Gilbert Achcar, elections, Iraq, Palestine

Some of the most insightful analysis that Juan Cole’s blog has on the situation inside Iraq are those that are guest-posted there by leftist Parisian intellectual Gilbert Achcar. Like the post that Gilbert had up there yesterday.
It includes these items:

    2) Muqtada al-Sadr

21 thoughts on “Gilbert Achcar, elections, Iraq, Palestine”

  1. I too thought Gilbert Achcar’s contributions were very good.
    It seems to me that his remarks about the intent of Falluja support my contention in these comments a couple of days ago, that the secret aim of Washington in Iraq is to break the country up into three (or perhaps more, you never know) mini-states, as this will permanently weaken Iraq, and provide the only chance for permanent US bases in the country. The continuing, pointless, offensives against Sunni cities, Tel’afar, Ramadi, the threat against Samarra, can only be intended to keep Sunnis in the extremist camp, and out of the polling station.

  2. It actually seems that Fatah did slightly better and Hamas somewhat worse than the last round of municipal elections. Fatah got 60 percent of the vote as compared to 56 percent in May, and took 61 councils to Hamas’ 21 as opposed to 52-28 last time. This could have been influenced by any number of factors – the switch to a party-list system, for instance – but many people are bound to perceive it as a slip in Hamas’ support following its recent mistakes. Maybe this will cause a rethinking of strategy within the party (although nothing’s certain).
    And, um, might the IDF arrests of Hamas candidates have had something to do with the barrage of 40 Qassams fired into Israel over the weekend? The Israeli government seemed willing to leave matters alone before that.

  4. I don’t agree with the suggestion that the US gov’t has a grand strategy to neutralize or take over Iraq by encouraging sectarian divisions that will divide up the country. Sectarian violence and civil war may well result from our actions, but that is not evidence of “intelligent design.”
    I don’t think anyone in the US gov’t is really in control of the war effort anymore. It is a ship adrift, caught in the current of events. The only possible outcomes are all disastrous.
    Just today, General Casey made the jaw-dropping admission that the number of fully functioning “Iraqi Army” battalions has decreased from 3 to 1 since June. No explanation offered, but only one is possible: we are losing support. An already tenuous position has deteriorated to desperate. The one remaining battalion is, of course, the Peshmerga.
    It may be that our trusted leaders are willing to give up the Southern oil fields to the Iranian-backed Shiite militias, in order to concentrate their meager forces on trying to wipe out the Sunni resistance, in the hopes that we can eventually strike some kind of permanent deal with our friends the Kurds, but even this will come to naught. Why should the Kurds give us a good deal, once their opposition has been neutralized? Plus, whatever the outcome of the guerilla war in Anbar province, once it is over, the most highly trained and disciplined fighters will turn their attention to Saudi Arabia – a target rich environment, and the crutch upon which our economy rests its weight.
    All I can see here is failure on a massive scale. But I would be very pleased to be shown the errors of my analysis.

  5. “Sectarian violence and civil war may well result from our actions, but that is not evidence of “intelligent design.””
    Oh har har. Very good. Are you suggesting that Bush the Creator may not exist?

  6. John C.:
    I did not say breaking up Iraq was a grand strategy, and certainly not one maintained from the beginning. However it’s an aim which might explain the apparently pointless destruction of Sunni cities.
    I too am a great supporter of the cock-up theory of history, but to suggest that deep in the dark corners of the Pentagon and the White House, there are no plans at all, however immoral, cannot be right.

  8. Small wonder Hamas “candidates” have been arrested in recent days. The only problem there is that there have not been enough arrests. What would you expect Israel to do when an openly and proudly genocidal hate group launches dozens upon dozens of rockets at children and other civilian “targets” in the run-up leading to this (very likely rigged) “election? Give me a break. Israel, like all countries, has every right to defend itself from terrorism, whether that practiced by non-state actors or states themselves. Posts like this, however, put forth the view that Israel actually has no right to self-defense. As a self-described Quaker, this type of view is not only racist, it is decidedly NOT non-violent.
    Your openly hostile criticism of Israel is hardly informative, and does little to bolster your well-earned reputation as an educated writer and Middle East expert.

  9. Small wonder Hamas “candidates” have been arrested in recent days. The only problem there is that there have not been enough arrests. What would you expect Israel to do when an openly and proudly genocidal hate group launches dozens upon dozens of rockets at children and other civilian “targets” in the run-up leading to this (very likely rigged) “election? Give me a break. Israel, like all countries, has every right to defend itself from terrorism, whether that practiced by non-state actors or states themselves. Posts like this, however, put forth the view that Israel actually has no right to self-defense. As a self-described Quaker, this type of view is not only racist, it is decidedly NOT non-violent.
    Your openly hostile criticism of Israel is hardly informative, and does little to bolster your well-earned reputation as an educated writer and Middle East expert.

  10. Alastair-
    I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth, just responding in a general way. Of course the Pentagon has plans for all sorts of things, most of which will never occur. The question is whether events in Iraq are proceeding in accordance with any preconceived plan made by the U.S. government, and I think the answer is clearly no. After the spectacular public failures of four successive envoys (Garner, Bremer, Negroponte and Khalilzad), each with his own approach to the problem, it is hard to argue that they planned it this way all along.
    In fact, nothing they have tried has come close to working. Even the so-called “Salvador option” has failed (which is why Negroponte is no longer the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq). We are now firmly ensconced in the worst case scenario. So why does the war go on? Because our Dear Leader has simply told the military brass that they must stay the course until they achieve victory, which just means some condition that Karl Rove can use to make Bush look like a strong and successful leader. The
    Pentagon has no idea how to do this, because it is impossible. But the Commander in Chief doesn’t want to hear about that, so the military just continues to fight the way it was trained to fight, even though most of them know the cause is lost.
    As ground force options dwindle, the Pentagon will have to ratchet up the aerial bombardment, because air power and nuclear weapons are the only unimpaired tools left in the box. The only things I see that could prevent this are (a) a suddenly reinvigorated U.S. Congress putting on the brakes, or (b) the Iraqis somehow managing to establish a unified political
    front. Neither seems likely. Here I think is where some people are tempted to conclude that the Bush administration is actively trying to sabotage the political process in Iraq, in order to keep the war going. I just don’t think it works that way.

  12. The division of Iraq may not be a bad idea. The ugly Sunni-Shiite quasi civil war, and geographical cleansing, debunk the notion of a strong Iraqi identity beyond the incidental cheer for the same national football team.
    Also the Algerian precedent shows that democracy and civility are facilitated, in the Arab world, by plain exhaustion of the internal violence. At the rate the insurgency is killing Iraqis that may be in 5 to 6 years.
    David

  13. ‎The division of Iraq may not be a bad idea. The ugly Sunni-Shiite quasi civil war, ‎‎‎
    Their is one uglier than them…..‎

  14. I see that Robert Fisk is interpreting events in Iraq in quite a similar way to what I said above, and a couple of days ago.
    http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1472282.htm
    He thinks civil war in Iraq is unlikely, and that the notion of civil war is being talked up in the US – including I see by Juan Cole.
    Robert Fisk has a lot of experience in Iraq, and he’s been there more recently than I. His conclusions are a lot more useful than all those people who have never been to Iraq. He seems to me to get the tone exactly right. There’s little danger of civil war, the Iraqis will reach their own solutions, once the occupation troops are withdrawn. An important, if not the most important, element of the insurgency is simply the demobilised Iraqi army, a point I had already been alerted to a couple of months ago by an Iraqi contact.
    If the notion of “civil war” is being talked up as a danger, you have to ask why. It is evidently part of a narrative coming out of Washington, to justify the US staying in Iraq.

  15. Hi, folks. This is a really good and well-informed discussion, so thanks to you one and all.
    The question of US “steering” the events in Iraq, or not, as discussed by John C and Alastair above, is a really important one…
    Gosh I am so behind on what I want to write for JWN (main posts)!
    Still, I just wanted to tell y’all that I heard from Gilbert Achcar who says he’ll be happy to send me the periodic analyses that he emails out to a bunch of people (incl. Juan). When this happens I’ll decide whether to copy and paste the whole thing into a main post here; make excerpts; upload and archive it here and provide a link; or provide a link to it if he has it archived elsewhere.
    Anyway, I think that getting his work well featured here will certainly add to what we have on JWN.
    Gilbert also answered the question I had in this post about what the TAL says if the referendum goes against the draft constitution.
    He referred to paras D & E of Art. 61 and summarized them as “that elections are to be held before Dec 15 whatever the result of the referendum.”
    Actually, Art. 61-E, which he helpfully also sent over specifies that:
    (E) If the referendum rejects the draft permanent constitution, the National Assembly shall be dissolved. Elections for a new National Assembly shall be held no later than 15 December 2005. The new National Assembly and new Iraqi Transitional Government shall then assume office no later than 31 December 2005, and shall continue to operate under this Law, except that the final deadlines for preparing a new draft may be changed to make it possible to draft a permanent constitution within a period not to exceed one year. The new National Assembly shall be entrusted with writing another draft permanent constitution.

  16. Fortunately, David is always here to remind us why we’re fighting in Iraq – it’s a religious crusade, just like George Bush and Osama Bin Ladin said it was!!
    David, you would do well to remember who the earlier crusaders turned on after they got tired of fighting muslims. Do you think it won’t happen again?

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