Iraq's direction, and the Muslim world

The past several months have been interesting - and the next few days will be critical. Just as the United States has inaugurated its new President, so too will Iraqis be choosing their leadership at the provincial level tomorrow. The outcome of these elections, which were originally supposed to take place in October, will be key in making a number of important assessments about Iraq's social and political climate, the demographics of its regime and what direction it will take with its policies, both internally and externally.

SURGEMANIA

Things have gotten better in Iraq since 2006. That's not to say that they're splendid, or even that they're going well. As I'm typing this, I've just read that several Sunni Arabs have been killed so that they will not be able to run in the provincial elections. Stories like that one have not stopped coming out of Iraq at any point since 2003, nor will they any time soon. However, the nadir which the country reached in late 2006 - when some 3,000 civilians a month, according to the Iraq Study Group Report (and, in reality, the number could have been much higher), were being butchered - has passed - and anyone worth a damn should be glad that that's the case. Unfortunately, too many pundits, especially those on the right who have been mouthpieces for the Bush administration's war throughout all of its phases, want to create the impression that a situation going from worse to bad indicates that the underlying problem is being solved, or that those who were responsible for letting shit hit the fan in the first place deserve credit for others cleaning it up. The media, which feeds off of the fact that most American citizens only care about casualties (and realistically, only about American casualties) has been enabling them. Take, for instance, our old friend engram, who continues to astound with his consummately thorough analysis of the situation in Iraq:

With the war in Iraq essentially over (not because we abandoned our allies there to the wolves of al Qaeda but instead because the U.S. military defeated its enemies -- as history will undoubtedly record)

In his mind, and in the minds of most who buy into the John Wayne mentality that throwing more soldiers at Iraq "fixed" the problem, Iraq has been "dealt with" and is now off the table. They think that it's time to declare "victory" in Iraq. There is no room in their black and white logic for any kind of complicating social or political factors to enter the equation, regardless of whether or not they're necessary components. So prevalent has this "surge' narrative become, that even Obama himself, who opposed the surge initially, later "admitted" that it had worked. The cheerleading crowd, such as those at Gateway Pundit, gobbled that up like honey. Similarly inconceivable to them is the notion that Obama was actually correct initially, and that his reversal of position maybe - just maybe - had something to do with telling people what they wanted to hear so that he could get their votes. What a concept!

There's just one problem with the crowd who are pushing the "surge" narrative on the rest of us: almost none of them are Iraqis.

Defense Department: “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” October 2008

Some extracted figures from the research, courtesy of Musings on Iraq:

• 37% said the Iraqi Army was most responsible for security in their neighborhood, compared to 35% in Aug. 08, and 25% in Nov. 07
• 36% said the police were most responsible for security in their neighborhood, down from 38% in Aug. 08 and 43% in Nov. 07
• 7% said tribes were most responsible for security, up from 5% in Aug. 08
• 6% said the Sons of Iraq were most responsible for security, down from 7% in Aug. 08, but up from 2% in Nov. 07
• 3% said neighbors were most responsible for security, the same as Aug. 08
• 2% said the Multi-National Forces were most responsible for security, down from 3% in Aug. 08

As the polling data shows, the people who actually live in Iraq don't fit into the "surge" narrative that has become so dominate to western commentators at all. In fact, in a March 2008 BBC poll, the majority of Iraqis polled actually thought that the addition of foreign troops made things worse, not better (though the trend was not a new one):

Security in the areas where these forces have been sent
Better 36
Worse 53
Had No Effect 10

The polls do show that Iraqis are seeing general improvements in their overall security, that they are feeling more confident in the Iraqi Army, and, to a lesser extent, the Iraqi Police. Almost none of them, however, credit the decision to send more troops with these changes. So who should we believe: them, or right-wing ideologues who have been wrong on so many things?

The answer, of course, lies in the details - but rest assured that half-assed partisan rhetoric about the US "defeating its enemies" doesn't add anything to the picture.

SITTING DOWN

Praised by the supporters of this war - and even many who oppose it - for his role in "fixing" Iraq, David Petraeus is riding high right now. He was selected as TIME magazine's Person of the Year in 2007 and is practically drooled on by the surgemaniacs whenever his name is mentioned.

In an interview with NPR, here is what Petraeus - the man who the talkings heads on both the left and right are patting on the back for his part in the surge - had to say about its actual mechanics:

MR. CHADWICK: No one could look at the results of what’s happened and not say, this has been well managed, just in terms of the numbers that you cite from last June: 60 percent reduction in attacks. But you yourself must wonder, how loyal are these people to the ideas that we’re trying to implant there? How long do you think you can count on these people once the Americans are gone?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, as long as it is in their interest. And what has happened in a place like Anbar Province, the individuals there, they really did have an awakening. You know, they don’t subscribe to that kind of extremist thinking and they absolutely rejected the indiscriminate violence which actually began to consume their own communities. Now, I don’t want to make this sound like sweetness and light because, first of all, intellectually, this is very difficult for us. I mean, this is to sit down with people who, again, were shooting at us. But that is how you end these kinds of conflicts. You don’t end them by killing everybody. You can’t. You cannot kill your way out of an insurgency of this size. But, clearly, over time, they have to see a hand being stretched out from the central government so that it is again in their interest, so that they feel that they have a seat at the table.

Basically, Petraeus is saying what intelligent people who understand the politics of Iraq were saying for years: that you have to deal with insurgencies like the one that the US created in Iraq through political means, not brute military force. Obviously Petraeus was a proponent of sending additional troops - but he understands that the main factor in affecting the change of conditions in Iraq was a diplomatic effort, not a military one. He discusses Anbar province specifically in the interview - which is where the Awakening movement that actually ousted al-Qaeda in Iraq (which was mostly native Sunnis in the first place and not foreign fighters) originated - and yet, of the 25,000 soldiers sent as part of the surge, only 4,000 of them actually went to Anbar Province:

Bush’s 2007 “surge strategy” sent 4,000 additional U.S. Marines to Anbar to support Iraqi security forces and the “Sons of Iraq” -- a group of area residents, including former Sunni insurgents.

The Sons of Iraq, of course, are separate from the Anbar Awakening movement. The Anbar Awakening movement was an organic, locally-grown effort on the part of Sunni tribal leaders to reassert influence over their own affairs; the Sons of Iraq is a paramilitary organization that was bankrolled by the United States. Baghdad is more than happy to let the Sunnis deal with their own problems in Anbar Province - but the central government is another mater. Since the Bush administration and its Coalition Provisional Authority conveniently de-Ba'athified that for them - probably the stupidest decision imaginable at the time - the Shi'ite majority now controls it, and, quite frankly, does not intend to let go of it. Most of the Sons of Iraq themselves already know this:

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been suspicious that the Sons of Iraq is a ploy by Sunni insurgents to gain time and money to regroup.

...

But in the audience, two local Sons of Iraq leaders were skeptical.

"This is all just false talk, empty talk. There is no reconciliation," said Abu Ali, complaining that both he and colleague Abu Taleb had arrest warrants for terrorism hanging over their heads. They were concerned the warrants would be executed now that Iraqi authorities were taking over.

With the US having halted its funding for the SOI, or CLC, or whatever name one chooses to assign them - it will now fall on a Shi'ite-dominated Baghdad to fund them and integrate them, and they don't seem very enthusiastic about doing so. The current agreement is that 20% of the militias will be integrated - far less than the US would have preferred - and how effectively they will be integrated and to what end remains to be seen (note that Shi'ite militias have been integrated into the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police en masse for years now, despite records of criminal activities that those within the ISF often perpetrated).

The point is this: the progress made in Anbar province and with the Sunnis in general is localized and something that shouldn't have required three years of bullshit policies to come to fruition. Al-Qaeda wasn't the problem there - they're an ideologically incompatible third party who exploited Washington and Baghdad's poor relations with the Sunnis - which was the real problem - for all that it was worth. It's got nothing to do with reconciliation with Baghdad - and it's not owed to whoever stuck their finger in the air in 2006 and said "more troops!"It's owed to a change in general strategy made by informed people like David Petraeus, General Surge:

Petraeus was the only US general I met at this time who had a grasp of Iraqi politics and saw that what Iraqis thought was happening would be very important. He kept the Iraqi exiles, the opposition during Saddam Hussein's time, out of Mosul where they were deeply unpopular. He sent the Kurdish units which had captured the city, thanks to US air cover in April 2003, back to Kurdistan, a popular move among the Arabs. When he was leaving in early 2004, I asked him what was his single most important piece of advice for his successor. He said, after reflection, that it was "not to align too closely with one ethnic group, political party, tribe, religious group or social element".

This sounded good, but it was never going to work as a policy because if the US was wholly neutral in the sectarian politics in Iraq it would end up with no friends. The Kurds were the main allies of the US in northern Iraq and were furious when their military forces were pushed out of the city.

Petraeus tried hard. Based in an old palace of Saddam Hussein's, he tried to keep economic life going and ensure adequate food and fuel supplies. To evade the self-destructive decree by Paul Bremer against employing Baathists, he arranged for former Baathist security officers to renounce the Baath Party and all its works. When the 20,000 men of the 101st withdrew, they had lost only 60 men from hostile fire and accidents over 10 months.

The same counsel and prudence was shared by counterterrorism experts, regional or international experts and many others who had been calling for this more intelligent approach to ethnic/sectarian heterogeneity for years. The war cheerleading crowd, who now tout the surge as the ultimate cure for all of Iraq's ailments, just weren't listening. Just like how:

They didn't listen to the informed opinions when they were told that Saddam did not pose an imminent threat and that containment was working.

They didn't listen to the informed opinions when they were told that invading Iraq in the hopes that it would become a flowering democracy was a bad idea that would end up sending fundamentalism and regional instability through the roof.

They didn't listen to the informed opinions when they were told that the US military wasn't nearly well enough prepared for the task that was being handed to it.

They didn't listen to the informed opinions when the CPA instituted de-Ba'athification and disbanded the Iraqi military.

They didn't listen to the informed opinions when they were told that their policies of alienating Sunnis were leading to things like the events at Abu Ghraib that were feeding the insurgency.

They didn't listen to the informed opinions prior to late 2006 when told that they needed a change in policy.

They aren't listening to the informed opinions now when it comes to dealing with Iran or with the simple ground truths of Iraqi political reconciliation.

Only when voters' dissatisfaction over casualty numbers lead to the GOP getting its ass handed to it in 2006 did they start listening - and only on the things that directly concerned them.

Now, they don't want to acknowledge what the "surge" was actually about, and want to take credit for having had the insight needed to "fix" Iraq.

Disgraceful.

ELECTING A NEW IRAQ

A recent government poll showed something that I never thought I would see:

Gulf Times: Maliki allies on course to win elections: survey

BAGHDAD: Candidates affiliated with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are set to defeat the rival Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq in January 31 provincial elections, according to a poll published yesterday.
The Coalition for the State of Law led by Maliki, a Shia, will win 23% of votes, ahead of the secular National Iraqi list headed by former premier Iyad Allawi, which will get 12.6%, the survey predicted.
The poll was conducted among 4,500 Iraqis across the country by the Centre for National Media, a government organisation.
The big loser in the elections will be the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq led by Abdel Aziz Hakim, which will take third place with 11.4% of votes, according to yesterday’s poll.
Hakim’s party currently controls eight of Iraq’s 18 provinces, 11 of which have a Shia majority.
The list of another former prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, will take 11.3% of votes, according to the poll.

Two years ago, the numbers would have been (and were) far, far different. However, over the past year, Nouri al-Maliki has surpassed my expectations and managed to sell himself to the Iraqi people as some kind of nationalist. Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shi'ite cleric who has headed a very turbulent movement for years now, finally had the majority of his support taken away from him when Maliki did what others who had tried to deal with Sadr could not: convince Iraqis that he was going to do a better job of looking after their interests than Sadr was. Now, Sadr's movement is down to its core followers and is latching onto other Shia parties, while most of his ex-followers are rallying behind Maliki to see what he can do for them. The result is that Maliki now has unprecedented sway both in terms of political power and recognition from various social classes in Iraq (among Shia anyway). Assuming the polling data is accurate, this raises several questions:

How will Maliki choose to use his power, given that he has extensive control of both political institutions and the military? Will he use it to quelch opposition and consolidate more power for himself?

Will Da'wa (Maliki's party) and the SIIC, the largest of the Shia parties, become obfuscated as a result?

Where does al-Sadr fit into all of this? Will he find the means with which to maintain a foothold with poor Iraqis who view Maliki as alien and socially distant, or will he have to slip into obscurity as his followers mix in with other Shia parties to form an opposition to Maliki?

What will happen to the Sunni political blocs? Will they continue to feel shunned and excluded, and follow a pattern of non-participation? Or will somebody throw them a bone?

Will a new Parliament be able to be make progress in areas where the current (and previous) assemblies have failed?

To what extent does Maliki rely on his party's connections to Tehran? Is his newfound image as a nationalist an illusion? Or does he actually have his constituents' interests at heart?

The answers to these questions will only come with time. With the elections being held tomorrow, we'll get a glimpse of what the future may hold. Iraq is not as those on the far left who oppose the war in all its manifestations view it. It sure as hell isn't how those who have served as mouthpieces for the Bush administration's horribly misguided efforts there see it either. It simply is what it is - and the ones who ultimately have to deal with it, and who have a real stake in this, are the people who live there, not those who get to comment on what happens there from afar. Those who claim to be in their corner can start by acknowledging the massive social, economic and political hurdles that Iraq still faces - and will likely face for generations - as well as acknowledge and learn from the many, many mistakes that have been made there, instead of pretending that we should ignore them all and buy into the delusion that we've solved the country's problems by doing things that should have been done from the beginning. I've certainly been guilty of being unkind when discussing these issues, and it's because of what I view as partisan dishonesty from people who don't do any of these things. When they do, then they'll have some credibility in my eyes, and, perhaps, that of the Iraqi people as well.

THE MUSLIM WORLD

Barack Obama gave an excellent interview on Tuesday to Dubai-based al-Arabiya, an Arabic language news channel, with an interesting, if vague, message:

Obama cited his Muslim background and relatives, practically a taboo issue during the U.S. presidential campaign, and said in the interview, which aired Tuesday, that one of his main tasks was to communicate to Muslims "that the Americans are not your enemy."

I'm encouraged. I understand the disappointing reality of foreign policy, and the constraints that public opinion can place on those who make it. I don't expect miracles from Obama. I don't think he's the Messiah; and while I voted for him, I have my doubts. However, hearing this kind of language makes my decision feel vindicated.

For the past eight years, the Bush Administration has divided, inflamed and estranged the rest of the world with its rhetoric. Its preposterous notion of waging war on "terror" - which is a tactic, not a state or even a recognizable group of people - has drawn a line in the sand, creating a childish, oversimplified black and white dichotomy between "us" and "them" that completely fails to encapsulate the complexity and turpitude of world politics, and ultimately, in many cases, shoots its own objectives in the foot.

Muslims aren't our enemies. Those in the west who think that they are are every bit as ignorant, xenophobic and stupid as those who they think speak for the entirety of Islam. Just as no one should believe that extremists speak for the whole of Islam, nor should the rest of the world think that Islamophobes and idiots speak for all of us. Obama, so far, has done a good job of conveying that message. The hopelessly bankrupt "clash" mentality that so many westerners buy into has to be defeated by way of intellectual honesty and open-mindedness - two things that the previous administration (and its supporters) proved to have absolutely none of.

The history and the relevant information are all there for the taking for those who want to learn about the Muslim world - and Obama, unlike Bush or virtually anyone in his administration, has at least read a few chapters. So for now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

We'll see.