What’s Our Plan in Cheneystan?

What’s Wrong Today:

Does America have a goal in Iraq? How does that goal fit into our larger strategy in the Middle East?

Often, our thinking seems to begin and end with the use of military force, which is always the first answer on the Sunday Pundithons. The usual suspects in Washington are calling for air strikes. Why?

  • Is it our job to slow the progress of ISIS in their march towards Baghdad?
  • Are we defending something we gained in the 8 years we were in Iraq?
  • What would air strikes accomplish when ISIS is positioned in partially controlled Sunni cities? Civilian casualties would be the order of the day, on every day that we bombed  

We need some perspective. Here is a viewpoint from Reidar Visser in Foreign Affairs:

On April 30, millions of voters — including millions of Sunni Arabs — selected mostly moderate candidates in the country’s third general election since its current constitution was adopted in 2005. Just weeks later, the local government in the largest Sunni city, Mosul, fell to [ISIS]

We need to understand that Iraq’s problems are its demography and its geography. And while neither can be altered, state power has been drastically altered from a Sunni minority under Saddam Hussein in 2003 to a Shia majority under Nuri al-Maliki today. Maliki has not been a good steward of the young democracy in the 8 years he has been Prime Minister of Iraq.

Many Sunnis are frustrated and alienated by Prime Minister Maliki’s harsh consolidation of power and marginalization of their communities. Some background is useful. Ross Caputi, in Unthinkable Thoughts in the Debate about ISIS in Iraq, said:

One year ago…a nonviolent protest movement…was in full swing [in Iraq] with widespread support in the Sunni provinces and significant support from the Shia provinces as well. This movement set up nonviolent protest camps in many cities throughout Iraq for nearly the entire year of 2013.

They articulated demands calling for an end to the marginalization of Sunnis within the new Iraqi democracy, reform of an anti-terrorism law that was being used to label political dissent as terrorism, abolition of the death penalty, [and] an end to corruption

Caputi continues:

Over the course of a year, the protesters were assaulted, murdered and the leaders were assassinated….until Prime Minister Maliki sent security forces to clear the protest camps in Fallujah and Ramadi in December 2013

After the government moved against Fallujah, it was the Sunni militias who took the lead in the fight against the Iraqi government. ISIS arrived later to aid Fallujans in their fight, and to piggy-back on the success of the tribal fighters in order to promote its own goals.

Six months later, the government still has not been able to clear ISIS and the militias from Fallujah.

So, what is the likely outcome on the ground? According to Kenneth Pollack at the Brookings Institution:

What appears to be the most likely scenario at this point is that the rapid Sunni militant advance is likely to be stalemated at or north of Baghdad. They will probably continue to make some advances, but it seems unlikely that they will be able to overrun Baghdad and may not even make it to the capital

Ken Pollack observes that Shias now number 80% of Baghdad’s population. Many will help defend their homes and families in Baghdad and other Shia-dominated cities in the south. The (largely Shia) remnants of the Iraqi Security Force (ISF) are being reinforced by the Shia militias and bolstered by contingents of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Many new Shia recruits are answering Ayatollah Sistani’s call to defend their community. From Pollack:

Thus, the Sunni militants are likely to come up against a far more determined and numerous foe than they have confronted so far. The most likely outcome of that fighting will be a stalemate at or north of Baghdad, basically along Iraq’s ethno-sectarian divide.

That conforms to the pattern of other, similar civil wars. In Syria today, in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and in Lebanon in the 1980s, front lines tended to stalemate along tribal lines. They can shift a little, but generally remain unchanged for years. That’s because militias in civil wars find it far easier to hold territory inhabited by the members of their identity group than to conquer (and hold) territory inhabited by members of a rival identity group.

The absence of US troops since the 2011 withdrawal is a small element in the story. The interaction between the Syrian and Iraqi insurgencies is an accelerant, but again, is only part of the story. In reality, Mr. Maliki’s repeated refusal over 8 years to strike a political accord with the Sunni minority, and his heavy-handed military repression in Sunni areas this year are the key factors in today’s disintegration in Iraq. The shift to an external insurgency that brings the flow of money and weapons to a variety of armed groups are secondary but important reasons that have allowed ISIS to thrive.

So, should we give an open checkbook to Maliki? What goal of American Middle Eastern strategy does that serve? You will hear Washington say we can use this moment of leverage to attach political conditions to any military aid. Conditions we couldn’t get via diplomacy. But, that leverage faces a problem: It will be virtually impossible to force any meaningful political moves in the midst of a crisis, and any promises made now will quickly be forgotten once the crisis has passed.

Do we hold our nose and back Maliki right now? We went into Iraq to get rid of a Sunni dictator. He has been replaced democratically by a triumphalist Shia autocrat who is losing the country.

Or, do we sit this one out?

The answer depends on whether you think a democratic, unified Iraq remains our goal, not just an aspiration. And whether you think it is a realistic possibility. It depends on whether you think we have a constructive role to play in saving it, maybe like the UN, when it provides peacekeepers.

And if America believes, as did Joe Biden back in the day, that three independent states of Sunni, Shia and Kurd peoples is an answer, what should America’s role be in bringing that about? Does bombing and drone striking Sunni areas help achieve America’s goals in Iraq or in the Middle East?

What American goals are we serving by involvement in what promises to be a long civil war, with like Syria, little practical chance of delivering a unified, stable and democratic Iraq?

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1 Comments

terry mckenna

Even if someone has the right idea, the experts disagree with each other, and no useful consensus can be developed. So we best do nothing, or at best support the Kurds, Turks, Jordanians and Isrealis – and to hell with the rest.

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