I heard this on the radio early this morning, but I haven’t been able to track the story down online anywhere, but judging by related stories like this, it doesn’t seem at all impossible. And according to this same radio story, U.S. officials were predicting things to get worse as the new Iraqi government tries to get its act together.
Somebody, give me some hope that this is going to get better, because to me it looks like a cycle of violence that’s just going to keep getting worse. Are we helping at all by being there? It certainly doesn’t seem like we’d be helping to leave at this point, unless your theory is that the Iraqis will just have to have a civil war to decide who’ll wind up in power.
There have been a lot of bombs in the past 24 hours. Tortured bodies turn up every day here. The estimates I see are about 1,500 a month, so 70 seems about right. Things are certainly deteriorating.
There are fewer carbomings and suicide attacks. Also, most of the population are against the insurgents. More Iraqi battilions are able to own their own battlespace, bringing major troop withdrawals from Iraq cities a possibility. Iraq also scores high on the freedom index in the Middle East, I think it’s somewhere behind Lebanon?
We are helping in ways that we are/have been seen to be the mediator and neutral group in relation to both of the communities, and a mediator in helping the transistion to a four year government.
For more information, read this report. (PDF Format)
The number of US/coalition casaulties are only one indicator. I think a very troubling indicator is the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Iraq. See page 26 of the Brookings report referenced above. Prior to April of this year, the number of IDPs was around 14,000. Now, there are in excess of 100,000 IDPs in Baghdad alone.
I authored a survey/report of IDPs in Baghdad. They mostly come from mixed neighborhoods and fled to homogenous neighborhoods. The majority left because of specific threats of violence against them based on etnicity/religion.
Iraq is transition from a mixed nation to a Balkanized one. There is heavy fighting ahead between Kurds and Sunnis over the city of Kirkuk. For the Kurds, Kirkuk represents the possibility of establishing their own state (the oil fields of Kirkuk would make this possible). The Sunnis will try to stop this. They will/are receiving backing from the Saudis, the Turks will also adamantly opposed the Kurds holding Kirkuk as a Kurdish state undermines Turkish security. The Iranians are helping the Kurds because it undermines and diverts the Sunnis.
I think there is a real danger of this conflict spilling outside of the borders of borders of Iraq. It is clearly transistioning into a proxy war between the Saudis, Turks and Iranians. Within the next five years, I think it is very possible that you will see sectarian violence within Muslim enclaves in Western Europe.
Alas, the report you cited - which derives its figures from the IBC - that does indeed show a significant trend downwards in Iraqi civilian deaths for the period November '05 - February '06, does not include the latest IBC figures, which show a massive upswing in “sectarian killings”, including 1,091 deaths in Bahgdad alone for the month of April, and a year-on-year increase of 16% on the the previous March-March period.
Also, I think any debate about whether things are going to improve in Iraq has to establish what exactly improvement means and for whom.
I have been here off and on since the very beginning of the US invasion and I can’t really say what would constitute a success at this point and I don’t think the US government has really articulated what success is and how the US will know when it has acheived it.
Also, as jjimm pointed out, civilian deaths declined in November 05- February 06, but they almost always decline during the rainy winter and pick up in the Spring and Summer.
It’s not a civil war in the sense that it involves the borders of Iraq. Zarcowardly is an outside force fighting for an Islamic state. Put another way, he is using the conflict in Iraq to fight against Democracy in the Middle East. To that end he has deliberately provoked conflict between religious sects. The civil war is a religious one and will continue across any border that attempts to democratize. Most of the violence is centered in specific regions, which contain high concentrations of terrorist cells. To date, the problem has not been their removal, but their containment. As long as they can relocate in sufficient numbers they will be able to control local opposition through terrorist acts.
Yes, it’s more complicated than what I’ve stated but the simplest way to summarize it is to note the use of imported terrorists for the purpose of destabilizing a democracy.
With all due respect, both factions in the Spanish Civil War imported fighters in large numbers, and the Nazis practiced Blitzkrieg at Guernica. Didn’t stop it from being a civil war.
Sorry, but the number of foreign fighters among the insurgents has never been significant. Estimates are that they represent 4-10%. Here is an article from the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post.
The fact is the insurgency is home grown with assistance and encouragement from outside powers. It never would have been born had the US not toppled Hussein.
I also disagree that the insurgency is simply anti-democracy. They are opposed to power sharing with other sects/ethnicities and they are opposed to foreign occupation. For many of them, democracy has little meaning beyond being American propaganda. To say that they are anti-democratic is to too narrowly define them. They are anti-occupation and anti-power sharing.
And who is financing this? Where do most of the suicide terrorists come from?
It would have happened regardless of who toppled Hussein.
I agree that the insurgency isn’t simply anti-democracy. But Zarcowardly, his money, training, and suicide bombers are. Pitting religious sects against one another to create a civil war was a stated goal.
Most of the financing of the insurgency seems to come from money Hussein was able to hide away. A great deal of the weaponry comes from looted military sites and the fact that the Iraqi Army was disbanded without being disarmed. Most of the suicide bombers as well as the insurgents in general are Iraqis.
If the US hadn’t toppled Hussein, who else would have?
I don’t think the agency of the US was the main point here. madmonk’s claim was that the chief cause of the insurgency was the invasion of Iraq and the consequent militarization of Sunni resistance.
I agree with Magiver that the same thing could have happened if anybody else had invaded Iraq in the same way and with the same strategy or lack thereof. But I think madmonk is right to say that probably such an invasion would never have happened (or not within the next several years, at least) if the US hadn’t decided to do it.
I couldn’t imagine a scenario where Hussein was toppled if it wasn’t a US invasion and I wanted to know who else he envisioned carrying out such an act.
It doesn’t matter if people ‘support’ attacks against Coalition targets, I’m aware that the majority of the population isn’t dumb enough to assume that their government (democratically elected and representative no matter how much you dislike it) is going to survive long as it is without major foreign support, supporting attacks and committing attacks aren’t one in the same thing.
Considering we side with neither sectarian group, whether the Iraqis believe it or not, we are a neutral party, if we sided with any group the implications for violence would be worse and would play into any rival groups propaganda.
Republicans and Francos troops weren’t in a proportional representative government working out how to bring an end to violence.
Sorry, but the number of foreign fighters among the insurgents has never been significant. Estimates are that they represent 4-10%. Here is an article from the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post .
The fact is the insurgency is home grown with assistance and encouragement from outside powers. It never would have been born had the US not toppled Hussein.
Well Sherlock, it seems to me they’re pretty brutal and anti democratic from the sheer nature of how they carry out their insurgency. Baathists, would presumably want a return to pan arabian baathist government, or Sunni domination of Iraqi political life, and the Jihadist groups merely want to either destroy the Shia in a ridiculous religious war, or hit the Shia Iraqis so hard that they acceed to their demands of a Shariah state in the remnants of the Sunni heartlands. Both groups are NOT democratic. Remember, the Sunnis of Iraq have dominated Iraqi politics ever since the creation of the state by the UK, then they see the US come in and overturn that, it’s not going to be accepted lightly.
The best you can hope for, which at least one of the groups has stated is the ‘Sinn Fein’ approach to the Iraqi government, that is, guns and politics intertwined.
A foreign occupation, whether you like it or not, is UN Mandated until Iraqi security and government can get back on it’s feet, and in which a democratically elected government was put in place.
That’s a very large brush to tarnish on every Iraqi citizen, it’s almost as if you’re declaring them to be too primative for the democratic process.
Which doesn’t make any sense, power sharing is essential, for the lack of better terms, a ‘young democracy’ starting out. Lebanon has the same thing.
That’s because many elements of the terrorist organisations see their primary objectives now being laid in the capital, even Zarqawi himself stated that the most important battles against the US forces and Iraqi government lies in Baghdad.
Take into consideration though that when the Samarra mosque was hit, no one thought too seriously that it would be destroyed,.
No arguments. Most of the debate is fueled on the approval/disapproval of the 2nd Iraqi war. I wish this could have occurred before the 2000 elections so the role of politics would be diminished. At one time I thought we should have supported the Shia uprising (the one that started the Southern no-fly zone. However, in retrospect it would probably have created another Iran and possibly a Sunni genocide.
Irrelevant. You were telling us “fewer carbomings [sic] and suicide attacks”, courtesy of IBC figures. I’ve shown you that, regardless of diminishing car bombings, the death toll has recently gone up, more than doubling the previous month’s figures for the entire country in the capital city alone.
Irrelevant. Northern Ireland was in a PR government during the height of The Troubles too. Anyway, my point was in response to Magiver’s proposition that “It’s not a civil war” due to the involvement of foreign fighters. If large numbers of the population (per the latest cited IBC numbers, that I note you have ignored) are being murdered for political or sectarian reasons daily, it’s approaching a civil war.
Tell that to Northern Ireland.
Less of the “we”. My government and military is deeply involved, but I’m sure as hell not prepared to identify with that involvement.