Yeah, what he said
Aug. 16th, 2004 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistNo Way Out
By Fred Kaplan
This is a terribly grim thing to say, but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq. There might be nothing we can do to build a path to a stable, secure, let alone democratic regime. And there's no way we can just pull out without plunging the country, the region, and possibly beyond into still deeper disaster.
Much as the Bush administration hoped otherwise, the fighting didn't stop—or so much as turn a corner—after sovereignty passed from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the new government of Iraq. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made a fine speech on the occasion about dealing with the insurgency, especially the need to isolate the foreign jihadists from the homegrown rebels who simply don't like being occupied. But the distinction has turned out to be muddy, and it will remain so until Allawi demonstrates he deserves their loyalty—that is, until he proves that he's independent from his American benefactors and competent at restoring basic services.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks. The Marines could readily defeat the insurgents in Najaf, but only at the great risk of inflaming Shiites—and sparking still larger insurgencies—elsewhere. In the Sadr City section of Baghdad, as U.S. commanders acknowledge, practically every resident is an insurgent.
There are not enough U.S. and British troops now to create the conditions for order. Nor are there likely to be any time soon.
John Kerry says that, if elected president, he'd persuade our allies—the ones Bush blew off—to come help (or bail) us out. Kerry would certainly be an abler diplomat than Bush; he would repair tattered alliances, and the benefits would likely be substantial in many aspects of international politics. But it's unclear how even Kerry would lure reluctant leaders to send significant numbers of combat troops into what they see as the quagmire of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration seems to be muddling through with neither a military strategy for beating the insurgents nor a political strategy for securing Iraq's stability.
Bush seems to have gone into this war without any notion that he was popping the lid off a Jack-in-a-box—that toppling Saddam and destroying the Baath Party (however laudable) would also uncork decades of pent-up ethnic and tribal tensions. If his advisers were better briefed, they took no steps to quell the likely postwar conflicts. They didn't send more troops to keep order (either in defiance or in ignorance of historic precedent). More to the point here, they didn't seek out the various ethnic leaders or offer them incentives to join a new political order. They didn't, for that matter, formulate a new political order. (Perhaps they thought Ahmad Chalabi had that department under control.)
The trick of a stable Iraq is to find some way of accommodating the ambitions and insecurities of Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites, religious Shiites, and Kurds. Nobody has figured out a way to do this yet.
Some analysts, most notably Peter Galbraith and Leslie Gelb, have advocated a "three-state solution." Iraq, after all, was an artifice of the British Empire from its very birth in the land-grabbing wake of World War I. Why not undo the monstrous deed and sever the conjoined triplets into separate beings? Partition has its abstract appeal, but it's a recipe for creating three weak states, and it would probably spark a civil or regional war. Iraq's oil is concentrated in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south; the Sunnis in the center would get nothing from the deal and thus would fight it. They could expect aid in this fight from the Saudis, who, if nothing else, would want to stem expansionist Iran, which would no doubt aim to dominate the Shiites (Iran's making political incursions even now). Meanwhile, the Kurds would come under pressure from Turkey, which would get nervous about the example being set for its own Kurdish residents; Turkey might be encouraged in this pressure by northern Iraq's large Turkmen population, which would chomp at Kurdish rule. (To be fair, Galbraith endorses a "loose federation," not three distinct states, but the problems and regional dynamics would be only slightly less severe; it's doubtful that our own Articles of Confederation could have survived such pressures, and Muqtada Sadr is no Thomas Paine.)
Iraq will have to find its own political arrangement; an imposed solution like MacArthur's Japan—an analogy in which some sought solace before the war—is no longer in the cards, if it ever was. However, before Iraq can have politics, it must have basic order. Which leads back to the opening question: Is there a solution?
Professor Juan Cole, whose blog remains essential for tracking events in Iraq, has an idea, though he admits its chances of success are remote. He thinks that, with the right mix of incentives, Russia and France might be persuaded to send troops. One key would be to play on their commercial ambitions. Give both countries—and any others—favored status to bid on vital contracts. Iraq's oil reserves alone might prove tempting. The other key would be to turn over the occupation, including its military command, to an outside entity: NATO, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League—anything, as long as the general in charge is not an American. This would be a particularly difficult step. In all other multilateral peacekeeping operations involving U.S. troops, the military component has been kept under U.S. command. Yet the undisputable fact is that no outsider will send troops to Iraq if the United States remains in charge there.
Historical analyses suggest that at least 300,000—possibly as many as 500,000—troops are needed to impose order in Iraq. Fewer than half that many U.S. and British troops are currently stationed there, and neither country has many armed forces to spare. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, is training a new Iraqi army (much of which amounts to re-recruiting the less tainted members of the old Iraqi army), but that project will take a few years to bear fruit, and it's questionable, in any case, whether Iraqis would shoot their own. (Cole notes that, during last spring's aborted offensive in Fallujah, the local police chief told the U.S. Marines that his men would not attack the native insurgents. More recently, nearly all 4,000 Iraqi security forces in Najaf defected to Muqtada Sadr's army.)
Even if our re-energized allies agreed to send more troops, they would be but a beginning, a holding action, and who knows how long they'd have to stay? What kind of country Iraq becomes, what kind of politics it practices, what kind of alliances it forms—all are mysteries. You don't hear Paul Wolfowitz waxing lyrical these days, as he did a year ago, over the universal truths of Alexis de Tocqueville. Even he must realize that the best we can hope for, at this point, is an Iraq that doesn't blow up and take the region with it. The dismaying, frightening thing is how imponderably difficult it will be simply to avoid catastrophe.
By Fred Kaplan
This is a terribly grim thing to say, but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq. There might be nothing we can do to build a path to a stable, secure, let alone democratic regime. And there's no way we can just pull out without plunging the country, the region, and possibly beyond into still deeper disaster.
Much as the Bush administration hoped otherwise, the fighting didn't stop—or so much as turn a corner—after sovereignty passed from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the new government of Iraq. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made a fine speech on the occasion about dealing with the insurgency, especially the need to isolate the foreign jihadists from the homegrown rebels who simply don't like being occupied. But the distinction has turned out to be muddy, and it will remain so until Allawi demonstrates he deserves their loyalty—that is, until he proves that he's independent from his American benefactors and competent at restoring basic services.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks. The Marines could readily defeat the insurgents in Najaf, but only at the great risk of inflaming Shiites—and sparking still larger insurgencies—elsewhere. In the Sadr City section of Baghdad, as U.S. commanders acknowledge, practically every resident is an insurgent.
There are not enough U.S. and British troops now to create the conditions for order. Nor are there likely to be any time soon.
John Kerry says that, if elected president, he'd persuade our allies—the ones Bush blew off—to come help (or bail) us out. Kerry would certainly be an abler diplomat than Bush; he would repair tattered alliances, and the benefits would likely be substantial in many aspects of international politics. But it's unclear how even Kerry would lure reluctant leaders to send significant numbers of combat troops into what they see as the quagmire of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration seems to be muddling through with neither a military strategy for beating the insurgents nor a political strategy for securing Iraq's stability.
Bush seems to have gone into this war without any notion that he was popping the lid off a Jack-in-a-box—that toppling Saddam and destroying the Baath Party (however laudable) would also uncork decades of pent-up ethnic and tribal tensions. If his advisers were better briefed, they took no steps to quell the likely postwar conflicts. They didn't send more troops to keep order (either in defiance or in ignorance of historic precedent). More to the point here, they didn't seek out the various ethnic leaders or offer them incentives to join a new political order. They didn't, for that matter, formulate a new political order. (Perhaps they thought Ahmad Chalabi had that department under control.)
The trick of a stable Iraq is to find some way of accommodating the ambitions and insecurities of Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites, religious Shiites, and Kurds. Nobody has figured out a way to do this yet.
Some analysts, most notably Peter Galbraith and Leslie Gelb, have advocated a "three-state solution." Iraq, after all, was an artifice of the British Empire from its very birth in the land-grabbing wake of World War I. Why not undo the monstrous deed and sever the conjoined triplets into separate beings? Partition has its abstract appeal, but it's a recipe for creating three weak states, and it would probably spark a civil or regional war. Iraq's oil is concentrated in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south; the Sunnis in the center would get nothing from the deal and thus would fight it. They could expect aid in this fight from the Saudis, who, if nothing else, would want to stem expansionist Iran, which would no doubt aim to dominate the Shiites (Iran's making political incursions even now). Meanwhile, the Kurds would come under pressure from Turkey, which would get nervous about the example being set for its own Kurdish residents; Turkey might be encouraged in this pressure by northern Iraq's large Turkmen population, which would chomp at Kurdish rule. (To be fair, Galbraith endorses a "loose federation," not three distinct states, but the problems and regional dynamics would be only slightly less severe; it's doubtful that our own Articles of Confederation could have survived such pressures, and Muqtada Sadr is no Thomas Paine.)
Iraq will have to find its own political arrangement; an imposed solution like MacArthur's Japan—an analogy in which some sought solace before the war—is no longer in the cards, if it ever was. However, before Iraq can have politics, it must have basic order. Which leads back to the opening question: Is there a solution?
Professor Juan Cole, whose blog remains essential for tracking events in Iraq, has an idea, though he admits its chances of success are remote. He thinks that, with the right mix of incentives, Russia and France might be persuaded to send troops. One key would be to play on their commercial ambitions. Give both countries—and any others—favored status to bid on vital contracts. Iraq's oil reserves alone might prove tempting. The other key would be to turn over the occupation, including its military command, to an outside entity: NATO, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League—anything, as long as the general in charge is not an American. This would be a particularly difficult step. In all other multilateral peacekeeping operations involving U.S. troops, the military component has been kept under U.S. command. Yet the undisputable fact is that no outsider will send troops to Iraq if the United States remains in charge there.
Historical analyses suggest that at least 300,000—possibly as many as 500,000—troops are needed to impose order in Iraq. Fewer than half that many U.S. and British troops are currently stationed there, and neither country has many armed forces to spare. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, is training a new Iraqi army (much of which amounts to re-recruiting the less tainted members of the old Iraqi army), but that project will take a few years to bear fruit, and it's questionable, in any case, whether Iraqis would shoot their own. (Cole notes that, during last spring's aborted offensive in Fallujah, the local police chief told the U.S. Marines that his men would not attack the native insurgents. More recently, nearly all 4,000 Iraqi security forces in Najaf defected to Muqtada Sadr's army.)
Even if our re-energized allies agreed to send more troops, they would be but a beginning, a holding action, and who knows how long they'd have to stay? What kind of country Iraq becomes, what kind of politics it practices, what kind of alliances it forms—all are mysteries. You don't hear Paul Wolfowitz waxing lyrical these days, as he did a year ago, over the universal truths of Alexis de Tocqueville. Even he must realize that the best we can hope for, at this point, is an Iraq that doesn't blow up and take the region with it. The dismaying, frightening thing is how imponderably difficult it will be simply to avoid catastrophe.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 09:37 am (UTC)Various factions in various countries of the Middle East have been at war with each other for, at minimum, decades, and in several cases, hundreds of years. Many of the children, as they have grown up and in to adulthood, have known nothing but conflict for their entire lives. They don't know any other way to live. One boob with an army at his command is not going to change that mindset in a few months.
Every time Curious George goes on about freedom in Iraq and the right to set up their own government, I always wonder what he will do if, in the first election, the people vote for a strict Islamic government instead of a democracy.
I also think its interesting to note that the average woman in Iraq had more freedom and opportunity under Saddam than she does now with the various Islamic militant groups running around.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 10:13 am (UTC)True, it's not the ideal solution for an American point-of-view, but it might be a solution that actually *works* and brings stability back to Iraq (and allows both the US to leave with some dignity). The only alternative might be a prolonged civil war, with the US is sitting helplessly in the middle.
The thing is, if the US isn't willing to commit major resources (ie, money and the *necessary* number of troops) to post-Saddam Iraq, we have to look for alternate solutions. The worst thing we can do is just sit there, under-manned and under-funded, while the Iraqis go around killing each other.
I think if Kerry gets elected, it'll be a big step towards improving our relations with the rest of the world, but I seriously doubt it will lead to foreign troops and money pouring into Iraq. I just don't see that happening....
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 11:47 am (UTC)It wouldn't be good politically, though, so the US would never do it. Even if Kerry's elected, that'll never happen. I don't even think it would've happened if someone like Howard Dean (who had the balls to say he opposed the war) got elected. Immediately dragging all the troops and everything out of there would make the US look bad; they'd be blamed for the ensuing war, deaths, oppression by whatever new government came to power, all of it.
It would be better if the Iraqis fought their own battles, so to speak, and had the liberty to define their government themselves. But now that the US will look responsible, they'll ave to find a way to make themselves look good. That doesn't mean they'll be doing good, though, just that they'll have to make it appear good.
And since the ability of the government to lie (or at least tell the truth creatively) is seemingly only surpassed by the gullibility of the American public, keeping up appearances should be easy, as it has little to do with whatever's actually going on.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 01:25 pm (UTC)I still don't see an Islamic Republic as a horrible solution. The important thing is to make sure that it isn't dominated by an unelected, backward-looking group of Ayatollahs. Let Iraq create a religious branch of the government that is equal to the other branches, but not all-powerful, like it is in Iran. Give the other branches some kind of check and balance over the religious branch. I'm sure there's a way to figure this out....Democracy can be adapted to different culutres, and there's nothing wrong with letting people put their own spin on it, as long as the rights of minorities are protected.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 02:04 pm (UTC)There may not be anything intrinsically wrong with the notion of an Islamic republic in Iraq, but I don't know if the US can bring about such a thing. (And that's assuming they want to; Bush makes no secret of his opinion that he's got some sort of divine mandate to do all the stuff he's doing, and the deity he got it from definitely isn't Allah.)
For starters, as Gavin pointed out, Muslims are not just one big homoegenous group. I know many Americans who are aware of this, but if the administration has this knowledge, it doesn't really seem to be acting on it.
I guess it's the sort of subtlety that occupying forces tend to overlook, and thus they have about as much success as Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan ... or as the original rulers given to Iraq by the British Empire, for that matter.
And the Iraqis are not, at this point, capable of doing any better on their own. I think Gavin's also right in that, woefully inadequate as they may be, the troops there now are reducing the fighting and chaos to something less than they'd otherwise be. You can't force democracy on people that don't want it; you can't make people do the work of governing themselves if they're not ready for it, and the Iraqis don't seem to be.
I very much hope that some good solution can be found to the predicament the US (and, to a lesser extent, the UK and whatever other allies remain) have gotten us into. But the reason I posted this article in the first place is that I agree: the thing the US and Iraq have in common now is that their futures are tied to each other, and that's only one of the reasons those futures look bleak.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 03:47 pm (UTC)And here I was thinking empires went out of fashion in the last century ... The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.