Once again today, Juan Cole is agonizing over the “pros and cons”– for, I assume, the Iraqis?– of the US setting a firm deadline for the withdrawal of their forces from Iraq.
(Sorry I can’t give a link as he doesn’t seem to have one. Oh, now I can. Here it is.)
I think it’s very important to challenge the points he puts in his “con” column. It’s equally important, in addition to merely fixing a “target date” for a withdrawal, to spell out the kind and speed of withdrawal we’re talking about. I strongly believe that what is needed is one that is total, speedily executed, orderly, and as “generous” to the Iraqis as possible.
But first, back to Juan’s points. Basically, he adduces three arguments against setting a withdrawal deadline that he seems to find very plausible. In fact, he finds them so plausible that he ends up advocating a withdrawal that is considerably less than “total”.
Namely, he writes,
- One solution … might be to set a timetable for withdrawal of Coalition land forces, but for the US and its allies to continue to offer the new Iraqi government’s army close air support in any battles with the neo-Baathists and jihadis…
Considerably short of a “total” withdrawal, indeed.
He does not, of course, even get into the thorny questions of who would actually command those air assets. What if the US should make such an “offer” of close air support–or perhaps, air operations much more ‘untethered’ than close air support– in a future Fallujah- or Mosul-type situation… and the Iraqi “government” should dare to turn down that very generous “offer”?
Would the Iraqi PM’s office be the US bombers’ next target?
But first, let’s back up a little and re-examine some of Juan’s arguments against setting a fixed withdrawal deadline. As I said, they are three:
- (1) “a precipitous withdrawal of coalition troops could lead to the total breakdown of security and give the guerrilla insurgents the run of Iraq.”
(2) “in colonial situations setting a firm deadline for withdrawal beforehand can be disastrous. The imperial power becomes a lame duck. Why should anyone care if they are arrested if they know the arresting officers will be gone in 6 months?”
(3) “such deadlines can encourage massive communal violence as ethnic groups jockey to take over as the imperial power departs.”
The first of these arguments does not seem to me to have much prima facie credibility. The withdrawal could lead to a breakdown of security?? What on earth does he think the massive and very belligerent presence of the US forces in Iraq has led to over the past 18 months?
Yup. Precisely that: a widespread breakdown of public safety in the country and the exponential growth of the insurgent forces.
The second of Juan’s arguments seems to have little general validity unless one is actually concerned with the ability of the occupying/colonial power to continue to exercize its coercive power effectively in the occupied country, which I am not. The Bush administration got itself into this mess in Iraq quite voluntarily and gratuitously. Why should any of the rest of us be concerned about its ability to continue to coerce (and, let’s face it, detain, torture, and kill) Iraqis for even one additional moment beyond right now?
Indeed, one might mount a potent counter-argument: that it might well be necessary for this US administration to suffer some significant humiliation in Iraq in order to deter it from “recidivizing” and trying to mount another, similarly gratuitous “war of choice” against Iran or Syria in the months ahead.
However, I’m not a great believer in the power of punishment, even of those who commit actions of which I very strongly disapprove.
More to the point, I believe it is in the interests of the Iraqis thmselves to have the turnover from US occupation rule to truly sovereign, independent Iraqi rule be not just as speedy as possible but also as orderly as possible.
That’s why I believe– and I’ve argued here before– that it’s in the interests of the Iraqi people and their leadership (which I hope will soon be the Sistanist leadership) to negotiate and then help facilitate the total and speedy exit of US forces from their country, rather than to have it be a disorderly rout.
(These negotiations can, of course, be backed up by all kinds of peaceful mass actions from the Iraqi side, if necessary.)
A withdrawal that is as speedy and orderly as possible is in the interests of all parties. That’s why I hope it can be achieved. I believe the Sistanists (or perhaps, more precisely, Ayatollah Sistani himself) are the ones most disposed to do this; and the Ayatollah is the person in the best position to win broad Iraqi compliance with– and indeed, participation in– such a policy.
And that brings me to the third argument that Juan tries to make, namely that the announcement of a withdrawal deadline in advance can itself help to provoke widespread inter-group violence in the lead-up to the deadline.
Here, once again today (as he has done before) he cites what happened in British India and in British Mandate Palestine under exactly those circumstances.
This is not a trivial thing to worry about. However, I believe the present circumstances are different in important ways from the cases he cites. I would also remind him that there are many, many more cases of decolonization in which the deadline was announced in advance and that announcement did not lead to widespread inter-group violence. Juan seems to be suffering from a sort of selective, “if it bleeds, it leads” syndrome there in his recounting of the history of decolonization.
In more recent times, you could look at the South Africans’ withdrawal from Namibia, or Israel’s 1984 withdrawal from a chunk of Lebanon as cases where the deadline was announced well in advance, and there were many fears expressed about the threat of post-withdrawal atrocities, but those fears proved in the event to have very little substance at all.
During Israel’s later, May 2000 withdrawal from the rest of Lebanon, the date was not announced firmly in advance: the IDF just sort of snuck out of the country in the middle of the night. And even there, despite the many, many fears expressed beforehand of widespread anti-collaborator atrocities in the wake of the withdrawal– nothing of the sort happened. (Even though the IDF and their local collaborators had exercized a really nasty reign of terror there for decades right up until then.)
… I think what was significant about the British withdrawals from both India and Palestine in 1947 and 1948 was that Britain was undertaking those withdrawals out of sheer and total imperial exhaustion. World War 2 had drained the British of any ability or desire to maintain a globe-circling empire. They just had to get the heck out of those two big commitments as quickly as they could. Various British bureaucrats did what they could to try to make the withdrawals as orderly as possible (or perhaps, to minimize the amount of disorder). But they had no imperial muscle or will to be able to do this.
In both places, focused, well-organized religious separatists (Jinnah in British India, Ben Gurion in Palestine) were able to force their agendas onto the situation. This led to the widespread violence– conducted in both countries with the goal of effecting broad ethnic/religious “cleansing”, which rapidly become reciprocal.
Of course, seeing a repeat of that in Iraq would mean yet another exacerbation and prolongation of the Iraqi people’s suffering; and none of us, I think, wants to see that.
But the US is not a totally exhausted imperial power. It can still conduct meaningful negotiations and its forces have the resources and discipline to conduct an orderly withdrawal.
In Iraq, I admit, there is a still-unresolved issue of the Kurds’ desire for their own, relatively ethnically pure “homeland”. But I don’t see the presence of the US forces in Iraq as making any contribution to managing Kurdish-Arab issue constructively. And certainly, it has made no contribution whatsoever–just the opposite– to managing the Sunni-Shiite issue within the Arab areas of Iraq. In this latter case, indeed, all it has done is stir up Sunni-Shiite polarities and hostilities, and the sooner the US forces leave, the better.
Another more general point about the argument of “apres nous, la violence des groupes”: This argument is adduced so many times by colonial and occupying powers that it should absolutely not be taken at face value.
One of the main things that colonial and “bad” occupying power powers do, indeed, in order to consolidate their hold on power is precisely to stir up ethnic and religious sensitivities, e.g., by trying to use members of “minority” groups as their local surrogates, or otherwise continuing to play the old colonial game of “divide and rule”. (Just as Martin Indyk was urging the US to do in Iraq, back in April 2003).
Of course this happened in Iraq, too. Just look at the US’s reliance on Iraqi Christians or Iraqi Kurds to do much of their dirty work for them.
But then, to turn round and say, “Oh my! Now there’s no way can leave this country because if we do there might be an ethnic bloodbath” is an argument of exactly the same quality as that of the boy who murders his parents and then claims the mercy of the judge “because I am an orphan”.
Juan, I can quite understand that because of your close familiarity with the situation in India and Pakistan, as well as with that in Israel/Palestine, you have special sensitivies about such a scenario. But I think you should also open yourself to the idea that in many, many cases the advance announcement of a withdrawal deadline has not itself contributed to inter-group tensions.
Anyway, the “solution” you advocate– the “close air support” idea– seems to me to be no solution at all. Certainly, I don’t expect Ayatollah Sistani or any other Iraqi nationalist would consider that a “solution” to the problem of having US forces on their soil.
Which leaves us with the idea that the withdrawal should be total, and rapid– and it might be “announced” or, possibly “unannounced” (like the Israelis in 2000).
Realistically, though, the size and geographical spread of the US forces means that there is no way of conducting a “steal away in the middle of the night” withdrawal. There has to be organization, timetables, and an announced deadline.
Can this be made to work through negotiations with an empowered Iraqi leader, in a way that does not lead to a bloodbath? Yes. That, surely, should be the focus, rather than making any plans for “close air support”.
And then, an empowered Iraqi leader can surely find his own ways to deal with the many remaining problems inside his own country. That is, after all, what national sovereignty and independence is all about.
100,000 Iraqi deaths is not, it seems to me, a very plausible credential for any power to use to “prove” that it knows anything at all about helping to build a peaceful Iraq.
Re: close air support.
I belive that theory was test and failed in Viet Naum. After the ground troops were all but gone, we kept bombing more than ever. Obviously, it did not achieve the objective of preventing a communist takeover.
Mr. Cole seems to have the same faith and facination with air power that our military has and does not see the historic limitations even to this day. Remember “Total shock and awe.” That essential was an air power concept.
Tom, hi, nice to have you here. That’s a good point you make. Thanks.
In the main post I completely failed to address the “pro” arguments that Juan had listed (and then over-rridden) in his consideration of the value of announcing a withdrawal deadline. I still can’t decide whether to make that a separate post…
My main feeling is that he completely leaves out the biggest “pro” argument of all: that is, that announcing– and then sticking to– a firm deadline (and subsidiary timetable) for the complete withdrawal of US forces is the single action that could help the most in starting to rebuild the Iraqis’ shattered trust in the US.
Was the true aim of the 2003 invasion to punish and degrade the Iraqi people? I believe it was not. But that’s certainly the way that US actions there since March 2003 have felt to a large majority of Iraqis, who have quite understandably developed a massive distrust of US objectives and motives in undertaking the invasion. A majority of Iraqis today probably believes that the US invaded in order to degrade their society, control their oil resources, and keep US bases in Iraq on an “enduring” basis.
Every single one of those perceptions has to be directly challenged by the US administration–and through explicit actions, not just through words– if Iraqi and more general Muslim distrust of the US is to be reversed.
Announcing a speedy deadline for getting all the troops out is one of these essential steps. Juan didn’t even mention this vital “confidence-building” aspect of it.
Tom:
Air power in Vietnam was very different than air power today. Very few “Smart bombs” were used in Vietnam. “Close air support” is air power in support of infantry.
The Communist takeover was made possible by the support of both the Soviet Union and China. Air power in Iraq was touted as a way to defeat Saddams conventional army. No promises were made against a Sunni insurgency.
“Shock and Awe” was a media concept dreamt up by the Pentagon. And the media did love that phrase, and used it much more than the Pentagon ever did.
There is no argument for the US staying.
Juan Cole knows a lot but he does not know much politics. Even his political ethics are weak, and as you say, Helena, he is selective in his choice of examples.
The last time he cited British India it was to argue (correctly) for negotiation and elections prior to independence. But at that time he failed to mention Partition at all. It didn’t suit his argument. Now he wants to quote India as a warning and a disaster scenario. He can’t have it both ways.
Air power as a means of direct political control over a whole country was pioneered in Iraq by the British in the 1920s and 1930s. Cole must know that, and must know that it failed.
Juan Cole has become more and more categorical in asserting that the Iraqi armed resistance is all Ba’athist and “Salafist”. He has become partisan. He may be right about the resistance, but he could be wrong. There is no direct information on this, only deduction.
I think Juan Cole needs to take a break.
Hi Helena,
I enjoy your site and also read Juan Cole’s regularly. I think it is difficult to talk about ‘true aims’ in a situation that had as many actors as did the US push to war with Iraq. But complete destruction of the country may certainly be an aim of at least a subset of those who wanted this war. I think tht a desire to have military control over an oil-producing region and ‘enduring bases’ were the most likely motivators for many in this administration — but an Iraq in something close to anarchy could make those goals hard to achieve.
For those who simply want to eliminate all potential counterpoints/threats to Israel, however, a destroyed Iraq with a decimated intellectual and scientific community may be just fine.
I understand your point regarding setting a date for withdrawal and trust (I’m highly pessimistic of the possibility, however). In fact, during the run up to this war when folks began arguing about the intentions of the US, I argued that prgamatically it didn’t matter what US intentions were — we had absolutely no legitimacy given our association with Israel.
Helena,
What a great post. If only there were more people thinking like you in the US. I was also very disapointed Juan Cole’s last entry. If even a firm supporter of the Democrats is de facto supporting the continuation of US occupation, who will push for a more measured solution ?
The first victims of the continued presence of US troops are the Iraqis of course and US should care for them in the first place.
However a quick and ordently withdrawal of Iraq would also reassure the rest of the world over US intentions, prove them that US isn’t just waging a new colonial war, pursuing imperialist goals concerning the oil market and the rest of the world in general. A recent poll has shown that only three countries were rating US favorably : Poland, the Phillipines and (surprisingly) India. At a time of globalization, I don’t think any country can make it alone against the rest of the world. So, in the end, getting out of Iraq early enough will also be good for the US itself.
In case of withdrawal, I’m also worried by a possible surge of armed militia groups (there are enoug of them, with the Badr brigade, the Kurds Peshmergas, the Sunni religious and secular groups..). But in any case, could it be worse than what it is now ? May be it will be possible to bring all these groups into negotiation. But well, the US should absolutely stay out of the game and refrain of influencing any of the groups in presence.
Dominic –
I agree with your take on Juan Cole, especially his selective use of the India example. I’ve also been puzzled by his increasing certainty that the resistance is all Ba’athist — my reading of the _few_ interviews with resistance fighters is that there was more ex-Ba’athist organization behind the resistance than was originally appreciated; but with a bloody occupation, people have no shortage of reasons to resist.
I agree with you, Helena, that the U.S. should withdraw immediately from Iraq. But I don’t really have the heart to advocate it. Are you naive enough to actually advocate such a view when you know that those troops won’t come home? Their next stop is Iran. Isn’t it better to have them pinned down in Iraq where they can’t make any more mischief than they already have? I’d be very interested in your answer to that.
Bob
Of course we need to set a date for withdrawal. The only question is when, with whom do we coordinate, and will there be any U.S. presence whatsoever in the aftermath.
It is impossible to simply pick up and leave without any planning. Israel leaving Lebanon is a completely different story. Israel withdrew from a relatively small strip of land, and there were no issues regarding transition of power or administration of government services that Israel had say in. And of course, redeploying just meant moving the troops a few kilometers south.
The U.S. has to set a date, and it has to coordinate it with whatever authority is elected at the end of the month. These elections may or may not be considered “legitimate” by different people. Be that as it may, it will be the governing authority in Iraq, and the U.S. will have to work with them.
There is the possibility that the Iraqi government may want the U.S. too stick around for a while, simply because it believes that it doesn’t have the resources to maintain the peace (whatever one thinks of the U.S. occupation, it would be incredibly naive to think that the “resistance” would stop when the U.S. leaves). So there may be at least some limited military presence for the near, and perhaps not so near, future.
helena:
another “have you stopped beating your wife?”
Are you/juan still operating from the premise that the bushad has some concern re/interest in what might be ‘good’ for iraq?
Anonagain,
IMO, the point is not whether we believe the Bush administration has concern/interest in the “good” for Iraq. The point is that they declare they have it in mind and that Americans believes it. So yes, we have to explain what is going wrong, how things could be done better. We have to do it, because we need to convince the US opinion that what is going on actually is not for the wellness of Iraq. After all it’s the US opinion that elected the president. Convincing the Americans is the only way to put pressure on the government and to get a change in US foreign policy.
Sorry I can’t give a link as he doesn’t seem to have one.
Helena, if you click on the date underneath one of Jean Cole’s posts, that will give you the link to the post.
To me, the sine qua non of any successful US disengagement with Iraq is that the US must give up the aggrandizing motives with which we went into that country. That means letting go of any claims on military bases; direct or indirect control of the oil supply; and the right to dictate the form of government or the economy. In short, it means giving up any intention of manipulating Iraq for our own supposed benefit. The Bush administration gives lip service to allowing Iraqis to determine their own future freely. They mean that in the sense of the lyrics of the old Tom Lehrer song:
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
Till somebody we like can be elected.
Until that changes I believe any US actions will have a bad outcome.
I agree with Dylan’s point that to some in the administration a chaotic or fragmented Iraq might be a desirable outcome.
Lots of great posts here.
However puzzling or even mendacious the reasons for the US entry into the Second Gulf War, it is simply a fact that precipate withdrawal from Iraq can:
You might just love to blame George W Bush for all of the above (be my guest) but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
The US broke it, the US has to fix it up somewhat before putting it back. Juan Cole is right to be concerned about the negative consequences. To set a date for leaving is to say that the situation in Iraq is so bad that it’s okay to make it worse!
The presence of US military bases has not reduced the independence nor the democratic/undemocratic nature of Italy, Germany, South Korea, or even Cuba!
WarrenW, if by “fix it” you mean create a peaceful, stable, prosperous Iraq with a government which its people regard as legitimate, does the evidence to date suggest that the US can do that? If not, what’s the likely outcome of our continued involvement?
WarrenW,
You simply asserting that “it is simply a fact” that 1,2,3… doesn’t actually make any one of your assertions true, and is therefore a very feeble form of argument. You adduce no evidence. You show very little knowledge or understanding of some of the actual demographic/political facts about Iraq, which refute just about all the things you assert baldly there as “facts”. E.g., are you aware that the Shiites (who are not the “jihadists” in the present situation) constitute >60% of the national population and that it is they and the Kurds, not the Sunnis who sit atop nearly all of the country’s oil wealth? Etc., etc.
The rest of you– thanks for contributing to a great discussion here. I’m so happy to see the quote from (and link to) Tom Lehrer, whose songs are eerily, once again, extremely timely. Thanks so much for that, NoPref. Also the note that Juan’s link did get up there.
On the general question of imputing “true aims” or motivations to the leaders of this administration, collectively or severally, in general I find it’s not really helpful to impute motivations to folks with whose actions one deeply disagrees. But it’s especially harmful to impute malevolent motivations to them; not so harmful to make an “assumption” that their aims are not malevolent… Which is probably how I should have stated it in my comment above.
Regardless of what their “true aims” might have been– I think I see some of my role as a US citizen as being to do whatever I can to inform my compatriots and our leaders of the very harmful effects their policies have had on the lives of so many millions others of our fellow-humans there in Iraq… And similarly, of the quite foreseeably harmful effects the policy of occupation, control, and domination will continue to have if they continue to pursue it.
Bob, you make a good point about the risk they might pack up from Iraq and head for Iran. But I honestly don’t think they’d do it. Maybe Cheney and many of his neocon and Israeli friends are beating the war-drums for that. But there are huge countervailing constraints including Tony Blair, hopefully the US Congress, and hopefully also a much greater sense of realism inside the administration re what military force can and can’t achieve…
Anyway, I personally don’t feel I can let the fear of that hold me back from advocating a speedy and total withdrawal from Iraq.
I think that your point about the imputation of motive is an excellent one, Helena. But what if there is evidence of motive?
“the US and its allies to continue to offer the new Iraqi government’s army close air support in any battles with the neo-Baathists and jihadis…”
It is simply appalling to see that Juan Cole more and more is parrotting the very terms and phrases we are hearing from the Bush administration.
As for “neo-Baathists”, does he not understand that the so-called “Iraqi” so-called “government” is filled with neo-Baathists? He understands Arabic very well. Does he not recognize that more and more of the rhetoric we are hearing from officials of the current “government” are identical in nature, tone, and quality to the crude and vulgar rhetoric of Saddam and his regime?
We’ve heard from Bush…we’ve heard from al-Zarqawi…we’ve heard from the withdraw-at-any-price crowd…In 9 days time, we’ll hear from the Iraqi people.
“In 9 days time, we’ll hear from the Iraqi people.”
No. We will not hear from the Iraqi people. We MAY hear from a select few of the Iraqi people who 1) are willing to participate in a terminally illegitimate process, and 2) are not deterred from voting by any of the numerous roadblocks ranging from deliberate intimidation to having been rendered homeless and destitute by the near total demolition of their city.
And I say we MAY hear from these people, because given the rampant corruption in the process at nearly every level, and in the absence of any remotely credible monitoring, we will have no way of knowing whether the results are legitimate or not.
“We will not hear from the Iraqi people. We MAY hear from a SELECT FEW of the Iraqi people…”
if only a “select few” of the Iraqi people dare to brave the deadly risks posed by the anti-democratic nihilists, yes, then you will have been proven right in that the Iraqi people will NOT be heard from next Sunday.
“if only a “select few” of the Iraqi people dare to brave the deadly risks posed by the anti-democratic nihilists…wa kedha wa kedha wa kedha wa kedha…..”
Setting aside the corruption that permeates the process, and setting aside the fact that there will be, for all practical purposes, no independent monitoring, one of the absolute requirements for an election to be legitimate is that it must be possible for all to vote who are eligible and who wish to do so. That means that it must be physically possible, and it must also mean that citizens do not have to take their lives into their hands in order to vote. That requirement is not met in Iraq, and that fact and that fact alone makes the election illegitimate.
No monitoring for all practical purposes, Shirin?
What may be observable is the desire of the masses to vote. Not to say that if people do not venture out, we can conclude that they don’t want to, because there is intimidation.
But if significant numbers do visibly make the attempt, it will change the complexion of the Iraqi polity. Just that. It may not seem much, and it falls short of bureaucratic legitimacy, but it is something.
Dominic, I do not understand your question. Are you suggesting that there IS going to be monitoring? By a tiny handful of people? In a hotel in Amman, Jordan? That, Dominic, is not monitoring. That is a pretense at monitoring in a lame attempt to lend some legitimacy to a process that has none.
I appreciate the desperate need some people have to find something to feel optimistic about. However, “something” is not always better than nothing. Sometimes it is far worse, in fact.
The “something” we are talking about here is intended to determine Iraq’s political, economic and social future. It was illegitimate from the start, and is corrupt on every level. It is being conducted in a manner and under conditions that would render any such process illegitimate.
And by the way, I am not talking aboaut “bureaaucratic legitimacy”, I am talking about real legitimacy.
Dominic,
Just to remind you, this farce they are calling an election really has little to do with the Iraqi people and their country. Its design and timing are and were from the beginning intended for the political benefit the Bush administration and if possible for its so-called “Iraqi” agents, not for Iraqis. The Iraqi people are so far down the list of concerns they are not even visible.
“if significant numbers do visibly make the attempt, it will change the complexion of the Iraqi polity. Just that. It may not seem much, and it falls short of bureaucratic legitimacy, but it is something.”
excellent point.
“it will change the complexion of the Iraqi polity”
To what, exactly?
everyone, it seems, has an attitude toward elections in Iraq…Baathists, Jihadists, Americans, Jordanians, EuroLeftists, etc…what remains to be seen is what they mean to ordinary Iraqis…shiites, sunnis, kurds, turkomen, etc…yes, there will be Iraqis intimidated by the spector of Election Day violence…and, yes, Jimmy Carter and thousands of other international election monitors will not be at the polling places…but in a week’s time imo the world will learn something about the fortitude of the Iraqi people…but, if as one poster put it above, only a “select few” of the 15 million eligible Iraqis dare vote, than I will be the first to admit that I was DEAD WRONG!
Shirin, I would have responded sooner. We had a power cut in my part of Johannesburg due to a huge electric storm.
My point does not take away from yours at all.
Of course elections must be legitimate and demonstrably clean and fair, and this one in Iraq on the 30th of January will be none of those things. You are right to that extent.
But there is another dimension to the political theatre called “election”. I don’t know if you have ever seen pictures of the long lines for our liberation election in SA in 1994. I was in one of those queues that day. I still get emotional about it. It was the manifestation of the peoples’ desire to vote that was so moving.
The voting masses are the main actors on an election day, not the parties or the officials. I do hope that observers, whether from the press or anywhere, will be there next Sunday to record what the masses do – if anything. Of course Iraq is a completely unique situation, not to be loosely compared with SA or any other place.
Hammurabi, thanks for understanding what I meant.
Bit late to the discussion but came here after reading Juan Coles latest polite rebuttal (albeit perhaps ineffectual) of the estimable HC’s post.
One point not mentioned so far is the other alternative to not withdrawing which is being overrun as happenned in Vietnam. Militarily, there are as many differences as there are similarities between the two conflicts. But I’d refer you to Riverbend’s latest post .
She, poor woman, has not had any water in her taps for 6 days, and this seems to have affected much of the city of Baghdad. This suggest that at the very least the situation is becoming more and more unstable. Ask your self, how bad can it get?
Now Iraq is a big country and while Baghdad may well fall to insurgents, the Brits may continue to hold the south, and the US seems to have secure bases outsie many of the cities as a fall back position.
I don’t seriously think that the US wants to continue the conflict, but OTOH I think they fear a united Sunni/Shia insurgency. IIRC, the elections became a factor after Sadr mobilized his militia and it was Sistani’s promise of elections that got him to pull out of Karbala. I reckon the US military was having nightmares at that point and the election was a desperate ploy to avoid a coalition.
Now things have gone so far in the opposite direction that no matter what sort of mandate the SCIRI ticket has after the election there will continue to be a Sunni/Baathist insurrection. And while the water remains cut off in Baghdad, that insurrection will gain strength on a daily basis.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, says it will be the duty of the new government to demand the withdrawal of American forces
I think it’s hard to argue that the US is guarding anything in Iraq, or making an serious dent in intra-Iraqi violence. Mostly it seems like the US spends most of its time supplying/guarding its bases and raiding.
Whatever is going to happen after US withdrawal tomorrow would happen after US withdrawal in two/four/ten years. In the meantime the US is the most powerful killer in Iraq.
(Saddam’s old food-distribution register) … suggests that about 15 million Iraqis are eligible to vote amid a savage insurgency that makes Afghanistan look like the proverbial Sunday school picnic – and with not a single international observer daring to cross the border from Jordan.
But we know this – more than 3 million Iraqis have ventured from their homes to go to electoral offices to correct data on Saddam’s old food list and another 1.2 million people have made new registrations. Given the appalling security conditions on top of the seething anger at the failure of the US-led effort to rebuild this country, it would be remarkable if just these 4 million-plus turned out.
This and other arguments from the Sydney Morning Herald, picked up at: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0120-02.htm
The insurgency does not seem to be weakening. The argument that the U.S. should be part of any eventual transition to a stable governing entity in Iraq is, to my mind, a variation of Bush’s theme of creation of an entity that the U.S. approves of. This does not make it de facto wrong, but it does imply that such a transitional role would not suffer from all the difficulties now being encountered, prominently the rejection or abstention of the majority of Iraqis from endorsing anything with the U.S.
I have to say that any discussion about the withdrawal of US troops without knowing what force would take their place is wrong-headed. If you believe that the Iraqi police/security force/army is ready for the task at hand, then say so. If it should be United Nations peacekeepers, then say so.
A pragmatic approach to withdrawal that provides some realistic chance for the Iraqis to build internal security is needed to avoid a bloodbath that will dwarf the 100,000 killed. I agree that it has to be on the Iraqi’s timeframe, not on ours.
What I believe we are witnessing is an emerging civil war with our troops in the middle – we have to avoid the impulse to “simply get out”. An intelligent, historically unique approach will be needed to extricate ourselves from this mess. Walking away just won’t do.
Dominic, I appreciate your enthusiasm, based on your own experience, for elections as political theatre. However, I submit that the elections you stood in line for with such a sense of awe were legitimate elections being held by and for the benefit of the citizens of your country, and were an act and symbol of a true liberation. I submit that nothing of the sort can possibly be said about the elections about to be held in Iraq. If anything those elections are not an act and symbol of liberation, but of enslavement to a foreign power.
I simply cannot see how there can possibly be anything remotely uplifting about participation in an illegitimate, corrupt process that was designed, scheduled, and is being held not for the benefit of the Iraqi people, but for the political aggrandizement of the head of the illegal occupying power.
I don’t know what is going to happen next Sunday, Shirin. I just think if I followed your idea of it I would be in danger of being made to look foolish by the Iraqi people. For me this is a moment to suspend judgement and look, and listen.
As for SA 1994, I wonder if you realise what a close-run thing it was. “Awe” does not describe it. More like victory snatched out of the jaws of defeat.
I don’t want to be the one to say the Iraqi people cannot get something out of this. I’m impressed by the figures given above by the Sydney Morning Herald. 4.2 million people out of an electorate of 15 million have already taken the trouble to go and make sure they are properly registered. That is pro rata a higher figure than the registration phase of the 2004 SA election, if I am not mistaken.
I admit that the journalist Paul McGeough who produced these figures eventually draws a different conclusion – your conclusion, in fact.
But things are moving fast, aren’t they? Juan Cole wrote today in rebuttal of our hostess Helena Cobban, that US withdrawal would be all right after all if Sistani asked for it. But he was already out of date. SCIRI, Sistani’s party, had already gone on record in the London Sunday Times to demand that withdrawal (see above).
There are some moments which are best described by the phrase “Hic Rhodus! Hic Salta!”. It is possible that Sunday 30th January 2005 in Iraq will be such a moment. I hope so.
Right now we are bombarded with Iraqi election news. However, this election is meaningful only if the Falluja II offensive were a genuine success. As I detailed in my article (see below), the well-publicized Falluja II offensive was a resounding defeat. The American casualty rate among frontline troops in and around Falluja is well over 30%.
The current discussion of the Iraqi election is no different than a discussion of how to reform South Vietnam government in 1973. It is meaningless. Barring a dramatic military turn-around in Iraq, any political arrangement under occupation will be reversed by the new military victor(s).
Part One: American Military Defeat in Falluja II
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2696
Part Two: American Military Defeat in Falluja II
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2700
Lebanon or Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, or unpredictable?
The truth is that we don’t know what will happen, upon the U. S. immediate withdrawal. Lebanon didn’t fall apart even after civil wars and Israeli invasion. Yugoslavia did fall apart. Afghanistan is now controlled by warlords and is the world’s largest opium grower. Which way Iraq will go? Perhaps Iraq will go its own unique way? Nobody knows.
Had anybody predicated that military situation would deteriorate so fast in Iraq? The chance has increased dramatically for a catastrophic American military defeat in Iraq.
Finally, our discussion doesn’t really matter. It is Bush and neocon’s and Zionist extremists who control our government right now. Their current thinking (as reflected in the press) looks to be no immediate withdraw. And, there may be further escalations, such as strike on Iran.
How will this end? There is a historical precedence here:
Soviet Union is long gone. The Afghan guerrilla factions, who fought the USSR in the 1980’s, are still there today, becoming warlords in various part of the country.
Hi, friends! Great discussion here, and thanks to everyone for all the awesome links. I’m just about to write a new post replying to Juan’s reply to me.
Actually I have five more important things I want to post about as well, if only I have time. Gosh almighty where does the day go?
And by the way, Don S, you talk about Juan being a “lightning rod”… What the heck do you think I have been for the past 20-plus years of my professional life???
I would note that at least Juan gets invited to speak on NPR and many other major media these days. And I’m delighted that he does.
But I don’t. I used to, ways back when, before CAMERA and the other ardent pro-Likud speech suppressors got onto my case.
So yes, I do know a lot about being a lightning rod. But we all make our own decisions. I believe that Juan honestly sees things the way does– including, he has supported the US’s pursuit of its war aims in many, many cases, whereas I never have. This is an honest but very serious difference among friends.
I don’t believe, however, that he is “trimming his sails” for prudential reasons.
Helena, thank you for your brief capsule of the obvious and difficult twist and turns of your own efforts to bring sanity to the assessment of the mideast. I must admit, though an emotional observer of the whole mess for the past few decades, I’ve really had little familiarity with the academic scene since law school in the 60’s.
For the record, I resonate more with your position more than Juan Cole’s. It seems to me more in line with a peace perspective than a technical splitting of strategic hairs. Maybe that’s not even the right dichotomy. I’m for what seems like the simple moral imperative in this case.
In any case I am vocal in my opposition to the Likud and Likud-influenced policies and institutions that have a stranglehold on . . virtually all aspects of U.S. governmental posture towards the mideast.
Nobody cuts as well to the chase in explaining what Sunday’s elections are all about than “insurgent” leader al-Zarqawi, who said today:
“We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.”
Sounds like a Libertarian! Or a Republican whenever he loses an election.
and Helena is right, Juan Cole supported the war, and has always had more invested in the ethnic differences of Kurds Shiites and Sunnis. He could never abide the notion that there could be an Iraq unified along national interest, even though most Shiites and at least 85% of the Kurds fought for Saddam against Iran.
In many ways he is as naiive as the neocons, and if we can be provocative, would say that both are attached to the idea that an Iraqi granola set will somehow take power from the people with guns and establish civil society.
Would you invade Texas and depend on the characters from Slacker from the university in Austin to pick up guns and go beat the guys in pickup trucks?
“most Shiites and at least 85% of the Kurds fought for Saddam against Iran”
They did not fight for Saddam. They fought because they were conscripts who had little choice but to fight.
Dominic, I cannot see the upcoming “election” even remotely as you do. I do not want Iraq’s future to be determined by a process that is corrupt and illegitimate.
A good friend of mine put it better than I can, so I will quote him here:
“The design of the election is like a bad medicine. There is no difference between the medicine and the disease.
If the patient rejects the medicine, he is told “you don’t want to recover!” If his family complain, they are told, “you don’t love him.”
Democracy, Iraq-style
According to the news reports violence is building in Iraq in the run-up to Iraq’s first democratic elections on Sunday….
Shirin, we don’t yet know what “the patient” is going to do on the 30th.
I agree that with idea of the “patient” taking charge.
There may be a massive boycott, in which case I will be with you.
There could equally be a manifestation of popular initiative, shown by millions voting in spite of everything. Then, by the same token, you should come over to my side.
Let us wait and see. What else can we do?
Wellbasically– I disgree strongly with you when you say that Juan, has always had more invested in the ethnic differences of Kurds Shiites and Sunnis. He could never abide the notion that there could be an Iraq unified along national interest.
Juan is a fine scholar and a decent person, who makes many excellent political and personal judgments. I am sure, based on some long conversations with him when he was staying in our home last September, that he would love to see the emergence of an internally peaceable, well governed Iraq.
He and I do disagree deeply on some key aspects of the present US war venture in Iraq. But I totally don’t want this blog to be a place where people can bad-mouth him baselessly.
Also, in respect of my earlier comment, where I wrote that Juan has supported the US’s pursuit of its war aims in many, many cases, whereas I never have, for the sake of honesty I should note that during the first US war against Iraq (1991) I did give reluctant support to the war venture, though this time round I never have.
I should write more about the evolution that my thinking underwent between 1991 and 2003… I did become a convinced, total pacifist during those years. (There were also significant differences between the circumstances of the two wars.) But I became a pacifist in good part because I saw that though the US war to “liberate” the Kuwaiti royal family’s fiefdom succeeded in that aim, it also set in motion a train of further violence in the region including the violence inflicted by the anti-Iraq sanctions regime…
As I said, another post.
Where I just wrote, based on some long conversations with him…, I should have added, “and based also on the whole body of his published work for many decades.”
I think Juan Cole has a point and you are too quick to dismiss him.
The aims of the Bush administration are surely irrelevant (although it seems safe enough to assume they want to maintain control over oil reserves in the region), what we need to decide is the attitude the anti-war camp should take and why.
The situation in Iraq if the US were to leave tomorrow would be a power vacuum – an interim government with NO legitimacy facing an insurgency which even if it’s not “neo-Ba’athist” is certainly Sunni supremacist, and which probably has sufficient firepower to win and impose a viciously reactionary state.
Even flawed elections will result in a government with more legitimacy than Allawi’s (and if the elections were entirely a US “fix” I doubt we would see the unified Shi’ite list posised to win them). In fact the elections appear to be very much Sistani’s doing.
To argue that a withdrawal should be negotiated, phased and orderly, and hand over to a government with as much legitimacy as can be mustered, is not the same as supporting the occupation. And to avoid advocating things because Bush also advocates them in some form is not serious politics. Perhaps what we should have been doing was take him at his word and demand free elections back in 2003.
Comparisons with South Vietnam are meaningless. That country was an artificial creation and most of its population supported Ho Chi Minh. The present Iraqi insurgency is based on a subset of the 20% Sunni population. They have considerably less legitimacy than for instance Sistani, and if the western left weren’t so in thrall to anyone waving an AK47 they would see these people for the neo-fascists they are.
It would be better to listen to the Iraqi left – the Communist and Worker-Communist parties and the trade unions. Whatever their views on the election, they are implacably opposed to the insurgents and the Islamists and they definitely do not support an immediate withdrawal.
Dominic, it doesn’t matter what the patient does given that, as my friend said, the medicine is as bad as the disease. That is my point, and his. We do not want Iraq’s future decided by a process that is illegitimate and corrupt.
Secondarily, I do not want to see this corrupt, illegitimate, undemocratic process to be paraded about by the Bush administration as bringing democracy to Iraq because that is a lie.
What process do YOU favor to “decide Iraq’s future”?
Shirin, there is a core of difference between us that is not going away. Let’s look at what it is.
People make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing. But they do make history. They are the Subjects of history.
You cannot imagine the Iraqi masses as free-willing Subjects in these circumstances. Possibly you cannot see an electorate as a collective Subject in any circumstances, I don’t know. If that is the case then you are in keeping with the US polity, which is incapable of thinking or acting beyond the given “Republicrat” spectacle.
I care a lot less about the formalities than you do. For example we in South Africa are supposed now to have the “best constitution in the world”, but if you are starving, you can’t eat it.
What matters to me is what the people do, and especially what they do en masse. You can’t second-guess it. Can you? I don’t hold elections sacred. I hold people sacred. Vox populi, vox dei!
There are others who take a more extreme position than yourself, who want to bomb the people as they vote. I hope you wouldn’t want to go that far.
Let me ask a question. When, a year ago, Sistani was demanding elections, and Bremer was refusing, which side were you on? If you were on Sistani’s side then against Bremer, why have you changed?
Dominic, I don’t have time for a complete answer at this moment, but I will answer the last part. I was, of course, one of those demanding elections at that time. I cannot answer your second question because of the prejudicial way it is framed. I have not changed at all. I want real, meaningful elections, not this charade they are calling elections.
Helena I learn all kinds of things from Juan, I’m just pointing out the gigantic blind spot he and all other liberal doubters of the war have. Iraq is a religious conservative nationalist country with great possible wealth in a region that has wars all the time. At least as conservative as the USA.
It only stands to reason that the Iraqis would most likely settle on a strong nationalist leader not unlike Saddam Hussein. The view that they will tend liberal in any way can only be called shockingly rose-colored.
No offense meant, Shirin. I respect you, just as I respect Juan Cole, who is a great scholar and a gentleman.
Yet he has a similar blind spot to your own, or if you prefer, you both have a different prejudice to mine.
Juan Cole is already calculating what Sistani is going to do with the political capital that he will have when he wins the election. That is the US idea of an election: an accountablity moment and a one-way bet for the people. I don’t think it’s going to work out quite like that in Iraq. I think it is possible we will have a very different idea a week from now of what the Iraqi people are and what they want.
Must an election be a zero sum game in which if you win by as little as a hanging chad, you get to take away all the political capital?
Actually not everybody in the US thinks so. Justin Raimondo calls this Iraqi election a “Plastic Moment”. See http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4540
I’ve been reading Juan Cole daily for some time now, but I have to say it’s refreshing to find an alternative academic viewpoint provided by Helena. I’m not even interested in who’s right as much as what’s being debated. Nobody is right often enough to be the sole source of information/opinion and I had been getting slightly worried about only listening to one source (it’s not like you run across Iraq coverage in the mainstream).
When and how should the troops be withdrawn? I haven’t the foggiest. When the war started, I used to ask people how long it took us to get out of Korea, Germany and Japan. I figured we’re there for 50 years. But I’m not a historian and I’d be more than happy to be wrong here.
This election process is clearly badly flawed. But it’s going forward and if you want to be optimistic, you can hope that the people who make up the parliment find the resolve to assemble a stable consitution, however they ended up there. Democracy is always vulnerable to takeover by the fixers and thieves (as in the U.S. currently). Iraw needs a leader who can fight them and rise above it — maybe it’s Sistani? It’ll take somebody who is willing to put long-term goals over looting the treasury for personal gain.
Of course, you’ll note that the U.S. is losing the battle to the fixers and thieves. Between Reagan and Bush II, they’ve looted the treasury to the tune of 8 trillion dollars (probably 10 by the end of this admin). And these guys are supposed to inspire the Iraqis to put the long view ahead of their personal gain? Disdain of the U.S. may be their only chance.
“When the war started, I used to ask people how long it took us to get out of Korea, Germany and Japan.”
That is irrelevant to the case of Iraq. In the case of Iraq the invasion and occupation of the country was the result of an unprovoked war of aggression on the part of the U.S. The whole thing was illegal from the start, and the Iraqis have made it quite clear they want the U.S. to leave.
Dominic
Thanks for linking Justin Raimondo’s article from Antiwar.com…although decidedly pro-withdrawal and hopeful that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a close ally of Sistani and the likely next leader of Iraq, will demand a prompt American/UK pullout, Raimondo contrasts Hakim’s nationalist election rhetoric with this telling statement he made to the Guardian this weekend…
“As a matter of principle it is very clear that no nation accepts an occupation. It should be the Iraqi government that sets a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational forces. The Iraqi government and the occupation forces should cooperate together to find a suitable timetable in which they can work to have Iraq clear of any occupation forces.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1396031,00.html
should clarify one point…Hakim, a cleric like Sistani, will be a BEHIND THE SCENES leader…he will a member of the new National Assembly but will not serve as President, Prime Minister, etc.
“we will have a very different idea a week from now of what the Iraqi people are and what they want”
No, Dominic, we won’t. Not really. Not with this election.
This is an election in which the voters do not even know the identities of the majority of the candidates, let alone where they stand on the issues. This is an election in which only those candidates who have the support of the occupying power (and therefore its physical protection) or those few who have their own militias or can hire their own bodyguards can campaign at all. Therefore this is an election in which the great majority of the candidates are forced to remain unknown and silent, while those supported by the occupying power have by far the greatest ability to be heard.
This is an election in which a major segment of the population will be unable to vote due to the violence and chaos in their towns and cities. The population of one entire major city will be unable to vote because their city no longer exists as a city, having been demolished by the occupying power, and because they are scattered all over the country with few if any resources, and without the ability to get into their city to vote, no matter how much they may want to.
This is an election in which millions of eligible voters are refusing to vote on principle, because it is an illegal, illegitimate and corrupt process designed and timed by the occupying power for the political benefit of the occupying power and its agents.
This is an election in which the occupying power decided to include Iraqis who emigrated years and even decades ago, made permanent homes and taken citizenship elsewhere, because this group is expected to push the results in a pro-American direction.
This is an election in which the votes that are even now being bought and sold are almost certainly only the tip of the voter fraud iceberg. Yet this is an election without any oversight except by the occupying power and its hand-picked Iraqi agents – in other words, the council of foxes is guarding the hen house.
Regardless of the outcome, and even if there is not widespread fraud, the outcome of this election is at best a very poor substitute for what the Iraqi people are and what they want.
And I am far from alone in my perception: http://www.infoshop.org/inews/index.php?topic=47>One million signatures against the Iraqi elections
One million signatures against the Iraqi elections
Hi Shirin,
We seem to visit this site at the same times of day. In my case it is early morning, and summer-time of course.
I did not say categorically that we will have a different idea in a week about Iraq. I said it is possible that it will be so.
You are now saying “This is an election in which millions of eligible voters are refusing to vote on principle”. But you don’t know yet, because the election is not until next Sunday.
I don’t know why you cannot trust people (both Iraqis and international visitors to this site). You are working overtime to rubbish this election in advance. If the election is only rubbish, do you not think we will be able to see for ourselves?
I agree with you the election is a poor substitute for what should be. I agree that the Yankee must go home, not only from Iraq but from all his bases and Gulags around the world. I want peace, and no more imperialism.
Let us see what is going to happen. It is not true that “only those candidates who have the support of the occupying power” are on the ballot, as if they are all stooges and there is no potential difficulty here for the occupiers. In fact, the election is going to be a vote against occupation, whatever happens. There is no party standing for more occupation. In that sense at least, what you are saying is the reverse of the truth.
Dominic,
I have to confess that as much as I appreciate your perspective, and your apparently optimistic nature, I am getting frustrated, because it seems you are simply refusing to hear me, or to take seriously any of the very specific and very serious things I have listed. And now you are attributing to me statements I have never made, and views and feelings I have never expressed. Is it that you think I am making all this up, or that the problems I have listed are not, if not fatal flaws, then severe impediments to a legitimate, meaningful process?
1. Where do you get that I do not trust the Iraqi people? This has nothing to do with trusting or not trusting the Iraqi people. As for the Americans and their Allawis and their Shaalans and their Chalabis, no, I do not trust them at all. It would be quite foolish to trust them under the circumstances.
2. I never said “only those candidates who have the support of the occupying power” are on the ballot“. I said nothing remotely like that because it is obviously not true, and with all respect, I do NOT appreciate your misattribution to me of a very foolish and clearly unfactual statement, though I am sure you did it quite unintentionally and without ill will.
What I DID say is absolutely factual, and extremely significant. You don’t have to agree with me, but please reread what I wrote. I really think I made myself quite clear. The voters do NOT know the identities of the majority of the candidates, let alone where they stand on the issues. The only candidates who have been able to campaign are the ones who have the support and are therefore under the protection of the occupying power, or those who have their own militias to protect them, or those who can fortify their homes and hire body guards. Most of the rest have remained anonymous and voiceless.
3. It is a fact that millions of Iraqis are refusing this election. That is not something we have to wait to find out. One million Iraqis have even signed a petition against the election. Millions more are going to be excluded even if they want to vote because it is too dangerous where they are, or, as the case with Falluja, because their city has been obliterated and they have been turned into homeless refugees. That is a fact. At least couple of thousand Iraqi election workers and candidates have pulled out of participating in the election because of threats to their lives and their families. That is a fact, and those are only the ones we know about.
4. The selling of votes has been going on since registration began. That is a fact. There are signs of other fraud in the making. That is a fact. Are you not in the least concerned that, particularly in the light of the vote selling going on, there is to be no independent third party monitoring of this election? I am. And I am particularly concerned that the only oversight will be by the occupying power and those who stand to profit by its continued presence in the country.
5. “There is no party standing for more occupation.“. This is not about more occupation, this is about the Bush administration achieving its goal of establishing a permanent major presence in an Iraq that has been transformed into a dependent client state. There are certainly parties that are standing for whatever the Americans will tell them to do, and those parties are the ones who have been the most visible in terms of campaigning.
6. I have considerable personal experience and knowledge of Iraq, and know in depth and in detail about the current situation there, and the issues and personnel involved. Perhaps I flatter myself to think that I am well qualified to decide what this election means and does not mean. You certainly do not have to agree with me, of course.
Let’s leave it there for the time being, Shirin, shall we?
Dominic, it seems to me that you have only the very best and most generous-hearted of motives. It appears to me from what you have said that you and other South Africans had a profoundly life altering experience that most of us can only try to imagine, and that your participation in elections played a big part in that. It looks to me that you wish the same experience for Iraqis, and for that wish I am very grateful to you.
Unfortunately, the circumstances of your experience, and the transformation your country went through are completely different from the circumstances in which the Iraqis find themselves and their country today. Nevertheless, I hope we can always count on the generosity of your heart and your optimism.
You say that I am working overtime to rubbish the election. In fact, I have spent the most time carefully listing facts about the election, most of which are so well known as to not be in dispute. If that constitutes rubbishing the election, then it is the facts that rubbish it, not I.
Shirin and Dominic, I really want to thank both of you for this extraordinarily heartfelt and extremely important exchange which has really helped to clarify the depth of the issues involved.
Shirin, in particular, because this is YOUR country that the rest of us are all talking so blithely about here, I want to thank you for the wonderful way you have stuck to your viewpoint, clarifying and reclarifying it for us all without resorting to the accusations, combativity etc that– as we all know– can all too easily start erupting in cyberspace.
I don’t mean for these comments to close down this discussion. But I did want to say a big thanks to both of you.