Lounsbury: You Have To Understand the Arab Mind

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December 07, 2003

You Have To Understand the Arab Mind

Apologies to the readers, I remain deeply busy, and with the US Dep. of Justice item upcoming, much work to be done. Hope I can help them crush the bastid, but on to the more popular subject:

Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: December 7, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/middleeast/07TACT.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

The title to this post comes from the 'wisdom' of an army commander.

"You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force � force, pride and saving face."

Arab mind indeed. Well, you send ignorance in and you get this.

I note this statement, a deadly statement if you know this region:

Quoting an Iraqi: "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."

However, at a level the American military response has a logic - although destruction of civilian houses strikes me as treading on the path to war crimes - and if we rephrase to a less racist phrasing, we get closer to the truth. The tribal mind, the form of social organization dominant in rural Iraq (the 'Sunni triangle' one should recall is not homogenous), certainly comes closer to the expression the dear captain used. However, price and force may not create the results our dear captain thinks, if there are not payoffs. As I have quoted before, there is an old saying, you can not buy an Iraqi tribes (or the tribes of Iraq, etc.) but you can rent one (them).

Note the issue of pride: "But mostly, it is a loss of dignity that the villagers talk about. For each identification card, every Iraqi man is assigned a number, which he must hold up when he poses for his mug shot. The card identifies his age and type of car. It is all in English." Harm their sense of rajulah and these guys will take up arms - never mind the clumsy early colonial echo in the all-English system.

But as a counterpoint, later in the article another military fellow notes that if they provide money, then there is a counterpoint: rather better the direct quote: "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," Colonel Sassaman said. "

Perhaps. However, if it is not delivered, if it does not spread beyond the typical oligarchs who will try to capture the wealth, then you get nothing. I also note that unless there is more engagement with Iraqi society with the manner in which things are happening, you get nothing.

Israel is not the model here (although certainly the article implies that the US is copying Israeli tactics, a grave error. One has not had two intefadas in Palestine from the success of Israeli tactics - but then they are tactics, not strategy. If the strategy -bring tangigle benefits and right quick- to Iraqis works, then the tactics may buy time. However, the tactics are part of the incentive incompatible nature [again I quote the brilliant Martin Wolf here] of occupation. The short term tactics needed to maintain security work against the long term strategy needed for success. They are contradictory. Now, this differs on its face from Israel in the because whatever pious idiocies may be mouthed, Israel is slowly annexing the land it is occupying, wheras the US truly does not intend to stay. But the problem is, no one believes them, so the psychological game is rather like that of the French in Algeria. Ah yes, there the tactics worked too, but failed as well. Incentive incompatible.

The problem in the end is that the window of opportunity was lost in the idiocy of the self-delusional lying that characterized US policy response from April - September, when the pre-fooled and other Bush Administration supporters kept pimping the deluded view that all was well, or right around the corner. Important opportunities to respond to emerging problems were lost - and in the end this is the role of criticism, to point out such and deal with it, the pree-fooled and others sadly saw things only through the prism of agit-prop.

The question now is: can a new window of opportunity be manufactured through a massive effort in the next four months? I am always hopeful, however, I am skeptical that the blinders have come off. There are too few people with regional expertise working on this, too many suckers. Suckers, suckers who only learn the rhythms here the hard way and then over-react. Imagine, only now after over 7 months has the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the main US governmental body for providing risk insurance in 'under or uninsurable' emerging markets - that is Iraq - been authorized to provide its products - I believe still only to US firms or projects with at least a 25 percent US equity stake, but it is a start. A start, however, that should have been ready seven long months ago, in May, to have kickstarted real work.

The story is typical, and indicates why the window of opportunity was lost (even as the drooling morons pimped the idea all was well, suckers to the end).

Perhaps we shall see change. Or perhaps one should rewatch la bataille d'Alger . Strong measures.

December 07, 2003

You Have To Understand the Arab Mind

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