The Question on Everyone’s Mind Is…
Joshua Foust on Mar 28 2008 at 7:55 pm | Filed under: Notes on the war
… why are we backing an Iran-friendly movement in Basra against Iraqi nationalists? Lest I be accused of a selective reading, this is the sort of question being posed by a huge range of people, from the usual suspects (like Spencer Ackerman), to Anthony Cordesman, to Bartle Bull, to Noah Shachtman, to Abu Muqawama.
But of course, the usual suspects are also claiming the fight is good guys vs. bad, popular government against populist movement, and even sometimes outright misrepresenting the factions in play. But alas, those kinds of people will always exist.
The big question, though: which side is “better?” Maliki has obvious drawbacks (namely ISCI’s close ties to Iran), but is the “legitimate” head of state. Sadr, on the other hand, enjoys massive popular support, and does not have any ideological affinity for a larger Arab-Persian Shiite alliance. It isn’t easy, but I fear our rush to support Maliki’s government will ultimately undermine it, and the occupation—it removes their incentive to take responsibility for their own choices.
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Which side is better? A childishly easy question, once someone determines what we are attempting to accomplish in Iraq — and how much we are prepared to pay for it.
That may well be so, Fabius, but as you’ve noticed, there is nevertheless deep value in the discussion.
Are we supposed to support Sadr?
I find that idea repulsive considering that he has worked against any process that would include him ( and would he not have been included? ) and has run a fear and intimidation campaign killing and executing people that makes Al Qaida look like posers often as not. He wanted to be Saddam Jr. except with more religion and and fewer other ethnicities to purge.
In past lives the US *would* have supported Sadr.
Gawd, I’m glad we’re past that.
When given the choice between the elected government of Iraq, and a popular theocrat, I will back the elected government any day. I am honestly surprised the Iraqi government has taken this fight on; it looked as if Sadr was simply going to sit back and wait for the US to leave, and then carve out his piece of the country. It bodes well that the government had the ability to take this fight on in the first place.
I’m always impressed and surprised at how willing ACHJ is to let your reality-based approach to foreign affairs anywhere near the front page, Josh.
Synova says:
[____ ] has run a fear and intimidation campaign killing and executing people that makes Al Qaida look like posers often as not.
I put the blank space at the front of the statement to indicate that you can put any name you want into the sentence - Sadr, or Maliki and his thugs and Sunni-torturing militias - equally well. They’re the same pair of pigs. One we heavily apply lipstick to, and one we don’t.
That’s why you’re not going to see a USArmy Operation Fallujah II in Basra to follow up on Maliki’s rout. Why bother? Instead, Petraeus is heavily invested in flattering Al-Sadr. Take off the blindfold.
Well, I think the difference might be that Joshua tends to explain his point of view and, from my short acquaintance, expects that other people hold their views honestly.
It’s a sad thing, you know, that we can’t have differing opinions anymore. So you post a stab that assumes anyone here would want to shut Joshua up and then call me blind.
Blind is deciding that it’s all the same pigs and the US are the ones with the tube of lipstick.
It really is all about us, isn’t it. Always and forever it’s all about the U.S. and all those other interchangeable manikins, all the same, nothing to chose between, not principle, nothing.
And we’re supposed to just decide and put lipstick on one of the pigs because that’s realistic? We did that for decades, dressed up pigs. Worked like a charm. But, as I said, it’s all about us. And it’s all about being realistic.
No, nothing to prefer between one set of thugs and another, even if one set is working in the context of at least trying for elections and a representative government and the other has worked against that from the very beginning no matter how much we try to keep the door open to participation and… yeah, wow, we do. What a freaking shocker.
You know what chaps me, glast? It’s people who will on one hand go on and on about how say, the Sunni, are just trying to defend their land (terrified of a Shia majority, more likely and rightly so) and *then* when stuff starts to shift and Sunni leaders start to come over… all of a sudden the same people will be outraged that the Shia dominated Iraqi government might offer amnesty to Sunni militants who attacked and killed American soldiers. It’s psychotic. It’s disjointed and fractured. And then, what, I’m supposed to respond to the idea that “Petraeus is heavily invested in flattering Al-Sadr” with… what? Am I supposed to think that he ought not keep the option of reconciliation on the table? Maybe he’s supposed to pout and stamp his foot.
I swear some people have a feminine, scorched earth, approach to war and they think this is principled or something.
The *reality* is that business as usual over there is that whoever ends up on the top of the pile, like Sadr would like to do, gets to hold that place by force and by fear. The idea of human rights in the middle east, and certainly in Iraq, is based on who belongs to my group, my tribe. Get upset about abused prisoners or someone elses children? That’s political opportunism. It’s a harsh world where our people find torture rooms with blood and shackles on the walls and no one cares because *we* didn’t do it.
So choosing between a popular war-lord wanna-be who has opposed the democratic process from the beginning and refused anything that will not put himself personally in power and someone from a similar back-ground who is supporting, at the very least in word, a system where he can lose an election and someone else rule… dang, it’s a start. If nothing else it’s worthwhile to show this other, slightly different path to personal power as a stable and realistic option for ambitious people.
It’s one thing to be realistic about the culture and the situation and the world Iraqis grew up in and expect, and it’s quite another to make decisions about which pig to dress-up based on the purely racist notion that those people are not capable of change, do not want change, and simply can not comprehend the benefits of a representative government. I’m tempted to blame multi-culturalism because it glorfies cultures as immutable when in fact the default state of human beings is radical transformation.
“So choosing between a popular war-lord wanna-be who has opposed the democratic process from the beginning and refused anything that will not put himself personally in power and someone from a similar back-ground who is supporting, at the very least in word, a system where he can lose an election and someone else rule… dang, it’s a start.”
Well said Synova. The simple fact that there is a democratically elected government, warts and all, which is willing to take on a popular theocrat that is physically powerful, says a lot. As imperfect as the Iraqi federal government is, when presented with the other options available, I can see little choice.
Synova,
No we are not supposed to support Sadr, and we are not supposed to support Maliki… that is, if we’re concerned about Iran’s influence in Iraqi politics and the reaction of the now-heavily armed Sunni militias. While Glastnost’s tone can be grating at times, his general point is right, which is that we really do not have good options for who to support. Contrary your suggestion that in the cold war we’d be supporting Sadr, we would in fact have been supporting Maliki anyway—for the sheer fact that he’s willing to work for (not with) us. Sadr is not, so he’s demonized.
Claiming one has a monopoly on violence, theocracy, subservience to Iran, and so on, is, in my view, naïve. Neither is an appropriate choice for U.S. support, and rather than blindly throwing our weight behind the marginally legitimate face of the government few Iraqis seem to love, we should step back and let them solve their own problems. The fighting in Basra would be remarkable on its own; we are making it a tragedy by, once again, choosing sides in a civil war and not letting the Iraqis take responsibility for their own security.
And as everyone should remember, we hardly ever have “perfect” choices.
It is interesting that you say we are choosing sides in a civil war, when that probably does not characterize this current violence.
From Michael Yon:
I must have missed Yon’s embeds with JAM and ISCI to be able to tell us that so much more authoritatively than the scholars who speak Arabic, have interviewed some of these guys, and all seem to think it’s a civil war.
So let’s assume we are not choosing sides in a civil war; we are then helping Maliki kill off his political opponents? I don’t see how that’s any better.
They are not simply political opponents, they are taking up arms and setting themselves up as de facto rulers of a particular area, with no authority granted to them from the central government.
Take up words, and you are the political opposition.
Take up arms, and you are the enemy.
They’ve chosen to work against the government. If this were a case of self-defense and unfair treatment by the government, then they could have worked with US forces. But, here they are on the opposing side as well. A place that they’ve chosen to stand.
We are helping the legitimate authority suppress the illegitimate authority.
Kieth, you’re absolutely right that the government is spinning it that way: supporting the legitimate ruler of Iraq against armed insurgents. Buried in that belief, however, is the assumption that Maliki is worth supporting, and that providing heavy armor and air strikes is an appropriate way of doing so.
None of those are done deals, not least of which because Sadr’s “cease fire” is really more of a manifesto he has gotten Maliki to fly into Iran to discuss. In other words, as long as we continue to offer blind security assistance to whomever in the Iraqi government happens to have “PM” after his name, this kind of thing will keep happening. I like the parallel Abu Muqawama draws:
In other words, we still barely know enough on the ground to be throwing our support behind any faction, now matter its supposed legitimacy. We would have been best served by letting the Iraqis resolve their political issues on their own.
Well, I see us as supporting the Iraqi government, with PM Maliki as the current head. I would expect us to support whoever is legitimately elected after the next round of elections.
We’ve also supported former militia groups, including Sunni, that have stopped fighting the government.
That was a path that Sadr didn’t take. He and his militia are using violence to gain/hold onto political power. He’s also using violence to try to end the US occupation, but that is not happening either. It seems to me that every time he starts to loose relevancy he starts using more violence. How can you deal honestly with someone like that?
It would be akin to, say, David Duke using the Klan to start violence, and then having him “broker” an end to the violence so he can claim a big part in the “peace” process.
But, if we were going to do that, we would have exited the place shortly after May of 2003. After all, rebuilding infrastructure, providing security, and reconciling differences are all political issues.
The strategy all comes down to, if we leave with the central government weak, then the chance of complete collapse is increased. And that would be really bad. (Simplifying obviously.)
A question, hasn’t al Sadr gotten support from Iran also?
So, we’d really be backing the government tied Iran friendly movement against the non government tied Iran friendly movement…
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/sadr-rages-against-iran/
Now, I would say that we should be attacking anyone militia who is not allied and operating under the mandate of the government. If a particular group doesn’t want to be attacked, they shouldn’t attack others. Nor should they be enforcing their own laws on others.
This is how I see our most important role in Iraq in relation to the government there:
Keep them from killing off minority ethnic or religious groups long enough for the people and the leaders to get used to the idea that this is simply “not done.”
In that respect I’ve seen people hail the fighting between the Shia dominated government and Sadr as a sign of success. Believe it or not.
I also find it very troubling that the assumption seems to be that Maliki is, and must be, a creation of the United States instead of the person that most people voted for (or voted for his party or however that worked… I think people voted for rosters rather than individuals for the most part). If we decided that we didn’t like what he was up to and switched our support to Sadr that would be confirmed. And no matter to what extent the independence of the Iraqi government is a polite fiction (and I don’t think it’s all that much, frankly) it is an *important* polite fiction.
People don’t take responsibility for their own affairs without the assumption that they are, in fact, the ones responsible. The rhetoric that places the US firmly in charge (starting with Kerry and his irresponsible public statement about Allawi where he actually used the word “puppet”) and going on, for political reasons and political advantage, to thoughtlessly undermine the process of building a stable independent government in Iraq, because in the end who cares, right? If it gets someone here a little bit of political advantage well, it’s just words and who cares?
We’ve got a need to support the government and the constitutional process in that country even if we don’t particularly like the guy they put in charge. Probably most certainly *because* we don’t like the guy they put in charge. It’s important both for national pride and eventual progress and assumption of an inclusive political process.
Sadr has gotten support from Iran the same way the mujahedin got support from us in the 80s — it was an opportunistic relationship, with Sadr willing to take guns and money to expel a foreign invader, and Iran willing to send guns and money to disrupt what was meant to be America’s foreign policy triumph. Sadr, however, is best described as a hyper-nationalist, and not a stoolie of Iran: he wants Iraq for Iraq (more precisely, for himself), so he rejects any ideological ties with Iran, including the pan-Arab Shia alliance.
ISCI and the Da’wa party, on the other hand, have explicit, ideologically friendly relations with the power structure in Iran. And those are the groups we are now supporting against what amounts to a nationalist. The only portion of JAM that is ideologically pro-Iran are the so-called “special groups,” which are a semi-autonomous from Sadr’s leadership anyway.
Sadr opposed the U.S. occupation for nationalist reasons, not ideological ones. In other words, he was against foreigners with guns roaming his country. While he has committed many atrocities, the “good guys” in government and the Sunni tribes have as well. We were not above dealing with them; yet we seem to be above dealing with Sadr. The reason, I think, is that Sadr represents a political challenge to Maliki, and so Maliki tries to spin it as a desperate effort to prop up the legitimacy of the government, rather than a cynical use of the government and American goodwill to eliminate one of his biggest rivals.
Synova, your argument is very pretty, except Maliki doesn’t quite represent the elected choice of the people. He is the product of violence and political engineering as much as anyone else: i.e. he does not represent a majority consensus. You can still make the argument that as the head of state he should be supported in a general sense (and that wouldn’t on its own be a bad thing), but the fighting in Basra is not about the legitimacy of the Iraqi government, it is about who gets to “control” the Shia. We should not pick sides there.