Who exactly are we fighting in Iraq?

[Sparkly]

The level of attacks in Iraq are amazing. I heard today (on the Reagan/Crowley show) there's an average of 74 different attacks a day now, iirc. The media seems to pick one a day to highlight (or report at all), and they blend into each other. (I start to ask myself, "Wait -- is that the same attack at a recruting station as the one I heard about yesterday?")

Of course, you have to look to foreign sources to get anything close to the full story (or even to find the right questions), such as the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4537065.stm

What is striking, more than two years after the war which toppled Saddam Hussein, is how little the Americans appear to know about their enemy.

There are thought to be dozens of insurgent groups, with differing agendas. They sometimes act autonomously, sometimes in loose co-operation.

It's easy to say these are Iraqi citizens acting as freedom fighters, who just want us to leave them alone. And it's easy for BushCo to simply call them "terrorists who hate freedom." But I think it's more complicated than either of those.

There are factions in Iraq fighting each other for control, unwilling to accept the new government. (This is why General Clark and others stated so clearly at the time of the election that Sunni participation and acceptance would be crucial, to which Scarborough actually replied, "I don't give a damn what the Sunnis think!")

There are also groups from other countries supplying fighters, resources, equipment. Given BushCo's rhetoric of threats to them, no doubt they've gotten a lot of recruitment from the notion that "We have to fight the Americans there so we won't have to fight them here." (Sound familiar?) Al Qaeda has no doubt entered the picture, as well. And who are we fighting at the Syrian border right now? How wide is Zarqawi's network? Surely our government has some clue about these things. But of course, they won't tell us.

One door after another has closed -- and once the door leading to a President Kerry closed, all my hope for resolving this ended. I can't even think of a plan anymore that BushCo could pull off, and of course, neither can they. If we leave, whoever has the greatest violent effect wins, devastating all the people we left vulnerable, and possibly destabilizing the entire region. But how do we get Iraqi police and army in place, made up of people willing to fight and die for this new democracy?

So who are we fighting, and how can it stop, without creating a situation that threatens even more people? We're seeing the very nightmare we all predicted when BushCo first went on their warpath. I have no answers.

[Darranar]

1. Anyone who is willing to fight US domination of that country. n/t

[Sparkly]

4. There's that, but there's more.

I'm saying, the Sunnis and Kurds don't want Shia domination. Syria and Iran have their own agendas. Al Qaeda and similar groups have their own. And I think there are probably many other groups, loosely networked, concerned about territory, sectarian control, political power, financial stakes, etc...

[Spinzonner]

2. Who have they got ?

(apologies to Marlon)

[alittlelark]

3. People just like us... those of us not willing to accept the takeover

of their country..... sigh.

[Sparkly]

5. Some, yes, but not all.

Some are willing to sign up to have American forces train them to protect their new democracy -- and they've been murdered for doing so.

Some don't want a takeover by other sects there, notably Shia dominance over Sunnis.

Some are from other countries, as I said, wanting to fight America "there instead of here."

Some are pan-national networks like Al Qaeda.

And some we don't even know about, I suspect.

They're not all "terrorists," they're not all "insurgents," and they're not all "freedom fighters." I don't think we know WHO they all are, or what their agendas are. And I think our government knows much more than they're telling us.

[wtmusic]

17. Your assuming they are doing it to "protect their new democracy"

either that or, their family needs to eat and it's the only job around

:eyes:

[Sparkly]

21. You do have a point there.

You're absolutely right. And/or, they believe it's protecting their family, or avenging people they knew. And/or in the case of Shia, their sect -- no different from the Sunni fighters. I stand corrected that it's only about protecting their democracy. Good point.

[Doctor_J]

6. Patriots of all stripe

much like we were fighting in SE Asia in the 60's and 70's

[Sparkly]

8. I respectfully disagree.

First, I'm not sure the VietCong were "patriots" of South Vietnam, but that's a separate issue. I don't think the question of who exactly we're fighting, and what their agenda is, is comparable. In Vietnam, for the most part, we knew who we were fighting, and we knew what they wanted.

In this case, as the BBC pointed out, we don't know who we're fighting, and there are numerous groups each with their own agendas.

Some are members of particular Iraqi sects, but many are not Iraqis at all, let alone "patriots." They are murdering the Iraqis who are willing to fight for a unified country, and they're murdering Iraqis who aren't part of their particular faction. They're not only fighting Americans. They're fighting for territory, money, power, etc... I don't think we are being told who they all are or what they all want, because I don't think BushCo wants us to know how insurmountably complicated this has all become.

[wtmusic]

19. The common denominator here

is that they want us the hell out. The reason they're bombing INDF soldiers is because they're being paid to help Americans steal their own country's oil.

It's not *that* complicated.

[Sparkly]

22. That's true enough.

But the reasons various groups want us out vary, I think. And I think there are vulnerable people who just want security above all else -- and the Hell BushCo has created there won't end if we leave tomorrow. On the contrary.

I think it *is* complicated, because figuring out who's fighting and for what is quite complicated. I agree that getting us out is something they all might like, but not that it's the solution. (Not that there is one.)

What's "INDF?" :dunce:

[wtmusic]

23. Iraqi National Defense Force n/t

[Sparkly]

25. Ah.

Well, that would explain all the mysteriously-missing funds... Hmm...

[alittlelark]

52. Thank you for defending my point while I was making dinner!

I am a hit and flee'er sometimes due to my REAL life.

[wtmusic]

56. Gotcha covered

y'mean, DU *isn't* your REAL life? ;-)

[alittlelark]

58. Uh... is is...REALLY.... really.

in an unrealistic way.


Thanks.

[Cha]

7. The Freedom Fighters.

I feel bad for the soldiers who are under the lyin' bushcon orders.

[Sparkly]

10. Absolutely.

General Clark has said many times that this is not a conflict that can be won militarily -- it can be lost militarily, but not won that way. It requires engaged political action and negotiations. It requires showing others how a successful Iraqi state is in their own best interests. Instead, BushCo threatens them, sending a message that if Iraq becomes stable and the US has a deployable military again, they're next on the list! (As I've said, that tells them "We've got to fight the Americans there so we won't have to fight them here.")

And I definitely feel badly for soldiers who enlisted to defend America, or to get an education, or because they felt it was their best opportunity to get out of the impoverished lives they knew. I think of the young soldier in F-911 saying he didn't want to fight other poor people anymore. BushCo has betrayed their trust, and the results are being seen in recruitment offices, understandably.

[IChing]

9. He said this was a CRUSADE didn't he?

He's causing recruitment to happen all over,

EXCEPT HERE!

[Sparkly]

11. Well said! Too true. n/t

[paulk]

12. you've got it

we're fighting many different groups, some aligned with each other, some not. It's a genuine clusterfuck, with no clear path out.

The most pessimistic scenarios from before the invasion are coming true. We can't go and we can't stay.

[IChing]

13. We can't go and we can't stay talk

Got three of my best high school friends killed in Vietnam and they had no choice.

[Sparkly]

16. "a genuine clusterfuck"

That's it in a nutshell. I also agree that the worst predictions have come true -- as you say, "We can't go and we can't stay."

So many times, Democrats said "We should do this, but quickly or the door will close!" There was a time when the UN offered help, if only BushCo would relinquish political control (= control of the OIL) and naturally, BushCo declined. Door closed.

There was a time when Kerry offered clear solutions, and warned the door would soon close -- BushCo ignored the advice, gave nothing but lipservice to the UN, and got 4 more years! Door closed.

And over and again, there were times when *more* force could actually have prevented further tragedies in the long run, but Bushco tries to take their bandaids off slowly to protect their political positions -- the number of troops going in in the first place, for example. The battles in Fallujah and Najaf from which we withdrew (suddenly trusting Al Sadr!), only to have to go in later at higher cost, for another example. And just now, apparently, we pulled back from fighters at the Syrian border. Oh, that'll work. This *is* reminiscent of Vietnam in the sense that political concerns about the nightly news at home are calling the shots abroad, and in the end it only makes things worse. And in the end, the Pentagon just blames the military!! :mad: (Support the troops, my ass!)

[CTLawGuy]

14. I agree that we are fighting

groups itching to topple the puppet government once we leave. They want control of the country, plain and simple, and they will be extremely violent to get it. That is the nature of anarchy.

[IChing]

15. They want control of the country, plain and simple,

,They want control of the country, plain and simple, and they will be extremely violent to get it.

ARE YOU NOT SAYING THE US IS DOING THIS?
We did start the violence.

[Sparkly]

20. Of *course* the US started the violence.

No question. BushCo went into a delicately-balanced explosive tinderbox and carelessly lit a match. Completely irresponsible, short-sighted, and criminal, to say the very least.

But who is doing what right now, and why? That's what I'm wondering, and I'm saying we don't really know. I think the government knows, but we don't. They just say "insurgents" or "people who hate freedom." It's far more complicated than that.

And of course, the ultimate question is "What can we do now?" And I have no answers to that, either.

[IChing]

26. Ineradicable hostility.

Iraqi police vent anger at US after car bombings


Iraqi police hurled insults at US soldiers after two suicide car bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least seven people and left 19 wounded, including policemen.

"It's all because you're here," a policeman shouted in Arabic at a group of US soldiers after the latest in a bloody wave of attacks that have rocked Baghdad this month.

"Get out of our country and there will be no more explosions," he told the uncomprehending Americans staring at the smouldering wreck of a car bomb.

The explosion wounded three policemen as they stood guard at the entrance to the River Police compound on Abu Nawas street in the centre of the capital.

IRAQI POLICE WHAT DO WE NOT UNDERSTAND?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1364588.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1458958

[Sparkly]

28. Wow.

Thank you for posting that. Do you believe the Iraqi policeman is right, that if US soldiers get out of Iraq "there will be no more explosions?"

Serious question, not a rhetorical one.

[CTLawGuy]

34. If I were an Iraqi policeman

I would be royally pissed at having to live among the foreign invader that wrecked my country, but I may not be thinking about what would happen if they left without a stable replacement.

[Sparkly]

37. But "Iraqi" isn't a homogenous term.

I think every Iraqi policeman has their own concerns about family, community, sect, territory, etc... And they know how Iraqi police are being killed in various areas, by various people, for various reasons. I think they're each involved in something we can't even understand, for reasons we can't understand.

I don't think they're all *just* fighting Americans. You can see from the news reports that they are attacking each other just as much.

[CTLawGuy]

40. yeah I agree

Iraq is a country created by European colonizers. There is a lot of sectional strife there, which will of course only contribute to the Post-US strife.

[Sparkly]

42. Yup, that's a larger historical perspective dogman mentioned, too.

Was it all destined to come to a head once Europeans decided "ah well, they'll go along with this, or figure it out for themselves?" Sort of like (not to derail this conversation) Israel and Palestine, when we and the Brits decided Palestinians would just move on? There's such a huge racist tone in it all, it seems -- as if white (Christian) people figured everybody else was too primitive to fight, and would back down compliantly. Sort of like the US colonial view of Africans.

Obviously this administration made the mistake of thinking people in Iraq and its region couldn't fight American power. Frankly, we're getting our asses kicked, to an extent they didn't anticipate.

But if it had to be worked out eventually, we could have facilitated agreements (with our allies) via carrots and sticks, diplomacy and pressure, negotiation and threats and bribes -- the peaceful way.

Anyway, I agree with you. I can't see way out that'd yield peace.

[CTLawGuy]

30. We DID do this

by destroying the legitimate government of Iraq, which we should not have done. We created the opportunity by disturbing the status quo.

[Sparkly]

31. Yup.

Deposing a government when there's no political substructure there to rise up and takes its place is just DUMB. Demolishing its army was no brilliant stroke, either.

I still scratch my head and wonder, "What the HELL were they thinking?!?"

[CTLawGuy]

32. finally, another SANE person

who understands the nature of political power :)

I'm frightened to think what might arise because of what we did...

[Adelante]

18. Rolling Stone article 5/5/05

The Quagmire

As the Iraq war drags on, it's beginning to look a lot like Vietnam

By ROBERT DREYFUSS

The news from Iraq is bad and getting worse with each passing day. Iraqi insurgents are stepping up the pace of their attacks, unleashing eleven deadly bombings on April 29th alone. Many of the 150,000 Iraqi police and soldiers hastily trained by U.S. troops have deserted or joined the insurgents. The cost of the war now tops $192 billion, rising by $1 billion a week, and the corpses are piling up: Nearly 1,600 American soldiers and up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, as well as 177 allied troops and 229 private contractors. Other nations are abandoning the international coalition assembled to support the U.S., and the new Iraqi government, which announced its new cabinet to great fanfare on April 27th, remains sharply split along ethnic and religious lines.

But to hear President Bush tell it, the war in Iraq is going very, very well. In mid-April, appearing before 25,000 U.S. soldiers at sun-drenched Fort Hood, in Texas, Bush declared that America has succeeded in planting democracy in Iraq, creating a model that will soon spread throughout the Middle East. "That success is sending a message from Beirut to Tehran," the president boasted to chants of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" from the troops. "The establishment of a free Iraq is a watershed event in the global democratic revolution." Staying on message, aides to Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, later suggested that U.S. forces could be reduced from 142,000 to 105,000 within a year.

In private, however, senior military advisers and intelligence specialists on Iraq offer a starkly different picture. Two years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq is perched on the brink of civil war. Months after the election, the new Iraqi government remains hunkered down inside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, surviving only because it is defended by thousands of U.S. troops. Iraqi officials hold meetings and press conferences in Alamo-like settings, often punctuated by the sounds of nearby explosions. Outside the Green Zone, party offices and government buildings are surrounded by tank traps, blast walls made from concrete slabs eighteen feet high, and private militias wielding machine guns and AK-47s. Even minor government officials travel from fort to fort in heavily armed convoys of Humvees.

"I talk to senior military people and combat commanders who tell me that the situation is much more precarious than admitted," says Col. Patrick Lang, former Middle East chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency. "Even inside the Green Zone you are not safe, because of indirect fire. And if you were to venture outside at night, they'd probably find your headless body the next morning."

Car bombs rock Baghdad and other cities virtually every day, and insurgents conduct hundreds of attacks each week on U.S. troops, Iraqi recruits and civilian police. Thousands of Iraqi police and soldiers have scattered or disappeared, and countless others either do no fighting or covertly support the insurgency. The out-of-control security situation means that few reconstruction projects can get off the ground. Transport is crippled, and Iraq's core infrastructure -- its roads and bridges, its power plants, its water-treatment facilities, and its all-important oil fields, pipelines and oil terminals -- remains heavily damaged from the war.

continues ...

Talks about the players.

[Sparkly]

24. Thanks, WesDem!

"Sparkly Jr." had a subscription to Rolling Stone that started as a birthday present but lapsed. I'll have to re-subscribe for her birthday next month (so I can read the articles).

I will definitely read that article. And the part you quoted shows that there are virtually no reporters willing to venture outside the "green zone" -- more reason we don't know what's going on.

[zulchzulu]

27. Future Osamas

We've created so many new Osamas, let alone Timmy McVeighs since all this shit started.

[Sparkly]

29. No doubt about that. n/t

[kevsand]

33. "Surely our government has some clue about these things."

Unfortunately, no. Our intelligence was worthless going in. We relied on a handful of bad sources, because we had no human resources ourselves. We didn't know what would come after, because we didn't bother to hire anyone who could possibly have a real clue (or in the case of interpreters, fired them because they were gay). And we don't know what we're facing now, because we're not sharing intelligence with the very government we fought to create, and which thousands of Iraqis risked their lives to elect.

So no, our government didn't have a clue going in, or after the fall, or even now.

(And stop calling me Shirley!):-)

[Sparkly]

35. Shirley you jest...

I'm not so sure our intel was bad -- I think BushCo just rejected what didn't suit their plans, and hyped whatever did. And I think they knew what they didn't want interpreters to reveal. (Remember one of the first Bin Laden videos where it took two weeks for the White House to release a translation, supposedly to get it "completely accurate?" And it quickly came out that it was a bogus translation that omitted every reference that could have made the Saudis look bad?)

Anyway, I think given satellite technology, reports from boots on the ground etc. that our government *does* have a lot of information about the many different groups fighting for many different purposes, but they don't want to confuse us with facts. Easier just to say, "insurgents who hate freedom" and lump them all together, than to suggest that they've created a complicated, untenable situation -- one that didn't exist before. That's the main thing, imho. They want it to seem as though we're fighting something that is just as it was before ("evil"), not something they in fact created.

So I think they know. I think they just don't want us to know.

[kevsand]

57. They certainly know more at any given time

than they want to tell us. And they frequently don't seem to "know" all that they really know, i.e., they don't collate or share well to mine the data they have. And they obviously have special filters that they look at everything through. So which is worse: not knowing, or not fully understanding? I think we're down to discussing which particular level of hell they will spend eternity in...

[harpo]

66. bwaaaaaaaaahahahaha

[dogman]

36. From other things I've heard it's even more broken down than Shia, Sunni,

and Kurd. Some of it is tribal-family. There are reported family feuds that combine members of different sects by marriage. There are Sunnis married to Shias and they by custom will defend or avenge on that basis. It seems obvious that this insurgency could not have gone this far without popular support in some of the regions. We are seeing action now on the Syrian border. It would seem likely that this is due to support from Syrians who may have family or Baathist party connections. There is also a question of how sincere the Iraqis are to build a coalition among themselves. You have to believe each faction is trying to build its' own strength for the time when we are gone. One big difference between Iraq and Vietnam is that Vietnam was a minor civil war being propped up by two super powers wit only a small amount of tribalism involved. If left alone it would resolve itself, as it did. Iraq is far more chaotic with multiple small state players and tribal and family feuds. This was nothing new to this area. This is how Saddam rose to power when it was still a super power cold war battleground and he was allowed to control it with an iron fist. This whole Mideast crisis date s back to the British dividing this region by drawing on a map with total disregard for culture and traditional borders that had developed over thousands of years. The neo-cons have a plan for world domination achieved by control of resources with total disregard for humanity. They have inserted us where we don't belong. If we do not find a way to get out we will not see peace in this region until we have annihilated whole nations. We will be committing genocide or promoting it for a long time.

[Sparkly]

38. Thank you!!!

Those are the sorts of feuds and factions I don't think we hear about, and your post is very informative.

If we do not find a way to get out we will not see peace in this region until we have annihilated whole nations.

Not to put you on the spot, but do you see a solution at this point? Just wondering. I'm just not sure there is one. I don't even see our most brilliant Democrats suggesting plans anymore. :(

[IChing]

39. Post a date and leave

before the end of the year and tell the world we need help, and stick to our word.

IF THAT IS WORTH ANYTHING ANYMORE TO ANYBODY

OUR WORD,

not BUSHENFUHER we have lost trust in world opinion that will take generations to restore.

[Sparkly]

44. I can't think of a better way to cut our losses.

I wish we could do better than that, but I can't imagine how anymore.

Eventually, I think it'd involve going back in. But that's the pattern this administration has established, for political reasons at home: Push, pull back. Push, pull back. If we leave and it reaches the proportions that other nations feel so threatened their people support intervention, then we'd have a responsibility to go back in. And by then, it could be a world war. (Russia isn't exactly hostile to Iran right now. And if China saw an opening to overtake America?! Perish that thought.)

By then, of course, the Chimp would probably be out of office, so the history-revisers will blame Democrats, somehow. Maybe the way they blame us for Vietnam: If only those evil peacnicks hadn't put political pressure on the poor widdle government, we could have won!!

[dogman]

45. I don't see an easy solution.

The best I've seen has been expressed by Clark. I would guess Albright and Holbrooke would also lead in the same direction. They were very involved in the Balkans which is probably a better analogy than Vietnam. As we know the Balkans have a long way to go and threaten to erupt again due to the neglect from this administration. we've seen the debate between Perle and Clark and the basic differences on what the goal is let alone how to achieve it. Whether Clark's proposal could be achieved will not even be relevant until a new administration takes charge. Then that administration would have to want to do these things. There were rumors that if Kerry had been elected he might have asked Powell to stay and have involved McCain as well. Basically Clark feels we have to convince neighboring states that their security depends on stability in the region. We can not do that while we threaten them. Another thing is that we must remove the US from the equation. The first step would be to open restoration of Iraq to other nations. We need to develop Iraq's internal security with the US in only a support role to be replaced by peacekeepers from other nations as soon as possible. The people of Iraq must be convinced that we are not going to leave a vacuum for chaos to reign. If they do not see stability in the horizon they will only continue to gird for the coming battle. The other potential problem is between Turkey and the Kurds. If they see the Kurds separate from Iraq and possibly combine with Kurds in a new Kurd nationalist movement they will not stand for it. The neo-cons would probably prefer to see a new Kurdistan evolve that would establish a new ally and a foothold through the present "Stan" region that would separate Iran and Russia and secure control of oil form that whole region which is thought to be the real source of oil in the future. Bushco is already planning fourteen new permanent bases in Iraq. The PNAC philosophy seems to be that we are the sole super power and should go for broke with the ultimate payoff of control of oil in the future. I just hope I'm wrong or that we have a regime change at home before we've been pushed over the edge.

[Sparkly]

49. Dang, dogman....

I knew you were smart, but you're doggone smart!

So in the absence of a new administration in the US, what can happen? Does BushCo have motivation to see it succeed (beyond their motivation to convince us Murcans at home that it did)? And do they have motivation to see it fail (ie, "rationale" for invading other countries like Iran and Syria)?

[dogman]

51. Going back to the original word out of the Pentagon.

9-11 opened the flood gate to allow the PNAC goal of world domination and Iraq is just the beginning. Of course this would require a continuation of Bushco. That seems probable with the devotion shown the cause by possible successors. Will the American people stand up or will we be uder the thumb of Homeland Security and be to intimidated to stand up. The Real ID act just passed with a 100-0 vote. It's hard to see much hope for us. The left wing radio has been hammering this point to no avail. I saw Obama last Saturday and when asked about this he said he would vote for it because it was attached to the bill to fund the troops. After the Kerry "Flip-flop" on the 87 billion, no Dem will stand up to these tactics. He said the only hope was to go back and change the bill later. Fat chance of that. Between the Iran nukes and the Syrian meddling in Iraq and the RW spin that the WMD are in Syria, I would not be surprised to see escalation. They may hope to have us so deep into this that there is no way out before Bushco leaves. It is hard to be optimistic, especially with the US people living like mushrooms, being kept in the dark and fed manure,

[Sparkly]

53. I think we're in the same place.

I don't see much hope, either.

(Btw I wish you'd start more threads with your take on foreign policy news. You obviously know a lot about this and have thought it through.)

[Stinky The Clown]

41. Very true ... and don't overlook the non-Iraqis now involved in it

It is far more complex than just the Suni-Shia-Kurd triangulation. (Truly) ancient tribal and familial groupings are now fighting other tribal and familial groupings - almost to the point of ignoring the larger issues of the whole milieu. In some cases it is personal and neighbor against neighbor. The textbook definition of chaos.

The non-Iraqis are from who-knows-where. I contend they could be Iranins semi-officially condoned and supported by their government, following the now widespread, Bush-induced doctrine to "fight them there before we have to fight them at home". Or they could be Syrian with a similar construct. Hell, they could be Saudis. And again they might be there with some more or less formal approval of their government or some faction of their government.

This is truly a mess or biblical proportions. How fitting.

[dogman]

47. There was an interview on this on AAR.

There is a link on this discussion board. There is a link at the beginning to a mp3 audio of the interview. I haven't checked the link as I heard the interview when it happened. There is some discussion of the interview and I found it credible and informative.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=55377&forum=17

[Stinky The Clown]

43. I heard or read, yesterday or today, a frightening parallel to Vietnam

There were reports of Americans engaging unformed opposition in the North, near the Syrian border. The report went further, saying our troops were ordered back "to spare us undue casualties".

I wish I knew where I got this report ... it could well have been right here on DU in the LBN forum.

In any case, if this is true (and I see no reason to think it isn't), this goes right to one of our biggest errors in Vietnam. The disempowerment of the military to do what needs doing militarily for the sake of political expediency at home (don't want the home folks to see increased casualties among our guys).

And if true, the military leadership should be as pissed as they've ever been. The civilian leadership in this country right now could not give two shit less care to the military. They're just cannon fodder. They're not 'heroes' ... they're cannon fodder and expendable capital and ... 'just the hired help'.

And then there's the whole notion of a "uniformed opposition." Who's uniform? Syria?

Very worrisome, indeed. And without a shred of hope about it. Only the specter of more war, doom, and gloom.

We are well and mightily fucked.

[Sparkly]

46. I mentioned that in post #16, Stinky.

Not that you pay any attention to *me.*

[Stinky The Clown]

50. huh?

[burrowowl]

48. Against Iraqis

and for OIL and world dominence by facist/corporatism (re Mussolini's definition). The U$ of A has been at this for a long time, empire probably really started under Teddy Roosevelt (for Latin America, it started under the Monroe Doctine).

[Lexingtonian]

54. don't dream of democracy

All the info from Iraq says that most people will still vote according to how they're told to vote by tribal chiefs and religious leaders. Only the upscale parts of the cities are different.

That's not a democratic electorate, that's a semifeudal state of affairs. It means warlordism, at least breakup of the country if not civil war. Certainly not democracy in any very meaningful way in the near future.

Of course BushCo has only the 1972 Vietnam plan in mind- set up a faux democratic government, get out, and hope there's "a decent interval" until it all falls apart. Problem is, South Vietnam had a semifunctional army and police force in 1972 which delayed the end for two years. Iraq's 'democracy' wouldn't survive a month were the U.S. military to leave tomorrow.

Civil wars don't generally spill over into other countries. Iraq's population centers and supply systems all lie along the Two Rivers and lots of desert and mountains separates Iraqis from other nation states.

About the only peaceful solution is a massive UN "peacekeeping" occup- oops, I meant "operation". But the UN doesn't stick around when there are civil wars to fight.

[Sparkly]

55. Interesting.

I see what you're saying about voting according to tribal chiefs/ religious leaders, and what that implies; and what you're saying about the situation we're in...

Do you not think Syria, Iran, and pan-national groups like Al Qaeda are now in Iraq though, with vested interests there?

What do you think the options are now, and what do you think the end result will be (or, where will we be by 2008)?

[Lexingtonian]

59. the order of events is unclear

but the timing is becoming clearer. Basically, things start happening in early fall when the Italians do, in fact, decide to withdraw mostly to keep Berlusconi above water for elections in '06. Then there'll be trouble in Britain and British withdrawal pulls into view. That's when the Coalition and the political cover it provides will begin its second phase of disintegration. That's when U.S. extensions of the UN 'mandate' will start looking pretty dicey. Plus, if/when the British give up on Iraq I suspect that means a lot of moderate Republicans give up on Administration Iraq policy- Republican support cracks. Britain is still a country that matters in American politics on the Republican side far more than any other. And when Britain leaves, most of the rest of the Coalition will be scurrying out too.

How things go once the whiff of disaster is in the air is hard to guess. Maybe the Iraqi 'government' disintegrates of its own accord, maybe it tells the U.S. to get out, maybe the military and police just walk away from it, maybe the "insurgents" decapitate it. Perhaps in varying degrees all of this with a dozen confusing events thrown into the mix. It will all become ridiculously messy, certainly. But happen pretty quickly.

All this brave stuff about an Iraqi military and an Iraqi police force loyal to the 'government' is a mirage. The real game is the militias being built up in the three regions. I'd guess the Syrians would be interested in funding the Sunni ones, Iranians the Shi'ite ones, and Israelis the Kurdish ones. Al Qaeda is only interested in fighting Americans and the regional varieties of oil-ocrats and other corrupted rulers.

There's talk that sounds like a plan of American withdrawals a year from now. Given that there aren't enough troops to hold the country or even its borders at this point, the planning obviously entails contraction of the American-controlled zone to around Baghdad and control of a land corridor southward, through the southern oil fields to Kuwait. This means de facto Kurdish control of the northern oil fields and Sunni control of central Iraq, and outbreak of civil war won't be far behind.

So we have about four to six months of slow, dreary, disintegration of Iraq and Iraq policy to come. And then things turn into hell's kitchen.

[Sparkly]

60. You and dogman ought to start your own blog.

Very insightful post!

I've long suspected BushCo would love to see the new "Iraqi government" ASK us to leave. What a nice out that would be. BushCo could declare victory, proclaim that freedom and democracy have been achieved in Iraq, and say that since they're now self-governing, they're on their own and we're doing what they want -- See ya!!

The one thing it seems we're all saying is there's really no hope of stabilizing Iraq, protecting a unified democracy there, or keeping it from becoming a greater mess involving other countries. Am I right?

[Lexingtonian]

68. There are

decades of atrocities, oppression, unresolved wars, and tens or hundreds of thousands of murders, dispossessions, and other crimes as yet unavenged separating the three sides.

I don't think they can be stopped from going after each other much longer. It's hard to see other countries stepping in directly- it's going to be pretty savage.

[Stinky The Clown]

61. Interesting theories

I've always had the notion that Iraq really wants to be three countries anyhow. It was, in fact, cobbled together by the Brits way back when (20s? 30s?).

Iraq is, culturally if not ethnically, three distinct groups. Each of these groups has little use for the others.

Would that be so bad? Might it, in fact, be the best outcome? Sure, the Sunni's will align with Syria. Sure, the Shia will align with (be subsumed by?) Iran. And the Kurds really just wanna be left alone, but will likely create some serious issues for Turkey (I don't know enough about Turkey to know if this is actually a serious geopolitical matter or a local issue that comes down to dirt and borders).

In any case, we have fucked this place up so badly that we, indeed, should be shipping our leaders off to The Hague.

[Lexingtonian]

69. I don't think

anyone has ever really known how to break up this part of the Fertile Crescent. The Shia region is pretty much that of the ancient Chaldeans (Ur and those cities)- they don't really share much other than sectarianism with the peoples of Iran. The Sunni portion amounts to that of the ancient Assyrians (Babylon, Niniveh) and desert tribes, and the Kurds have always been a people more closely related to the peoples of Iran than the others of Iraq.

The Kurds really are the odd party in the game; the presently Sunni and Shia parts have traditionally been tied together by one conquering the other. In an ideal world I would turn the Kurdish parts of Iraq, Syria (a small region), Iran, and Turkey into autonomous regions and make Iran the protector nation-state of the whole. The Sunni and Shia bits I'd have form a federation once everything has been settled between them.

I don't see Bush & Co ending up in Den Haag, much as they deserve it. I think the record of their prison system (from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib) and the Iraq occupation will be all too well preserved and assembled by scholars...and that will sink their place in world history to someplace pathetic.

[wtmusic]

62. You can rest assured the talk will turn to

the Iraqis being "independent", "on their own", "it's up to them", etc. to set the stage for a mad scramble out before our troops get overrun, maybe 2 years down the road.

[Lexingtonian]

70. Indeed.

It might come a good bit earlier than 2 years, though.

[googly]

63. Iraq situation is a LOT SIMPLER than everyone thinks...

All you have to do is examine what conditions were with
Saddam was the ruler. The Sunni sect from Tikrit had all
the power. They had all the top jobs and money and palaces.
The source of their money was oil, and they had absolute
control over it. Anyone remotely opposing the ruling regime
was tortured & murdered.

When America removed Saddam by force, all those hundreds of
thousands of people living very well lost the source of the
good living. During the war, they decided to go underground
and fight a guerilla war since there was no way to win against
US militarily. And what you are seeing now is the war that
never hapenned during the military invasion. The Saddam henchmen
have only one hope left. That is to create enough chaos and
anarchy so they can regain that golden goose once American
military is withdrawn.

[geek tragedy]

67. At least somebody gets it around here.

This isn't Iraqis vs. Americans. It's a low intensity civil war, with the US trying desperately to keep the whole thing glued together somehow.

The great majority of deaths from insurgent/terrorist attacks are Iraqis.

[leftofthedial]

64. pretty much the entire world

although some of them don't know it yet

[harpo]

65. bigfoot, boogeyman, & lochness monster...didn't ya know?