50,000 US Troops to be Garrisoned in Iraq
Shahwani Opposes Militias in Security Forces
A suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Baquba killed 8 and wounded 4 late Sunday.
The US will keep a garrison of 50,000 troops in Iraq for years to come, if it can.
A difference in strategy is emerging between Iraqi intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Shahwani, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, over the Shiite militias such as the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army. Al-Maliki has urged that they be merged into official government security forces. Shahwani opposes this move, fearing that they will then dominate those security forces. He favors giving them sinecures in the civilian bureaucracy instead. (He is aware that you can't just turn loose tens of thousands of trained, experienced fighters with no job or pension, without risking further violence. So he agrees that they should be given jobs but wants to make them pencil pushers). Maliki as PM heads a minority government that could easily fall in a vote of no confidence, and may not be in a position to alienate the Sadrists and Badr supporters in parliament.
More information about Saturday's battle in Amara. Al-Zaman reports that the Iraqi police in Amara, a major city in southern Iraq, are saying that 5 Iraqis, among them one woman, were killed and 15 were wounded in clashes between Mahdi Army militiamen who follow Muqtada al-Sadr and British forces. A British soldier was severely wounded, and a tank fell into a canal. The British had be taking mortar fire at their base, Abu Naji, outside the city, and made the expedition into the city to investigate who was doing the firing. They surrounded the Thawrah, Risalah and Abu Rummanah districts in Amara. Ali Kadhim, deputy vice chairman of the governing council of Maysan province, of which Amara is the capital, said that the members of the council had decided to suspend their membership on it and announced that it would cease doing any work. The outbreak of violence raises questions about the earlier plan to withdraw all British troops from the province on 22 June, announced by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. (I think everyone understands that the Sadr Movement has taken over Maysan, so whether the British troops are there or not is irrelevant, since they cannot dislodge the Sadrists or their Mahdi Army paramilitary; and they are probably just a provocation.)
Iraqi vice president Adil Abdul Mahdi met in Tehran with Foreign Minister Manucher Mottaki on Saturday. He said,
' “We believe that Iran-Iraq friendly relations are a matter of strategic importance which would benefit the interests of the two countries and the region . . . Some people are trying to damage the Iran-Iraq ties by enticing sectarian strife, but we will thwart their plans by expanding bilateral economic, political, and cultural relations . . . We view the power of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the benefit of the entire region and accordingly we take steps in enhancing cooperation and ties (with Iran)" '
Yes, that was the Vice President of Iraq speaking. And he had been within two votes in his party of being prime minister. And, except for that last bit about IRI power benefitting the region (that regime is an extremely reactionary force there), he is right about good Iran-Iraq relations being absolutely necessary to Gulf stability.
Abdul Mahdi also expressed hopes about the outcome of the ninth meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors. This meeting really should be supported more directly by the US and should be used to enhance Iraq's security. The role of Jordan in the operation against Zarqawi is an example of what could be achieved.
Al-Hayat reports on the political atmosphere in Iran. It says that the circle of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not expect an escalation to war with the US. One official said that the crisis could pass if the US specified a "reasonable level of enrichment" that Iran could carry out on uranium for its peaceful nuclear energy program. Another joked that there was not need for the US to invade Iran. He said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and established an Islamic republic there. Then it had done the same thing in Iraq. Since Iran has had an Islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a US invasion. [It is a joke but there is much truth to it. The Northern Alliance that the US installed in Afghanistan is a coalition of the Sunni Jami'at-i Islami and the Hazara Shiite Hizb-i Vahdat. And in Iraq, you now have the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Da'wa Party, not to mention the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front, as the leading parties, and the new constitution forbids legislation contradicting Islamic law.] The Iranian officials also said that the US is depending on Iranian cooperation in its hopes for a troop draw-down in Iraq.
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Arabist Anthony Shadid, writing in WaPo, explores the way in which the jihadi struggle in Iraq is radicalizing Sunnis in places like Lebanon, with likely destabilizing results down the line.
posted by Juan Cole @ 6/12/2006 12:30:00 AM
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It certainly was not the intention of the U.S. to establish theocracies in the Mideast, sure, but out of something (hubris? ignorance? 'bumbling efforts to do good?') we have seen such Islamist regimes unfold.
As a Shi'a country, Iran reportedly sees much opportunity with a Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government, apparently having to a large degree infiltrated it, etc.
I don't think any of the policy-makers in Washington are seriously contemplating an invasion of Iran because that would be insane. Then again, invading Iraq was a stretch of insanity, too.
That Shadid article is scary but not surprising as it confirms what a number of Palestinian American friends have been telling me since 2003. I, frankly, thought they might be exaggerating at first when they predicted that Bush's War on Iraq would violently destablize the entire region for a century, during which the governments of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Emirates would fall. Now I am not so secure in my skepticism.
A difference in strategy is emerging between Iraqi intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Shahwani, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, over the Shiite militias such as the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army. Al-Maliki has urged that they be merged into official government security forces. Shahwani opposes this move, fearing that they will then dominate those security forces. He favors giving them sinecures in the civilian bureaucracy instead. (He is aware that you can't just turn loose tens of thousands of trained, experienced fighters with no job or pension, without risking further violence. So he agrees that they should be given jobs but wants to make them pencil pushers). Maliki as PM heads a minority government that could easily fall in a vote of no confidence, and may not be in a position to alienate the Sadrists and Badr supporters in parliament.
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I don't believe Prof. Cole ever referred to the Washington Post op-ed piece from last Friday that appeared over the name of Nouri al-Maliki. In "[Their] Strategy for a Democratic Iraq," the militia problem was addressed as follows:
To provide the security Iraqis desire and deserve, it is imperative that we reestablish a state monopoly on weapons by putting an end to militias. This government will implement Law 91 to incorporate the militias into the national security services. Unlike previous efforts, this will be done in a way that ensures that militia members are identified at the start, dispersed to avoid any concentration of one group in a department or unit, and then monitored to ensure loyalty only to the state. In addition, we will engage with the political leaders of the militias to create the will to disband these groups.
"Law 91" turns out to be an edict from Ambassador Bremer dated 7 June 2004, i.e., less than three weeks before he fled the country. If you'll wade through the lawyerly gobbledegook to Section 4 (7) (c), you'll find that Bremer was on both sides of this supposed "difference in strategy" between Gen. Shahwani and Mr. Maliki. His original intent was threefold:
(1) to incorporate some of the bandits in the Green Zone forces,
(2) to retire some of them, and
(3) to make pencil-pushers of the rest (viz., they "shall be offered a reintegration program designed to help assimilate them into Iraqi civil society and economy.")
Actually Bremer was rather markedly on Gen. Shahwani's side rather than Mr. Maliki's, because the clauses about drafting bandits into the Green Zone forces and retiring them both refer specifically to members of Saddam's apparatus, or at least to persons with non-amateur military expertise: "subject
to the manning needs of the respective forces, individuals with the appropriate training and experience may enter into . . ." etc. Putting them all on the payroll en masse as "official government security forces" is not there at all.
I also appreciate the irony of Adil 'Abd al-Mahdi’s eloquent praise of Iran as a force for stability, at a time when the US is increasingly bellicose toward Iran. However, as much as I may personally dislike the Bush Administration, I sometimes fear that exaggerating the negative effects of the Bush Administration’s empowerment of SCIRI and other Shia' leaders scores political points here, but also may lead some Democrats to assume that some Shia' politicians are more radical and joined at the hip to Iran than they really are. Your blog is far less guilty of that than others in the left blogosphere, who tend to demonize many Shia’ leaders as dangerous pro-Iranian nuts, SCIRI in particular. However, the comment that "he had been within two points of becoming prime minister" in the context of this article gives the sense that Abd al-Mahdi’s primary loyalties are to Iran.
Is 'Abd al-Mahdi really as inflexible of an Islamist as he is often portrayed? Like the other members of SCIRI who spent years in Iran, he probably retains some resentment at Iranian heavy-handedness. The SCIRI members I know (although I don't know Abd al-Mahdi) are simultaneously skeptical of both Iran and the US, while recognizing that their interests are best served by brokering more communication between the two. Their leadership seems focused on trying to get the US and Iran to talk, while Sadr has the luxury of criticizing everyone. Frankly, SCIRI is more diplomatic and less divisive than Sadr, who dislikes the US and the UK intensely, opposes Iran at least in public, and is sufficiently unpopular with the Iraqi Kurds to spark a civil war should he ever come to power. What Iraq needs right now is a little less of the Sadr vision of nationalism and centralized control, and a little more of the SCIRI version of diplomacy and federalism.
Abd al-Mahdi has maintained reasonably good relations with the US, with Iran, and he backs joint diplomacy with all of Iraq's neighbors. Any Shia' politician who can mediate between Iran, the US and the Kurds must not be too much a slave of ideology, and must have pretty good diplomatic skills. He is probably the Shia' political leader closest to Jalal Talabani. I know that the Kurdish leaders were backing him for P.M. because he is the least likely to attempt to reverse Kurdish autonomy. However, Talabani is very secular in his general philosophical outlook, as is most of the PUK leadership. Actually, Abd al-Mahdi might have made a good PM, had SCIRI controlled the Badr Brigades a little earlier and done the sort of diplomatic work with some moderate Sunnis than he has done so well with Iran, the US and the Kurds. I know this sounds a little pollyannaish, but I feel that SCIRI is sometimes made to appear more uncritically pro-Iranian and more radical than their actions indicate.
"The US will keep a garrison of 50,000 troops in Iraq for years to come, if it can."
and
"A difference in strategy is emerging between Iraqi intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Shahwani, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, over the Shiite militias such as the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army."
There may be a way out for the American troops. Assuming W becomes a double amputee this November (losing the Senate and the House making him a "maimed duck"), it is possible future US troop assignments would be decided by persons better than he.
There are powerful factions in Iraq. Does anyone still think they can be controlled by US troops or that some fantastical pro-US faction? Realistically, the people with power will continue to wield power and there is nothing the US can do to change that.
The best we could hope for would be a semi-permanent presence composed of 50,000 troops sequestered on a base and the immediate surroundings, invited to stay by Sistani and others, and looming large over any Iraqi faction which tried to promote a conventional, i.e. not guerrilla, war on other factions.
Such a stabilizing presence might even have a dampening effect on the insurgency, and keeping US troops out of harms way wouldn't be such a bad idea either.
Very interesting stuff today. The Gulf News article and your comments are accurate; you can't shelve thousands of militants -- look what happened with the Iraqi Army in 2003.
I think this is inaccurate in the Telegraph piece:
At present the total number of serving American troops is about 500,000.
I thought the number was closer to 130,000?
What will Iraq look like in 2010?
By Anne-Marie Slaughter | Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy, Princeton
Ten days ago I moderated a panel at Princeton Reunions entitled: Iraq in 2010. Each of the four panelists were given 10 minutes to be as direct as possible on what Iraq would be likely to look like in 2010. A former Army ranger gave us a fairly positive outlook, which I will try to get from him. But Ray Close, a retired CIA Arabist who spent virtually his entire career in the field, offered the following prognosis. Bear in mind that he only had 10 minutes and hence had to omit lots of nuances and possibilities; nevertheless, it is sobering reading....
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