Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald assesses Iraq's Constitutional referendum:
Democracy in the Western sense requires much more than mere head-counting. It requires the sense of being a citizen of a nation-state, and owing one's primary allegiance to that nation-state. It requires getting used to the idea, and enshrining in the law, the rights of minorities. It requires a belief in the legitimacy of government being derived from the consent of the governed. It requires all sorts of things, all of which are missing in Iraq.Who are the Shi'a who marched off to vote in favor of the Constitution? Many of them cannot read, most of them have not read, and almost all of those who have read that Constitution have little idea of its full significance or whether or not it has permanent significance. They voted yes because they were told to do so.
The word "democracy" is tossed about by some in the Administration in a display of bland indifference, or deliberate confusion, as to what that word means in the United States, or the United Kingdom, or Australia, as compared to what it means, and must mean, to those within Islam -- unless those within Islam have for a very long time been subject to a regime in which Islam is deliberately constrained and pushed as far as possible out of its traditional political and social role (as in Turkey, where it is Kemalism that is now shaky, and Islam back, as it must be, with a vengeance).
While the Shi'a marched off dutifully to ensure that they will rule, the Sunnis were divided. They were divided not on ultimate aims, but on means. Many abstained, not wishing to recognize that the Old Order not only passeth, but had passed, and there was nothing they could do about it. Many voted not in order to support the Constitution (though there may have been a few) but in order to defeat it. It was not a question of differences in attitude, but in goals. And according to reports, many Sunnis are convinced that they, the Sunni Arabs (leaving aside the Kurds, who are Sunni Muslims), constitute fully 42% of the population, when their numbers are in reality not half that. It is the kind of crazed belief that arises naturally, like all sorts of conspiracy theories, among people for whom critical thought and the habit of skepticism is crushed by the atmospherics and attitudes of Islam, so that what is true is never believed, and what is false will always find believers, from the street crowd insisting that the Americans deliberately lured children with candy in order to murder them, to those who believe that the Americans have engaged in a vast and clever plan to dismember Iraq when, as we all know, the Americans have tried in every way they can to make Iraq hold together. Though it made little sense in furthering Infidel interests, that is what the Americans have done and continue to do -- though one hopes they will soon stop, and realize that much more is to be gained by leaving Iraq, leaving those in Iraq alone, and hoping that some kind of low-level equivalent of the Iran-Iraq War can go on forever.The very idea of elections may inspire a few of those who would like, in other Arab countries, to somehow get rid of their local despots, whether in Arab "republics" (as all non-monarchies are called in that world) or in monarchies. But for everyone inspired by those "elections" there are twenty who are horrified because the "election" in this case, in Iraq the Model, is merely bringing to power the Shi'a -- and they, of course, have no right in Sunni eyes to rule. It is the Sunni Muslims, being the real thing, the realer or realest of Muslims, who must rule -- even if one does not always go so far as to agree with the Wahhabi view (and not only the Wahhabi view) that Shi'a are not only Infidels, but even worse, as "Rafidite dogs," than ordinary Infidels.
Meanwhile, the Kurds voted for the Constitution, but with a turnout (60-70%) that was far less than that last January, when during the elections (my, elections after elections after elections, Democracy Is Surely On the March in Iraq the Model) more than 90% of the Kurds voted. This was probably because they were voting at the same time, in their own referendum, on whether they wanted an independent Kurdistan: 98% voted yes, but you will not have read much, if anything, being said about this by the Administration. The Kurds voted for the Constitution because at the moment it fits what they can demand, but that vote should not be misinterpreted as meaning they have given up the desire for independence.
Of course the Bush Administration would like to read this differently. Still, it has managed to curb its enthusiasm but not, apparently, its crazed intention to continue to work in Iraq for the very things that, from the point of view of those who understand the full menace of Islam, make no sense. Instead of allowing the Shi'a to deal with the Sunni who have a history of oppressing them, and whose attitude shows they have no intention of accepting Shi'a dominance, and believe that they, who have prospered not only under Saddam Hussein, but under all the previous Iraqi regimes, have a perfect right to continue, by hook or by crook, to rule, we want to make everyone make nice. American soldiers now are being killed and wounded in order to make Sunni and Shi'a collaborate in an Iraqi nation-state.
Instead of seeing an independent Kurdistan, which should be if not openly encouraged at least covertly encouraged, the American government seems to have put that idea out of its head. One assumes this reflects its own fear that it cannot, simply cannot, deal with Turkey. But this is silly. Turkey is alone. Turkey needs the United States more now than ever. Its most intelligent class realizes that it will be difficult, or impossible, to get into the E.U., and also knows that the supposed lure of a link with the Islamic world -- the despised Arabs -- would undo whatever progress Turkey has made since the 1920s. They also know that the Kurdish population in Turkey cannot necessarily be trusted to remain passive should Turkey attempt to squash an independent Kurdish state, with all the significance that holds for Kurds outside the state.
It should not be beyond the wit of the American government, for many decades the closest military and diplomatic ally of Turkey, to note the import of the fact that it is currently the recipient of an attempt by Turkey to make up for the hideous treatment in the Turkish press of the United States (which has not gone unnoticed here), the refusal to allow the fourth American division enter Iraq from Turkey, and other behavior – all this has caused the famous Turkish lobby in Washington to more or less disappear. The United States has no need for Turkey, but Turkey, in the long run, needs to maintain good relations with the United States and, for that matter, with those same Europeans who, while rejecting Turkish admission to the E.U., will continue to buy goods and services (tourism) and cannot be alienated.
A Kurdish state will do much to heighten consciousness of the problem of Arab supremacist ideology, and of the suppressed cultural and linguistic and political rights not only of Kurds, but of Berbers in North Africa, of black but non-Arab Muslims in Darfur, and even of disaffected Iranians. They may find it easier to leave Islam if within Iran Islam becomes more and more to be seen not as a universalist creed but as a vehicle for arabization. The Persian contempt for Arabs can be enrolled in the more important task, for Iranians who have experienced the Islamic Republic of Iran and never want to have such an experience repeated, of de-legitimizing Islam as something inflicted by desert Arabs on civilized Iranians.
But none of this seems to have penetrated to official Washington. There need be no open statement that the Americans are now rubbing their hands in glee and wishing for a collapse of Iraq. Nothing like it. Simply declare that with the next election, it will be time to leave. It will be time for the "Iraqis themselves" to take charge. It will be time to end the "dependency" that this "proud people" in this "ancient and historic land" (go ahead if you wish -- pile on the nonsense yourself) might otherwise "develop" if we Americans, "who wish Iraq and the Iraqi people well" (if one really wished them well, one would wish them able to constrain or to throw off Islam, but that of course cannot be said publicly), do not now leave, "at long last, having accomplished so much" and "trained so many Iraqis," and "given them new hope to forge their own destinies."
And leave. With only some weaponry, possibly, "pre-positioned" at a base in -- Kurdistan. And only there. And then see what happens.
Will the "Iraqi people" be "true to themselves?" I think so. And will Iranian "volunteers" and money help one side, and Sunni volunteers and money help the opposing side, thereby using up at least some of the energy, attention, and discretionary income that goes into such things as WMD projects, and support for terrorism and that other instrument of Jihad, Da'wa (the Call to Islam) world-wide?
One can only hope.
Hugh is our resident geo-strategist. He's made his calculations and laid out his plans. His ambitiousness and self-confidence are very evident.
Just one question:
In the likely event Al Qaeda establishes a mini-state in the Sunni heartland of Anbar Province as a result of this premature American withdrawal, and then uses this entity as a base to export terrorism throughout the region and the world, what are your plans for such a contingency?
Anbar will soon be pacified dead meat, Zarqawi will retreat to a hero's return in Gazastan, the Kurds will give up their dream of an independant Kurdistan, and the Brits will no longer be blamed for insurgency in Iran.
What's not to like ?
"In the likely event Al Qaeda establishes a mini-state in the Sunni heartland of Anbar Province as a result of this premature American withdrawal..."
-- from a posting above
The "premature withdrawal" rhetoric has previously been dissected before and need not receive another round of laughter.
As for "in the likely event" -- says who? Why is this a "likely event"? You posit something that is completely unlikely, mere Scare Scenarios, and then fill them out with your own imaginings. How would, exactly, the desert tribes of Anbar Province permit Al-Qaeda to "establish a mini-state"? Are not the Sunnis, by general agreement, more secular than the Shi'a in the south? Was Ba'athism not a variant on Islam that permitted women the right to work side-by-side with men as teachers, doctors, chemical-warfare and biological-warfare scientists (what better way to employ the brains of Muslmi women). Just because there are some non-Iraqi Al-Qaeda members in Iraq, whose opposition to Shi'a ascendancy and the loss of Sunni power happens to correspond to what many Sunni Iraqis are also intent on imposing, and in some of the same ways, what makes you think those Saudis, Yemenis, and other outsiders will magically be able to set up an Al-Qaeda state in Anbar Province? What a leap of the imagination.
Is it not far more likely that a war of Sunni and Shi'a (and they are intermingled in many places -- not least Baghdad) will consume the resources, and the energies, and the attention, of Sunni and Shi'a Muslims alike, and not merely those of Sunnis in Anbar Province or in Baghdad, or in Iraq, but elsewhere as well, and that the same may happen with the Shi'a?
You are so imaginative in your Scare Scenarios --imaginative, but baseless. The Scare Scenario tha is real is the one we have now: the squandering of American resources, and the inability to see the much larger matter of Islam and islamization, and the misuse of resources that so clearly could be put to better use. To take only the matter of money, do you or do you not agree that $350 billion might, had it been applied to nuclear, solar, and wind energy projects, to cleaner coal-plants, to more efficient cars, to mass transit projects, to the thousand ways that Americans, and other oil-consumers, could save energy, that this, by diminishing Saudi Arabia's wealth, and that of other Arab and Muslim oil states, do far more, in the end, to diminish the effectiveness of the Jihad here, there, and everywhere?
"and then uses this entity[the imaginary "entity" of this Sunni state, without any resources, and with Kurds pushing at Mosul and Kirkuk in the north, and co-religionists in Baghdad embroiled, in one way or another, with Shi'a who will not take No for an answer, and still other Sunnis on the run wherever they may be in Shi'a-controlled areas] -- why should I answer, and thereby take seriously, an utterly improbable event, that you dare to describe, wtih self-assured aplomb, as not only not improbable, but practically inevitable?
"Likely event" -- Sunni state (no resources, Kurds on one side, Shi'a on the other) but there it is (and the Americans of course, once they withdraw, in this poster's view simply lose all ability to affect events, or even to bomb, or send military aid to, say, the Kurds, or do anything at all -- no, the Americans if they leave, the poster above keeps telling us, will forever have given up any possibility of affecting the course of events. He has been answered before. He has been told that this is absurd, that from 1991 to 2003 the Americans, without a single soldier in Iraq, very effectively protected all of Kurdistan from the forces of Saddam Hussein (remember that?). He has been told that there is nothing to prevent American planes, drones, rockets, from doing their stuff, that American equipment can be sent to this or that side as we see fit, that all kinds of economic and other pressure can be brought to bear if we feel like it. Occasionally he gives a sign that he understands this, and concedes the point, and will not raise it again. But again and again he does. He refuses to take things in, for he cannot. It upsets him. He wants so much to believe in Iraq the Model, the Light Unto the Muslim Nations Project. He wants so much to believe that the direst things will happen, and not only will but absolutely, positively must happen, if the American government does not "stay the course" or still worse, "cuts and runs." Good God.
"My plans for such a contingency"? What "contingency" -- your series of made-up unlikelihoods? The entire series of assumptions are so unreal, while the real is staring everyone in the face: the real squandering of men's lives (killed and severely wounded), of money (that $350 billion so far), that materiel (desert-degraded), that morale (the more intelligent officers and men have come to understand, despite army propaganda and the Party Line about Iraq, that the Iraqis are not quite so wonderful as depicted in Washington, and that, for those who have a glimmer (no thanks to army training, which tells them nothing important about Islam) of what Islam is all about, the notion that Iraq the Model will somehow solve the islamization-of-Europe problem, or the Iranian bomb problem, or the permanent malevolence of oil-rich Saudi Arabia problem, with its funding of mosques and madrasas and an army of hirelings world-wide --is absurd.
My God, Hugh, take a breath!
You're right -- typing all at one go no doubt is not the ideal method. But when the same goat (mine) is gotten, time after time, and my coherent replies seem only to make a temporary impression, mind-prints on the sands of time, and then we are back to square(ing-that-circle) one, I simply can't stop to take that breath. Now I can.
Havoc said "My God, Hugh, take a breath!"
Please don't take a breath, Hugh. You're on a roll, you're in the zone. Let the empty windbags on Pennsylvania Avenue take a breather.
Hugh said "The word "democracy" is tossed about by some in the Administration in a display of bland indifference, or deliberate confusion, as to what that word means in the United States, or the United Kingdom, or Australia, as compared to what it means, and must mean, to those within Islam"
It would be good for us to realize what "democracy" meant to our Founding Fathers as well. They were dead-set against a democracy, and instead favoured a republic. They feared that a democracy would turn into a tyranny of the majority, where large groups of people could band together to vote laws specifically against smaller groups of people, and where the laws would change according to the current popular whims.
Their solution was a republic, where laws would apply to all people equally (well, that's the goal), regardless of race or religion. Instead of directly voting for laws, we would vote for representatives who would look after the welfare of all citizens equally. And a specific clause in the Constitution requires that religion remain separate from the government.
The distinction between "democracy" and "republic" was important to them: it's not the "Battle Hymn of the Democracy". We don't pledge allegiance to "the democracy, for which it stands".
Is anyone in Vegas taking odds on which direction the Shi'ites, Sunni's, and Kurds will take with their new-found government? Will loyalty to the nation of Iraq, or loyalty to tribal affiliations win out?
"They voted yes because they were told to do so."
This simple remark is very important. I was speaking with an Indian friend who knows Islam well. He said that when their Imam tells them to do something, the DO it, no questions asked. At least, this is true of the rank and file. Hardly any of our leaders or pundits seem to realize this. They always seem to assume that the residents of Muslim countries must be basically like us. It's not a bunch of argumentative bloggers over there!
Yes, Benjamin, some Muslims, possibly many Muslims, especially illiterate ones -- and we know there are a lot of them in the Middle East -- do what the imam tells them without question, but they are hardly alone.
My daughter was dating a Sephardic Jew who became Orthodox in his late teens for a while and every time she asked him the whys and wherefores he would simply tell her that it was what the rabbi instructed him to do and it wasn't for him to question. And there are doubtless Christians who do exactly what their clerics tell them to do without question, and followers of various political ideologies who also do as they are told without question, especially if they are followers of either of the extreme ends.
Well there you have it folks, Hugh's bombastic tirade masks his utter inability to grasp post-Coalition probabilities, much less answer a simple question.
He claims that my scenario is nothing but a "scare scenario"...completely unrealistic, that the Sunnis are secularists who will have no trek with fundamentalists. May I remind everybody that the tribes of the Sunni heartland are every bit as conservative as their Shiite counterparts in the south. That what secular tradition that exists can be found in the large Sunni cities like Northern Bagdhad, Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul.
Yet it is precisely in such cities as Fallujah and Ramadi...as well as in smaller Sunni towns like Qaim and Tal Afar, that fanatical, Taliban-style mini-regimes held sway until Coaltion boots on the ground dislodged them one by one (Ramadi is still up for grabs).
In other words, the reality on the ground that existed in the Sunni heartland before recent US military operations is completely implausible in the event of the rapid departure of US troops...at least in Hugh's universe.
You've read it with your own eyes people.
Al Qaeda is NOT a thing that can be defeated, there is no 6 June 1944, nor the possibility of a VE or VJ Day in the fight against Islamoterrorism.
The notion of an Al Qaeda nation in Iraq is nonsense, (but it would be a good idea, for then it would give us justification for thoroughly wiping their butts).
Al Qaeda is an idea, and you can't kill ideas with bombs and bullets. Al Qaeda is actually just one of many spin off cells of the Ikhwan Muslimoon or Muslim Brotherhood, that organization which Condi Rice stood for as participatory advocate in the recent Egyptian Elections.
There is no Al Qaeda organizational chart, as there is no Muslim Brotherhood Organizational Chart, no building on a street, with a board of directors, a President, Vice President.. in fact there really isn't an Al Qaeda, except for this or that group which declares itself Al Qaeda of this or Al Qaeda of that, you can't smash that which does not exist. Chasing Al Qaeda is chasing swamp gas..the mujahideen (Jihadi's) are real, and they can and do die or are captured, but new ones are created at the rate of two to one for every mujahideen which is "martyred".
But one thing such movements need is money, passports, the ability to travel, and preferably an airport so planes can land and take off with their deadly cargo of mujahideen.
That portion of Iraq that is Sunni has no resources at all, it is desert, at best parts of it lie within the irrigation channels of the Tigris and Euphrates, but it takes money these days, to run even an agrarian economy, and to get money one must have something to sell or trade on the international market..they have nothing.
Here is one salient benefit of leaving Iraq. It will save American lives, and save the drain on our pocket books and maybe, just maybe, salvage our own and our childresn posterity, deficit spending is bankruptcy, and until this administration deficit spending was the hall mark of Democrats and Liberals, now the RNC are Keynesians. Que Va?
Another salient benefit, and one you can only appreciate if you do as I do, and that is to watch Iranian TV (and Arab TV) on a daily basis (English Language translations) but you need Dish Network for that, cable doesn't carry it.
The Iranians are the beneficiaries of all of the chaos and murder in Iraq, the Iranians are the props of SCIRI, the Ayatollahs that run SCIRI are Iranian, Ja'afari is a Shi'a with Iranian roots and loyalties. Iran sends armed fighters, munitions, weapons and special operatives into Iraq daily. The Iranians have taken over and run Basra, enforcing Shari'a laws, killing the likes of merchants who defy Shari'a, and using the uniformed police, paid for by Americans and Brits, as matawain or religious police.
The violence in Iraq, instigated by Sunni Wahhabi Ba'athists and Criminal elements, benefits the Iranians and their Shi'a cohorts in SCIRI, it is used as propaganda by the Iranians.. the woe is poor me factor, but the Iranians blame the violence on the Americans and Brits, and have cooked up the usual muslim conspiracy theory, which the Iraqi muslims eat up like candy, that all of the violence in Southern Iraq and Baghdad is actually the fault of the Americans, Brits and Israelis, and not just the fault by virtue of occupation, but actual false flag operations by special forces operatives.
They made a big case recently of the two Brits caught, in Arab dress, by Iraq police, who were held not in a jail, but in a building near a jail, and the allegation is that these troops were actually engaged in terror bombings which could be blamed on the Sunni's.
However, in the Kurdish north, the terror bombings and assassinations are indeed blamed on the Sunni's, but in Shi'a Iraq they are blamed on the Americans and Brits.
One issue Hugh has raised Cornelius, which you haven't addressed, the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iraq is not west friendly, and it is Shi'a controlled and thus Iran friendly.
So even if your fanciful and hyperbolic scenario has the slightest possibility of being true, we are still screwed. A Shi'a Iraq is as much a threat as a Sunni enclave for Al Qaeda, in fact more of a threat, as it unites and provides a hiway for the Iranian Mullahcracy from Tehran to Damascus, Jordan and Jerusalem. And it is the mullahs of Iran who created, finance, fund and support in so many ways Hezbollah, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
You do remember that shipment of Arms from Iran, aboard a tramp steamer that was intercepted not so long ago by Israel.
To add salt to the wounds. Saddam most certainly send stipends to the families of "Palestinians" who blew themselves up on "martyrdom operations", he most certainly provided some support to Islamist terrorists, in particular towards the end of his regime, where in his usual survival style, he was reinventing himself as Saladin Nebuchanazar, in the words of Dan Rather in his famous last interview with Saddam, as "The hero of the Arab on the Street", yet Saddam was adjudged and esteemed an apostate of Islam by Osama and the mujahideen Jihadi's, and Saddam was providing Shelter and support to a group of mujahideen who had since 1979 been waging their own guerilla war against the Ayatollahs of Iran.. the MEK or Mujahideen e-Khalq, an outfit unfathomable to western minds, because it is both Marxist and Islamist purist (that's because there is more in common between Marxism and Islam than not, but that's a different subject).
And all that has really been accomplished in Iraq is the realization of your worst fears, the invasion and occupation has turned a country in which mujahideen Jihadis, were regularly rounded up, imprisoned, tortured and summarily executed into a haven, a recruiting ground and a training camp for these mujahideen Jihadis.
They are now flooding into Iraq from every corner of the world, including the US, and Europe for real time, real world, hands on On the Job Training, and the call from the Imams in the Mosques from Orange County California to Leeds England is aided and abetted every day that Americans and Brits waste their blood and money in that ungrateful land.
Unlike wasps and hornets, which can be attacked by spraying and killing the nest and queen, an attack on a hive of mujahideen does nothing but send them far afield to set up and start new hives. Kick a hive of Jihadis and unless you catch and kill them all (kill them, not imprison them) they will create more hives, almost as many hives as their were survivors.
You can't decapitate the movement by killing Zarqawi or Bin Laden, because you can't kill an idea a movement, especially one grounded in religion.
The ideology of Islam is, as Robert and Hugh have stated, the problem, now how can you defeat such an ideology by force of arms and occupation? You can't, you can starve it to death though, and the only way to do that is as Hugh says, stop buying their oil, and exclude them from entry into the US and Europe, and stop giving them a voice and representation in the Government, the White HOuse and all of it's Departments (there are you know Muslim Imam's in every major department from Agriculture to Defense.. all under the umbrage of Bush's faith based iniatives.
Muslim Imam's funded by your taxes in Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, and Veterans Affairs; the U.S. Agency for International Development.; and the Small Business Administration, not to mention Federal Prisons and DoD via the Chaplaincy program.
Source: "http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/"
The White House released a guidebook fully describing the Administration's belief that faith-based groups have a Constitutionally-protected right to maintain their religious identity through hiring -- even when Federal funds are involved. Which of course includes Muslims.
The Roman Empire couldn't kill Christianity by feeding them to the lions or using them as torches . Islamist terrorism can't be fought with bullets and bombs, or killing a mujahideen here or there, or raiding Tel Afar, or Ramadi or Falluja (in fact the moment our troops leave, the Jihadis move back in, and from what I hear the problem is that these "insurgents" are given advance warnings of raids by Iraqi intelligence and National Guard, just like the Viet Cong were forewarned by double agents in the Viet Namese army prior to operations, yet we can't go into an area without warning the Iraqi's, nor can we attack a town without warning the inhabitants..it's not the way to fight a war and it is not a war that can be won.
Cornelius, you say that it is possible that Sunni jihadists could create a base of support if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq. As opposed to, say, now, while the U.S. forces are still in Iraq? They already operate with near impunity in Sunni areas.
If the U.S. withdraws, I would hope that our immigration policies would reflect the potential danger from Iraqi (and Saudi and Syrian and Egpytian and Iranian and ....) immigrants. If they stay in Iraq, and if the Sunni's and Shi'ites want to spend their days and nights knifing and shooting and exploding each other, well, is that really any of our business? It's time for the Iraqi citizens to decide which side they are on: the extremists who want to behead women who show their face in public, or the moderates who want to hang women who show their face in public. It's their battle.
The real question is, how does the U.S. behave in a world that contains many regions (in the Middle East, in Asia, and in Africa) in which Islamic jihadists can create bases of operation? Hugh and others have offered suggested answers to this question many times here in the past. It is not a theoretical question to be answered after some future U.S. withdrawal, it is a practical question that needs to be answered immediately (and I don't see those answers coming from the current Administration). But to expend all of our energy and capital in Iraq just to see the eventual installment of a sharia-based government that runs on tribal loyalties is a misallocation of our resources. They already have their bases of operation in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Indonesia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc.; what is our response?
special_guest, you have made my evening.
Special guest, the jihadis in the Sunni heartland are hardly operating "with impunity." In fact, they're in a fight for their lives.
I just don't happen to believe in letting them off the hook and giving them run of the place.
Yes, we go in with flash and furious clouds of dust and kill the few jihadists who don't retreat to their hideouts quickly enough. And then we withdraw and then they return and it goes on and on. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But there is a curious and dangerous myopia in the Administration. The jihadists are "off the hook" and they do "have the run of the place", in all of the places I mentioned and more. But instead of distributing our resources in all of those strongholds, we instead focus ALL of them in Iraq. Is it national pride? Is it the Light Unto the Nations theory? Is it the Domino theory? Suppose your advice is followed and we continue fighting for eternity in Iraq. Meanwhile, in Pakistan the jihadists are training happily away. As our ally, we would have no reason to restrict immigrants from Pakistan, now would we? Let go of the battle in Iraq, in order to win the larger war.
Guest,
I'm not talking about an eternity. I'm talking about staying long enough so that when we withdraw, the vaccuum will be filled by the Iraqi security forces and not 'Al Qaeda in Iraq.'
That might be a year, maybe 2 or 3, possibly more. But progress is being made and this is undeniable. The jihadis have NOT returned to Fallujah or Tal Afar as you suggest...at least not in numbers that would allow them to regain control.
As for the other theatres you mentioned, some are more problematic than others. As duplicitous as the Saudis are, no one can deny they are killing and/or capturing members of Al Qaeda on their soil. The same can easily be said of Pakistan.
The governments of Thailand and the Philippines are squarely on our side in this war. Yemen and Indonesia are less committed, but neither government is actively facilitating jihad. Somalia is a failed state, complicating our efforts and requiring special attention (inexplicably, Hugh has no problem with the prospect of Al Qaeda gaining a foothold there).
And the same arguments being advanced here for withdrawing from Iraq apply to Afghanistan. Should we walk away from that country and let the Taliban recapture power and resume their reign of terror? Should we let Al Qaeda, so significantly degraded right now, re-establish its bases there?
You people want a panacea. There aint one. It is a long-term geo-political struggle.
Iraq is today the principle theatre for conflict with the jihadis. You folks are ready to conceed. I'm not.
"I'm not talking about an eternity. I'm talking about staying long enough so that when we withdraw, the vaccuum will be filled by the Iraqi security forces and not 'Al Qaeda in Iraq.'
"That might be a year, maybe 2 or 3, possibly more. But progress is being made and this is undeniable. The jihadis have NOT returned to Fallujah or Tal Afar as you suggest."
-- from a posting above
The poster above refuses to listen clearly to the pellucid objections raised by the poster (Special_Guest) and others to a continued misallocation of resources to the single theatre of Iraq, and resources not merely misallocated in the sense that there is a much better use for them in many other places, and put to many other uses (those nuclear plants, those solar energy collectors put on buildings all over the United States -- a WPA that cannot be outsourced, for installation needs to be done here, on the spot), but still worse, resources that are being applied to exactly the wrong goal.
That goal is one of creating a viable, harmonious, stable nation-state called Iraq. It will undoubtedly be under Shi'a rule. It will undoubtedly contain permanently discontented Sunnis. Why would anyone in his right mind believe that, even if such a state were to come into existence, it could conceivably serve as a model for Sunni Arab states, the very states whose rulers and majority Sunnis did not care one whit what Saddam Hussein did to the Shi'a, and some of whom share the Saudi view that the Shi'a are simply Infidels, "Rafidite dogs" who deserve death. Iraq the Model, or Iraq the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations conceivable given that immutable reality? But what's reality when nice Iraqis, smiling Iraqis, Iraqis in exile, Chalabi and Rend al-Rahim (Francke), and Kanan Makiya, and even that Lebanese Shi'a (undevout but still unwilling to declare himself a non-Muslim; he's sticking with whatever he's decided to be -- a "cultural Muslim" who cannot bring himself, cannot dare (his usefulness, his entree, perhaps even his life, would be over), to declare himself a non-believer.
So the "vacuum" will be filled, once we leave -- as if the American forces simply cover the waterfront, or the desert front, with troops everywhere. As if there weren't a vacuum here, there, and everythere that a bomber manages to get through -- and bombers will always manage to get through. As if, even if every single last "Jihadi" in Anbar Province were killed, the Jihadi ranks are not endlessly replenishable, but of course they are, from here and there and everywhere that Muslims are to be found, around the world.
If it is insisted that there will be a "vacuum" when the Americans leave, this presupposes that there is no "vacuum" now. We are supposed to believe that there is some all-powerful control, by either the American or "Iraqi" government forces, or both working together, but there isn't. Not in the Sunni areas, and not in the Shi'a areas. There are local groups, bandits and terrorists, who do what they feel like. Some are caught. Some are killed. Some are foiled before they act. But many are not. Is there not already a "vacuum" in Basra now, where the local forces of Moqtada al-Sadr and various Shi'a groups have infiltrated the local police, and been enforcing Shari'a rules (on women, on Christians) -- or as long as someone, anyone, is exercisinig power, even if it is the militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, that is okay? And will suddenly those local militia be less, or more powerful, when the Americans leave -- the Americans who haven't been patrolling or present in Basra at all since the invasion itself? And what about Baghdad -- is that a city firmly under control, peaceful, and the "vacuum" that is meant to describe the absence of a single authority, a state with a monopoly on violence, only to appear once the Americans leave -- or is that failure for the
Iraqi state to possess a monopoly on violence not merely a reflection of the sectarian and ethnic hostilities and hatreds, and the resultant militias that reflect those sectarian and ethnic divisions?
What does it mean to write about how the Americans need to wait until the "Iraqi" army is ready? What does that mean? Yes, I know General Petraeus has done what he could to train "Iraqi" troops -- but were they, could they, ever be "Iraqi" troops? Or were they not, despite the best and quixotic and self-defeating efforts of the American officers and men, really Iraqi Shi'a troops, or Iraqi Kurdish troops, or even Iraqi Sunni troops? And even the trial of Saddam Huseein, which no doubt the Americans thought would unite Iraqis, and make them grateful to the Americans as they were reminded, so graphically, of what they had been rescued from, in fact simply be one more exmaple of two entirely different views of who should rule Iraq, with a great many Sunnis, even those who detested Saddam, how rallying around him as a symbol of security, and their own rightful, now lost, place in the Iraqi sun?
When someone writes about the Americans leaving and the "Iraqi" army taking over, one knows the person doing the writing lives in cloud-cuckoo land, hallucinating like the Grand Hallucinator in Washington.
And what about the charge, by the same poster, that those who disagree with him, and argue that the most intelligent thing is to leave Iraq just as soon as that December election is over, whatever happens, that such people are offering a "panacesa." What panacea can he possibly be referring to? No one has argued that a panacea exists to deal with the many and varied instruments of Jihad, including those of Da'wa and dmeographic conquest, which are hard for people to take seriously, or to serously propose measures that would constraint, and reverse, the successful use of either or both. Many at JW have come to realize or always realized, that there was more to be gained from instability and internal strife, sectarian and ethnic, within Iraq, than there was from spending another year, and then another, and then possibly another (using the poster's predictions) in order to obtain the very opposite of what would, from the Infidel point of view (not the point of view of Muslims, not even the point of view of nice, plausible, mostly-on-our-side-but-in-the-end-unable-to-recognize-the-need-to-divide-and-demoralize-Islam Muslims, such as Fouad Ajami) be most desirable: an independent Kurdistan, as a permanently unsettling actor, threatening to Iran and Syria (with Turkey protected from Kurdish demands by American guarantees, so long as Turkey behaves itself), and the Sunnis and Shi'a locked in endless hostlity and warfare, with men and money replenished from outside Shi'a and Sunni states. may it continue forever, while America turns its attention to Da'wa and demographic conquest in Western Europe, black Africa, East Asia, and even within North America.
Hugh,
Basically a rehash of all your previously stated arguments.
You write: "Why would anyone in his right mind believe that, even if such a state were to come into existence, it could conceivably serve as a model for Sunni Arab states..."
This is an example of the blinders that afflict many students of Islam who over-accentuate sectarian differences in the Muslim world. Was not the Islamic Revolution in Shia Iran a source of inspiration for many extremists in the Sunni Muslim world? Has not Shia Iran cooperated with Al Qaeda, to the point of harboring many of their second-tier leadership? Is not Shia Hezbollah now assisting the Sunni jihadis of Hamas?
Of course a successful Democratic polity in Iraq will significantly influence thinking throughout the Muslim world....Sunni and Shia alike.
A unitary, federal Iraq linked to the West is in my mind the best means to:
a) prevent Iran from gaining control over the Shia south
b) prevent a radical Sunni state from forming in and around Anbar province
c) maintain the peaceful autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan
d) provide an example for Democratic possibility throughout the Arab world
Rome wasn't built in a day. The progress in Iraq has been pretty remarkable, considering we started from scratch. We have 80% of the country signed on. Iraq won't be the 'light of the world.' Just a functional Democracy, warts and all.
PS - You were right. The 'panacea' comment was unwarrented.
As far as I am concerned, we (USA) have already lost the war in Iraq. What else can one call the shameful acquiescence of our government to an Iraqi Constitution that declares Islam the official religion of the State against and that no law is allowed that contradicts the tenets of Islam.
Cornelius:
You should check out thehitchensweb.com for the URL to Hitchens's recent Slate article, "Sunni from Shinolo" re: the oversimplification of the ethnic/sectarian divides in Iraq.
Thanks Waterdragon,
It turns out I'd read it already...but the validation is appreciated.
I don’t have a battle plan and I’m skeptical of nation-building especially in a country requiring a cultural transformation. And I certainly wouldn’t have picked this place and manner to confront the jihadists. But changing the battle plan requires understanding the war. That education, of which Jihad Watch is a lead player, is a tremendous task.
At present the debate on the war is overwhelmed by those with a different view of Islam and foreign affairs. Without the prerequisite understanding of Islam and its growing influence through out the Islamic world, how will anyone understand the optimal path of action?
There is some skepticism by conservatives of "cultural engineering" from general considerations. However, there is still a failure to appreciate the vast difference between Islam and the West as conservatives, 50 years ago, saw a vast difference between Communism and America. And the far left, in its multi-cultural quagmire, is hopeless.
As our leaders proceed as if Islam is benign, success will be limited at best and problems will get worse. It’s at this point that people will seek an alternative viewpoint. It’s important to lay the groundwork for that process. The left is trying to do that by blaming the West for all the problems and hoping when the worse happens to take the credit for an explanation. The alternative is to explain the cultural inadequacies in Islamic countries and the role that Islam plays in creating, sustaining, and furthering the problem. It’s this intellectual battle that needs to be brought center stage in the national debate.
Currently few are doing this. I saw a headline in a conservative magazine saying it was racist to question whether Islam is compatible with democracy. Yet, this should be the question. We should be asking if Iraqis are worthy of our efforts. Will they succeed? Do they have what it takes? Is it Islam that is holding them back or other factors in Arab culture? The onus should be on the Iraqi people. We’ve been more than generous and we should take that for granted.
Too many conservatives are wasting their time fighting anti-Americanism and ineffectively at that. They are defending the administration against the charge that "they lost the peace" as if Iraqis have nothing to do with it. This, of course, is just one example. Not once do conservatives ask: are these people worthy of our generosity? Do they have what it takes to join the fight for civilization? Is their culture and religion a poor foundation for hope? Are Muslims failing?
The focus of the current debate is all wrong (in the mainstream venues.) The growing jihadist movement will not awaken Americans if the proper ground work isn’t set. It will only demoralize us – as the left wants. It’s time to reverse the terms of the debate and that will require an intellectual assault of the driving force behind the enemy: Islam.