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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