Iraq—Searching for the Real Story, Volume 4 – What Have I Learned?

For better or worse, the next President will inherit the mess of the ongoing occupation of Iraq. In this volume, I look at what I have learned and what the Administration should have learned.

What Have I Learned?
This should be titled “what have we learned” but I fear that the Bush Administration, the Republican and Democratic Party Platforms, and a vast number of Americans have not learned much for these years of US occupation in Iraq. The politicians still view events through the strong lens of partisan policy. Americans are tired of the endless war and clearly interest is waning.

So here are my conclusions. I believe these are the realities that the next President must come to grips with to work towards the goal of eventual US withdrawal.

• We can’t trust the Bush administration to learn from experience – they are guided only by neo-conservative think tank theory with no need to understand any details of the Iraqi people, particularly the objectives of the constituent factions.
  
  
• Though unjustified, ill-conceived and poorly executed, the invasion/occupation did achieve two objectives aligned with Bush Administration policy (but don’t expect the Administration to be as frank as I will be about this):
  
  1) The extremist terrorists function as alpha male primates. The lack of any retaliation would be interpreted as weakness. Direct retaliation against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was needed. The invasion of Iraq (though it was unjustified) can be seen as another retaliation in the testosterone-based dance to establish dominance among alpha male primates.
  
  2) The placement of American troupes in the Middle East acts as a lightning rod – saving would-be extremist terrorists the cost of air fare as they only need travel to Iraq for the opportunity to kill Americans.
  
  In these 2 aspects, there may have been some reduction in the possibility of terrorists attacks against the US homeland.
  
  
  
• On the other hand, the invasion/occupation was one of the greatest recruiting tools for anti-American terrorist groups.
  
  
• The invasion/occupation has greatly benefited Shia Iran, deposing a hated enemy, replacing a hostile Sunni regime with a more desirable Shia majority government, while pacifying the Kurds who are generally happy with the invasion/occupation.
  
  
• The Bush Administration chose Iraq because it was the weakest nation to invade and there was and remains a high level of pro-American feelings in the general population.
  
  
• The terms “enemy” and “victory” cannot be easily defined as it was in the wars of old, fought by nation-state against nation state. Factions and militias change alliances from time to time. One month, they are firing on US troupes, the next they are aligned in the fight against a common enemy.
  
  
• The violence in Iraq is at times closer to the gang violence of LA: in the post-Saddam era, rival factions are positioning for the issues are turf and creating a new pecking order. Even attacks on US troupes may be less about hatred of Americans and more about self-boosting.
  
  
• Success (i.e., the lessening of violence) in Iraq requires the constructive engagement of the major factions and militia.
  
  
• The non-indigenous “al-Qaeda in Iraq” is an oppressor of the Iraqi people and is opposed by most factions.
  
  
• Most Iraqis want the US to withdraw, sooner than later.
  
  
• Democracy, at least as we understand it in the US, is not the “magic potion” to unite Iraq.
  
  
• Despite the violence of the last 4 years, the Sunni and Shia in Iraq generally don’t hate each other. During the iron rule of Saddam Hussein, many Sunni were close friends of Shia and vice versa. The opening of Pandora’s Box resulted in a power vacuum which was filled by violent power struggles among militias and factions.
  
  
• There is hope.

Where Do We Go From Here?
To be continued……………..

Iraq—Searching for the Real Story, Volume 3 – Where We Are Now

For better or worse, the next President will inherit the mess of the ongoing occupation of Iraq. In this volume, I provide an overview of post-invasion events, particularly consideration of the so-call "surge" of 2007.

Act 1: Water under the Bridge
That we’re stuck in Iraq is water under the bridge. Though the invasion was ill-conceived and poorly executed, we simply can’t leave precipitously, without re-plunging the nation again into chaos. Like the stabbing victim, quickly removing the knife is not a good remedy.

And we owe some effort to rebuilding the damage to Iraq’s infrastructure, not only of military operations, but from the near civil war that has ensued.

Act 2: The So-Called “Surge” Of 2007 and Why It Appears To Have Worked
The success of the 2007 troupe surge is evidence of the occupation was insufficient in size for the job. For 4 years, chaos approaching near civil war prevailed. A greater force, more multi-national in composition, was needed from day one.

But not only increased troupe strength lead to a reduction of violence. Three other factors were identified by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in The War Within: A Secret White House History (2006-2008).

1. Targeting key individuals in insurgency groups
2. Sunni militias switched their target from US troupes to the so-called “al-Qaeda in Iraq”
3. A cease fire by Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army

These operations diffused the insurgency on three major fronts. This made it not only safer for US troupes, but also for Iraqi civilians. Getting the minority Sunni militias, who were not happy with the Shia-led government in Baghdad, to focus their efforts on the foreign forces of al-Qaeda in Iraq (fellow Sunnis) was a particular coup. But these efforts cannot be underestimated.

Woodward writes as follows:

“Beginning in the late spring of 2007, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of top-secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government.”

“A second important factor in the lessening of violence was the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had made a strategic mistake in the province, overplaying its hand. Its members had performed forced marriages with women from local tribes, taken over hospitals, used mosques for beheading operations, mortared playgrounds and executed citizens, leaving headless bodies with signs that read, "Don't remove this body or the same thing will happen to you." The sheer brutality eroded much of the local support for al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

“A third significant break came Aug. 29, when militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his powerful Mahdi Army to suspend operations, including attacks against U.S. troops. Petraeus and others knew it was not an act of charity. The order followed a gunfight between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces in the holy city of Karbala, during which more than 50 Shia pilgrims gathering for an annual festival had been killed and another 275 wounded. Sadr's order marked an unexpected stroke of good luck, another in a series for the Americans.”

[All quotes from Woodward’s The War Within: A Secret White House History (2006-2008).]

So What Have I Learned?
To be continued.

Iraq—Searching for the Real Story, Volume 2 – Prelude to Invasion

For better or worse, the next President will inherit the mess of the ongoing occupation of Iraq. In the 3rd volume, I will look ahead to what the new President should do. But for this posting, I look back briefly at how we got into the mess.

When historians look back at the 2003 invasion of Iraq, they may better document why US policy took a complete reversal over the course of 20 years. For this look-back, I’ve chosen to focus on the one man who was in the lead for implementing the 1983 courting of Saddam Hussein (with gifts of weapons and advice) and then 20 years later lead the charge to demonize him and topple his regime.

Act 1: Rumsfeld in Iraq (1983-1984)
One of the strangest back-stories preceding the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq is the apparent 180 turnaround by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Near the end of the first term of President Ronald Reagan, Rumsfeld served as Special Envoy to the Middle East. In this roll, Rumsfeld provided military hardware and advice to Iraq during its war with Iran. Essentially, he was sent to befriend the regime of Saddam Hussein, at the very time Iraq was using its chemical weapons against the Kurds.

Now, in the context of that point in time, Islamic clerics had been in control of Iran since 1980, when the US Embassy in Tehran was occupied. US policy aimed to hold back the expansion of Iran’s brand of revolutionary Islamic influence in the Middle East. Therefore, befriending the secular, though totalitarian, regime in Iraq was considered an effective countermeasure.

Act 2: Rumsfeld as Architect of the Iraq Invasion (2001-2003)
Rumsfeld’s interest in invading Iraq dates to the afternoon of September 11, 2001, when he put forth the idea of “hitting” both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He made many public statements emphasizing Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, he knew of the chemical weapons that Iraq used in the 1980s. But why did the Special Embassy, who prided himself on normalizing US relations with Iraq in 1984, now advocate the overflow of the regime he courted?

The Bush regime pounded the war drum on Iraq, emphasizing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the regime’s crimes against its own peoples, a possible link to Al Qaeda, and generally portraying Saddam as the boggy man.

Postlude: What Went Wrong?
The pendulum of Rumsfeld’s advocacy wrought damage both in the US and Iraq at each apex of its swing:

1983:

• US support uplifts Saddam Hussein at the very time he was gassing the Kurds.
• This only tightened the repressive regime’s control over Iraqis.
• Is this one of the beginnings of a pattern of US administrations ignoring international human rights standards?
• The pattern of US support for repressive Middle Eastern regimes is cited by militants and terrorists as part of their hatred of the US.

The Iraqis were damaged by the tightening grip of Hussein, while the US was damaged by being known as a supporter of repressive regimes.

2003:

• No WMD found.
• No connection between Hussein and Al Qaeda.
• Invasion forces were inadequate in number for the subsequent occupation.
• After Pandora’s Box was opened, civil order disintegrated in the absence of the iron fist rule of Hussein.
• The planners of the occupation had little understanding of the cultures and complex relationships among the majority Shiites, the minority Sunni, and the Kurds in the north.

The Iraqis were damaged by the years of chaos and unrest wrought by the invasion. The US reputation was damaged by the unsanctioned near-unilateral invasion of a sovereign nation, followed by the twin albatrosses of the occupation and mounting death of servicemen and women.

What Next?

We can't go back in time to undo the invasion. The next President must take over where the Bush administration leaves things. What to do?

To be continued.........................