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Page added on January 9, 2014
Another Iraq War?
Many Americans are surprised to see Fallujah back on the front pages of newspapers. How did things get so bad that the Iraqi government was compelled to call for American support in its battle against an al-Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria?
This crescendo of violence is the culmination of two well-established trajectories.
The first trajectory is the worsening violence in Syria and the way in which the unrest has bled into neighboring states. While Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon have borne the bulk of Syria’s refugees, Iraq has suffered greatly under the weight of Syria’s oozing sectarianism. In many ways, Syria (a Sunni majority country long ruled by an Allawite minority) is the mirror image of Iraq (a majority Shi’a country long ruled by a Sunni minority). Iraq had only begun to heal from its sectarian war when the venom of Syria’s conflict began to permeate its politics.
Realities on the ground took a turn for the worse with al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria declaring their ambition to establish a Sunni Islamist state in the territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border. Over the past year, militant relationships barely cold from Iraq’s sectarian fury were rekindled as insurgents made inroads into Anbar province, sending suicide bombers into Iraq much as Syria did during Iraq’s own war.
The second trajectory is the growing authoritarianism of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and its marginalization of Iraq’s Sunni minority — long-evident trends that the U.S. government overlooked in its rush to exit Iraq in the glow of success. Since the complete withdrawal of American troops at the end of 2011, Maliki has become increasingly brazen in his efforts to remove Sunni political leaders from power. He has targeted senior Sunni figures for arrest, forced out popular Sunnis from posts of responsibility in his government, and reneged on pledges to integrate Sunnis into government institutions.
Now, the convergence of these two trends — the worsening situation in Syria and the heavy-handedness of the Iraqi government — has produced a dire situation in Anbar province: Al-Qaeda affiliated militants incubated in the Syrian mayhem have found common cause with Iraqi Sunnis who harbor real, and in many cases legitimate, grievances over their place in the new Iraq and their treatment by the Iraqi government.
After more than two years of paying insufficient attention to the cauldron that was bubbling in Iraq, the U.S. government is now feeling the heat. But it is still unclear that Washington understands what must be done to solve the crisis. Iraq needs arms and intelligence — which Secretary of State John Kerry has said we will provide — but it also needs a concerted political strategy to persuade the prime minister to change the course of Iraq’s increasingly sectarian and divisive politics. The U.S. forfeited much of its leverage with the Iraqi government when it withdrew from the country. Perhaps the current crisis provides the U.S. with new avenues of influence: Make a more robust military and intelligence relationship contingent on political changes that promote inclusion.
Maliki has made clear his preference for a “majoritarian” democracy — one in which a presumed Shi’a majority government could govern unfettered by minority wants and preferences. While this longing is understandable given the inefficiencies and frustrations inherent in leading an unwieldy coalition, it ignores the fact that Iraq cannot and will not be stable if major groups are excluded, particularly if those politics continue to be organized along sectarian or ethnic lines. The country therefore needs to recommit to the cumbersome practice of national unity governments.
Similarly, Washington needs to nip in the bud any intimations by the Iraqi government that the current security situation will cause national elections, currently scheduled for April, to be postponed. (These elections, after all, could allow a new leader to emerge.) The Barack Obama administration has been reluctant to take to take a tough line with Maliki for fear of weakening the prime minister and creating a vacuum that might then expose the fragility of its proclaimed success there. But asking the prime minister to change course is not unthinkable. Though his recent record would not encourage optimism, he has in the past shown an ability to pivot when the situation demands it. In the national elections of 2010, for instance, he succeeded in portraying himself as a nationalist who was interested in looking forward and building a country for all Iraqis.
Indeed, we should expect the increasingly pressed Iraqi government to make all sorts of overtures to Sunnis in the coming days. Whether it can convince tribesmen in Anbar to fight alongside Iraqi government forces, rather than against them, will be critical to the outcome of the current conflagration in Fallujah, Ramadi and across Anbar. But ensuring that these overtures are meaningful and sustained is essential if Iraq is to withstand the pressure from the Syrian war.
Kerry said that this is a fight for the Iraqis to win. Few will disagree with that statement. But it both diminishes the U.S.’s stakes in the outcome and the tools now in America’s grasp to make any military success more than transient. Positive outcomes cannot be delivered by the U.S. But their chances of materializing rise considerably if the Obama administration uses its new leverage for clear and consistent goals of a political, not just military, nature.
(Meghan L. O’Sullivan, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and former deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration, is a Bloomberg View columnist.)
15 Comments on "Another Iraq War?"
Stilgar Wilcox on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 1:42 am
Well folks, what do ya think. Should we get sucked back into Iraq and spend another trillion dollars? /sarc
GregT on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 5:08 am
Approximately 1 million human beings have been killed in Iraq so far. With a price tag of 1 trillion US dollars, that works out to 1 million dollars per dead Iraqi man, woman and child.
Was it worth it? Sadly, some Americans still think so.
Mission accomplished yet?
PrestonSturges on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 5:44 am
It’s amazing how much vile disgusting stuff makes it onto PO’s front page.
Arthur on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 8:38 am
There is no way the US will return to Iraq. The US can beat any major power in a direct confrontation with planes, missiles, tanks, etc. However the US learned the hard way in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Vietnam and Lebanon that it will always be beaten by whatever third world country as soon as the US is stupid enough to put these famous ‘boots on the ground’. Because that’s when the guerrilla warfare begins between highly motivated locals against US soldiers who don’t have a clue what they are doing in that particular hellhole.
Here is a British MSM that finally has seen the light (as always the readers comments are the most interesting to know what is coming):
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100252805/how-ethnic-conflict-could-dominate-this-century/
This is the future of the world: ethnic conflict and subsequent cleansing all over the globe, not just in Iraq and Syria, but certainly in the US and Europe as well:
Living in the West will feel like travelling through a ghetto in a limousine; don’t dare open that door.
Oh, and forget about that limo. Just don’t step off your bike.
The US globalist vision was: one big happy world without borders and everybody equal and that was the idea about invading Iraq: turn it into a US style democracy (and oil rich satellite). And if there had been abundant energy sources per capita, the US could have achieved a lot in this direction. But, alas, the world is running out of energy and thus money to buy off the differences.
The new anti-globalist message will be: peace and security can only be found within your own group, while battling with other groups over resources and land, a message with sinister consequences.
Is going to happen anyway.
Makati1 on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 10:08 am
Arthur, you assume too much about the pompous US military. If the Chinese take out a few GPS satellites and cripple the internet, it is game over. Drones don’t fly, ships don’t sail and missiles don’t fly. A big military is a toothless dog in this century. The Chinese wield financial weapons of mass destruction, far more powerful than a carrier fleet to destroy nations.
They also have the capability to keep the US navy at arms length way off the Chinese mainland or to send nukes into the US heartland. Ditto Russia, who would also like to see the US go down so they could take the rest of Europe.
Tech is not the winner this time. It can only create losers … all of us.
PrestonSturges on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 12:40 pm
China? The people who bang the drum about the threat of China are the same people who want to send us back into Iraq. It’s the same people, the same BS.
The Iraqis must finally learn to fight their own battle. Like the Syrian army, they can fight and learn and the people who can’t learn, they die.
rockman on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 2:25 pm
Just a gentle reminder that many here probably don’t need: there really is no such thing as an Iraq citizen. Technically there are a variety of groups that live within an area around which some old white men many decades ago drew a line and called this imaginary land “Iraq”. Today there are different groups battling to control various areas of this imaginary country. And it seems most groups are getting serious support from forces outside this area. Support the US is not capable of preventing.
So a civil war between different groups supported by the govts of other countries the US has no effective influence over. Doesn’t sound like a conflict where US boots on the ground is a good idea. Even picking a side and supporting them doesn’t seem to be very productive. In one sense it might be best for one faction to control the entire country or have it split into segments with independent control. Two advantages IMHO. First, it would hopefully end the slaughter of the collateral damage. Second, whoever controls the oil fields will need the revenue to support their activities so the oil will flow. Both scenarios benefit the non-combatants in “Iraq” and the world will have the oil produced. I’ve no doubt that oil produced in an Islamic state will burn just as well in an EU vehicle as that from a “democratic” govt. For instance, setting aside the nuclear issue, the world would gladly burn as much Iranian oil as it can get its hands on.
J-Gav on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 3:49 pm
GregT – Correct. Mission unmitiga
J-Gav on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 3:53 pm
… unmitigated disaster and savagery. See Fallujah today – the great American “victory” of 2003-2004! Now a city torn apart by sectarian violence.
GregT on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 5:45 pm
One of my best friends is the son of the former minister of defence under Saddam Hussein. His father would not support Saddam’s ‘invasion’ of Kuwait. He said that it was a trap and that they were being set up by the American regime. Saddam had him hanged for insubordination. My friend says that he would have killed Saddam himself, given the opportunity, but he also says that Saddam was loyal to Iraq, and that a dictator was the only way to keep the country from erupting into sectarian violence.
I am sure that Cheney and the entire Bush ‘administration’ were well aware of the repercussions of removing Saddam. As if that wasn’t enough, they proceeded to bomb the Iraqi people back into the stone age. These evil men should be held accountable for using weapons of mass destruction, and charged with war crimes against humanity.
rockman on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 5:51 pm
Greg – very interesting. At the very best it’s easy to concluded that the stated “goals” of the Bush campaign failed miserably. Or, at worse, accomplished exactly what they were shooting for. Oil is $95/bbl, eh?
Arthur on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 5:56 pm
The Iraqis must finally learn to fight their own battle.
The ‘Iraqis’ don’t exist. They are an invention from Whitehall/Versailles, just like ‘Czecho-Slovakians’ or ‘Yugoslavs’, all designer states, phantoms, that better fall apart at the first opportunity, better for everyone.
noobtube on Fri, 10th Jan 2014 7:20 pm
Wouldn’t the United States fall into “lines drawn on the map by white men”?
What is an “American” anyway?
Ask 5 different people and get five different definitions.
It is not language.
It is not cultural heritage.
It is not a shared history.
Basically, an American is defined by being not black, not brown, not Native, not East Asian, but somehow West Asian (European), but not Italian and not Spanish, not immigrant, unless you are not funny looking, or don’t have an accent, but …
What is an American?
When the oil runs out and the blackouts become more frequent, and the 1000-mile ceasar salad is no longer available, and the electronic toys can’t connect to the internet, the United States isn’t going to be so United.
Arthur on Sat, 11th Jan 2014 10:57 am
noobtube is entirely correct here. Just like ‘Iraqis’, ‘Americans’ basically don’t exist, certainly not in 2014 where more than 50% of the US new born are ‘of color’. Cowboy hats and country & western is not enough to define a new civilization, it is merely a small variation upon the grand theme of European civilization (Christianity, English language, democracy, Enlightenment, individualism, Roman law, science & technology).
American ‘exceptionalism’, in hindsight, will prove to be a very short blip in the history of mankind, that went hand in hand with globalism, an idea promoted by the Zionist dominated elite that wanted he Americans to bring them ‘the world’ and was enabled by a short period of abundance of energy and other resources. That dream of a Washington lead One World is going to die and north-America will not escape the logic of the coming multi-polar world order, that will mean a ‘surge’ of ancient civilizations, and will fall apart or at least ‘devolute’. By that time that the Madonna’s of this world will stop being a ‘material girl’. We see it happening in the Middle East where Istanbul and Tehran will replace Washington, Kunstler could be correct in predicting that resource starved Japan could be the first ‘western’ nation to become ‘medieval’ again.
Arthur on Sun, 12th Jan 2014 10:14 am
Indeed Greg, your friend is entirely correct, keyword April Glaspie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie
She basically passed the message to Saddam that he could get away with invading Iraq.
And your friend is correct in his judgment that multi-ethnic societies can only be held together by a dictator, a fact that will become more significant for the West itself, with every passing year.
But I disagree with the idea that Cheney and Bush knew what they were doing. Cheney was a bit of a peakoil man himself and was looking for ways to postpone the end of the (conventional) oil age. The US wanted to turn Iraq in another Saudi-Arabia, read US satellite. Wolfowitz even went as far to say that the entire operation would be paid in Iraqi oil. They thought they could turn Iraq in a western style democracy, a ridiculous idea in a tribal society, skipping the European Enlightnment, individualism, emancipation and all that jazz. It was a strategic disaster for the US and the beginning of the end of US presence in the ME and Turkey and Iran filling the power vacuum. They killed secularism (Saddam, Khadaffi, Mubarak, Assad) and paved the way for Islamic fundamentalism of both the Sunni and Shi’ite variety.