Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Iraqi Shiites have chosen a new candidate to replace embattled Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. The new face of Iraq will now be the Islamist hardliner Jawad al-Maliki. The world has breathed a collective sigh of relief at this news.

The impasse over the Premiership is now finally broken and both the Sunnis and the Kurds appear ready to accept this new choice for Prime Minister. The American Ambassador to Iraq sounds downright giddy at the prospect of al-Maliki becoming the Prime Minister. The Washington Post reports:

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the choice of Maliki was "a good step in the right direction. He’s an Iraqi patriot. He’s a strong leader."

Lost in all the euphoria at seeing progress in Iraq is whether or not this is progress in the right direction for Iraq or the United States. I had written in an earlier article that the likely replacement for al-Jaafari would either come from his own Dawa party or from the SCIRI. I had also suggested that neither outcome would be a positive outcome. We now have our answer. Ibrahim al-Jaafari has been replaced by another Dawa party member albeit one that is more hard-line. In fact while Ibrahim al-Jaafari has been the titular head of the Shiite alliance, al-Maliki has done all the heavy lifting. It is no surprise then that he would ascend to the Premiership.

Jawad al-Maliki has been the spokesman for the Dawa party and the Shiite alliance. He was involved in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution and more significantly was a member of the de-Baathification committee set up by the United States. He has been a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has close ties with the Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army.

After the recent raid by the U.S. military on a mosque in Sadr City, al-Maliki referred to the American Military operation as a "criminal" act. Responding to the raid, al-Maliki urged the United States to hand over security operations to Iraqis:

Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the Shia Islamist Alliance and ally of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, said: "The alliance calls for a rapid restoration of security matters to the Iraqi government."

al-Maliki apparently wants the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Shiite militias, to be in charge of security in Iraq. This would allow the militias to continue their brutal ethnic cleansing operations with impunity.

After pushing hard for al-Jaafari’s ouster, the United States has gotten a more pro-Iranian Dawa party member. We have certainly come full circle in the Middle East. We have put in power in Iraq a person Saddam Hussein had sentenced to death. We have put in power a person who was involved in terrorist activities against not only Iraq but also Western and American targets in the Middle East. We have put in power a party, the Dawa party, that invented the modern suicide car bombing - a party that was involved in bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait and in the killing of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut.

We have brought democracy to the Middle East. We have handed over Iraq to an Iranian nurtured and funded Islamist alliance (Dawa and SCIRI). I do not believe this is what the American people bargained for when we embarked on the invasion of Iraq. If we are holding out the hope that these Islamist parties whose stated goal is to bring about an Islamist revolution in Iraq will somehow smell the sweet scent of Democracy and become torchbearers of freedom and liberty, we are likely to be as disappointed as Dick Cheney was when we were not greeted as liberators. This is a far cry from the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction and the defeat of al Qaeda.

The New York Times is reporting today that Shia and Sunni Iraqis have begun to flee from mixed Shia-Sunni areas. This migration comes on the heels of increased sectarian strife, death squad activity; and bombings targeting political figures, businesses, ordinary citizens and religious establishments.

The daily body count in Iraq ranges anywhere from 30 to 60 deaths, depending on which source you cite. That translates to 10950 to 21900 deaths per year if the current trend remains steady and does not accelerate. To put these numbers in perspective, consider that during the rule of Saddam Hussein from 1979 to 2003, the US Government’s estimate of the number of deaths is 300,000. That is, about 12500 deaths per year. The current death rate in Iraq equals or far exceeds the deaths during the rule of Saddam Hussein. So, if you pose to the common Iraqi the Ronald Reagan question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" it should not come as a surprise if the answer is "No."

The reader can continue the gruesome exercise of comparing body counts with such well-known civil wars as Lebanon and Algeria. If you do work the numbers you will find that in terms of the death rate, Iraq today either equals or exceeds the death rates in these and other civil wars of the 20th Century.

The consequence of the Shia and Sunni communities separating geographically will be further bloodshed. Mixed communities were the last strands of the chord holding Iraq together. Without the countervailing force of these mixed neighborhoods there is nothing to slow the rapid acceleration of sectarian strife. 

Into the imbroglio enter the United States. We have not too subtly asked the Iraqi Prime Minister to step down. Washington Post is reporting today that there are now calls from within Iraq for the Prime Minister to step down. The United States may unfortunately get its wish here. It is unfortunate because al-Jaafari’s likely replacement will be Adel Abdul Mahdi. Abdul Mahdi is the candidate backed directly by SCIRI (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). I think the name of the organization speaks for itself. Incidentally, the Badr Brigade, the militia blamed for a large number of the killings, is the military wing of SCIRI.

The pushing aside of al-Jaafari, with the backing of the United States, will further de-legitimize the Iraqi Government. It will certainly give no comfort to the Sunni minority to see the U.S., however inadvertently, offering support to SCIRI. Further compounding the problem is the large-scale infiltration of the Iraqi police and army by the Badr Brigade and Mahdi Army militias. Of these police forces, GlobalSecurity.org reports that the U.S. Army General in charge of security in Baghdad, General James Thurman, said this week:

Iraqi troops and police units are more and more often taking the lead in counter-insurgency operations in Baghdad and the three provinces to the south that come under his responsibility. He also says more Iraqis are calling a special phone number to report insurgent activity. He says there have been more than 3,000 such calls since January, and that most of them have resulted in military operations that found insurgents, criminals or weapons caches.

The paradox is what looks like progress in training the Iraqi police and military is in fact resulting in these forces creating the very instability we are training them to control. We have, like it or not, taken sides in this civil war. Our stated objective is to stay out of any civil war that may be occurring or may occur in the future. But, the reality is that you cannot have a 138,000 strong army sitting on its hands while a civil war rages all around. The logic of the situation will force the United States to choose one side over another (consider the examples of Lebanon or Somalia).

What then will be the role of the U.S. military in Iraq with civil war breaking out all around them? There is no viable role for the military in Iraq that does not entail a long-term entanglement in the conflict - with the outcome decidedly uncertain. It is time, then, to withdraw our troops in some sort of orderly fashion. Very little further damage to our credibility will result from a quick withdrawal. Our three years in Iraq have damaged our credibility to levels below which it is unlikely to go.

I think the Iraqi conflict train has already left the station. We are left only with trying to affect a quick resolution of the civil war. This does not require a military presence, and in fact, a military presence might hinder any such progress for reasons mentioned above. Our goal from this point should and must be to try to work to ease tensions within Iraq and to work with Iraq’s neighbors to contain the conflict within Iraq’s borders.

It is not an attractive proposition, but we are where we are. 

Christopher Allbritton has filed a story for TIME.com about the Badr Brigade and the sectarian killings in Iraq. It is a chilling story about these militias overruning the Iraqi Interior Ministry. It appears we are now arming one side in what is a prelude to full scale civil war.

You can also read my earlier post on the Iraqi Prime Minister’s declared goal of integrating these militias into the government.

The latest series in the "stay the course" op-eds comes from Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Jaafari, Tehran’s man in Baghdad, writes that his "first challenge will be to stifle terrorism". This is a very laudable goal. I have no doubt that Jaafari and the SCIRI want to stifle "terrorism". I do wonder whether their definition of "terrorism" might not be different than our definition of terrorism. I found the following from al-Jaafari’s op-ed quite revealing:

Sidelining Moqtada al-Sadr’s group from the Governing Council was a mistake. Had it been integrated into the political process back then, long before the formation of the Mahdi Army, events would have turned out differently in the south. I corrected this policy and brought Sadr’s group into the democratic process. This inclusive approach resulted in the huge nationwide turnout for the December elections and a parliament that truly reflects Iraq.

During my term as elected prime minister, Sadr’s group has not attacked any coalition troops. Furthermore, Sadr and several Sunni leaders are now catalysts for maintaining the peace in Iraq, calling on their followers not to retaliate against terrorist provocations, which aim to ignite civil war.

Unfortunately, we have suffered setbacks during the past year. The most troubling was the discovery of prisoner torture in an Interior Ministry jail in November. As soon as I learned of these despicable acts I formed an investigative committee made up solely of Sunni leaders, and I await its findings.

The long-term solution to this problem will be multifaceted. We must ensure that all security forces receive proper training and that there is a chain of command that holds commanders and officers responsible for such abuses. In addition, the various militias that fought Saddam Hussein’s regime honorably must be fully integrated into Iraq’s security forces without concentrating any particular group into any one division. Finally, we need to strengthen the country’s nascent judiciary, which suffered years of coercion and corruption under the former regime, to guarantee its independence and impartiality. [Emphasis added by me]

Sadr’s group, that is the Mahdi Army, along with the Badr Brigade of SCIRI have been systematically murdering their political rivals and Sunnis. They have certainly been "integrating" themselves into the Iraqi security forces. There will be no rule of law in Iraq as long as Islamist militias are allowed to set up shop under official sanction. The recent reports of death squads roaming the streets are not encouraging.

We have served up Iraq on a platter to the Iranians through their SCIRI proxies. We have turned what was the most secular Arab country, through our bumbling, into a de facto province of Iran. Don’t let the mild mannered front man fool you, I fear that al-Jaafari’s vision for Iraq is a rule of law based on an extreme interpretation of Islam. The Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade will insure that the men and women of Iraq get in line, with the women at the back of the line, of course.