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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
 
Sunni Triangulation

I read the papers closely Sunday and earlier this week for analysis in the Sunni's opting in or opting out of Iraq as a nation The Fragments of Iraq - New York Times. This was before the focus of the news shifted decidedly to the domestic front. The Sunni's are still talking about what details and compromises Iraqi draft divides, but is often vague | csmonitor.com they would like to see to vote Iraqis Finish Draft Charter That Sunnis Vow to Defeat for this constitution Constitution Sent to Parliament in Iraq Despite Sunni Objections. I believe that behind this straight forward talk they have a range of strategic thinking in place Mideast Course At Mercy of Local Actors . Their current negotiating represents the edge of the realm of the possible. They are making their case for the Administration handing Iraq back over to the Baathists. There is reason to believe that might happen. Among the arguments they might muster. Current overwhelming edge in education,civil bureaucratic and military expertise. A Coalition of Baathist Syria and Iraq. In rigorous form this can be deployed as a threat. In moderate form it can be presented as lesser of two evils to Iran's influence among Shiite's - even viewed as a useful check to this. Sunni's who are in a more precarious position might be willing to agree to permanent US basing rights. All of this can be deployed as leverage to gain advantageous terms to joining a unified government. In addition to leveraging the insurgency, they lead  with their willingness to conform to past practice and murder and torture without discrimination. Giving no indication in any of this that they would rule any differently.

I still think that somewhere in this there will be a mid point flip. A point where if a secure postition in Iraqi society is not codified, Sunni's logically would shift to federated Iraq so to secure their own affairs. They can be expected to have two levels to this position. Leveraging the same arguments to try to gain some level of federal profit sharing of oil revenue, and a worst case givening up rights to oil revenue to achieve partition on favorable grounds.

In the midst of this Christopher Hitchens has a truly bizarre column in the Weekly Standard A War to Be Proud Of. It closes with a numbered set of points he believes the administration ought to be making for the war. A sample:

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.
(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

The state of this war adventure is testing the limits of the dubious sanity of some people.

But for the sake of argument let's consider two Black Hawks down. The first Blackhawk was the Somalia ambush which led to the withdrawal and disengagement in Somali chaos of a decade ago. The second Blackhawk was a nearly identical multiple ambush in Afghanistan mountain valley a few weeks ago that lead to the deaths of some 20 US Navy Seals. There was an
episode in middle of that second incident where an air strike killed some 20 civlians almost exclusively women and children. DoD dismissed this by saying they were at a terrorist compound: they were likely the wives and children of Taliban fighters - this compound, for that, was their home.The Taliban fighters themselves were not hit in this strike - they were in the field engaged in the ambush operation. A subsequent large scale operation was launched to permanently take control of this valley. The US approach to its struggles is being carried out now on vastly different grounds.

Last week ABC's Nightline broadcast a story on a US citizen being detained in Iraq by the army for 53 days ABC News: Filmmaker Cyrus Kar Describes Ordeal of Iraq Detention. They knew he hadn't done anything, the purpose seemed to be harassment or neglect. The personnel involved seem have become de-sensitized, at the least, to just locking people up. More troubling was the hint of supramission attitudes the personnel have developed. Did they really ask him if had voted for Kerry prior to making the decision to lock him up? That, if it happened is a blatantly irrelevant and illegal question in the circumstance. One that betrays a fundamental mis-apphrehension. Democracy is the secret ballot; A police officer even a military police officer demanding political persusion of an American citizen is not democracy.

Let's take a second look at Gil Merom's book How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failure of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the US in Vietnam [1]. I posted on this last year [ Small Wars, Small Wars ii] (I realize I've got to the point where I'm just repeating myself). In the chart (fig. 1.2) he summarizes his thesis, keep in mind the middle portion is a repeating process. Conduct of a war and reaction to this operating in a loop throughout the conflict. Looking at this chart again and trying to follow the labels and meanings of his indicated shifts, this chart seems to be describing two things.
The realm of society where control of war policy is centered : Society v, State actors. It also diagrams consensus, or divergence of opinion between these two groups about the war. In initial stages consenus renforces the decision to prosecute the war, particulars of this lead to extreme divergence of opinion. If that differnce becomes untenable the consenus collapses, but the extremities of opinion and attitudes developed still exist. The political leaders, military leaders, who bent moral imperatives, the soldiers who were required to undertake acts bordering on savagery are still with us after the war concludes. They will either slowly reintergrate back into civil society, or be unable to.  Even resist integration - resist the nature of the open democratic society they have become estranged from. There is no struggle a democracy engages in that does not run this risk. No Political leader should ever endeavor to substitute artifice for genuine consensus.

_______
1. Merom, Gil. How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State Society and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam. Cambridge : Cam. U. Pr. 2004


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