Can Iraq be fixed at this point?

Great Debates
21

There are many problems with a Kurdish state. Turkey, a Nato ally and a Muslim democracy is dead set against it. So too, are Saudi Arabia and Iran. All three nations have large Kurdish minorities that would be emboldened by a new Kurdistan. Maps of a proposed Kurdish state include large parts of Turkey and Iran. If the state is established, it will likely pull Turkey away from Europe and the West’s orbit and push it towards fundamentalism. There have already been large gains by fundamentalists parties in Turkey as a reaction to the Iraq war. Also note, that the most popular movie in Turkish history is a movie about the Turks fighitng Americans in Kurdistan.

Kurdistan would also give Saudis and Iran a common cause. The establishment of Kurdistan will signal the decline of US influence, the strengthening of Iran and the spreading of the Iraq conflict to Turkey.

22

madmonk28:
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with anything in your last post, seeing as how you’re in a better position to interpret what’s going on than I am, but I have two questions:

  • Is Turkey really that unstable at the moment, and would a Kurdish state really derail their desire to be a fully-participating European country? They don’t seem to have any good reason to join with the Arabs, as far as I can see.
  • I can’t imagine Saudi Arabia and Iran joining forces, particularly as long as the unholy deal Roosevelt struck with the Saudis back in the thirties remains in place. Where does the advantage for the Saudis to play with dynamite?
23

Yup, that Qusay. Saddam junior. And yes, I know that his killing merely thousands makes him a lighweight.

24

When the dynamite is in your lap and the fuse is sputtering along, you will play.

SA is an amazement for the ages, how a bunch of inbred plutocrats managed to tap dance through a minefield for generations and survive. They do it by being tuned to even the tiniest of vibrations, like a long tailed cat in a room full of electric rocking chairs, they are alert.

They are locked in a cage with a tiger, and they keep the tiger from eating them by feeding it steaks. And the tiger gets bigger, but the cage doesn’t. The ruling family of prolific rabbits survives by making deals with the Wahhabist sect of extreme Islam. Even though they might very well wish to come to some sort of agreement with Iran, the Wahabbi hate Shia in a way we simply don’t understand.

Look for them to try for a posture of public scolding and private agreement. Anything that rocks the boat worries the Saudi.

25

I don’t mean to imply that we will see the collapse of the Turkish state, but I do think you will see a hardening of their position and the rise of fundamentalism in Turkey. You already see that in recent elections and there has been a marked increase of Kurdish terrorism and Turkish response. Add to that the EU’s constant rejection of Turkey as a member and you wonder if one good economic downturn might push them even farther away fromt the West.

As for Saudi and Iran not wanting a Kurdish state, I don’t think they will outright cooperate, but it is both of their interests (and Syria’s) to prevent the creation of Kurdistan. The Iranians already regularly shell some Kurdish towns on the border and the Saudis and Syrians seem to be providing aid to fighters around Kirkuk.

The point I would like to make regarding partition is that it is not nearly so neat or natural as some commentators glibly would have us believe. Also, I think that the partition of Iraq represents a collosal failure of US policy and I don’t think the US will recover from it for decades.

Nevetheless, it might well be the least terrible of many terrible options left on the table.

26

Saudi Arabia as I know has no Kurdish minority, Syria on the other hand does. However, that being said, well hard cheese, the establishment of a Kurdish state will come about sooner or later, as they are the largest group of people without a state in the world. It’s pretty hard to contain Kurdish nationalism when next door there is a semi autonomous and nearly independent Kurdish state in Iraq heading towards success. You tell me how the PKK is going to cease attacks when next to it is what I’ve just described in Iraq, it won’t.

Why the Saudis would object to a Kurdish state is beyond me.

If this is going to happen because of a Kurdish state being established, and what’s left is some Turkish rump state, then won’t this happen anyway in the amount of time it’ll take for Kurds to come together as a country?

Turkish Fundamentalists are no where near as bad as their Arab counterparts, and with the Turkish military and the secularist philosophy and nationalistic tradition immersed in the seculariser Ataturk, I doubt that Turkey will turn into Iran overnight. And please don’t forget the amount of European influence (people who also have also had a dose of anti-americanism as of late) which is on Turkey and it’s proposals to join the EU.

Well, Syrian and Iran already have a common cause, which is to prevent various populations and movements from ever gaining power at their expense. Why would a Kurdish, pro US state with freedoms which alot of politicians both sides of the Atlantic be a signal of decline of US influence?

The moving about is going to happen, especially in the Kurdish areas of the middle east, what we should be doing is allowing that to happen as bloodlessly as possible.

27

It can and likely will be contained by the Turkish military invading and smashing them, unfortunately.

28

Installing a strongman sounds nice, but it’s not possible. Absolute rulers are only as strong as long as they have the support and loyalty of a credible army. We dissolved Iraq’s army, as well as removed all the Baathists in the government, so the only force that could possibly project a dictator’s rule would be…the U.S. army. Yeah, that’s going to play well.

The idea of the U.S. training a new Iraqi army is utter fantasy, at least for the near time. Who knows, maybe a sea change will sweep over Iraq and all the men will want to join up with the Americans to kill their former allies and friends, and the local population will support them instead of bombing their stations and killing their officers in infiltration missions…but if that’s gonna happen, we’re gonna need to stay for awhile.

Also, we can’t really build infrastructure. First that would take a lot of money that we haven’t appropriated. Second, the entire construction crew would have to live in a bubble, or be hauled in from the U.S. or something, because if they lived among fellow Iraqis they’d be killed or bribed real fast. Letting it be known you collaborate with the Americans is a good way to have extra company at night.

Another thing, we don’t have enough forces to protect what we build. Even if it somehow gets finished as soon as we leave it’ll be rubble. As someone said up thread, we can’t even keep the lights and water on most of the time, get real.

I should probably watch more congressional briefings and press conferences, but I’ve become so disgusted I simply stopped. Are the top military brass still lying about how many Iraqi units have reached combat readiness or did they come clean? My favorite was when someone (I think it was Rumsfeld) said we had 100K units…when in reality we had like 5-10K, if you’re generous.

On a different note, does anyone know if we’re still building those enduring bases? I thought I remember reading an article sometime ago that said we halted construction, but it might’ve been a mirage…

This post was pretty cynical, but there simply is no quick and easy solution. Any long term solution will have such a high price tag in terms of cash, lives, and dedication that the American people will drop it like a hot potato, and rightly so IMO. We didn’t start this thing caring about the Iraqi people, so I don’t know why everyone is all concerned all the sudden. That’s why revenge is a dish best served cold, because that’s all the U.S. populace was thinking of at the start.

We’re going to lose, one way or another, which is a crying shame.

On the bright side, Hollywood is gonna have a lot of material with which to work!

29

The Saudis would object to a Kurdish state for precisely the same reason they were opposed to the toppling of Saddam in the first Gulf War: They do not want a destabilized nation on their boder.

Also, over the years, the Kurds have received support from the Israelis who were interested in undermining Saddam. The Saudis do not want to see an established Israeli client state on their border.

Finally, the partitioning of Iraq would likely result in a Sunni state that would harbor groups dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi royal family which many Sunni fundamentalists see as corrupted.

Of course, Turkish Fundamentalists are not on par with some of their Arab counterparts, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t trend towards extremism. It is interesting that you mention Iran, as prior to the overthrow of the Shah, you could have said many of the same things you are saying about Turkey (secularlist, fundamentalist parties not so radical, etc.

One reason is that it would represent a complete faliar of state US policy. At no point has this administration stated that the partition is one of its goals, or even desirable. To do so would be to admit that the US has failed to establish a viable democracy in Iraq or even a stable state. It also would mean that the US has done something that Turkey, a NATO ally, and Muslim democracy will see as very real affront and undermine US credibility with Turkey.

I just have to say that this kind of glib smugness is exactly the kind of thinking that has brought us to our current state of affairs. To dismiss the national concerns of the Turks, a NATO ally, the Saudis a powerful oil rich state, and Iran, which is currently pursuing nuclear weapons as “hard cheese” is to make the same mistake the Bush administration did when they assumed that the rest of the world would simply go along with their vision and not actively obstruct it.

30

Think so? Looks to me like Hollywood only makes films where the US are the good guys. It’s a marketing decision.

31

You mean like Full Metal Jacket?

32

Kubrick, London.

Makes my point nicely.

33

They don’t have much to worry about, right now: we’re making them look great.

34

I don’t know how he will manage it. But I do know that he did manage it for a long long time before the US thought it could do better. The fact that he did manage it for so long gives me enough reason to believe that he can do it again. Sadr and his ilk existed then, as they do now. Somehow Saddam had the ability and strategy to contain him.

Do what it tried after the 1991 war. Saddam crushed it then. He would crush it again. If that requires him to be brutal and execute people, it should be overlooked if it results in the larger good of the country and its general citizens as a whole. Remember Iraq never was, nor is, a ‘normal’ country. If killing ten brings peace, safety and stability for a thousand, so be it.

No dictator acts alone. To maintain a successful dictatorship, he has to have loyal/paid friends and supporters deep within the ranks of the enemy. Saddam too must have had people like these. He obviously had an effective strategy which he executed with success.
And so to conclude:

  1. Take Saddam into confidence.
  2. Strike a deal.
  3. Orchestrate his escape.
  4. Provide him covert support.
  5. Let him get his band of people together.
  6. Get out of the country
  7. Beg forgiveness from the people of Iraq and at home and promise not to meddle in another country’s affairs unless absolutely absolutely sure that it is a threat to you.
35

A independent Kurdistan would not border Saudi Arabia, nor IMO present much of a threat or concern ( while they might recognize Israel, they’d hardly be an Israeli sattelite ). What Saudi Arabia WOULD fear is a Shi’a state on their northern border, especially given the restive Shi’a population in adjoining Hasa, most of whom look to Sistani as their religious leader.

The U.S. would have little prospect of turning Kurdistan into a base site. Geography mitigates against it, for one thing. But I also have my doubts on the ultimate stability of the Kurdish regime. It’s doing better than I expected so far, but territorially and office-wise it is still highly segmented between the two main factions, both of them heavily armed, linguistically distinct from each other and with a violent history.

A moderate strongman might work, but unfortunately no one currently exists with the stature to take the job. If one emerges after lots of ugly fighting, you can bet they won’t be particularly moderate.

The conditions that allowed Saddam Hussein to seize and hold power no longer exist. At best he might be able to rally certain elements of the old regime resistance. But take power? Never. I expect more likely he’d end up dead relatively quickly.

  • Tamerlane
36

John McCain is officially delusional:

Even if “winning this thing” is still remotely possible, I think we can all agree that managing that feat “within the next several months” is NOT remotely possible, unless he’s got a very different definition of “several” than the rest of us do.

37

I did not say Kurdistan would border Saudi Arabia, I said the Saudi’s don’t want a destabilized nation on their border (a failed Iraqi state). That would include a Shi’a state (Sistani is the least of the Saudi’s troubles as he is old and largely apolitical, Sader is a much worse threat), but also a radicalized Sunni state that might serve as an alternative to Saudi Arabia for fundamentalists.

38

As long as the die-hard party loyalists (which McCain has proven himself to be anymore) can keep putting off the Day of Reckoning, it doesn’t really matter *how * far off they put it. The antidote is for us not to *let * them put it off.

We were in and out of frikkin’ World War II in barely 7 Friedmans. It’s been that long in Iraq already.

39

Madmonk28, can you give some background on daily life in Iraq currently? How is everyone being fed, paid, i.e. living on a day to day basis? Does any rule of law exist?

I ask since I hear of the terrible infrastructure since the war began, off and on electricity, but I have not heard of famine and complete chaos. Commerce seems to exist at a level of sustenance, though not much more. What kind of non-military shipment/transport of goods exist in the country?

My own thoughts are that we have completely fucked the pooch. Its lying shivering in a corner, afraid of its own shadow. We have had the most control since we dismantled the B’aath administration, and we have not accomplished even the most basic of administrative duties. We cannot even protect the Iraqi police. The bombings of police cadets and graduation ceremonies are what depresses me the most. If we cannot even protect those that are willing to establish the rule of law, then how can we build credibility in any other area?

We have had three years to train at the least a competent core of Iraqi security forces, and we are woefully short of that goal as noted in posts above.

Personally, I think we have to attack the Iraq mess from a completely different angle. A military solution will never happen, but contradictorily, I think more troops is part of the answer, but not to engage insurgents, but to secure the peace. Send as many more troops as possible until the problem is too many, instead of not enough. I think with the change of Congress and the SOD, we may be able to get our allies to commit troops again for police actions and supply chains, freeing our combat troops for combat.

And this may be pie in the sky, but once we have those troops on the ground, and can actually go a month without Iraqi police academies being bombed, we need to go house to house not with guns, but with a lawyer* and a doctor**, and determine exactly what each household has a particular grievance with and what basic needs do they require.

Every action/strategy I see in Iraq is being pushed from the top down, and I do not see any request for input from the bottom, from those that are affected the most, which are the Iraqi citizens. But that perception may just be media bias. But the White House cheering about how they were able to vote in a barely meaningful election does not help the Iraqis deal with their day to day issues, which I have not seen addressed in any meaningful way.

We need to put the military aspects on the back burner, and concentrate on securing the peace in those areas under our control. When, if, we brings those areas up and enable them to be part of the solution, they can help us devote our resources to whatever military goals remain.

But we need to rebuild those areas under our control, and devote as many resources as necessary to keep them under our control, and prove to the average Iraqi that overthrowing Saddam was a good thing, and not just a hard-on by our prez, even though that is exactly what it was/is.

The sad part is that everything before now is pretty much a sunk cost. We have literally wasted the resources of two nations and several generations, but the US still has the resources to pull this off we make a 200% committment to doing so. But if we leave or continue the half-ass status quo, Iraq will become Somalia/Haiti redux by the end of the decade, and that blood is on our hands, not Saddams or Al-Qaida.
AP
*by lawyer, I essentially mean, an independant neutral party that can record and represent a household’s greivances before a court of law. How much legal training that will require in Iraq I have no idea. This plan also requires a functioning court system and the means to address greivances, even if it is just an IOU for the future, i.e., we will help rebuild your house as soon as we can get the money, but you are on the list. Just dont hold your breath.

** by doctor, I mean someone with enough medical training to assess their health needs and able to refer serious cases to the appropriate care.

40

I have to second that thought. I thought that should have been a major selling point by the Democrats in the recent elections. The situations are comparable enough in scope to highlight just how imcompentant this administration has been. But I heard nothing in my neck of the woods, but they won nonetheless. I think the average Joes knew that fact in the back of their heads though.

I still think the most effective political ad for the Democrats would be to play the whole stupid “Mission Accomplished” video with the number of casualities, US, allied, and Iraqi, and dollars spent since that BS photo op. That man should never have been allowed to wear a uniform - that was an insult to our troops.
AP