Informed Comment

Samarra’ Assaulted by Guerrillas

The LA Times reports that guerrillas launched a major attack in Samarra on Wednesday. Carloads of gunmen came into the city and attacked a building used by security forces with rocket propelled grenades. They then attacked the hospital, until US and Iraqi government forces responded to attacks. When ten carloads of guerrillas can just drive into town and shoot it up, you know no one is really in control of the place. Samarra is an important city north of Baghdad, with a population of nearly 200,000. Its early Islamic monuments make it symbolically important.

The LA Times says that guerrillas also killed Kamal Khalid Zebari, a Kurdish security chief of Mosul.

The murder two days ago of a Shiite parliamentarian has set off a debate among Shiites about using paramilitary forces to defend themselves from Sunni guerrilla actions. The debate was made especially bitter by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s admission last Sunday that the US is talking behind the scenes to leaders of the Sunni guerrilla movement, a move that many Shiites denounce.

The Arab News reports from wire services:

‘ Furious Shi’i deputies suggested that the time had come to counter relentless attacks that have targeted their community. Khodr Al-Khozai of the Shi’i-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) appealed to the three biggest Sunni organizations in Iraq: “We call on the Committee of Muslim Scholars, the Waqf (state-run endowment group) and Iraqi Islamic Party to take a clear stand regarding murders and attacks on Shi’is.

“We are on the edge of a precipice that could swallow us all. The ministries of interior and defense have proved incapable of defending us and in this case the people have the right to self-defense,” Khozai said.

A deputy from the Mehdi Army of Shi’i cleric Moqtada Sadr suggested neighborhood committees be created with religious and community leaders to work with the interior and defense ministries. “These committees would know how to find the terrorists,” Fatah Al-Sheikh promised.” ‘

Meanwhile, the movement for southern autonomy is growing, according to Ed Wong of the New York Times. The movement is opposed by the hard line Shiite nationalists of the Sadr movement, and not especially favored by Grand Ayatollah Sistani, either. Although Wong highlights the secularists arguing for regional autonomy, there are Shiite religious figures who want it, as well, as reported by al-Zaman.

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Another US Helicopter Downed, This Time in Afghanistan
17 Dead

Taliban used some sort of rocket to shoot down a US helicopter in Afghanistan, killing all 17 servicemen aboard.

This is the second US helicopter lost this week. Earlier in the week, Iraqi guerrillas north of Baghdad downed one, killing two US soldiers.

It is not clear if these are rocket propelled grenade strikes, which are difficult to pull off and therefore rare, or if Taliban and Iraqi guerrillas are getting hold of shoulder-fired missiles, which would be more dangerous to the US in both places. What kind of missile used, if so, would also be telling. Old SA-7s, manufactured by the Soviet Union, don’t appear to be very sophisticated and are seldom still in good working order (one of these was used unsuccessfully against an Israeli jet liner at Mombasa). SA-14s and SA-16s are more deadly, with electronic heat-seeking capability. I’m told that despite the serial numbers, SA-14s are deadlier.

Milt Bearden, the CIA station chief in Pakistan during the 1980s, has long held that the US provision to the Mujahidin (predecessors of the Taliban) in Afghanistan of Stinger missiles to use against Soviet helicopter gunships was key to their victory.

If the sophistication of the weaponry in Afghanistan and Iraq increases, it could signal a two-front, hard-fought war for the US. I am not sure how many shoulder-fired missile launchers are out there on the world market already.

Meanwhile, Bush’s speech on Iraq appears to have drawn a remarkably small audience on television. NBC’s broadcast of it only drew about 5 million viewers. That is not a very good prime time statistic. If I’m not mistaken, Jay Leno’s late-night comedy and interview show does something on that order. My guess is that Americans do not like the subject of Iraq because it is clearly bad news, and did not expect Bush actually to give them any good news. They were right, of course.

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Guest Opinion: Iraq Avalanche Unstoppable: Richards

“The Iraq Avalanche Cannot be Stopped”

by Alan Richards

University of California Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA
June 24, 2005

I have been reading the debate . . . on “What next in Iraq?” (“Unilateral withdrawal? UN forces? Staying the course?”) with great interest. There is a way, however, in which I am troubled by what I perceive as a tacit assumption–a very American assumption,–underlying most of the discussion. It seems to me that even “pessimists” are actually “optimists”: they assume that there exists in Iraq and the Gulf some “solution”, some course of action which can actually lead to an outcome other than widespread, prolonged violence, with devastating economic, political, and social consequences.

I regret to say that I think this is wrong. There is no “solution” to this mess; it is sometimes not possible to “fix” things which have been broken. I can see no course of action which will prevent widespread violence, regional social upheaval, and economic hammering administered by oil price shocks. This is why so many of us opposed the invasion of Iraq so strenuously in the first place! We thought that it would unleash irreversible adverse consequences for (conventionally defined) US interests in the region. I am very sorry to say that I still think we were right.

Let me get specific:

1) As you have often pointed out, our continued presence de-legitimizes the current Iraqi government, which is, in any case, largely a Shiite Islamist and Kurdish tactical alliance. As Patrick Cockburn has pointed out (London Review of Books), the Kurds destabilized Iraq for half a century, and the Sunnis can certainly do the same. No Sunnis, no deal, no way-as you have repeatedly stressed. And the polls, which you courageously cite, which show some 40% of the population backing the insurgents, at least in principle, demonstrates-as you have repeatedly argued-that a large number of Iraqis want us to get out.* This means, as you say almost every day, that our current policy (“unilateral presence”, if I may call it that) is unsustainable. The insurgents, and many Iraqis, want us out, by any means.Our continued presence cannot succeed.

2) Your scenario for a regional Lebanese or Thirty Years? War style conflict in the wake of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal seems very plausible. Indeed, since I think that the U.S. cannot stay, and since I (regrettably) think that the U.N. option is also not viable (for some of the reasons your correspondents have stated), such a scenario may be the most prescient prediction. But the U.S., as a polity and culture, will simply not sustain this war, not without huge damage to other interests, to the military itself, and to what remains of American democracy. Our continued presence only postpones the evil day, and the U.N. is not, I think, likely to step in.

3) Salafi jihadis and Iran are the big winners in all this-and they hate each other. I can see NO possible way for outsiders to defuse this: not with the U.S. in Iraq, not with the U.N., not with a power vacuum. People from outside the region (U.S., E.U., U.N., India, China, whoever) can do very, very little about this. It seems to me that, as usual, only Muslims can ameliorate the problems of Muslim governance.

4) Finally, there is a tacit assumption in the discussion so far that low oil prices, including current levels, are viable. I don’t think this is true, for at least two reasons. A) The terrifying truth is that how we consume energy now both in the U.S. and elsewhere is entirely unsustainable for environmental reasons. Denial is the national past-time on this; and it is deeply destructive. Global warming is a reality, it will get worse, and the consequences will be extremely serious. I now work surrounded by biologists and environmental scientists, many of whom would cheer (even as they paid a heavy price in lost jobs and income) if the price of oil hit $100 a barrel, because they are in a panic about the consequences of our current profligate behavior. B) The jury is still out on the “Hubbert’s Peak” or “Peak Oil” hypothesis, but the viewpoint is hardly silly. If it should prove to be correct, oil prices will rise, steeply-until we get serious about fostering the kind of changes in consumption and technology which are necessary, in any case (see A). To repeat: assuming that low oil prices are viable is very dubious at best, and at worst, constitutes a species of denial.

5) Who will pay the price for high oil prices? As you rightly say, poor people, especially in the Global South. Will they know this? Certainly. Will they thank rich countries like us? Hardly. Might this lead to other violent social movements, particularly given all the other problems in the Global South? I can’t see why not. Of course, there are ways in principle of dealing with this problem which could minimize the pain. Every competent economist knows the litany of price changes, technology subsidies, and quantitative mandates which we should have implemented, decades ago. We should still do this now, even at this late date. Of course, every indication suggests that the necessary steps will not be taken, thanks, in large part, to American culture and politics. After all, no one, from either party, in the political arena is saying anything even remotely commensurate with the threat which most scientists see to the future of the planet. No one with any power is talking sensibly about energy use, global poverty, and their interrelationships. No one at all.

6) My last pessimistic point: my reading of history is that the only way large changes occur is as responses to large crises. I don’t like this, but it seems true to me. And, I hasten to add, change in a crisis is hardly guaranteed to be humane, decent, or to have any claim on our ethical allegiance. We might get a new Roosevelt, but we also might get a new Hitler.

Please don’t misunderstand me: I am not advocating regional-crisis-cum-oil-price-spike. I simply think that it is probably unavoidable. If we leave, there will be violence, mayhem, slaughter, and instability, and if we stay there will be violence, mayhem, slaughter, and instability. If there is (as I tend to think) a large crisis looming on the horizon, it will certainly be ugly, even hideous. And then-something else will happen. The one thing I don?t think is possible is to avoid it.

So let me close where I began: I think it is delusional to imagine that there exists a “solution” to the mess in Iraq. From this perspective, the folly of Bush, Cheney and Company in invading Iraq is even worse than most informed observers of the region already think. Starting an avalanche is certainly criminal. It does not follow, however, that such a phenomenon can be stopped once it has begun.

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*[Ed. note: The Boston Globe in May cited a US "internal poll" showing 45 percent support for attacks on US troops; reader Alex Easton says he called the Globe and confirmed that this was 45 percent of the Sunni Arabs. However, other polls have shown a majority of Iraqis wants US troops out of the country. 7/4/05]

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Some Iraqis Criticize Bush’s Speech
Looming Health Crisis in Qaim Area

An Iraqi response to Bush’s claim that he is fighting terrorism by drawing terrorists to Iraq:

‘ “Why don’t they find another place to fight terrorism?” asked Abdul Ridha al-Hafadhi, 58, head of a humanitarian aid group. “I don’t feel comforted by Bush’s remarks; there must be a timetable for their departure.” ‘

On Wednesday, a grenade attack wounded two Polish troops near Diwaniyah, and a bombing in Tel Afar killed four. On Tuesday, a bombing near the Japanese base at Samawah killed two Iraqis. Thousands of people came out for the funeral of slain parliamentarian Dhari Ali al-Fayyadh.

On Tuesday, guerrillas killed US troops at Balad and Tikrit; several were also wounded.

Reuters also reports that on Wednesday US forces arrested Dhahir al-Dhari, a major clan leader whose brother heads up the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard line Sunni clerical group. Likewise:

‘ But another Sunni leader, Ayham al-Samarai, a former minister in the previous, U.S.-backed interim government, launched a new political movement, saying he aimed to give a voice to figures from the “legitimate Iraqi resistance”. “The birth of this political bloc is to silence the sceptics who say there is no legitimate Iraqi resistance and that they cannot reveal their political face,” he told a news conference. ‘

Al-Zaman: The Ministry of Labor is opening an inquiry into why several major Iraqi factories have closed down.

Iraq’s health minister has warned against a building humanitarian crisis in the Qaim area. US military operations in the cities near the Syrian border have left made refugees out of 7,000 families, some of them now living in tents in the desert. It is alleged that the US is not allowing ambulances and humanitarian aid into the cities, and that there is danger of some refugees starving.

Although the primary stated goal of US campaigns in places such as Qaim is to root out guerrillas using them as bases, the massive force employed clearly announces that a subsidiary goal is to terrify the Sunni Arab population and to “encourage” them to report on the guerrillas from now on. Jane Arraf of CNN when reporting on the al-Qaim campaign showed a picture of what looked like a large community center being blown up by American planes. I thought to myself that it couldn’t possibly be necessary to destroy that nice building. And, at the same time, the US is talking to the guerrilla leaders. Saddam called this sort of policy “tarhib wa taqrib”: first you terrify your subjects, then you find ways of pulling them close to you. It does not reflect well on the US that the techniques it is now using look so familiar.

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Arguing with Bush

Bush’s speech.

“The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent.

“Terrorists” are not a cohesive ideological category like “Communists” as Bush suggests. Lots of groups use terror as a tactic. The Irgun Zionists in 1946 and 1947 did, as well. Also ETA in Spain, about the terrorist acts of which Americans seldom hear in their newspapers (they are ongoing). The Baath regime in Iraq engaged in so little international terrorism in the late 1990s and early zeroes that it was not even on the US State Department list of sponsors of terrorism.* Bush could take the above rationale and use it to invade most countries in the world.

“To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill: in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali and elsewhere.

Yes, and these were al-Qaeda operations, and you haven’t caught Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.

“The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us.”

This is monstrous and ridiculous at once. The people in Fallujah and Ramadi were not sitting around plotting terrorism three years ago. They had no plans to hit the United States. Terrorism isn’t a fixed quantity. By unilaterally invading Iraq and then bollixing it up, Bush and Vines have created enormous amounts of terrorism, which they are now having trouble putting back in the bottle.

“Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others.”

Maybe 8 percent of the fighters in Iraq are foreign jihadis. Of the some 25,000 guerrillas, almost all are Iraqi Sunni Arabs who dislike foreign military occupation of their country. You could imagine what people in Alabama or Kentucky would do if foreign troops came in and tried to set up checkpoints in their neighborhoods.

Moreover, many of those jihadis fighting in Iraq wouldn’t even be jihadis if they weren’t outraged by Bush’s invasion and occupation of a Muslim country.

The fact is that the US went in and convinced the Sunni Arabs of Iraq that we were going to screw them over royally, driving them into violent opposition. They aren’t inherently terrorists and could have been won over.

There are no Iraqi military units that can and will fight independently against the Sunni guerrillas, so all those statistics he quoted are meaningless.

Almost all the coalition allies of the US have a short timetable for getting out of the quagmire before it goes really bad. Bush’s quotation of all that international support sounds more hollow each time he voices it.

An interesting Flash presentation on Coalition casualties can be found here, demnstrating their geographical extent throughout the country.

The political process in Iraq has not helped end the guerrilla war. It has excluded Sunnis or alienated them so that they excluded themselves. It offers no hope in and of itself.

There was nothing new in Bush’s speech, and most of what he said was inaccurate.

Tomdispatch.com takes apart Bush’s moral relativism or amoral relativism and is worth a read.

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*This statement was a mistake on my part. Iraq was taken off the list in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. It was on the list in the late 1990s and early zeroes, but the annual report noted that it had undertaken no terrorism against the US since 1993. See this set of reader responses.

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