Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

They scrawled the words "Fuck yeah" on the pages of the Holy Koran and then they shot it full of holes. Last week a few American soldiers in Iraq thought it would be cool to use the Koran for target practice. The US commander on the ground, Major General Jeffery Hammond, has quickly apologized to try to repair the damage. I hope it will be enough, but I seriously doubt that fallout from this act of stupidity by a few soldiers can be contained.

I am a Muslim. I am an American. I am deeply offended. Those who know me know that I am not easily offended in these matters.

Muslims consider the words in the Koran to be the literal word of God. Korans in Muslim homes are kept in a place of honor, usually displayed on a stand made to hold the book on a mantle or another prominent place. Muslims consider it a grave insult if the Koran comes into contact with one’s feet or is desecrated in any other way. Every Muslim understands this. It is instinctive to protect the Koran.

So when an American soldier desecrates a Koran and riddles it with bullets, the message is clear: it does not need any translation. This isn’t the "cartoon controversy" where a bunch of radical Islamists thumped their chests in response. This will hit home with the moderate Muslims around the world. Moderate Muslims are not going to go out on the streets and march in protest. But they will understand the message coming from America. At a time when America needs the moderates in the Muslim world to rally to the cause and isolate the extremists, this kind of act will cause the moderates to sit on their hands.  I doubt very many Muslims around the world will care to make the distinction between the act of a few American soldiers and the policy of the United States. That kind of nuance is likely not going to translate well.

This kind of action is a victory for the hatemongers on both sides. It makes my conversations with Muslims in the country of my birth - Bangladesh - that much more difficult. I will trot out the standard line about how this was an act of a few and does not represent the attitude of the United States government toward the Muslims of the world. I will get a polite hearing, but I doubt anyone will believe me. Already I am confronted with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay when I speak out against human rights violations in the Muslim world. At least in those cases I can make the admittedly weak case that those abuses were carried out in the overzealous response to terrorists acts - that those acts were targetted at who the United States thought posed a security threat to itself. In this case, however, there is no getting around the fact that the target is the over one billion Muslims around the world.

I am not so worried that this particular act will increase the level of terrorism against the United States. Those who would act in violence don’t particularly need this as an excuse to do their acts - if it wasn’t this, they would find another justification. But I do worry that the long-term goal of winning "hearts and minds" just took a major blow. I don’t know how many more such blows can be absorbed before the divide between the Muslim world and the West is irretrievably made permanent.

Those of us who stand with a foot in each culture have a responsibility to try the bridge the gaps of misunderstanding and mutual fear that have hightened since the September 11th attacks. But our voices are drowned out, along with the voices of the majority of those in the West and in the Muslim world who simply want to live in peace to raise their families, when this kind of act is carried out by a "strategic corporal" . This must stop.

UPDATE:  I crossposted this on Daily Kos last night. It has reached the recommended list and launched a vigorous debate in the comments. Now there are over 700 comments on the post and the debate continues. The diary has elicited strong opinions on all sides and quite a lot of insightful commentary.

"I heard somebody say, where’s Mandela? Well, Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas." - George W. Bush, September 20, 2007

A day after President Bush declared to the world that Nelson Mandela had been killed by Saddam Hussein, the Nelson Mandela Foundation announced that Mr. Mandela was found to be still alive:

The Nelson Mandela Foundation is assuring the public that the former South African president is still alive, after comments by U.S. President George Bush that potentially could be misunderstood.

In Johannesburg, the foundation’s chief executive officer, Achmat Dangor, said Friday that Mr. Mandela is alive and well, and enjoying some rest and relaxation at his home.

I am very thankful that the 89-year old Nobel Peace Prize winner is alive and well.

It is ironic that Mr. Bush should now be lamenting that there are no Mandelas in Iraq. There was a Mandela before Mr. Bush attacked Iraq. That Mandela said the following about Mr. Bush’s decision to attack Iraq:

It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations.

…

What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.

…

Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly? All that it wants is Iraqi oil.

George W. Bush, a man with no foresight, did not listen to those who had that foresight. Now he is lamenting that he could use such men. How sad.

"We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy." - George W. Bush, September 14, 2007

Click the image to enlarge.

Juan Cole reported earlier this week on a rumor that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might be toppled in a coup. This rumor comes in the midst of intensifying pressure on Maliki from the Bush administration and members of congress.

It has been clear for at least a year that Maliki and Bush were headed down different paths. It has also been clear that Mr. Bush’s exit strategy from Iraq rests in part on blaming the Iraqis for the mess that he has created. It is widely expected that the Surgin’ General’s report this September will blame the Iraqis for a lack of political progress while claiming "progress" on the military front. It is reasonable to expect that the new "new way forward" will involve a change at the top of the Iraqi political leadership. The Iraqi leadership derby is on.

Enter Ayad Allawi - former Baathist, leader of the Iraqi National Accord, CIA asset, former interim Iraqi Prime Minister, and fabulist. Allawi was one half of the Iraqi dynamic duo that helped get this country into the Iraq war; the other half of the duo was CIA asset and Allawi relative Ahmed Chalabi.

It was Ayad Allawi who, before the war, passed on the claim that Saddam Hussein could strike Britain with WMD within 45 minutes of an order being given. It was Allawi who found "documentary proof" that Mohammed Atta was trained by Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agencies in Baghdad.

Allawi has been tightening the screws on Maliki recently. His party, the Iraqi National List, is resigning from Maliki’s cabinet. He has hired a well-connected Republican lobbying firm in Washington to push his leadership bona fides in Washington. And he has penned a Washington Post op-ed.

In his op-ed, Allawi declares the obvious:

more than four years after its liberation from Saddam Hussein, Iraq is a failing state, not providing the most basic security and services to its people and contributing to an expanding crisis in the Middle East.

Then blames the Iraqi government and absolves Washington:

Let me be clear. Responsibility for the current mess in Iraq rests primarily with the Iraqi government, not with the United States. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has failed to take advantage of the Iraqi people’s desire for peaceful and productive lives and of the enormous commitment and sacrifices made by the United States and other nations.

Expresses shock at the chaos in Iraq:

Who could have imagined that Iraq would be in such crisis more than four years after Saddam Hussein? Each month 2,000 to 3,000 Iraqi civilians are killed by terrorists and sectarian death squads. Electricity and water are available, at best, for only five to six hours a day. Baghdad, once evidence of Iraq’s cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, is now a city of armed sectarian enclaves — much like Beirut of the 1980s.

And presents the favorite tool of all Third World strongmen, a "six-point" plan for a "new era" in Iraq. He hits all the high notes:

Iraq must be a full partner with the United States in the development of a security plan that leads to the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. forces over the next two years, and that, before then, gradually and substantially reduces the U.S. combat role.

…

I propose declaring a state of emergency for Baghdad and all conflict areas. Iraq’s security forces need to be reconstituted.

…

We need a regional diplomatic strategy that increasingly invests the United Nations and the Arab world in Iraqi security and reconstruction. Washington should not shoulder this diplomatic burden alone, as it largely has until now.

…

Iraq must be a single, independent federal state. We should empower local and provincial institutions at the expense of sectarian politics and an all-powerful and overbearing Baghdad.

…

National reconciliation requires an urgent commitment to moderation and ending sectarian violence by integrating all Iraqis into the political process.

…

The Iraqi economy has been handicapped by corruption and inadequate security. We must emphasize restoration of the most basic infrastructure.

Then he goes for the coup de grace:

It is past time for change at the top of the Iraqi government. Without that, no American military strategy or orderly withdrawal will succeed, and Iraq and the region will be left in chaos.

The song Mr. Allawi is singing will appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. He calls for regional diplomacy and gradual withdrawal of American troops, he expresses horror at the current situation in Iraq, and most importantly he absolves Washington of blame and points the finger at Maliki. His message is a focus-group tested lobbying group produced message aimed squarely at American politicians desperately seeking "peace with honor".

We must not forget that Allawi has played similar tunes before to tell Washington what it wants to hear in order to get what he wants to get. His fabulous stories before the war played well in Washington. After Saddam was toppled Mr. Allawi hired three lobbying firms (Theros & Theros, Brown Lloyd James, Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds) in Washington, one at a rate of $100,000 per month, to lobby successfully for the Prime Ministership.

As the Bush administration beats for the door in Iraq, those Iraqis who helped engineer this war are now lining up to pick up the scraps. Washington would be unwise to buy their fabulous stories again.

UPDATE: Today on CNN’s Late Edition Ayad Allawi refused to disclose who is paying the bills for his lobbying efforts. Spencer Ackerman at TPMMuckraker is speculating that Allawi’s defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, may be the person funding his lobbying efforts because he made a bundle while Allawi was in power. However, I think a better candidate would be Mashal Nawab. Nawab is a UK based businessman who is listed in the FARA filings from 2003 as the person who was actually signing the lobbying checks on behalf of Allawi. He was paying the lobbying firms before and he may well be paying them this time around.

The public relations campaign ahead of the Surgin’ General’s report this September has been fierce. The White House and its surrogates have been beating the drums about the military successes of the "surge". Those who are opposed to Mr. Bush’s "surge" have been arguing that even though there has been military progress in Iraq, without political reconciliation the "surge" will have been a failure. Thus the battle lines in Washington have been drawn and the talking points drawn up. The White House, which previously had dismissed casualty counts as merely "snapshots", is now embracing a perceived lull in violence in Iraq in July.

One measure of the violence in Iraq is the death count. The death count does not tell the whole story of the ravaging of Iraq - to do that one has to consider the breakdown of civil society, the massive population flight out of Iraq, the ethnic cleansing and sectarian dismemberment of Iraq, etc. However, the White House and its allies have now hung their hat on the violence levels in Iraq to justify the surge. So let us look at the numbers.

In the seven months of the surge, January to July of 2007, the number of reported Iraqi civilian deaths was 13,236. In the same period (January to July) in 2006 the Iraqi civilian death toll was 5757. One might argue that violence in Iraq did not deteriorate until much later in 2006 after the February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari mosque in Samarra. So let us take a look at the numbers from the second part of 2006: in the seven months from June 2006 to December 2006 the number of Iraqi civilian deaths was 12,608. The surge has not reduced the number of civilian deaths, even compared to the second half of 2006.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of Iraqi civilian deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The month-to-month trend in civilian deaths, with monthly spikes and lulls, is similar in 2007 as in previous years, the only difference is that more Iraqis are getting killed.

The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) death toll also does not show any improvement. In the seven months between January 2006 and July 2006 the number of ISF killed was 1238. Between January and July of this year the ISF death toll was 1383; between June 2006 and December 2006 the number of ISF killed was 1202.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of ISF deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The surge has made no difference in death tolls for the ISF.

The US military death toll has been just as disheartening. The US military death toll between January 2006 and July 2006 was 397. In the seven months of the surge, between January 2007 and July 2007, the number of US military servicemen and women killed was 655. In the seven months between June 2006 and December 2006 the US military death toll was 529. The seven months of the surge have been bloodier for the US military than comparable periods in 2006.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of US military deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The month-to-month death toll for the US military during the surge has been significantly greater than the same period in 2006. The White House and the proponents of the surge like to point to the reduction in US military deaths in June and July to bolster their claim that the surge is working. Yet, comparing the month-to-month trend between 2006 and 2007 we see that there was a similar decline in US military death toll in the same period last year, without the "surge". That lull last year gave way to a bloodier second half for the US military in 2006. More disheartening are the partial numbers from the month of August 2007and the increasing complexity of attacks against the US military. As was the case last year, we may indeed be headed into a bloody August in Iraq.

Looking at the death tolls in Iraq there is little cause for optimism. Iraq remains a very violent place. The numbers suggest that Iraq is more violent now than it was last year, in spite of the "surge". There is very little in the numbers to suggest that the surge is working, even by the very limited military goals the White House has set for its public relations gambit. It is a macabre game being played with real lives that have been lost. We need to ask ourselves if the numbers cited above are worth any more Friedman units.

[The charts above are drawn from casualty statistics from iCasualties. The charts and tables can be downloaded here.]

From the outset of the Iraq invasion the Bush Administration has acted as a force of instability in Iraq. Continued American presence in Iraq will only add to further instability. The smart kids in Washington are warning against a "precipitous withdrawal". Instead, the adults are talking about an "orderly withdrawal" from Iraq that will take up to 18 months. In the mean time, the Surgin’ General, David Patraeus, has embarked on a strategy that will make that withdrawal a failure.

For four years the Bush Administration has armed Shiite militias in Iraq - a strategy that had made political reconciliation in Iraq a non-starter. Recently the Bush Administration has begun arming Sunni militias in a bid to "buy time for political reconciliation":

U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation.

American generals insist they are not creating militias. In contracts with the U.S. military, the sheiks are referred to as "security contractors." Each of their "guards" will receive 70 percent of an Iraqi policeman’s salary. U.S. commanders call them "concerned citizens," evoking suburban neighborhood watch groups.

But interviews with ground commanders and tribal leaders offer a window into how the United States is financing a new constellation of mostly Sunni armed groups with murky allegiances and shady pasts.

This new strategy, much hailed in Washington as a sign of progress, is setting the stage for a bloody confrontation between Shia and Sunni in the wake of an American withdrawal. Far from creating conditions for political reconciliation this strategy is in effect arming both sides of a civil war. This strategy of arming both sides in a civil conflict will serve to further delay an American withdrawal from Iraq. This strategy, and the entire "surge" in general, is predicated on the misguided notion that the violence in Iraq must be brought under control first before national reconciliation can take place. What Mr. Bush and his Surgin’ General ignore is that the violence is being driven by political divisions, not causing it. By arming both sides the prospects of national reconciliation becomes even more remote. What is hailed as "success" by the so-called "pundits" who got us into this mess is in fact creating conditions for continued failure in Iraq.

There is a well-established protocol for pacifying conflict zones that the Bush Administration would do well to consider. It is known as Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR). DDR is an integrated program to pacify conflict zones after political reconciliation efforts have begun. It consists of first disarming the combatants and the civilian population. Second, the armed factions are demobilized and given compensation or other assistance as they transition to civilian life. Finally, the demobilized armed parties are provided training and income generating activities as they reintegrate into civilian life. For DDR to succeed it must be well-funded and undertaken under the umbrella of political reconciliation. The Bush Administration made a half-hearted and ill-funded attempt at DDR when it disbanded the Iraqi army in the early days of the occupation without any attempt at political reconciliation (most notably undermined by its ill-conceived debaathification program). Without a comprehensive DDR plan the disbanding of the Iraqi army became one of the major failures of the American occupation of Iraq. According the United Nations guidelines on DDR, this failure was entirely predictable:

In the short term, the failure to disarm and demobilize former combatants effectively may contribute to an immediate relapse into war. In the medium and long term, incomplete or ineffective reintegration of ex-combatants into civil society may lead to armed criminality by those former soldiers who have no other means of earning a living. In States where internal structures for civil order have already been weakened by an internecine conflict, this increase in armed criminality would be a further detriment to consolidating peace.

Today the Bush Administration is further fueling the conflict by its short-sighted arming of both Shia and Sunni combatants in Iraq.

In the past four years the United States has become a party to the civil conflict in Iraq. It is almost certainly no longer in a position to broker a political reconciliation in Iraq. The past four years of conflict and the counter-productive strategies of the Bush Administration may have made the possibility of political reconciliation without a bloody settling of scores all but impossible. But if there is any hope of averting a bloody collapse of Iraq it lies in political reconciliation. It may be time for the Bush Administration to politically and militarily disengage from Iraq and transition responsibility to a third party such as a regional working group or the United Nations. Under the auspices of this third party a renewed effort can be made to secure regional cooperation and begin the process of political reconciliation. It may also set the stage for the withdrawal of American troops and the beginning of DDR under an international force without an American face.

However, for political reconciliation to begin the Bush Administration must first stop arming the warring sides in Iraq. The alternative is a continued, counter-productive and bloody occupation of Iraq.

William Kristol continues to peddle his delusion today in the Washington Post. Kristol thinks that George W Bush will be remembered as a successful president. He cites "progress" in Iraq:

The fact is that military progress on the ground in Iraq in the past few months has been greater than even surge proponents like me expected, and political progress is beginning to follow.

I have to question whether Mr. Kristol’s definition of "progress" is the same as mine, or whether his definition of "progress" is in the national interest. However, whatever he is selling, its clear that George W Bush is buying. And to the detriment of the country and the presidency.

While the Democrats in Congress try once again to put muscle behind their words, Republican senators, most notably Richard Lugar of Indiana, are trying to lead the President toward a kinder gentler withdrawal by asking him to present a new strategy for Iraq in October. Neither strategy will work.

While it has been clear to many citizens from the very beginning, the Iraq Study Group report last December changed the conversation in Washington from how to win in Iraq to how best to salvage America from George W Bush’s blunder. George W Bush responded to the report like a petulant school boy - he did exactly the opposite of what was prudent and what was recommended. Instead of considering what was in the best interest of the country, he listened to the delusions of Fred Kagan and the amoral preachings of the likes of William Kristol.

Like his Secretary of Homeland Security, George W Bush sides with his gut over facts or evidence. In his defiant press conference earlier in the week in response to his own administration’s report of massive failure in Iraq, Mr. Bush laid to rest any notion that he was connected with reality:

I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.

This kind of thinking leaves little room for nuance, as the Republicans in the Senate are hoping for. Still I have much sympathy for Senator Lugar’s approach. The alternative, the Democratic approach of cutting off funding for the troops, will undoubtebly lead to a constitutional showdown between the president’s article II commander-in-chief powers and the Congress’s Article I war making and funding powers. There is very little doubt in my mind that in this constitutional crisis the presidency will be the loser. The result of George W Bush’s intransigence and his assertion of vast executive authority will ironically be a weakened presidency. Under a different president, faced with such an outcome, the president would avoid this game of chicken for the sake of the country and the office he holds. A more enlightened president would take the escape hatch provided by Senator Lugar and the Iraq Study Group. But not this president.

So, it seems to me that we have really two options. We can let George W Bush run out the clock of his presidency by remaining in Iraq and continuing this fiasco, or we - through our elected representatives in Congress - can bring this war to an end by exercise of constitutional authority over the executive’s actions.

Letting this president run out the clock means the deaths of over a thousand more American soldiers and many more Iraqis, a further destabilization of the region, a further increase in hatred toward America - a hatred that will inevitably manifest itself in attacks against the homeland, and lasting damage to the balance of power in government. Letting this president run out the clock without challenge from the other co-equal branches of government means setting a precedent for authoritarian usurpation of executive power. America will lose, not only the Iraq war, but its own identity and way of life. Osama bin Laden will no doubt approve.

Bringing this war to an end by Congressional action will cause damage to the institution of the presidency by tipping the constitutional balance and injecting the Congress into the exercise of foreign policy. This institutional damage may be avoided by declaring this presidency, the presidency of George W Bush, as an aberration. It should be argued that Mr. Bush has himself damaged the presidency and the national interest by his orchestration and execution of this war -a high crime and misdemeanor. The conversation should not only be about how we get out of this war, but must also include how we got into this war. The former should be the basis for Congressional action to end this war, the latter should be the basis for the Congressional exercise of its Article I powers to impeach and remove the president from office. To balance Congressional action to defund this war, impeachment proceedings must begin. Impeachment will confirm that Congressional intervention was necessary to reign in this president and not the presidency.

It is a sad day in America when we must talk about the impeachment of a president. But the presidency and the nation is far more important than the political legacy of George W Bush. So, while William Kristol and his ilk spin to salvage Mr. Bush’s legacy, we the citizens through our elected representatives must act to salvage the constitutional office of the presidency from this president. In doing so, we will have ended a senseless war and the unnecessary and avoidable deaths of thousands.

On the Senate floor today, Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, delivered the speech that may signal the beginning of the end of the American occupation of Iraq:

Mr. President, I rise today to offer observations on the continuing involvement of the United States in Iraq. In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond. Our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world. The prospects that the current “surge” strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate. And the strident, polarized nature of that debate increases the risk that our involvement in Iraq will end in a poorly planned withdrawal that undercuts our vital interests in the Middle East. Unless we recalibrate our strategy in Iraq to fit our domestic political conditions and the broader needs of U.S. national security, we risk foreign policy failures that could greatly diminish our influence in the region and the world.

 

The current debate on Iraq in Washington has not been conducive to a thoughtful revision of our Iraq policy.  Our debate is being driven by partisan political calculations and understandable fatigue with bad news — including deaths and injuries to Americans. We have been debating and voting on whether to fund American troops in Iraq and whether to place conditions on such funding. We have contemplated in great detail whether Iraqi success in achieving certain benchmarks should determine whether funding is approved or whether a withdrawal should commence. I would observe that none of this debate addresses our vital interests any more than they are addressed by an unquestioned devotion to an ill-defined strategy of “staying the course” in Iraq. 

 

I speak to my fellow Senators, when I say that the President is not the only American leader who will have to make adjustments to his or her thinking.  Each of us should take a step back from the sloganeering rhetoric and political opportunism that has sometimes characterized this debate.  The task of securing U.S. interests in the Middle East will be extremely difficult if Iraq policy is formulated on a partisan basis, with the protagonists on both sides ignoring the complexities at the core of our situation. 

 

Commentators frequently suggest that the United States has no good options in Iraq. That may be true from a certain perspective. But I believe that we do have viable options that could strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities. But seizing these opportunities will require the President to downsize the U.S. military’s role in Iraq and place much more emphasis on diplomatic and economic options. It will also require members of Congress to be receptive to overtures by the President to construct a new policy outside the binary choice of surge versus withdrawal.  We don’t owe the President our unquestioning agreement, but we do owe him and the American people our constructive engagement.

 

…

 

Mr. President, the issue before us is whether we will refocus our policy in Iraq on realistic assessments of what can be achieved, and on a sober review of our vital interests in the Middle East. Given the requirements of military planners, the stress of our combat forces, and our own domestic political timeline, we are running out of time to implement a thoughtful Plan B that attempts to protect our substantial interests in the region, while downsizing our military presence in Iraq. 

 

We need to recast the geo-strategic reference points of our Iraq policy. We need to be preparing for how we will array U.S. forces in the region to target terrorist enclaves, deter adventurism by Iran, provide a buffer against regional sectarian conflict, and generally reassure friendly governments that the United States is committed to Middle East security. Simultaneously, we must be aggressive and creative in pursuing a regional dialogue that is not limited to our friends. We cannot allow fatigue and frustration with our Iraq policy to lead to the abandonment of the tools and relationships we need to defend our vital interests in the Middle East. 

 

If we are to seize opportunities to preserve these interests, the Administration and Congress must suspend what has become almost knee-jerk political combat over Iraq. Those who offer constructive criticism of the surge strategy are not defeatists, any more than those who warn against a precipitous withdrawal are militarists. We need to move Iraq policy beyond the politics of the moment and re-establish a broad consensus on the role of the United States in the Middle East. If we do that, the United States has the diplomatic influence and economic and military power to strengthen mutually beneficial policies that could enhance security and prosperity throughout the region.  I pray that the President and the Congress will move swiftly and surely to achieve that goal.

 

The killing in Iraq continues.

We are told we are there to avoid further killing. We were led into war by a President who ignored warnings that he would create a mess in Iraq. Last week the same President, the "commander guy", dismissed those warnings by saying "we were warned about a lot of things, some of which happened, some of which didn’t happen."

Now we are being warned that leaving Iraq would be, in the President’s own words, "catastrophic". Now we are told our children are in danger - that they will follow us here if we leave Iraq, presumably to attack our children.

The New York Times this morning joins CNN from a few weeks ago in laying out the frightening fear of withdrawal:

Would the pullback of American forces unleash an even bloodier round of civil conflict that would lead to the implosion of the Iraqi government? Or would it put pressure on Iraqi politicians to finally reconcile their differences? More bluntly: how bad would things get?

…

If the American forces were reduced too soon, military officials say, the fledgling Iraqi Army and police forces could not hold the line against a rising tide of suicide bomb attacks by insurgent groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Shiite militias that had decided to lie low would resume large-scale attacks on Sunni residents. Mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, already growing scarce, would disappear, and Iraqi forces would fracture along sectarian lines. [Emphasis added by me.]

In other words, if the United States leaves Iraq an all out civil war will break out. That apparently is the justification for sacrificing more American and Iraqi lives.

However, continued American presence in Iraq is making the very end game that experts warn against more likely. The United States is not a stabilizing force in Iraq. The United States is creating the conditions for instability in Iraq and the region. The longer we stay the more difficult it will be for us to extricate ourselves from Iraq. The longer we stay the bloodier it will be in Iraq once we inevitably leave.

It is time to examine what our presence has wrought.

Already nearly 15% of Iraq’s population, 4 million citizens, have fled their homes. Amongst the killing the battle lines are being drawn on the map. The American presence provides just the minimal level of protection needed for the warring sides to arm and fortify themselves without fear of a full scale attack by an opposing side. Furthermore, for years now, the United States has been training and equipping one of the warring sides in this civil war. A report from December 2005 (months before the Samarra mosque bombing) offers some chilling perspective:

OF ALL THE bloodshed in Iraq, none may be more disturbing than the campaign of torture and murder being conducted by U.S.-trained government police forces. Reports last week in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times chronicled how Iraqi Interior Ministry commando and police units have been infiltrated by two Shiite militias, which have been conducting ethnic cleansing and rounding up Sunnis suspected of supporting the insurgency. Hundreds of bodies have been appearing along roadsides and in garbage dumps, some with acid burns or with holes drilled in them.

Even before the Samarra bombings of 2006, Iraq’s minister of civil war, Bayan Jabr, with American money and support had turned the business of killing into an efficient enterprise. Today the killing continues in spite of the "surge".

Baghdad, the target of the "surge", is being systematically ethnically cleansed. In just over a year, Baghdad has disintegrated into Shia and Sunni camps. A comparison of the sectarian map of Baghdad from before 2006 and now illustrates the point dramatically [Source: BBC]:

Baghdad Sectarian Map - pre 2006

Baghdad Sectarian Map - 2007

The Bush Administration has created the very conditions in Iraq that it warns against. There is no indication that further American occupation of Iraq will reverse the worsening conditions. It certainly will not reverse under the policies of Mr. Bush, who still fails to understand the sectarian nature of the chaos in Iraq and his own role in bringing it about.

If there is any hope for Iraq it lies in an orderly withdrawal of American forces. The United States should begin the diplomatic and political groundwork necessary to bring about an American military pullback. This will require working with Iraq’s neighbors, including especially Iran, Turkey and Syria, to try to contain the instability that may follow. This will also require the United States to cut the Iraqi government loose. Working without the protection of the Green Zone may clarify the minds of the incumbent Iraqi leaders.

Bloodshed in Iraq in the wake of an American pullout may be unavoidable. But without an American withdrawal, bloodshed in Iraq is guaranteed.

[Via Talking Points Memo]

This one is worth the price of admission.