The Iraqi insurgency, analyzed

The International Crisis Group has a new report out today titled In their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency. It is based on an apparently close reading of the public communications– mainly web-based– of the insurgent groups.
The report contains a wealth of really interesting information and analysis and also contains some grounds for optimism regarding the achievability of a negotiated cessation of war in the country (See below.)
That link there is to a Word version of the 36-page report. There’s also a PDF version. If you’re on a slow connection, you can read at least the Executive Summary at this URL.
This look like a really well-done report. Its authors admit the limitations of looking only at the public utterances of the insurgent groups. But they state quite justifiably that there is indeed real value in looking at these communications closely– and they point out that this is something that the people in the Bush administration have notably failed to do. Indeed, the report says of the US administration that,

Its descriptions have relied on gross approximations and crude categories (Saddamists, Islamo-fascists and the like) that bear only passing resemblance to reality.

The report-writers’ own analysis reveals, by contrast, the existence of:

relatively few groups, less divided between nationalists and foreign jihadis than assumed, whose strategy and tactics have evolved (in response to U.S. actions and to maximise acceptance by Sunni Arabs), and whose confidence in defeating the occupation is rising. An anti-insurgency approach primarily focused on reducing the insurgents’ perceived legitimacy – rather than achieving their military destruction, decapitation and dislocation – is far more likely to succeed.

On pp.1-2, the report lists the four main groups as:

* Tandhim al-Qa’ida fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (al-Qaeda’s Organisation in Mesopotamia),
* Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna (Partisans of the Sunna Army),
* Al-Jaysh al-Islami fil-’Iraq (the Islamic Army in Iraq), and
* Al-Jabha al-Islamiya lil-Muqawama al-’Iraqiya (the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance), known by its initials as Jami’ (mosque or gathering).

I don’t have a lot of time to summarize this important and extremely heavily footnoted report. (Reading the footnotes themselves provides a rich education in what’s been going on in Iraq.) But I’ll do the best that I can.
The report describes three main periods– until now– in the tenor of these groups’ communications:

* Phase 1, which apparently ended in mid-2004, they characterize as “Competitition”;
* Phase 2, mid-1004 through mid-2005, was “Consolidation”; and
* Phase 3, mid-2005 through the present, is “Confidence”.

Let me paste in what they say about the “Confidence” period (pp.13-14):

Having survived the initial phases of competition and consolidation, the insurgency appears to have gained measurably in self-confidence. Gone for the most part are earlier indications of hesitation and self-doubt. Extended self-justifications or validations of actions have become rarer; instead, the armed groups issue succinct and concise communiqués, claims of responsibility or, when faced with incriminating allegations, terse denials. On doctrinal issues, they now invoke a well established corpus of authoritative texts and documents. The insurgency is acting as if it has already proved its case and demonstrated both the iniquity of the U.S.-sponsored political process and the threat represented by the Iraqi government, accused of undermining the country’s unity and sovereignty.
The insurgents also display far greater confidence in the outcome of the military struggle, routinely belittling or ignoring apparent progress of the political process (elections or constitutional referendum) or reports of U.S. battlefield successes. There is a propaganda aspect to this, of course, as the groups seek to boost the morale of their troops while sapping their enemy’s. But it would be wrong to reduce it to that.
First, the insurgents’ perspective has undergone a remarkable evolution. Initially, they perceived and presented the U.S. presence as an enduring one that would be extremely difficult to dislodge; they saw their struggle as a long-term, open-ended jihad, whose success was measured by the very fact that it was taking place. That no longer is the case. Today, the prospect of an outright victory and a swift withdrawal of foreign forces has crystallised, bolstered by the U.S.’s perceived loss of legitimacy and apparent vacillation, its periodic announcements of troop redeployments, the precipitous decline in domestic support for the war and heightened calls by prominent politicians for a rapid withdrawal. When the U.S. leaves, the insurgents do not doubt that Iraq’s security forces and institutions would quickly collapse.
Secondly, this newfound confidence is noticeable not only in the insurgents’ official communiqués, but also in more spontaneous expressions by militants and sympathisers on internet chat sites.

In the Conclusions (pp.25-26), the report states:

The armed opposition also has found ways around the coalition’s attempt to dislocate it by regaining territory (e.g., Tall ‘Afar and al-Qa’im) or disrupting internet sites. On the ground, the insurgency is responding to the U.S. strategy – “clear, hold, and build” – by one of its own: recoil, redeploy and spoil. Rather than confront the enemy head on, it is taking advantage of its military flexibility, the limited number of U.S. troops and the fragility of Iraqi security forces to attack at the time and place of its choosing. Insurgent groups also have become proficient at maintaining internet communications despite coalition efforts to interrupt them.

The research and analysis produced by this report are intriguing and extremely valuable. So too are many of their policy recommendations, including that the U.S. should

mak[e] repeatedly clear at the highest level that it accepts that the oil resources of the country belong to the Iraqi people and no one else, and that it will withdraw as soon as the newly elected government so requests.

However, I’m deeply disappointed with the general thrust of their policy prescription, which is still that the US and its allies should seek to prevail over the insurgents.
The International Crisis Group, as I think I’ve written here before, is a sort of meta-think-tank put together by (mainly) the fairly “good” governments of northern Europe. At the top of its website, right under its name, it has the little tag-line, “Working to prevent conflict worldwide”. But it strikes me that by assuming that the best move forward is to try to “prevail” opver the insurgents, it is advocating only a quite unnecessary prolongation of this conflict.
Especially if the insurgents themselves are also– as the report says– feeling increasingly “confident” of victory.
I believe the main thrust of all those who seek to minimize and end the conflict in Iraq must be to use every means possible to conclude a negotiated agreement with all the practicioners of violence in the country– including the insurgents and all other parties. By sticking within the discourse of “prevailing”, the Crisis Group is being not just immorally hawkish but also holding out the quite unrealistic hope that “prevailing” is possible.
Prevailing is not possible. Negotiations would be hard, but are not impossible. And if the US is (as may be the case) not smart enough or nimble enough to open and conduct these negotiations, then it should make way for the party or parties that have the legitimacy and intelligence to do this. Whether that is the newly emerging Iraqi “government”, or the UN.
I completely understand that the prospect of negotiating with people who’ve committed acts as heinous as many of those committed by these insurgents in Iraq is not an easy one.
But guess what? For many Sunni Arab Iraqis the prospect of negotiating with the US and its allies is also not an easy one. Not after Abu Ghraib. Not after Fallujah. Not after all the other whole litany of abuses that’s been committed by the US in Iraq.
There are no angels there.
Also– and I take this from my continuing study of how the negotiations started and proceeded towards peace and stability in Mozambique, after the 15-year-long, atrocity-laden civil war there– negotiations themselves can transofrm both the dynamic of the situation as well as the nature of the individuals and groups who previously fought in it.
So Crisis Group friends– please! Let’s have much, much less of this talk of “prevailing”, and a sensible and realistic call for all-party peace talks in Iraq.
But I’d like to repeat that this ICG analysis really is valuable. One of the most valuable and optimistic things it reveals is that the insurgents actually have consolidated and are better organized, in fewer and generally bigger groupings, than I had previously assumed.
You know what? That actually makes the prospect of peace negotiations much more achievable.