full of people who fought against our troops. Your view that the locals were all innocent bystanders who threw out al-Qaeda and embraced the Americans is not supported by reporting from the troops in the area. Our new friends were shooting at our troops a year ago.

The Awakening leaders have also been pretty blunt that now that they have driven out al-Qaeda for us, they will take over the central government when the time is right. That is why Maliki refuses to pay or incorporate these fighters into the Iraqi Army.

Posted by Th | April 8, 2008 12:53 PM

Th: Our new friends were shooting at our troops a year ago.

Yes. But the situation in Anbar didn't improve "essentially" because we "surrendered" to those forces. It improved primarily because those forces beat down AQI with the support of the majority of the Anbari population.

Your view that the locals were all innocent bystanders

That's not my view. Argue honestly.

Posted by Creamy Goodness | April 8, 2008 1:27 PM

Creamy Goodness,

I agree that "we surrendered to the insurgents" is an overstatement, but I think there is a grain of truth to it. Previously we'd been trying to force the Sunni insurgents to submit to the authority of the central government - it now seems that we've more or less conceded that they don't have to. In fact, we've gone so far as to foster an alternative (tribal) power structure and sponsor militias, both of which clearly undermine the authority and legitimacy of the elected government. That's a pretty massive concession.

Here's an article about what tribal rule has meant in practice, in Anbar and elsewhere:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130602/page/3

Overall, it's better than the previous state of affairs - but it doesn't strike me as a "success story" that can or should be exported to the rest of the country.

Posted by N | April 8, 2008 1:34 PM

I don't know how you define surrender, Mr. Goodness. The U.S. invaded Iraq because of Saddam Hussein. Bremer set up a provisional government with the clear policy that we were going to De-baathistify Iraq. Now we are paying money to Saddam's last supporters.

Now, shifting the goalposts to the "foreign" terrorists (of course, Americans, too, are foreign in Iraq) and embracing Saddam's supporters seems to me to be the right policy in Anbar. But one can't call it a big victory of American strategy - rather, Americans surrendered to reality. One of those realities is that Saddam's people and the Al Qaeda were unhappy allies after the fall of Baghdad because, basically, they have completely different world views. Which is why it was insane to link al qaeda to Iraq in the first place. Al qaeda found much more backing in the Pakistan government, and among certain Saudi elites.

The Americans opposed and shot down the amnesty proposed by the Iraqi Governing Council for all Iraqi insurgents back in 2005, because the Americans said that no insurgent that had killed an American deserved amnesty. The U.S. surrendered this point in 2007.

It was not a complete surrender, but the strategy of allying with the Anbar awakening is definitely a retreat from three years of American policy.

Falluja to the charge of a man

Posted by roger | April 8, 2008 2:00 PM

Sure, the awakening councils have many ex-insurgents. Yes, we are working with them now. But would you rather have us shooting at each other and causing more unnecessary violence? Why is this such a bad thing. I don't understand your motives...

Posted by LT Nixon | April 8, 2008 2:13 PM

No one says that it's a bad thing per se, but it was bowing to the inevitable. The Americans implicitly conceded that their goals were completely unrealistic to begin with. So, instead of stumping out the pro-Saddam Sunni insurgency, which had reluctantly allied with "AQ in Iraq", to establish the authority of the Shia-dominated central government, the Americans bribed the Sunni insurgents to turn against AQI and ceded Anbar et al to them, with the central government as more or less helpless bystander. And what happens if the Sunnis feel strong enough to fight the Shia to get back into their old position as rulers of Iraq remains to be seen.

Posted by Patrick | April 8, 2008 2:32 PM

No one says that it's a bad thing per se, but it was bowing to the inevitable. The Americans implicitly conceded that their goals were completely unrealistic to begin with. So, instead of stumping out the pro-Saddam Sunni insurgency, which had reluctantly allied with "AQ in Iraq", to establish the authority of the Shia-dominated central government, the Americans bribed the Sunni insurgents to turn against AQI and ceded Anbar et al to them, with the central government as more or less helpless bystander. And what happens if the Sunnis feel strong enough to fight the Shia to get back into their old position as rulers of Iraq remains to be seen.

Posted by Patrick | April 8, 2008 2:35 PM

I don't know what you "don't understand," LT Nixon, because the point is not very complicated. The current status of Anbar is a lousy solution to an even worse problem that was largely of our own creation. In exchange for a reduction in anti-American violence, we've granted effective authority to tribal leaders and militias, with some associated ugly consequences.

It's definitely better than the immediate alternative, but it can't reasonably be depicted as a triumph that points the way forward for the country in general. Even we could replicate the "success," local government via sheiks and gangs runs directly counter to our main stated objective of creating a capable, democratic and legitimate Iraqi state.

Posted by N | April 8, 2008 2:48 PM

Creamy Goodness: I took "The old enemy is largely vanquished, but the US military neither defeated nor surrendered to it -- our armed forces played a supporting role while Sunni tribesmen did the bulk of the fighting and most importantly, the Anbari population at large denied AQI sanctuary" to say that you consider the "Sunni tribesmen" and "the Anbari population at large" to be separate from "the old enemy" when they are not. They had fought our troops and provided safe haven for al-Qaeda as long as they thought it was in their best interests. I thought I was arguing honestly. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Posted by Th | April 8, 2008 3:30 PM

roger: I don't know how you define surrender, Mr. Goodness.

The big fight in Anbar from late 2006 through mid 2007 was the Awakening vs. AQI. We weren't the primary players. The Awakening forces didn't win because a third party "surrendered" to them, no matter how you define the word. They won -- meaning, they crushed AQI -- because they had the overwhelming support of the population.

Patrick: the Americans bribed the Sunni insurgents to turn against AQI

American bribery money is keeping things under control today but it did not seed the Awakening. The victory over AQI belongs to the Anbaris.

N: The current status of Anbar is a lousy solution to an even worse problem that was largely of our own creation.

I agree with this. No American invasion, no rise of AQI in Anbar.

Posted by Creamy Goodness | April 8, 2008 4:08 PM

Creamy may be partly correct and partly wrong.

Clearly any success against AQI in Anbar was the result of the Sunnis, not the US military, who couldn't find their ass with both hands.

Nonetheless, the reality is that the US bribed the Sunni insurgents by 1) setting up a welfare program for them by paying them $300/month; and 2) promising that they would be integrated into the Iraqi government - which Maliki and the Badr/Dawa crowd have reneged on.

Right now, some of the Sunni crowd are a little happier with Maliki because he attacked Sadr's group, which some of the Sunni blamed for attacks on the Sunni (even though it is the Badr crowd that runs the death squads out of the ministries and even though it is Sadr that has been most proactive about reaching out to Sunni factions.)

None of that matters because the Sunni crowd still aren't sufficiently represented in the government. This will come to a head in the provincial elections this fall, and again next year in the parliamentary elections. If the Sunnis aren't integrated into the government in what THEY regard as sufficient numbers, the insurgency will flare up again.

It may also flare up again if there is an intra-Shia civil war between the Mahdi Army and the Maliki crowd this year and next. If that happens, the Sunni insurgents would be happy to take advantage of that and resume attacks on the Shia government and the US military.

This is likely why Iran is supporting Sadr more now. They can see the handwriting on the wall - that Sadr is the only man who can possibly come up with a coalition government that might satisfy the Sunnis and the majority poor Shia as well as being able to deal with Iran, and thus result in a reasonably stable Iraqi government acceptable to Iran.

The problem is that none of that is acceptable to the US, which is why the US is meddling in the intra-Shia conflict against Sadr (and by proxy, Iran.)

If Sadr and the (moderate) Sunnis get in, the US is out, the war on Iran is threatened because the US won't have troops and air bases in Iraq, and the US doesn't get the oil on its terms - and Israel gets kicked out as well for good measure because the nationalist Iraqi government will not support the partitioning of Kurdistan and thus allow Israel to get Kurdish oil.

So it is inevitable that the US will end up screwing this up beyond all recognition, with the result that the US will end up being violently kicked out of Iraq - and if the US doubles down by attacking Iran, the US will probably lose its entire army in Iraq. If there isn't a credible US withdrawal beginning early in 2009 with the next administration, the situation will be incredibly dangerous for the US military by the end of the year - if not sooner.

And that's assuming Bush and Cheney don't start the Iran war this year. If they do, the US will be kicked out of Iraq within ninety days.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 8, 2008 7:23 PM

Given that our primary goal has been to re-establish the Iraq central state (one that is allied to us, opposed to al Qaeda), ceding control of Anbar to the Sunni Arab insurgents is surrender. More precisely -- surrender is such a loaded an imprecise term -- it is a tactical retreat.

For more about this see:
Surrender in Al Anbar province (14 February 2008)
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/surrender-anbar/

Excerpt:

"Consider this: what more could the Sunni Arab leaders have obtained if they had defeated our forces in open combat (which was, of course, impossible)? Or, consider the pros and cons of this deal. For the Sunni Arabs of Al Anbar, it is a win-win. They get much, give nothing.

"The US gives much to the Sunni Arabs and gets little. This deal undercuts our key strategic goals and benchmarks in Iraq — to create a strong and friendly Iraq State. The Sunni Arabs we pay were and are (collectively, in general) insurgents to the current Iraq government. Nothing we are doing changes that; probably the opposite is true (funding and arming them strengthens their will to resist).

"On the other hand, artful tactical retreats have won wars in the past. Cutting a deal in Al Anbar province provides several short-term benefits..."

Posted by Fabius Maximus | April 8, 2008 7:58 PM