Stoopid Stuff

Anbar-ing Something Unforseen...

The surge worked, right? John McCain says Iraq is "stable and peaceful" The American military turned operational control in bloody Anbar province over to the Iraqi government today. Everything is going just swimmingly over there, huh?

Not so fast. You'll never learn it from the American media, but Iraq is unraveling faster than Rivers Cuomo's sweater. And there is a certain ennui among the American military leadership, anticipating an Obama administration implementing an orderly withdrawal of American troops. So planning is more short-term, more defensive. Sure, as John Kerry so famously said, nobody wants to be the last man to die for a mistake, but even more than that, nobody wants to die when the whole thing is winding down.

First, Anbar. When the Iraqis were rushed from the battlefield to the ballot box (remember all those purple fingers?), the Sunni dominated provinces boycotted the election, as they could see clearly that there was nothing in the system to provide them with representation. When you have a clear majority, as the Shiite parties did, you don't need to compromise, to offer concessions. You can ignore your opposition, crush them in legitimate voting, and strip them of power and influence. This has long been known as the "tyranny of the majority", and one of the major tenants of democracy has been to find a way to give genuine voice to minority parties. There was no thought of that in George Bush's brave new Iraq.

So now you have a weird condition in Anbar Province. The population is overwhelmingly Sunni, but the political representation at the provincial level is Shia. As is the national government. As a result of the political outcome, along with a radically unfair de-baathification program, a very competent and bloody insurgency developed in Anbar, the heart of the "Sunni Triangle". For a couple years, American Marines fought them to a standstill, taking heavy casualties along the way. Eventually, somebody wised up. A case was made that the foreign Salafi Jihadists that came to the Sunni provinces did not respect either Iraqis nor Iraqi nationalism. Many of the former Iraqi Army and Baathist insurgents were hired to effectively switch sides, and defend the existing political status of the province against the hate and extremism. It was a good deal. For the first time since the fall of the Hussein government, they could support their families and build stable neighborhoods.

Now, of course, there are cracks in the happy tale. There was never any love between the Sunni "Awakening Councils" and the Shi'a provincial government. The government made no bones about the fact that they felt they should have the typical "monopoly on the use of force" that governments are entitled to. The Councils, on the other hand, distrust the intentions of the Provincial government, and expect to have to fight the Shiites after America leaves.

Well, America is starting to leave. al Maliki is supposed to take over the payments to the Council fighters next month. It's pretty clear that's not going to happen. The Iraqi Defense Forces in Anbar want the Sunni fighters to surrender their weapons. The Councils want to to be absorbed into the Defense Forces. Maliki cannot allow that.

Along with the wide open Kirkuk question, the tensions between Kurds and Arabs in the north and the various Shiite factions in the south, this is much less a country than a cauldron. Close to full boil, the rules have to be fundamentally changed before any real stability can be found.

I don't know if he knows it or not, but Obama's right. These issues have to be brought to a head and RESOLVED before there can be any hope of Iraq becoming a functioning nation. As long as they are hanging, open ended threats and challenges, unaddressed like an untreated cancer, Iraq will be dependent upon a third party to keep the factions apart.

Sadly, the factions cannot be resolved from "apart". Once these basic, fundamental issues upon which Iraqi sovereignty depends are resolved, then there will be an opportunity for whatever the final version of Iraq looks like to bring home her refugees, provide services to her people and move out of the stasis she finds herself in.

Of course, she will, for the foreseeable future, be an ally and friend of Iran, and another oil-rich autocracy. But this is one of the things that MUST happen if we are to get beyond killing as a solution to economic and ethnic problems...

posted by mikey @ 5:04 PM