The Iraq war is not going as expected

Parent Cafe
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<p>It will be “moderate” in the Kurdish north, as expected. It will be “Islamic” in the Shi’a south. It will be civil war in the center, until the Shi’a decide to step in.</p>

<p>It will end up just the way it could have two years ago, with Sistani controlling most of the country, the Americans guaranteeing Kurdish rights and retreating to their bases and oil terminals. The Shi’a militias already control Basra. Sadr already controls south Baghdad. The Sunni militants control Fallujah, Ramadi, etc. (These are America’s new 'friends".) The Mayor of Baghdad quit. The British military have strict orders not to go out at night. The Baathists have plenty of money, and are reorganizing.</p>

<p>Things will get better - immediately - when the Americans leave. Folks will still shoot at each other. A couple of thousand will die every month, maybe more. It will be a heck of a lot better than it was under Clinton, when Clinton lied, and a million died.</p>

<p>No self-respecting Iraqi soldier, making $26 a month, is going to volunteer to die, if he thinks he is dying for the Americans. Too many dead children for that.</p>

<p>They remember Madeleine Albright.</p>

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<p>Women are a very powerful political force in Iraq today. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the constitution is expected to give women full voting rights. This is the most signficant ingredient for “women’s rights”.</p>

<p>Before we get too far up on our high horses, I would hasten to point out that women did not have voting rights in the United States until the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920 (fully 144 years after our constitution was put in place). I would also point out that many of the elite colleges and universities we praise so highly on this forum banned women from enrolling until just 30 years ago.</p>

<p>I might also point out that we practiced human slavery for nearly a century after our constitution was put in place.</p>

<p>I think we need a little perspective on the realities of the political process in a region of the world that is culturally not in the same place as Cambridge, MA or Berkeley, CA.</p>

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<p>Mini:</p>

<p>The bloggers on the ground in Iraq are not painting quite that picture. To the contrary, there has been an anti-militant movement in the Sunni communities in recent weeks and Zaquari has turned his thugs lose on Sunni leaders.</p>

<p>There is most certainly going to be a ongoing tug of war between three regions of Iraq – just as the United States suffered fundamental regional conflict long past the passage of our constitution. There are no guarantees, but there is most definitely a very vibrant political process going on in Iraq right now. The constitutional process is getting round the clock TV and radio coverage and there is debate in a free print media. The people of Iraq appear to be fully engaged and there is public sentiment against a fundamentalist Islamic state. The most encouraging sign is the the politicians appear to be mindful of the need to get a constitution that can be ratified in a public referendum.</p>

<p>If it breaks apart, it breaks apart. I’m not sure we’d be worse off than when the mindless borders in the Middle East were drawn following WWI.</p>

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<p>As I wrote, it will be better than it was under Clinton. And will be much better when the Americans leave.</p>

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<p>Mini, I hope you are right to be so optimistic. I have an "Out of Irq Now " bumper sticker on, but have some doubts.</p>

<p>Juancole.com ,who has immense knowlege of the area and is no “support the president” simpleton, thinks that as many as 1,000,000 more Iraqis could be killed in a civil war if we pull out. He does acknowlege that a low level civl war is going on now, but it could get much worse he argues.</p>

<p>It really sucks to think that our soldiers need to continue to die to protect against a calamity of this order caused by Bush. As you note, America has killed roughly that number of Iraqis already between the two wars and the sanctions, but it is no reason not to try to prevent another million dead Iraqis due to American misdeeds. This is a real quagmire. Of course there is no guarantee that things will get better under American occupation and any government formed will appear to be just collaboarators with the occupiers.</p>

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<p>But, you see, I don’t see quagmire. Wolfowitz two years ago very candidly put forward the objectives for the War: the need for permanent forward U.S. military bases in the Middle East independent of Saudi Arabia, and the need to control the oil pipelines and oil refineries. Now that these objectives have been achieved, why would the U.S. (under either Democrats or Republicans) ever conceive of pulling out? Bush is exactly right - withdrawal from Iraq would indeed weaken the U.S. The question of whether you approve of the President’s method of strengthening it is another issue entirely.</p>

<p>Do you really think anyone in either Republican or potential Democratic Administrations (we do have the Clinton history) gives a rat’s patooey about Iraqis? Put aside the bases and the oil, to the U.S. Iraqis rank right up there with Rwandans and the inhabitants of Darfur. We shouldn’t flatter ourselves…</p>

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<p>Sounds like reasonable objectives to me. I think the forward military bases in the region are strategically valuable.</p>

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<p>Yes. I’m sure there are people in both Republican and Democratic administrations who care about the Iraqi people. Caring and finding perfect solutions in an imperfect world are two different things.</p>

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<p>Have you read what the women themselves in Iraq are saying? They are having to push hard. The guarantees of a certain percentage of the legislator being women isn’t secure, and Islam as the base of law for women can go in many different directions, as we have seen. With some forced back into the veil, not of their own will, women have the right to be concerned and cautious. </p>

<p>I pointed out that very fact that we have a really bad history of equal rights</p>

<p>Yet we claim we are bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq…if we are going to say that and destroy a country in order to bring them peace and prosperity, we better make sure it was worth it…I hope it was</p>

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<p><a href=“http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8799295/[/url]”>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8799295/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>"…Equal inheritance?
Rend Rahim, Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, said this week she feared that if Islam was made the sole source of law — as many influential Shiite clerics want — women would be hostage to “arbitrary interpretations” of Islam. Fears are growing that women would lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.</p>

<p>Most worrying for women’s groups has been the section on civil rights in the draft constitution, which some feel would significantly roll back women’s rights under a 1959 civil law enacted by a secular regime.</p>

<p>Under Sharia law, women would inherit only half of what men receive. In issues of marriage and divorce, women would be at a significant disadvantage since only men would have the legal power to initiate divorces.</p>

<p>But some of the women meeting Khalilzad are advocates of changing family law to follow Islamic sharia codes as much as possible.</p>

<p>Some rights for women would create ‘big mess’
“We have a lot of tribal areas where they don’t like women having the same rights as men in inheritance. If you put this (in law) you would have a big mess in the country,” Salama al-Khafaji, a member of the ruling Shiite grouping, the United Iraqi Alliance, told Reuters.</p>

<p>“Iraqi society does not accept that a woman should be outside the house at night in jobs with night shifts. We’ve got used to it in hospitals but we reject it in other facilities,” she said, arguing that social mores were naturally conservative.</p>

<p>Khafaji said the real struggle was to ensure the government does not sideline women from positions of power.</p>

<p>“I support there being a quota of at least 25 percent women in the national assembly, and I also support quotas for women in the executive (cabinet) and judiciary,” she said.</p>

<p>“Iraqi women have the ability to run the country and they did this successfully during the old regime.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/23/iraq_gallery/index1.html[/url]”>http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/23/iraq_gallery/index1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>some pictures of the war -gruesome</p>

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<p>“Yes. I’m sure there are people in both Republican and Democratic administrations who care about the Iraqi people. Caring and finding perfect solutions in an imperfect world are two different things.”</p>

<p>They’ve demonstrated it pretty consistently, along with their great love for the inhabitants of Niger. Of course, the Iraqis are so different, they’re worth at least a half a million dead children.</p>

<p>But the strategic objectives are in fact very real, which is why it doesn’t matter what the Iraqis decide - the U.S. isn’t leaving any time soon. The rest is just newspaper copy.</p>

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<p>The dropping domestic support for the Iraq war will really hit the fan the first time that Iraqi Islamic Republic acts in the manner of an Islamic Republic. So far, my predictions from two years ago are dead on target: power will fall into the hands of the Iraqi Shiites who will do nothing to jeopardize that track until it has been attained. After that, all bets are off. The results will make the notion of “turning Iraq into a beacon of democracy” a travesty that will join “WMD” on the scrapheap of justifications grasped at for what the administration thought would be a cheap, easy war with grateful flower-throwing civilians being the result. What a bunch of dumb arrogant !@#$%^&*&^%$#@!.</p>

<p>Meanwhile:

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<p>IDad, this is the kind of idiotic looking-at-Iraq-as-a-Risk-game-board thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s even money as to whether we will ever get any long-term bases, that is if you really believe in Iraqi sovereignty. Meanwhile, the Sunni-dominated regions of Iraq will produce far more terrorists than Saddam’s Iraq ever did, the Shiites will be out for our blood if we ever come toe to toe with Iran, and the only happy folk, God love 'em, will be the Kurds, assuming that Turkey doesn’t invade.</p>

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<p>IMO, it is in the US strategic interest to project both military and political power in the region. I do not believe that “business as usual” in the Middle East is a viable option. We had reached the point with state supported terrorism that we had to turn up the heat on both our “allies” and our “enemies” in the region.</p>

<p>The fact that everyone in the Middle East is dead set against a stable, quasi-democratic Iraq tells me that it is probably a worthwhile objective.</p>

<p>Could we have left Saddam in power, supported by his corrupt friends in the UN, funnelling money from the Oil For Food Program to bad guys around the region? Sure. We could have sat on our hands. After 9-11, I’m inclined to err on the side of being proactive. Heck, I think Bush the First made a critical mistake in not taking out Saddam the first time around. But, at the time, we didn’t have the political will to finish the job.</p>

<p>To me, the biggest risk in Iraq right now is lack of political will in the United States. I think that domestic political constraints are forcing us to push the constitutional process a little faster than we really should.</p>

<p>Again, it’s important that we not overlook the fact that Iraq is an educated, advanced society. This isn’t Afghanistan. The Iraqis have a lot to gain by making this thing work and they are not stupid people. They also have a population with a vested interest in a real economy. All signs indicate that the political discourse in Iraq is pretty sophisticated. The compromises negotiated between Sistani Shiite power base and the Kurds demonstrate a lot of subtlety and are generally falling on the “moderate” side of the ledger (in the context of Islamic governance). Notably absent is any real desire in Iraq for the US to pack its bags; this despite the natural inclination of any occupied country to be resentful. </p>

<p>One of the more interesting aspects of the political discourse in Iraq is Sistani’s position. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that the Shiite majority has been as accomodating as it has been. They could have successfully pushed for much more hardline language in the constitution, but for whatever reason, they appear to be sensitive to need to get the thing ratified in a popular election. It appears to me that Sistani has made the calculation that the power his faction will obviously have in Iraq won’t be worth much without an economy.</p>

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<p>“Do you really think anyone in either Republican or potential Democratic Administrations (we do have the Clinton history) gives a rat’s patooey about Iraqis?” mini.</p>

<p>Of course not as the actions since Gulf War I show. It can still be argued at Cole does that we should try to prevent a massive civil war,nowthat we have brought the country to the brink of one. This may be wishful thinking on his partas it may be too late.</p>

<p>Quite frankly I think that if Bush thought an Iraqi civil war would help maintain the permanent bases he would be for it. That may be the fall back position as at least one side would welcome us fighting with them. </p>

<p>Mini, I’m sure you and I agree mostly. Just wondering what you think of Cole, who does care about the Iraqis, thesis.</p>

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<p>I think Cole is naive in one sense, and shrewd in another. Naive in that he believes the U.S. has to stay now to protect Iraqis from their own civil war. Shrewd in that a civil war would threaten the forward U.S. military bases and the control of the oil industry. Remember when Rumsfeld told us how the war and occupation would pay for itself in oil revenues? I think he really believed that. So now there is a big, fat IOU. But all Iraqis - 80% in recent polls - Kurds, Shi’ites, and Sunnis alike - are united on one thing: they want the U.S. out. I can’t imagine why.</p>

<p>In a civil war, which side does Bush side with, the secularist Sunnis? Aren’t those the folks we just went in to overthrow?</p>

<p>The political discourse in Iraq is sophisticated, and as Cole notes, the rule of law has ceased to exist in Iraq. The militias have taken over Basra, and no one seems particularly upset. The mayor of Baghdad has abdicated, and no seems particularly upset. Sadr controls the south of Baghdad, and no one seems particularly upset. The Sunni militants control Fallujah, Ramadi, etc., and no is particularly upset. This is very sophisticated realpolitik, and it goes beyond anything contained in the so-called Constitution. This is what the future of Iraq looks like. </p>

<p>So, at some point, whether this President or the next one will ask how much the forward military bases and control of the pipelines are worth. There will either be a significant increase in the U.S. presence, or we’ll declare victory and go home. There is no way the U.S. can defeat the Sunni insurgency at current force levels, and the Iraqi brothers and uncles of the dead children aren’t particularly eager to. Nothing remains the same.</p>

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<p>IDad: ah. You think a stable quasi-democratic Iraq is attainable. I say it’s Fantasyland horsepucky. As for the other players in the region, everyone has their own interests and agendas which has little or nothing to do with democracy per se. The Turks have their interests re the Kurds, the Iranians have their own extremely strong interest in a Shiite dominate neighbor, and most of the rest of the Arab countries have an interest in a check on Iranian power. And the Israelis probably prefer a weak and dysfunctional Iraq to keep one more enemy off the docket; you may have not noticed that our Iraqi “allies” are as virulently anti-Israeli in their outlook as anyone.</p>

<p>Stable, pro-American, democratic: choose any two. AT BEST.
If it happens, I’ll eat the crow. But I’ll make book against it.</p>

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<p>That’s not my position. I don’t know whether it is attainable or not.</p>

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<p>If it is not attainable, it can not be a worthwhile objective, per your previous. Instead, the pursuit is what’s generally called “incompetent foolishness.”</p>

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<p>I don’t know that it is not attainable, either.</p>

<p>At this time, the freedom of media and the high level of interest in political discourse are promising signs. The degree of compromise is, in my opinion, quite surprising and probably higher than we see in negotiations over a typical bill on the floor of our own Congress.</p>

<p>If you strip away the political posturing, the drafts I’ve seen of Iraqi consitution seem to indicate a strong desire to make the thing work. I see a high level of statesmanship among factions that could be taking a much more hardline position. Some of the language in the draft constitution is quite stunning. Equally stunnng is that the religious leaders, both Sunni and Shi’ite, are now urging participation in the democratic process.</p>

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<p>That’s an, umm, exceedingly optimistic read on what’s happening.</p>