Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

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.

The conversation in Washington is about the consequences of withdrawal. The Surgin’ General, David Petraeus, warns that an early withdrawal would lead to an "increase in sectarian violence". Small businessman and House Minority Leader John Boehner pleads for more time for the surge - he suggests we will see results in the "next three to four months." Ayman al-Zawahiri endorses President Bush’s strategy in Iraq. The White House sets the record straight by agreeing with al Qaeda that Iraq is the "central front of al Qaeda’s global campaign."

There is consensus between the Bush administration and al Qaeda that the United States should continue its fiasco in Iraq - but for different reasons. In Washington, there seems to be a general consensus that withdrawal from Iraq will have catastrophic consequences. On the one hand, this argument is used by the war advocates to justify prolonged involvement; while on the other hand, this argument causes the opponents of the war to mute their calls for withdrawal. Everyone wants to look tough and not lose their "national security" credentials by sounding weak. I am reminded of the same kind of group think that took place when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

A few days ago CNN posted an article on the front page of their web site with the blaring title "No safe way for the U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn". Enter the fear mongering:

"Everyone wants the troops home — the Iraqis, the U.S., the world — but no one wants a precipitous withdrawal that produces a civil war, a bloodbath, nor a wider war in an unstable Mideast," Shepperd said, adding that the image of the United States was important too.

"And we do not want a U.S that is perceived as having been badly defeated in the global war on terror or as an unreliable future ally or coalition partner."

…

Shepperd said Iraq’s neighbors would be drawn into the all-out civil war likely if U.S. forces left too quickly. Iran could move in to further strengthen its influence in southern Iraq; Turkey likely would move against the Kurds in the north; and Saudi Arabia would be inclined to take action to protect Sunnis in western Iraq, he said.

The oil sector could also get hit hard, with Iran potentially mining the Persian Gulf and attempting to close the Straits of Hormuz, putting a stranglehold on oil flow, Shepperd says.

"Oil prices would skyrocket," he said — perhaps soaring from current prices of about $60 a barrel to more than $100 a barrel, with consequent rises at the gas pump.

And that could bring further trouble, Shepperd added. "Saudi Arabia will not allow increasing Iranian dominance to endanger its regime and oil economy."

On top of that, Iran could speed up its nuclear ambitions, causing a "daunting and depressing scenario" of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Turkey trying to get a nuclear bomb, Shepperd says.

The above is the "kitchen sink" argument. It is the same kind of argument used by Cheney, Rice, Bush and the rest to get us into Iraq. It is now being used to keep us in Iraq. It is Cheney’s "One Percent Doctrine" - but I like my phrase better.

I would like to put forward a different thesis. It is not a new thesis (I, as well as others, have made this case numerous times in the past). However, it is a view that has been pushed to the side since the so-called surge debate took control of Washington. In a sense, the "surge" has succeeded - it has succeeded politically in Washington by changing the nature of the debate. A cynic would say Americans and Iraqis are dying because the politicians in Washington are either trying to keep their drapes or measure for new ones.

Here is how I see it: The continued military presence of the United States in Iraq is creating the conditions for instability in the region. The nightmare scenario that everyone warns against if the U.S. withdraws becomes more likely the longer the United States remains in Iraq. The United States has been an enabler of ethnic cleansing in Iraq. Our presence has been the prime mover in tearing Iraqi societal structure apart. We have balkanized Iraq and continue to do so. Under our protection, rival forces in Iraq have armed themselves and organized under sectarian and tribal factions. We have introduced tools of ethnic cleansing, like the Baghdad Wall, to try to bring order to chaos. In doing so, we are underwriting the collapse of Iraqi society along ethnic lines.

The Bush Administration’s failure in Iraq has been comprehensive. Two million Iraqis have fled the country and now live as refugees, primarily in Syria and Jordan. Another two million have fled their homes and relocated along sectarian lines within Iraq. The United Nations estimates that about 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes every month in what has now become one of the biggest population shifts in recent times.

Iraq is a continuing tragedy. The massive death toll in Iraq continues to rise daily. The steady flood of refugees from Iraq continues to destabilize neighboring countries. Like it or not, Syria is already a party to the conflict - and it is not because terrorists are flooding Iraq from Syria, it is because refugees are flooding Syria from Iraq and overwhelming its economy. Chaos is being spread outward from Iraq.

The failure in Iraq is so immense that it becomes difficult to grasp its scope. Sometimes it helps to focus the mind by considering the barbarity at its most basic level. Consider the following story from Iraq tucked into a larger article about the Baghdad Wall as reported by the New York Times two weeks ago:

 

Mr. Maliki’s announcement came as sectarian violence continued across Iraq, with a horrific execution by Sunni Arabs in Mosul of 23 members of a small religious sect, known as Yezidis.

The Yezidis, who are most numerous in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, practice an offshoot of Islam that combines some Muslim teachings with those of ancient Persian religion.

…

But the most chilling attack was the one in Mosul. It followed the marriage in early April of a Sunni Arab man and a woman from the Yezidi faith, the police said.

The police said that when the woman married, she converted to Islam, which angered some of the Yezidis. She was kidnapped and as she was being brought back to her tribe, a crowd gathered and stoned her to death, said Brig. Gen. Muhammad al-Waqa of the Mosul police.

The Sunni Arabs in the area demanded that the Yezidis turn over the killers, and the police also put out a warrant for their arrest. In one Yezidi-majority town east of Mosul, residents found leaflets saying, ‘’Unless you turn them over, we will never let any Yezidi breathe the air.'’

The Yezidis refused. On Sunday afternoon, armed men stopped minibuses traveling from a government textile factory in Mosul, where many Yezidis and Christians were known to work. The men dragged the passengers off the buses, checked their identity cards and lined the Yezidis up against a wall and shot them, killing 23 people and wounding three, General Waqa said.

Iraq is disintegrating. Our continuing presence furthers this disintegration. The Bush administration is responsible for creating and then enabling the chaos. Hanging one’s hat on a "surge" in Baghdad seems to miss the totality of the collapse that has been wrought on Iraq.

America will withdraw from Iraq, either now or sometime in the future - that much is certain. The strategic and moral question that faces the United States is this: Does remaining longer in Iraq help or hurt stability in Iraq, stability in the region, and American national security when the eventual pullout occurs? I think the answer is clear.

We can continue to listen to "experts" spin stories about the turning point coming in the "next three or four months" or after another Friedman Unit, or we can begin to prepare the ground for an orderly withdrawal. Just know that with each passing Friedman Unit, the inevitable withdrawal will leave a more unstable wake.