Lounsbury: A quick note in re Iraq (II)

« So Najaf it is | as-Sadr - Martyr upcoming? »

August 12, 2004

A quick note in re Iraq (II)

I noted the following op ed from Hoagland, who I rarely find convincing in his analysis of Iraq. However, in this case he gets the issues in part right.

Iraq, Strategic Failures
By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A23

I will skip the nonesense about the politics of elections and the like.

Last fall the president gave three stirring speeches in which he vowed to end 60 years of reflexive American support for repression by Arab governments: Morality and pragmatism required Washington to support democracy in the region. Iraq would be the model.

But Bush's priorities seem to be different today, as his administration engages in or condones cynical maneuvering designed not to create democracy in Baghdad but to create political cover at home and fear and turmoil in Tehran.

Well this is no surprise, is it?

Simultaneous U.S. military assaults on Shiite rebels in Najaf, a new and brutal power play in Baghdad against that ever troublesome Shiite politician Ahmed Chalabi, and the temporary suppression of critical news coverage by al-Jazeera satellite television this week have established the fact that "stability" of the Arab strongman kind is again tolerated at the White House.

Interesting set of linkages and I think largely correct.

Long backed by the CIA, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is now supporting the U.S. intelligence agency's closely related campaigns to destroy Chalabi and use Iraq to subvert Iran's ruling Shiite ayatollahs.

Shrug. I doubt the CIA is creating the issues for Chalabi. Rather one would suspect Allaouie is settling scores the old fashioned way, no need for CIA assistance.

The agency is determined to protect its all-important liaison relationships with Sunni Arab governments in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which fear the Shiite majorities in Iran and Iraq. That is the decisive background to the appalling choice of priorities for the use of military and judicial power that Bush at least implicitly condones in Iraq.

KSA and the Gulf fear the Shites as Shites. Egypt, Jordan? Nah, rather more along the lines of prefering the old Sunni elite. No Shite minorities in either Jordan or Egypt.

Baathist killers and Wahhabi terrorists go unarrested, unprosecuted and unchallenged in the streets of Fallujah, Ramadi and Sunni sections of Baghdad. At the same time the ragtag Shiite militia of Moqtada Sadr triggers an all-out U.S. assault in Najaf that risks damaging some of the holiest shrines of the Shiite branch of Islam, for small strategic gain.

Well, interesting of him to notice.

Sadr deserves no sympathy. U.S. miscalculation is almost entirely responsible for turning this insignificant demagogue into a rebel with a following. Shiites, who are still bitter and distrustful of the United States for its failure to support their uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991, are likely to note the disparity of treatment of the Sunni and Shiite insurgencies, and to conclude that Shiite political will is the true target of the Najaf operation.

On the first point, correct. On the second, well that is arguable, but indeed he puts a finger on an item that had not occured to me. Shedding much Shiite blood now, after sparing Fallujah...

The fact that Allawi is by heritage a Shiite will not reduce the sting of his approving the operation. An ex-Baathist, he has always made his career in Sunni-dominated power structures.

Eh, anyone with any political experience could be so characterized. Although to be fair the author does point out the issue that Allaouie's Shiiteness is likely suspect to many.

The timing of the latest burst of specious charges and allegations against Chalabi, his nephew Salem and his political party also suggests, at a minimum, a highly selective use of limited resources.

Specious charges?

Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps Hoagland is hurt his old fav. is doing so poorly.

Of course, no doubt the charges are political as much as (or perhaps more than) factual.

Chalabi, whom I have known and written about for 30 years, has made a large number of necessary and unnecessary enemies in his long campaign to bring down the Baathists and then to keep them from returning to power. Among the unnecessary and unforgiving enemies was L. Paul Bremer, Bush's proconsul in Baghdad during the formal U.S. occupation and a man quick to see a hidden Iranian hand in Iraq's problems.

This past spring Bremer collaborated with Bush's National Security Council staff on a seven-page memorandum that outlined a strategy for marginalizing Chalabi. This exercise has now been relentlessly brought to fruition while arrests and prosecutions of insurgents have gone unpursued.

Bremer created a secret court, appointed a manifestly unprepared jurist to head it and made sure Iraq's interim government could not disband it after the U.S. administrator left. It is this judge, Zuhair Maliky, who issued a warrant for the arrest of Chalabi while he was -- guess where? -- in Tehran.

Chalabi's fight with other Iraqi factions in Baghdad is his business. But the Bush team petulantly stakes American prestige, credibility and honor on a covert campaign of score-settling against Chalabi, Sadr and any other Shiites who might be influenced by Iran, while terrorists reign in Fallujah. This is not strategy; this is folly.

Let's leave aside Hoadland's little spinning. The point where he has a leg to stand on is the issue of perception between Sunni and Shiite.

The reality is it is near impossible to resolve the expectations of either community at present. The Lebanese civil war is the model now.

August 12, 2004

A quick note in re Iraq (II)

Trackback Pings

Comments

Comment Subscription