Bremer: Bush Administration Never saw Iraq Insurgency Coming
Paul Bremer, who ruled Iraq for a year after the fall of Saddam, was asked about his decision to dissolve the Iraqi army in May of 2003. "We really didn't see the insurgency coming," he said.
Gee, Mr. Bremer was spending too much time hanging out with flacks from the American Enterprise Institute and was not reading Cole. Here is what I said in The Journal of the International Institute ( University of Michigan) Winter 2003, vol. 10, no. 2, p. 3, published the January before the March 20, 2003, beginning of the war:
Costs of War
The regional costs of a US war on Iraq are potentially great: The war will inevitably be seen in the Arab world as a neo-colonial war. It will be depicted as a repeat of the French occupation of Algeria or the British in Egypt-or indeed, the British in Iraq. These were highly unpopular and humiliating episodes. The US, even if it has a quick military victory, is unlikely to win the war diplomatically in the Arab world. Pan-Arabism has been more aspiration than reality in the past century, but this US war against Iraq might well promote the formation of a stronger regional political bloc.
As a result of resentment against this neocolonialism, the likelihood is that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations will find it easier to recruit angry young men in the region and in Europe for terrorist operations against the US and its interests. The final defeat of the Baath Party will be seen as a defeat of its ideals, which include secularism, improved rights for women and high modernism. Arabs in despair of these projects are likely to turn to radical Islam as an alternative outlet for their frustrations. The Sunnis of Iraq could well turn to groups like al-Qaida, having lost the ideals of the Baath. Iraqi Shi'ites might become easier to recruit into Khomeinism of the Iranian sort, and become a bulwark for the shaky regime in Shi'ite Iran.
A post-war Iraq may well be riven with factionalism that impedes the development of a well-ensconced new government. We have seen this sort of outcome in Afghanistan. Commentators often note the possibility for Sunni-Shi'ite divisions or Arab Kurdish ones. These are very real. If Islamic law is the basis of the new state, that begs the question of whether its Sunni or Shi'ite version will be implemented. It is seldom realized that the Kurds themselves fought a mini-civil war in 1994-1997 between two major political and tribal factions. Likewise the Shi'ites are deeply divided, by tribe, region and political ideology. Many lower-level Baath Party members are Shi'ite, but tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites are in exile in Iran and want to come back under the banner of ayatollahs.
Internal factionalism is unlikely to reach the level of Yugoslavia after the fall of the communists, since US air power can be invoked to stop mass slaughter. But there could be a good deal of trouble in the country, and as the case of Afghanistan shows, the US cannot always stop faction fighting.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/07/2006 12:07:00 AM
|
Facebook
5 Comments:
Bremer is using that old excuse "we'zz be dumb" which is prevelent in the USA world of politics and business these days.
And, somehow, being dumb is seen as okay.
The right wing has recently started a new campaign saying that Saddam was connected to terrorists and was involved in the 1993 WTC bombing.
Reality? who needs reality?
So, which is worse: they are dumber than doorknobs or flat out liars???
Before the Second Iteration (like the Second Coming) of the Buscist conflict in Iraq, I used Cockburn & Cockburn's book, *Out of the Ashes* as a kind of source book for what would be expected should Saddam Hussein fall. We knew from that book and from other events and prognostications that the various factions within Iraq were itching for a change. This was apparent during the period just following the First Iteration with the uprisings that were eventually quelled by Hussein's command of the army and its weaponry.
It was not too far a of a stretch to see and understand that the Southern Shi'ites were not terribly pleased with their Sunni compatriots. Nor were the Northern Kurds who had fought against Hussein for years and years, having sided with the Iranis, a decision that made their existence a little more tenuous. All that remained was for the Shi'ites to side with their coreligionists in Iran to put the squeeze play into effect on the Sunnis. The only factor in the Sunnis favour was the fact that they controlled the state and were, therefore, able to maintain control and access to large weapons stores as were latterly discovered pillaged and plundered (if not just plain old looted) at places like Al-KaKa. Hopes for the Sunnis to appeal to their own coreligionists would be dashed by Hussein's past actions, having made some threatening (or so perceived) gestures toward other states in the region. Compounding this was the destruction of the state apparatus which left everyone, Ba'athists especially, to fend for themselves, beginning with carting away who know how many hundreds or thousands of tonnes of weapons to prevent their being available to either the infidel invaders or the formerly maligned and mistreated compatriots.
This is not unique to Iraq; this is something that has been an American perspective for well over two hundred years, beginning with -- what? -- Lexington and Concord, that of securing and preserving stores of weapons in order to repel the infidel Redcoats and drive them from the homeland. And, just what would the Iraqis (or Americans of yesteryear) do with caches of munitions and the means to deliver them? Use them? Could be ...
Thank you Professor Cole. It's is a shame, no a crime, that nobody listened.
I think that some additional, historical perspective should be added here, especially given Paul Bremer's comments.
Recent examples of insurgencies - or potential insurgencies - supported by an influx of outsiders can be seen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Kosovo in the 1990s. The mujadadeen in Afghanistan, led by none other than Osama bin Laden, fought the Soviets into submission over a period of years. Similarly, the Balkans nearly saw a similar influx of mujahadeen to fight the ethnic cleansing of Muslims by Milosevic.
Why could our leaders not learn from this very recent history as they "planned" their assault on Iraq? Employing sufficient troop levels to effectively close the borders would have minimized the external influences on the insurgency.
Was this mere stupidity and shortsightedness on the part of our leaders? Or was it done intentionally?
When Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz ignored General Shinseki's recommendation of "several hundred thousand troops" needed to wage the war in Iraq, were they sending a tacit message that full containment of insurgent threats was not desired?
One theory is that they believed that they could attract terrorist elements from around the region - a la the mujahadeen - and then neutralize them in once they were in Iraq.
Another theory is that U.S. operatives are purposely supporting and encouraging the insurgency, in order to A) draw in those most susceptible to believing in the "cause" and B) create a warlike environment that can be sold to the American public as a conflict that justifies the virtually unfettered Presidential authority that Dick Cheney has long sought for the executive branch.
It also calls into question the legitimacy of the "Al Qaeda in Iraq" organization and moniker. Quite frankly, it has always struck me as an unlikely name for such a group, perhaps designed for U.S. public consumption in order to forge a belief here that Al Qaeda and Iraq are tightly linked. Of course, they never have been linked except in the minds of the Bush administration.
Certainly, there are many questions and very few concrete answers. But whether the U.S. leadership was just plain stupid or covertly complicit, either way it stinks to no end.
Maybe the neo-cons are smarter than you think. Since the divide and conquer method has been used by imperialist early on, so the fracturing of Iraq is not unexpected by some. Plus the perpetuation of the kaos and the continued threat of muslim extremist is everything that the Straussians wanted in order for them to survive. The battle for decisive victory might be lost in Iraq in the eyes of the people, but the global threat by the extremist ensures the survival of the neo-cons.
Post a Comment
<< Home