If the U.S. had not disbanded the Iraqi military, leaving in place a trained, local force to prevent the looting and destruction of the nation, and then had not handed power over to Shiite partisans known to be corrupt, there is certainly a good chance that the Sunni/Shi’a conflicts that arose would have been more localized and less prone to spread and worsen. Once Chalabi had power, he was able to place enough of his partisans in control of enough of the country so that when he was replaced, their partisan feuds continued with the support of the next corrupt, (but still heavily Shiite), government.
Could the U.S. have prevented every bad thing that has happened in Iraq. Short of not invading it, probably not. But certainly the U.S. actions contributed heavily to the utter breakdown. Even through today, Talabani and Masum, ignoring history for their own personal power, have continued championing Shiite power and control at the expense of the Sunnis, many of whom now view ISIS as the lesser of two unavoidable evils. Shiite militia who have attacked ISIS are reported to have looted Sunni communities and executed Sunni leaders after entering Sunni communities to “protect” them. That sort of conflict has direct roots in the way that the U.S. permitted Shiites to dominate Iraq rather than making at least some effort to bring Sunnis and Shiites together between 2003 and 2008.
Well stated, but I do disagree. First, while I agree there’s an Iraqi identity, the country had even a recent history of division based on Shiite and Kurdish interests. The fact that Saddam kept it mostly under control is evidence of his repression (gassing thousands of Kurds, killing who knows how many Shiites in 1999) rather than the lack of division within the country. Even while the CPA was being formed, the disorder of society was starting to spill out. Even while the surge occurred, I still think the main reason that sectarian violence was decreased was that the virtual ethnic cleansing of cities and neighborhoods had been completed, not that more troops (both Iraqi and U.S.) meant better security.
The idea that the U.S. could have handled things differently and there would have been less violence is, of course, speculation. We will never know the alternate history of Iraq. But I will engage in my own speculation: had we handled things differently, we would have been faced with different problems that probably would have been just as serious as those we did see.
The idea that the U.S. would have been somewhat more like liberators had Rumsfeld et al not been in charge does not ring true for me at all. We so frequently hear critics saying that the fundamental problem with the Middle East is that imperialists drew the borders. I do not believe for a second that had more enlightened foreign powers drawn the borders in a somewhat more enlightened way that we would have a stable region today. Because fundamentally, conflicts are about interests that surpass the lines on a map, just like there isn’t a correct way for anyone to take an active hand to resolve the China/Taiwan issue, on an map or whatever.
I think what you’re getting at is that they have to consider themselves Iraqis, AND put that identity as Iraqis first… ahead of their identity as Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, etc… as well as have a certain degree of confidence in the machinery of the state to govern and administer the law fairly and effectively.
If a population self-identifies as something other than members of the state, and also has no confidence in the ability of the government to take care of business, you won’t have a very successful state, unless, that is, you have some kind of strongman or junta ruling things via raw force.
What are you trying to say? That Iraqi society had fissures pre invasion? Well no one is arguing againt that, every society on earth has them. And, lost in the whole “Saddam attacked Kurds and Shias” issue is the fact that he was at heart a Baathist, who distrusted religious types. The Baathist always were majoirty Shia, like Iraq itself. He surpressed plenty of Sunni parties which had secretarian agendas. And even many of the Shia/Kurd parties which were attacked were those with an avowedly secretarian oe ethnic agenda. The Dawa party which Maliki and Abadi were members of was founded by Sadr Snr and was pretty heavily secretarian. The PUK, which Talabani and now Masaum are from was a fairly ethnocentric party as well.
Its people like this whom the US brought on to power. At the same time the US went after pretty much all those who were nationalistic, partly due to expediency, the initial years of the insurgency was heavily concentrated amongst nationalist types and former military men,
No, this is not idle speculation or 20 20 hindsight.
It was bloody obvious at the time. Bremer and Slocomb’s arrogant decision making are clearly what turned a secular population, that was willing to work for a new Iraq, to flock to insurrectionist movements. The only resistance movements to flock to, were religious ones. Those movements were marginal before that time.
Also, there should have been an immediate crack-down on the forming of the shiite mahdi-army of Al Sadr.
You realize that the Kurds had effectively been operating their own state for years before the invasion, right? You honestly think they wanted to go back to being a minority again?
Right, once that lying Bush and his gang led the people into war, it was always going to end in disaster. There was nothing we could do to save that poor country.
No, but Iraqi Kurdistan comprises only some 10% of the total territory. So it is not that representative of rest of the country.
Probably it would have split off, in some sort of official manner, somewhere during the process. Or maybe Kurdish leadership would have deemed their people safer, in the long run, within a country that recognised certain special grants.
Less anyone be confused, both named gentlemen above are Sunni Kurds. Their party the PUK as part of an overarching dominant Kurdish coalition including sometime rivals the KDP, tends to loosely back the leading Shi’a party Dawa as a matter of coalition politics. Masum was one of those who directly squeezed out the much maligned Dawa Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in favor of another ( but perhaps slightly more flexible ) Dawa insider, Haidar al-Abadi.
I loosely worked with a former PUK sniper for a while. Holy smoke did those people have some ups and downs dangling on the stings of variable US policy (sometimes favouring/arming KDP sometimes PUK). I don’t think he was telling the truth al the time but if even part of it was accurate … hardy people, inc. the women.
True, but considering how many Sunni Iraqis regularly referred to Shia Iraqis as “Ajami” which means “Persians”.
I’m not sure there’s a better way to demonstrate that they didn’t consider the Shia to be true Iraqis.
That’s not to say that the Sunnis and Shia were always mortal enemies, but let’s not ignore reality.
I’ll agree though, and think you would too that it’s a really difficult subject that is not going to be readily explained oin a brief post on a message board.
I have made no claim of Iraqi unity. I noted that with the removal of an indigenous force to suppress disorder, there was more destruction and more violence than might have occurred with such a policing force.
And the CPA was “being formed” in the absence of the controlling powers of the Iraqi army divisions that were sent home with no controlling discipline, but with their weapons.
Actually, a significant portion of the ethnic cleansing occurred simultaneously with the surge. That was one of the ironies of the reporting on the surge: the media reported the reduction in violence, but rarely noted that it was the lack of targets, (since people had been forced from their homes to live in similarly ethnic enclaves), that was a major reason for the falling violence.
There was never a time and never a circumstance in which the U.S. was going to have been perceived as “liberators” in the manner of that idiot Wolfowitz’s term paper. The U.S. was an invader.
Do you have a cite for that? I could be wrong, but my recollection is that the ethnic cleansing in Iraq was pretty much over by the time of “the Surge”-- that is, 2007 timeframe.
I may have confused the drop in violence, (based on ethnic cleansing), with the later reports of less violence at the same time as the surge.
However, the following are examples of what I recall hearing (rarely) at the time. They was the sort of reports I recall. (And, as I noted, the MSM pretty much ignored the ethnic cleansing): Study: Surge in ethnic cleansing led to reduced violence in Iraq.
and, from A Social History of the Surge,
Eh, we’ll never know. I think you’re probably loosely on target here…
I just might disagree a tad with the degree of difficulty. I think the pessimists in this thread are a little bit too pessimistic, I think the optimists are quite a bit too optimistic.
What I’ll agree with many/most here is that the Bush administration could scarcely have done a worse job if they had tried. Everything they touched turned to shit and pre-formed ideological blinders going in was only half of it. Even supposed partial triumphs like the “Sunni Awakening” were slippery slope disasters IMHO. A modern state that doesn’t have at least a semblance of a monopoly on force is more or less a failed state. When the current Iraqi regime is dependent on military force provided by Sunni tribesmen, sectarian Shi’a militia, Kurdish Peshmerga, Iranian Pasdaran, U.S. air power and everything but the apparently hapless Iraqi regular army - you have a complete failure.
Iraq pre-Gulf War II was not a failed state. I think the odds you would have ended up with a fully functional democratic nation in the aftermath of the invasion are not great ( though not impossible ) no matter what the U.S. did. Unlike neighboring Iran, Iraq really doesn’t have a strong tradition of democratic institutions ( however flawed ) and that lack of institutional history is a hard thing to overcome. But even a semi-functional corrupt South Vietnamese-style kleptocracy would have been better than the collapsing pit of misery that is Iraq’s current configuration. That at least should have been an achievable minimum.
The word Ajami does not mean Persian, it means “foreigner” or “barbarian” in the way the Greek word did - that is someone who is not speaking the Arabic.
not that this improves the meaning. It is a usage like as when a French calls a Maghrebi or a African origin French native born French citizen “an immigrant.”