Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Over the weekend Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki offered a national reconciliation plan to the Iraqi National Assembly. The plan offered to the Assembly was lacking some of the more controversial clauses that were part of an earlier draft. Nonetheless the plan signals the beginning of the end of the American occupation of Iraq.

The Prime Minister’s gambit comes a week after his national security advisor floated the idea of a timetable for an American military withdrawal from Iraq. Maliki’s plan highlights the important cross currents in Iraq that the Bush Administration has thus far failed to appreciate or understand. There are three separate wars raging in Iraq. There is a war between the occupying forces and the Iraqi national resistance; there is a war between the United States and the jihadists; and, finally there is a civil war between the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. The United States is fighting only one of these wars - the war against the jihadists.

Maliki’s reconciliation plan aims to end the war against the occupation only. This is the war the United States has been sleepwalking through in its quest to fight the War on Terror on Iraqi soil. The key elements of the national reconciliation plan that address the occupation are:

• A call for a timetable for the withdrawal of all occupying forces
• Release of all security detainees being held by the occupying forces
• Amnesty for resistance forces but not "terrorists" 

These elements of the reconciliation plan have appeal to all major factions in Iraq with the possible exception of the Jihadist foreign fighters. An American withdrawal will take the oxygen out of the Jihadists’ campaign in Iraq. With the Americans gone, the foreign Jihadists become easy targets for native Iraqis and are likely to be driven out rather quickly. With the American withdrawal, Iraq will cease to be a battleground in the war between the United States and the jihadists; a new battleground will undoubtedly be chosen, but at least Iraq will be spared.

A withdrawal of American forces has been the goal of Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurds from the outset. However, they have had differing agendas on when and how the withdrawal should take place. The Sunni have always resisted the Americans because they understood that the longer the Americans stay in Iraq, the more firmly the majority Shia will consolidate their hold on power.

The Shia have used the American occupation as cover to consolidate power. They have very astutely managed to ride the American occupation without losing their political independence. You will note that the spiritual leader of the Shia, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has never once met with any American official - choosing instead to work through intermediaries to influence events. Having now consolidated power, the Shia are ready to remove the "training wheels" by asking the Americans to leave.

The Kurds are the faction in Iraq who can afford to wait the longest for the Americans to leave. However, make no mistake, they certainly want the Americans to leave. They have used the occupation to quietly position their militias around the city of Kirkuk. However, they have made no attempt to take Kirkuk while the Americans are on the ground in Iraq. The Kurds view Kirkuk, with its vast oil wealth, as the future capital of Kurdistan. They will almost certainly take Kirkuk after an American withdrawal from Iraq.

The release of all security detainees being held by American forces is another plank of the plan to end the occupation. Iraqis view these detainees as the resistance and similar to prisoners of war. Thus, they expect that at the end of hostilities, that is, when the Americans withdraw, these prisoners will be released.

The call for amnesty for the Iraqi resistance is perhaps the most controversial element of Maliki’s plan. However, it is a necessary condition for the Iraqis. The earlier draft of the plan made a distinction between "resistance" and "terrorists". This is a crucial distinction for the Iraqis. But the definition of "terrorist" is not the same in Baghdad as it is in Washington. It is clear to the Iraqis that the "resistance" is any Iraqi engaged in attacking American soldiers. To Washington, what Iraqis call the "resistance" are "terrorists". However, when Maliki or the Shia ruling alliance call someone a "terrorist" they are referring to both foreign Jihadists and Sunnis who are engaged in sectarian violence against the Shia. Washington makes no such distinction when it comes to "terrorist"; in Washington, everyone involved in violence in Iraq is a terrorist. When Maliki’s plan calls for offering amnesty to the "resistance" he is aiming to end the occupation, not the civil war. This is an important distinction that the Bush Administration and much of the American press fail to understand.

The American occupation of Iraq was always destined to end. Whether President Bush chooses to "cut and run" or leave at the request of the Iraqis, the occupation by its very nature was always time limited. The Iraqis have always known it. The only unknown was how much havoc it was going to cause Iraqi society. Unfortunately, the more intractable conflict will continue to rage. That is the civil war between the three main factions in Iraq. There is little indication that the civil war is going to subside any time in the future. All indications are that it continues to rage and is likely to get worse. Maliki’s plan, even if it is implemented, will do very little to quell the civil war. The tensions that have been unleashed by the American invasion of Iraq are now set to play themselves out. That tension, manifested in the current Iraqi civil war, has the potential of becoming a regional conflict. If that happens, the legacy of George W Bush will not only be a failed invasion of Iraq but also a destabilization of the entire region.

Dateline Ramadi June 18, 2006 from the Associated Press:

RAMADI, Iraq - Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops set up outposts Sunday in southern parts of Ramadi as part of an operation to establish Iraqi army bases in the country’s largest Sunni Arab city and wrest it away from months of insurgent control.

The United States Military is poised to retake the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi from the Iraqi insurgents. Keeping with the theme of progress this week, the press is dutifully reporting "progress" in the Iraq war.

The White House is busy taking victory laps after the killing of al Zarqawi a week and a half ago. In his latest "Freedom is on the march" tour, the President has snuck into the Green Zone bunker in a display of virtual freedom, Maliki has cracked down in Baghdad for the cameras, and the city of Ramadi is being retaken from the insurgents.

In spite of the PR blitz, the picture in Iraq remains largely the same and is getting steadily worse. The American Embassy in Baghdad, having not received the Karl Rove memo, reports in a cable to Washington that things are going from bad to worse.

The pundits in the press want to hear none of it however. The more interesting news is the bounce President Bush is likely to get in the polls. The more interesting news is how Karl Rove can now use Iraq to bludgeon the Democrats into defeat in November. Well, at least that was the preferred storyline this week until the deaths kept on piling up in Iraq. President Bush’s dead cat bounce in the polls is not translating into progress in Iraq.

So, how do we measure progress in Iraq? At a bare minimum, in a war, one sign that you are winning is defined by how much territory you control. Arguably, the United States and the Iraqi government do not control very much outside the Green Zone in Baghdad and the Kurdish regions. Since Ramadi is in the news now and the press is breathless about the impending violence, it is worth looking at how many times we have taken Ramadi only to lose it again. Surely, if we are doing the same thing over and over again, we are not making progress; we are at best treading water. And given the loss of lives and treasure in recapturing the same city over and over again, we are in fact going backwards, i.e., losing.

Dateline Ramadi December 2, 2005 from the BBC:

US and Iraqi forces have launched a military operation in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the day after insurgents staged a show of strength in the city.

Dateline Ramadi February 26, 2005 from the BBC:

Reports said three died in a gun battle in Ramadi, as US and Iraqi forces try to clear insurgents from key areas in the so-called Sunni Triangle.

People in Ramadi said there was a prolonged exchange of fire.

Dateline Ramadi July 23, 2004 from the Christian Science Monitor:

RAMADI, IRAQ – Some of the heaviest fighting in months erupted on Wednesday in the troubled city of Ramadi. Throughout the day, the thud of mortars, bombs, and machine-gun fire echoed down desolate streets as insurgents battled hundreds of US Marines.

An estimated 25 insurgents were killed, and 25 people - including two Iraqi police - were detained in a day of clashes, which saw 13 US soldiers lightly wounded in firefights and multiple ambushes.

At sunset, as American helicopters swooped over central Ramadi, a small funeral procession for Iraqis killed in the fighting moved slowly through town. But stores remained locked behind metal gratings and few residents ventured onto streets littered with debris and cratered by bombs.

The pattern in Ramadi, and much of Iraq, has been insurgents fleeing the area as US troops move in. When the troops inevitably leave the insurgents creep back in. After the insurgents come back in, they kill or chase away whoever the US has put in charge:

Large swaths of Ramadi have been in insurgent control for months. Powerful roadside bombings and gunbattles take place every day, confining U.S. patrols to small sections of the city. Prominent tribal leaders who have cooperated with U.S. forces have been assassinated or forced to flee outside the country.

It’s the same story every time. Ramadi is a microcosm of what is happening throughout Iraq. Add to the insurgency the sectarian violence and growing civil war and you have a real quagmire.

This is apparently the "progress" Karl Rove accuses the Democrats of "cutting and running" from. Our Iraq policy is no longer (if it ever was) about winning. It is not even about avoiding defeat. Our Iraq policy is now all about domestic politics. The Republican National Committee has officially dubbed the Democrats’ Iraq policy alternatives as "Cut and Run". Serious policy debate is no longer possible. The RNC political strategy is quite shameless. It will use our troops and the Iraqi people to try to garner enough votes in November to retain control of Congress.

I think the Bush Administration must know by now that they have failed in Iraq. The best thing the United States could do right now for the Iraqi people is to start pulling out. Unfortunately, having lost Iraq, the Administration and its allies are now trying to salvage their political careers. American soldiers and Iraqi citizens are dying in the battle for control of the United States Congress.

So, once more unto the breach. Once more into Ramadi we go.

In Vietnam, the United States Military carried out many missions in what the military calls "Free-Fire Zones" . These "zones" where areas where, according to the military’s "rules of engagement", an unidentified person was considered an enemy and the soldiers could shoot anyone they considered hostile. Activities in "free-fire zones" have led to massive civilian casualties and would have been violations of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

The sergeant who led the raid in Haditha has indicated through his lawyer that he and his squad did not violate the "rules of engagement" and did not intentionally kill innocent civilians. He conceded that "collateral damage" had occurred but it was not intentional:

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. The Marine said there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

"It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines," said Neal A. Puckett, who represents Wuterich in the ongoing investigations into the incident. "He’s really upset that people believe that he and his Marines are even capable of intentionally killing innocent civilians."

The Marines’ defense strategy for the Haditha massacre is beginning to emerge. According to the lawyer, the Marines received AK-47 fire from the direction of the houses where the civilians were later killed by the Marines. After receiving fire, the Marines attacked the houses:

A four-man team of Marines, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and found a series of empty rooms, noticing quickly that there was one room with a closed door and people rustling behind it, Puckett said. They then kicked in that door, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke, killing several people, Puckett said.

The Marine who fired the rounds — Puckett said it was not Wuterich — had experience clearing numerous houses on a deployment in Fallujah, where Marines had aggressive rules of engagement.

Although it was almost immediately apparent to the Marines that the people dead in the room were men, women and children — most likely civilians – they also noticed a back door ajar and believed that insurgents had slipped through to a house nearby, Puckett said. The Marines stealthily moved to the second house, kicking in the door, killing one man inside and then using a frag grenade and more gunfire to clear another room full of people, he said.

Wuterich, not having found the insurgents, told the team to stop and headed back to the platoon leader to reassess the situation, Puckett said, adding that his client knew a number of civilians had just been killed. [Emphasis added by me.]

The sergeant is claiming that the "rules or engagement" allowed them to enter and fire indiscriminately inside civilian homes without confirmation that there were enemy elements inside. They also entered a second house on a hunch that someone may have left the first house and gone to the second house. They proceeded to kill the occupants of the second house based on their hunch. The door that was left ajar apparently was by the woman fleeing the massacre with the surviving infant.

The sergeant’s explanation of the killings in the third house is as follows:

After going through the houses, Wuterich moved a small group of Marines to the roof of a nearby building to watch the area, Puckett said. At one point, they saw a man in all-black clothing running from one of the houses they had searched. The Marines killed him, Puckett said.

They then noticed another man in all black scurrying between two houses across the street. When they went to investigate, the Marines found a courtyard filled with women and children and asked where the man was, Puckett said.

When the civilians pointed to a third house, the Marines attempted to enter and found a man with an AK-47 inside, flanked by three other men; the first Marine to enter tried to fire his weapon, but it jammed, Puckett said. The Marines then killed those four men.

It is worth noting that this explanation differs from the Iraqi version of events. The apparent point blank gunshot wounds also contradicts the sergeant’s version of events. This explanation also directly contradicts the two versions of events offered by the Marine Corps to the press. The sergeant’s lawyer believes that those versions were the result of "miscommunication".

The irony here is that if the Marine sergeant is successful in his defense, then the Marines who committed the killings will be innocent but the United States Military will be guilty. Either these killings were perpetrated in cold blood by rogue Marines or these killings were a result of very loose "rules of engagement".

Let us assume for a moment that the sergeant is telling the truth and the "rules of engagement" allow American soldiers to go into Iraqi civilians’ homes and shoot everyone inside without establishing that they are the enemy. Let us assume that it is good enough for American soldiers in a civilian populated urban area to establish that gunfire originated from the general direction of some houses and then to enter those houses and kill everyone inside. The obvious question is how many more massacres have taken place under these "rules of engagement"?

These "rules of engagement" are a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. If in fact, the United States is an "occupying power" in Iraq, which it certainly is, it has the obligation to protect the civilian population. Iraqi urban areas with civilian populations are not enemy territory. This is a counter-insurgency, not a war on a battlefield. You cannot indiscriminately shoot women and children. You cannot assume that someone is the enemy first. If you are doing that, you are committing war crimes. If the United States Military "rules of engagement" in Iraq allow for the killing of persons in their homes indiscriminately, those "rules of engagement" are designed to lead to war crimes.

For those who might be tempted to answer that this is a "different" kind of war and the enemy has no regard for human life and hides within the civilian population, I say to you learn some history. This is not the first counter-insurgency operation in the history of the world. All insurgents have hidden within the civilian population. If the Bush Administration has decided that it must kill civilians in order to stop the insurgency than it should say so. Instead of hiding behind the nonsense of how we have "freed" the Iraqis, we should just admit that we consider them the "enemy" and we are ready to kill them without provocation. Let the chips fall where they may and let the world cry war crimes! After all, who will try the United States? We have not ratified the International Criminal Court.

So, here is the ugly reality then. Either the Marine squad is guilty of war crimes, or the United States is guilty of war crimes. Take your pick. The outcome is not pretty. Either way, the people of Iraq are losing their lives as freedom continues to march over their corpses.

[Via AMERICABlog] The new Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, presented his credentials to President Bush yesterday. With him however he brought more than his credentials, he also brought with him a personal story of the quagmire the United States finds itself in Iraq. Mr. Sumaidaie brought with him the story of his cousin’s death at the hands of American Marines.

After meeting with President Bush, the Iraqi Ambassador discussed his cousin’s killing with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: But even months before the incident in November, you lost a cousin at Haditha in a separate battle involving United States Marines.

SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them.

His mother, his siblings were there. He led them into the bedroom of his father. And there he was shot.

BLITZER: Who shot him?

SUMAIDAIE: A member of the Marines.

BLITZER: Why did they shoot him?

SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent — I mean, I know the boy. He was [in] a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.

Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them.

BLITZER: So what you’re suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you’re saying, by United States Marines?

SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.

I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.

[Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq] is aware of all the details, because he’s kept on top of it. And it was he who rejected the conclusions of the first investigation. I have since asked formally for the report, but it’s been nearly two months, and I have not received it.

This is a serious charge and you may be tempted to believe that the Ambassador is simply jumping on the Haditha bandwagon to score some political and decidedly undiplomatic points. However, Sumaidaie raised this incident with the United States military nearly a year ago while he was the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations. In addition to raising the issue with the US military the Ambassador also sent a letter to his colleagues. According to the BBC:

In a letter to colleagues, Mr Sumaidaie explained in detail what happened to his cousin Mohammed al-Sumaidaie on 25 June in the village of al-Sheikh Hadid.

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time.

He opened the door to them and was "happy to exercise some of his English", said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition.

It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie.

"In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."

The Ambassador’s own story highlights the confused and tragic situation of the United States military in Iraq. The Ambassador is no insurgent sympathizer. He is Western educated and is a supporter of the US military intervention. The killing of the Ambassador’s cousin, the killings in Haditha, and another killing that is also under investigation in Iraq just add to an emerging pattern of civilian killings and intimidation occurring in Iraq.

We have placed a heavily armed fighting force in the middle of a large civilian population who have been declared friendly by our Government. Our military is fighting a largely unseen insurgent force whose weapon of choice is the IED. In this circumstance the easiest target of revenge is the civilian population. It is tempting to kick down doors and interrogate and harass the population to try to gain intelligence about the insurgency. It is the way of heavy-handed counter-insurgency campaigns. It is also the surest way to lose the battle for hearts and minds. We have to ask ourselves if we are doing more harm than good in Iraq. We cannot destroy the village to save it.

The Bush Administration needs to step back and take a good look at its Iraq policy. Instead of writing off Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other atrocities as isolated incidents, it needs to ask itself if our policy in Iraq is leading to these atrocities. Upon examination I think the answer is likely to be yes. Then the question really is, "Are we as a nation willing to accept the loss of our moral authority to further our policy in Iraq?" I know what my answer to that question is; what is yours? Our collective answer as a nation will determine whether the United States withdraws from Iraq or continues down its current path.

Zeyad writes from Baghdad:

I’ve been stuck at my aunt’s house in Adhamiya since Sunday night. If you had followed the news, you would have learned by now that Adhamiya, which is the largest Sunni district in Baghdad, is witnessing fierce clashes since Sunday night, mostly between armed groups in police uniform, who had attempted to enter the area, and Adhamiya residents.

The district has been sealed off and no one can leave or enter the area. Electric power has been cut off for the last 48 hours, and the fighting severely damaged our street generator this morning.

The Washington Post writes today about a confusing battle in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad. As far as anyone apparently can tell, the fighting is between the Iraqi Police and The Iraqi Army with an assist from the U.S. Military and armed local residents. There may have also been a smattering of "insurgents" in the area.

The U.S. Military is clearly caught in the crossfire trying to figure out who the men in the white hats are. The confusion is summarized in the Post by some comments from the U.S. Military spokesmen:

"The gunmen are suspected insurgents," Sgt. Doug Anderson, a U.S. military spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. "It is not known whether they are people from the neighborhood. We cannot confirm that the Iraqi Army may have fought against the police, or at least people dressed as police."

"Frankly, if somebody attacks coalition forces, or Iraqi army forces, it doesn’t matter who they are," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, another U.S. military spokesman.

When all parties are armed and intent on killing each other and we cannot tell who the good guys are anymore, I think we have outlived our usefulness in Iraq. We have to ask ourselves whether it makes sense for our military to be taking sides in this Civil War. We have undoubtedly helped unleash this chaos and we may not have the will or the might to stem the madness.

It may be time to put down our guns and go with a different plan. It may also be time to crack open those history books about Lebanon and Algeria.

Daniel Pipes gave an interview yesterday to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review entitled "Pipes calls war a success". In it Pipes calls Iraq a success:

Q: How will we know when the occupation or the invasion of Iraq was a success or a failure?

A: Oh, it was a success. We got rid of Saddam Hussein. Beyond that is icing.

According to Pipes, the real lesson in Iraq is not the failure of American policy, but the ingratitude of the Iraqi people:

Q: What is the biggest lesson you have learned from the Iraq war?

A: The ingratitude of the Iraqis for the extraordinary favor we gave them — to release them from the bondage of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. They have rapidly interpreted it as something they did and that we were incidental to it. They’ve more or less written us out of the picture.

I am really sorry the Iraqi people have hurt Mr. Pipes’s feelings. Clearly, the Iraqis failed to throw the requisite amount of roses at our feet for the favor we did them.

Mr. Pipes thinks that we should lower our expectations in Iraq. According to Mr. Pipes, we should only concern ourselves with destroying societies not rebuilding them. We’ve got smart bombs we should use them. The blue collar work of rebuilding a society that we bomb to oblivion should be left to the lowly Europeans or some other bleeding heart types:

Q: Does that mean a significant change in what we are doing now, in terms of policy. Should we announce withdrawals?

A: The number of troops is not my issue. It’s the placement and role of the troops. For three years now I have been protesting the use of American troops to mediate between tribes, help rebuild electricity grids, oversee school construction, which seems to me to be a wrong use of our forces, of our money. The Iraqis should be in charge of that. We should keep the troops there, in the desert, looking after the international boundaries, making sure there are no atrocities, making sure oil and gas goes out, otherwise leaving Iraq to the Iraqis.

…

Q: Is there anything major that the Bush administration should do now to make things go smoother?

A: We did something good in getting rid of the Taliban and getting rid of Saddam Hussein. That is really the extent of our role, to get rid of the hideous totalitarian regimes.

In any event, the theory is good. It’s the implementation that has gone wrong. Mr. Pipes’s theory has withstood the test of reality:

Q: Do you generally agree with President Bush’s Middle East policy — its goals and its methods?

A: I agree with the goals much more than the methods. I just gave an example of Iraq, where I believe the goal of getting rid of Saddam Hussein and trying to have a free and prosperous Iraq are worthy goals. I criticize the implementation. The same goes with democracy. I think democracy is a great goal for the region. I criticize the implementation; I think it’s too fast, too American, too get-it-done yesterday.

Lest you start thinking that Mr. Pipes is unhappy that the implementation of his theory might have led to unintended consequences, think again. He, like Charles Krauthammer, loves a good civil war. Mr. Pipes enumerates all the good things a bloody civil war can do:

Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition’s responsibility nor its burden. The damage done by Saddam will take many years to repair. Americans, Britons, and others cannot be tasked with resolving Sunni-Shiite differences, an abiding Iraqi problem that only Iraqis themselves can address.

The eruption of civil war in Iraq would have many implications for the West. It would likely:

• Invite Syrian and Iranian participation, hastening the possibility of an American confrontation with those two states, with which tensions are already high.

• Terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push toward elections. This will have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago.

• Reduce coalition casualties in Iraq. As noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Rather than killing American soldiers, the insurgents and foreign fighters are more focused on creating civil strife that could destabilize Iraq’s political process and possibly lead to outright ethnic and religious war."

• Reduce Western casualties outside Iraq. A professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Vali Nasr, notes: "Just when it looked as if Muslims across the region were putting aside their differences to unite in protest against the Danish cartoons, the attack showed that Islamic sectarianism remains the greatest challenge to peace." Put differently, when Sunni terrorists target Shiites and vice-versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt.

Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one.

It all makes sense to me now. We misunderstood Mr. Pipes when he said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. When he said "cakewalk", he meant that defeating Saddam would be a cakewalk. The resulting chaos was not part of his thinking. In fact, the resulting chaos is not even our problem. It is all making sense to me now.

Before you dismiss Mr. Pipes as some right wing chicken hawk on the lunatic fringe, you might want to consider that he does have the ear of the President of the United States. The notion that America should rampage through the world without a care for the devastation this rampage may cause the societies which face our wrath is not a fringe notion - it has significant support within the Administration. In fact, it is the primary driving force behind Mr. Bush’s stay the course policy in Iraq. If you genuinely do not care about the consequences of your actions, it is much easier to label your misadventures as successes. This, I think, in large part explains the strange and often disconnected versions of reality that come from the President and the Vice President. After all, according to Mr. Pipes:

We are engaged in a war, a profound war and long-term war, in which Afghanistan and Iraq are sideshows. The real issue is the war that radical Islam, a global phenomenon, has declared on us and that has already been underway for many years, and we’re still at the beginning of it. That’s the really major issue.

Now, if only the Iraqis understood their rightful role in this war of civilizations; if only they understood that they are cannon fodder in the cause of the greater good; if only they understood that Mr. Pipes, from his perch in front of a television screen, thinks the slaughter of innocents is good theater; then and only then, would they be more grateful to the United States for this great favor we have done them. Instead, they continue this nonsense of caring more for their own lives than the greater glory of Daniel Pipes’s small but influential little mind.

When my five-year old daughter accidentally does something wrong she is in the habit of saying, "Look what you made me do!." In response, I try to explain to her the concept of personal responsibility, of free will, of taking credit or blame for one’s actions. I suspect that it is a lesson that most parents teach their children at an early age.

My daughter’s protestations came to mind when I heard the President’s latest speech seeking to defend his Iraq policy.  The President laid blame at the feet of Saddam Hussein for the chaos in Iraq. According to the official White House transcript, the President said:

These are the kinds of tensions Iraqis are dealing with today. They are the divisions that Saddam aggravated through deliberate policies of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence. As one Middle East scholar has put it, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was "a society slowly and systematically poisoned by political terror. The toxic atmosphere in today’s Iraq bears witness to his terrible handiwork." 

For the sake of argument, let me agree with the President that Saddam Hussein’s policies created the conditions for sectarian strife in Iraq. If that is and was indeed the case, why did the Administration not anticipate this sectarian strife? Why trot out this argument now? This argument is wholly inconsistent with what we were told before the war - that it would be a cakewalk, bed of roses, etc. If we grant the President the benefit of this argument, then the Administration appears completely unprepared and incompetent, now by its own admission, in dealing with post "Mission Accomplished" Iraq.

It seems to me that in trying to find someone, anyone, to blame for the debacle in Iraq, the Administration has finally and inadvertently admitted failure and defeat. I think it is long past time that the Administration accepted the reality in Iraq and its role in bringing about that reality. There can now be no doubt that the invasion of Iraq was ill conceived; and the decision to invade Iraq and unleashing the very predictable sectarian strife and responsibility for that decision lies solely at the feet of the President and this Administration.

I have the same hope for this Administration that I have for my five-year-old: that they accept responsibility for their actions.

This week marks the beginning of the Iraqi Civil War. The American mission in Iraq is over. We can either stay and fight everyone, pick sides, or leave. No choice open to America now will improve the situation on the ground.

The events kicked off by the Samarra bombing have now been book-ended by the attack on the mosque in Baghdad. We have entered the fray in a big way with the attack on the mosque. Images of the dead lying in a prayer room in the mosque and reports that the 80-year-old imam of the mosque has also been killed are being beamed continuously to everyone with a TV and electricity in Iraq. The American military’s protestations that the mosque was not entered will fall on deaf ears. We have no credibility there - not only because we are not trusted, but also because we have been unable or unwilling to stop the bloodletting there.

The ingredient missing from Iraq’s slide into civil war was mainstream outrage and anger and an embracing of the sectarian militias as the only guarantors of security. We have, perhaps unwittingly, provided the last piece of the puzzle and now the civil war picture is complete.

Peace Takes Courage

via Steve O of Bring it On

Charles Krauthammer cheerfully declares "Of Course It’s a Civil War" in his latest op-ed for The Washington Post. Now here’s a true red meat conservative. He not only faces reality head-on, but he embraces it and relishes it. He wants blood. Lots and lots of blood. As long as it is Iraqi blood:

Now all of a sudden everyone is shocked to find Iraqis going after Iraqis. But is it not our entire counterinsurgency strategy to get Iraqis who believe in the new Iraq to fight Iraqis who want to restore Baathism or impose Taliban-like rule? Does not everyone who wishes us well support the strategy of standing up the Iraqis so we can stand down? And does that not mean getting the Iraqis to fight the civil war themselves?

Hence the gradual transfer of war-making responsibility. Hence the decline of American casualties. Hence the rise of Iraqi casualties.

He looks on the bright side. Civil wars do not last forever. In the meantime, it is a great spectacle to watch. Besides, if you kill enough Sunnis, they will come to the peace table:

Civil wars are not eternal. This war will end not with an Appomattox instrument of surrender. It will end when a critical mass of Sunnis stops supporting the insurgency and throws its lot in with the new Iraq.

How does this happen? The stick is military — the increased cost in Sunni blood of continuing the fight. But the carrot is political — a place at the table for those Sunnis, some of whom are represented in parliament, who are prepared to abandon the insurgency for a share of power, a share of oil income, and a sense of security and dignity in the new Iraq.

The good news here is that if we get the Iraqi Shiites to slaughter the Iraqi Sunni into submission, it will be cheaper for us in the long run. It will certainly not be as expensive as a Vietnam-style "bomb you into submission" plan. Smart bombs are much more expensive than Iraqi lives.

We should all cheer this op-ed by Krauthammer. Consider it a stalking-horse from our war making friends. Finally, we have a clearly defined exit strategy that the public can get behind. No more code like "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down". Charles tells us the unvarnished truth - "As the Iraqis are strung up, we will stand down". For your honesty, thank you, Charles Krauthammer.