What Iraqi Democracy Looks Like

*Update Appended, 7/16 @ 1100*

As I've said before, the only (publicly stated) rationale for the invasion of Iraq still on the table is the drive to establish a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, if only because its the only one not definitively disprovable by facts. (Wherever tangible reality meets the Bush worldview, the latter is brutally swept aside.) That said, there has been scant discussion of the probable outcome of the exercise in Iraqi democracy.

John McCain has made a living out of saying the US must stay in Iraq until 'victory' occurs, though a definition of victory seems perpetually elusive for him. Now Obama, in his desire to slink his way ever closer to McCain in the foreign policy arena has declared that victory is imminent. Yet, like McCain, Obama's vision of victory is founded on a set of circumstances clearly contradicted by facts on the ground (forgive the cliche).

For Mr. Obama, that status quo is close to what he is now calling "victory." In his speech yesterday, he said, "True success will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future — a government that prevents sectarian conflict, and ensures that the Al Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge. That is an achievable goal if we pursue a comprehensive plan to press the Iraqis to stand up."

Suggesting that a democratic exercise in Iraq would "prevent sectarian conflict" is not a goal to be taken lightly, as the power struggles surrounding elections exacerbate sectarian tensions as much as they quell them. Whereas McCain offers the promise of victory without definition, Obama counters with a vision of success fatally wedded to circumstances not likely to appear.

I've alluded to the tenuous state of the upcoming provincial elections in previous posts, indicating that much of Maliki's recent pushes in Basra, Sadr City and elsewhere have been thinly-veiled power plays meant to affect the results of those elections. Marc Lynch examines other aspects in more detail here:

It appears that the long-anticipated Iraqi Parliament vote on a law governing the provincial elections scheduled for the beginning of October has been postponed until Thursday and probably longer. Parliamentary Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani postponed discussions after the Kurds walked out in protest over the treatment of Kirkuk; leaders from the Shia UIA were reportedly huddling with their Kurdish partners in the governing coalition, trying to reach an agreement on how to proceed.

This isn't a great shock: the government had submitted a multiple-choice draft for the Parliament to debate, leaving the most contentious issues unresolved. It didn't seem likely that the divided and contentious Parliament would quickly arrive at a consensus which eluded Maliki's relatively tight ruling Shia-Kurd coalition....

The issues raised by the provincial election law cut to the heart of competing visions of Iraq's political future. Kurds are fuming over the plans for voting in Kirkuk, which they feel might prejudice the future of the contested area (the three official Kurdish provinces will almost certainly not take part at all in the provincial elections). The question of open vs closed lists may seem technocratic, but will have major implications for voting: many people think that (for better or worse) closed lists strengthen the role of parties at the expense of individual candidates and could heighten the salience of sectarian appeals.

Clearly, more than a few issues, with many of the contentious issues promising to stoke sectarian strife rather than soften the blow, as Obama hopes. As it stands, Iraq is not a centralized government, but a collection of different concentrations of power, a situation not likely to change as a result of the elections. Part of that relationship is the status of Kirkuk, a city which the Kurds feel should be part of their semi-autonomous region, making the prospect of holding elections there a "thorny subject."

Likewise, the use of closed lists, where voters are only given a choice of parties rather than individual candidates, will almost by definition promote sectarian divides. The Sadrists are also barred from participating as a party, leaving them out completely should closed lists be used, and one can imagine that would have some effect on the Mahdi Army cease fire, which has no small bearing on the so-called "success" of the Surge.

Also receiving little attention is the status of the 5 million displaced Iraqis, victims of the years of ethnic cleansing. Unless the election law allows them to vote in their previous areas of residence, the elections would be a de facto codification of that cleansing. Eric Martin, remarking on Lynch's piece, expresses his pessimistic outlook:

The reason for time's inadequacy as a facilitator of resolution stems from the stubbornness of the convoluted and cross-cutting matrix of conflicts that continue to plague Iraq: various groups of Iraqis are battling to determine the political future of their country (unitary state vs. fragmented state, Islamist vs. secular, etc.), to dictate their roles in it (various ethnic/sectarian groups vying for safety, survival, economic and political power) to determine the level of foreign occupation/involvement (American, Iranian, etc.) and to redress crimes and injustices both recent (5 million internal/external refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, etc.) and historical (Shiite/Kurdish suffering at the hands of Saddam). How does more time to discuss the various positions/demands undo that? The answer is, generally, it doesn't.

If that wasn't problem enough, Saddam's VP made an appearance today, taunting not only Bush, but Muqtada al Sadr and al Qaeda, throwing yet another obstacle in the way of the administration's attempts to paint Iraqi resistance as a homogeneous bloc. The taunts also further exemplify the probability that the provincial elections portend of a powder keg of sectarian tensions.

That, essentially, is what Obama is trying to gloss over in saying success is close at hand, and it's surely an aspect of the Iraqi reality that needs more attention paid to it. Obama sees a future with a less-than-perfect democracy, but he ties that to the supposition that any democracy will temper internal conflict. All available evidence, however, points to precisely the opposite conclusion, a reality that should force Obama to explain just how he plans to avoid it.

Empty platitudes pervade American political discourse, sure, but on issues as significant as the Iraqi elections, the public deserves much more. The last 5 years has been an exercise in trading actual understanding of reality for a strong gale of hollow rhetoric, and if the overwhelming success of that tactic doesn't call for a change of course, nothing will. While Obama's definition of 'success' may be short on specifics, at least he deigns to make an attempt. Thus far, McCain has yet to offer even a token milestone for his goal of 'victory.'

*Update*

The fighting has begun to materialize, with Kurdish lawmakers protesting on Tuesday. There is virtually no chance of the election happening before the Presidential elections in November, but how much that affects the American enterprise I'm not sure.


Related:

The Myth of the Surge, March 27
Changing the Rules of the Game, April 1

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Iraqi SOFA: Out on the Curb?

Even given the enormous and egregious breeches of Iraqi sovereignty that the SOFA the US was trying to force on the Maliki government contained, I must say that I'm surprised--and impressed--that the Iraqis have held up as well as it seems they have, with the Washington Post reporting that a long-term deal may be all but dead.

Really, the only hope Bush and Crocker had of pushing the deal through was without the involvement of either legislature and sans journalistic scrutiny. Once the details of the proposal got out, it was game over. While Bush serves a country with a complacent populace and complicit Congress, Maliki is more beholden to both in his own country. When religious leaders such as al Sistani began coming out in full force against the SOFA, there was no chance he would be able to avoid submission to the legislature, and no chance doing so would result in its adoption.

To recount briefly, the SOFA was essentially a deal wherein the Iraqis would sign up willingly for colonial rule. I say colonial not as a loaded phrase meant to incite, but because under the tenets of the agreement, Iraq would have met every criteria. The US forces would operate completely independent of the Iraqi government, have complete immunity from Iraqi laws, be able to launch attacks from Iraq without notification or permission, and control completely Iraqi airspace. In essence, the exact model of the old British Empire where the Middle East was nominally controlled by locals but was in reality part of British Imperial rule. The British simply found it cheaper to have a third-party do the dirty work.

The SOFA, then, was a signal of how much times have changed. Whereas in Imperial times, the oil was siphoned out without the countries' consent, today the Iraqis are expected to sign their consent for the exact same circumstances. Picture a hangman offering a letter of consent to the condemned while in the noose.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

The article matter-of-factly blames the failure of the proposal on "the Iraqi refusal to accept US terms," leaving aside any details of those US demands, and for obvious reasons. Those details which are left out, are not simply minor nuances to a larger agreement, but a signing over of Iraqi sovereignty to the US for the indefinite future, not something the Iraqi government, bound by democratic principles, could have signed. The only possibility of success from Bush's perspective, would have been if the Iraqis showed as much disdain for democracy as he does in his own country.

Negotiators expect [the deal] to include a "time horizon," with specific goals for U.S. troop withdrawal from Baghdad and other cities and installations such as the former Saddam Hussein palace that now houses the U.S. Embassy.

The fixed dates will likely include caveats referring to the ability of Iraqi security forces to take over from U.S. units, but without them, U.S. negotiators concluded that Iraqi acquiescence was doubtful. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his political allies have come under intense domestic pressure to reject any perceived infringement on Iraqi sovereignty. Maliki, who last week publicly insisted on a withdrawal timeline, wants to frame the agreement as outlining the terms for "Americans leaving Iraq" rather than the conditions under which they will stay, said the U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because U.S.-Iraqi negotiations are ongoing.

Indeed, Maliki's submission to "domestic pressure" has thrown Bush and McCain for a loop, as they are not sure what a democracy in which the government performs the will of the people looks like.

In effect, Maliki is calling their bluff, as both Bush and McCain have said previously that "when the Iraqis ask us to leave, we'll leave." Now that the time is rapidly approaching, both are scrambling to dissemble, saying that Maliki is "just a politician" and surely wouldn't demand withdrawal before his security forces are ready. That is, before the US has ensured the economic end of the bargain.

The US would also like some more time to influence the October provincial elections, as Maliki still has plenty of work to do before Sadr's faction becomes politically inviable, the unstated goal of his recent pushes in Sadr City and Amara.

The negotiations surrounding the SOFA illustrate quite clearly what the US means by democracy. The tangible disdain that both Bush and McCain have shown for Maliki's willingness to submit his rule to the will of the Iraqi populace indicates that both would prefer a system more like that of the US, where politicians put on a happy face every four years, then spend the inter-nicene period trouncing on the public will. As Dick Cheney infamously quipped, the American public has one chance to voice their opinion, the general election. In between, the country belongs to the victors.

McCain surely knows a thing or two about pandering, but in calling for withdrawal, Maliki is doing no such thing. He is attempting to enforce the will of well over 80 percent of his population. Bush and McCain may call that pandering, but those of us still romantically tied to the events of 1776 call it democracy.


Related:

The Iraq SOFA: Not So Comfortable, June 5
US Holds Iraqi Funds Hostage Over SOFA, June 7
When a Guest Becomes a Squatter, June 15

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Iran Continues to Confound the US

With Afghanistan and Iraq vanquished, along with their stability, US attention has turned to Iran as enemy number one. Nevermind that North Korea actually possesses nuclear weapon capability, war must be perpetuated to prevent Iran from gaining even a sniff of such a disaster.

As noted before, the US loves to portray Iran as a purely destructive force in Iraq, funding only those militias the US isn't allied with, negotiating with only those the US doesn't want to know about. That stance is not only oversimplification, but demonstrably false.

In fact, the US and Iran occasionally find themselves on the same side of a fight, as was the case in Basra.

The causes of this convergence boil down to the logic of self-interest, although it is logic in a place where even the most basic reasoning refuses to go in a straight line. In essence, though, the calculation by the United States is that it must back the government it helped to create and take the steps needed to protect American troops and civilian officials.

Iranian motivations appear to hinge on the possibility that Mr. Sadr’s political and military followers could gain power in provincial elections this fall, and disrupt the creation of a semi autonomous region in the south that the Iranians see as beneficial.

An Iranian interest in a large Shiite swath across the region--from Iran to Lebanon--is not a secret, and the Mahdi army threatens that goal more than a US-allied Badr Brigade does, whether or not Admiral Mullen and President Bush want to admit it. Muqtada al Sadr is above all an Iraqi nationalist and one of the few Iraqi leaders who remained in Iraq throughout Saddam Hussein's rule. al Sadr would be as opposed to the subjugation of Iraq to Iran as the US.

Of course, this is not to suggest that he won't accept any free funding Iran wants to send his way, or that his idea of an independent Iraq merges at any point with the United States' idea.

But, with provincial elections coming in October, it is in Iran's interest to see as many members of the ISCI, of which the Badr Brigade is part, elected in lieu of members of Sadr's political faction as possible.

When it comes to which Shiite leader Iran and the United States want to see in power, at least for now they largely see Mr. Sadr’s ascendance as a common threat — nowhere more so than in Basra, the oil-rich capital of Iraq’s most populous region, the Shiite south.

Fred Kaplan at Slate:

It is now clear that the Badr Organization's ties to Iran are not merely as close as Sadr's; they are much closer. In fact, as the Times reports, Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, expressed full support for Maliki's offensive in Basra and denounced Sadr's fighters as "outlaws."

Why Iran would support an offensive portrayed in the US as a fight against both al Sadr and Iran is less vague to anyone keeping realistic tabs on foreign affairs independent of the tale spun by the Bush administration.

...in the end the geopolitical calculus of the United States and Iran has to do with what kind of Shiite government they want in control.

The party that Iran and the United States are backing, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq [ISCI], is a bitter rival of Mr. Sadr’s political movement and has managed to play to the interests of both countries. Under Iraq’s Constitution, provinces can form regions with considerable independence from Baghdad. The Supreme Council advocates a large, semi autonomous region in the south, similar to Kurdistan in the north, made up of the nine southern provinces. And because many of the council’s leaders lived in exile in Iran during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iran has political ties to the group.

Coupled with Iran’s shared Shiite heritage, such a region would amplify Iran’s influence over the oil-rich area.

The recent crack-down on the Mahdi Army and the upcoming provincial elections cannot be divorced in any realistic assessment of the political environment of Iraq:

During the elections in 2005, Mr. Sadr’s supporters did not vote in most southern provinces, so despite having grass-roots support they were not represented in local governments.

But the Supreme Council encouraged its followers to go to the polls, and they dominated even in places where their supporters made up a comparatively small percentage of the electorate. If Mr. Sadr’s movement participates in the next elections, scheduled for October, they are sure to fare better than they did when they did not field candidates, and the Supreme Council is likely to lose some of its power.

All this illustrates that the battle of southern Iraq is more an intra-Shiite power play, with the ISCI reluctant to give up any of its influence, than a simplified battle of good versus evil.

Control of the southern region brings with it control of Iraqi oil. So, in effect, by backing the ISCI the US is placing a Iranian-allied Shiite political party in essentially-autonomous control of Iraq's oil-exporting functions. As far as geopolitical strife is responsible for a good portion of oil prices, the situation being fostered in Basra and the surrounding region cannot help.

With Iranian-backed Hezbollah exerting its influence in Lebanon, the Iranian-backed ISCI exerting control over southern Iraq--and Iranian-friendly Syria in between--it becomes exceedingly clear that the US invasion of Iraq was the greatest strategic windfall to befall Iran in decades.

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Fences Make Good Neighbors

One of the prevailing themes to this week's Capitol Hill testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker was an increase in rhetoric bemoaning the influence of Iran in the Iraqi occupation. While I don't see any chance Bush gets away with starting an active conflict with Iran in the next nine months, nothing will prevent him from escalating the verbal conflict.

That said, in the theatrical framework we've become accustomed to in hearings such as the ones held this week, Iran in the abstract can be bandied about as nemesis without any real exploration into just what that influence entails. Or, for that matter, how it is that hundreds of people all started saying 'special groups' on the same day. Was 'freedom haters' taken? I didn't get the memo.

That Iran wants to increase its influence in the region can pretty much be accepted without argument. It's how the Shiite theocracy is going about it that seems to be a source of confusion for some.

There seems, among supporters of prolonged occupation, a belief that the only way for Iran to garner influence in its neighbor to the West is by funding Shiite militias. Well, scratch that. Shiite militias who object to the American presence. That Iran provides assistance and support to all of the various Shiite militias--whether they are allied with the Maliki government or not--seems a fact either too cumbersome or too incongruent with the reigning narrative to lend much credence to.

To believe that, though, one must be of the assumption that Iran, having surveyed the landscape, has decided that the best way to ensconce itself in the Iraqi reality is to ally itself most closely with the Shiite militias opposed to the government, choosing them over those militias allied with al Maliki. Common sense dictates that logic is somewhat backward.

Iran has plenty of access to the Iraqi government itself. Why, then, would a distraction of resources among less-productive alliances be beneficial? While Iran is no doubt aiding al Sadr, there is no reason to believe that this is done to the exclusion of relationships with other, better-connected groups.

Consider this CBS News report from Christmas, 2006:

U.S. troops in Iraq detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity in an exercise the White House says may support its charge that Iran is helping fuel the insurgency there.

Two of those detained were visiting as guests of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, his spokesman said.

"We suspect this event validates our claims about Iranian meddling, but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Monday.

[...]

The New York Times reported Monday that U.S. forces were holding four Iranians, including some seized at the compound of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the largest Shiite bloc in Iraq's parliament, who met with President Bush earlier this month at the White House.[...]

Hakim is not only one of Iraq's leading Shiites,...he is often thought of as an alternative to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki if al-Maliki proves unable to control the violence.

Okay, so it proves the contention that Iran is meddling, but in this case as a guest of the President. Or the leader of the ISCI. Both of which are presumed American allies, not a nefarious splinter group or marginalized radical. This is not to point to an exclusion of that influence, but rather to illustrate the existence aid to US allies as well.

It is beyond doubt at this point that the seminal event in the expansion of Iranian influence in the region was the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime. Saddam was just as much a thorn in the side of the Iranians as he was to the US, a check on their power and a geographical buffer between Syria and Iran. With Hussein out of the way, the US virtually guaranteed a Shiite-led government sympathetic to the Iranians and paved the way for a Shiite swath across the midsection of the Middle East.

Clearly there is a crossing of signals between US policy makers and the leadership of Iraq. John McCain recently said that a 'successful' Iraq would be an 'enemy of Iran.' This thought process offers so little in the way of reason it's astounding. First, for a struggling, inefficient, and weak nation such as Iraq to start making enemies with its neighbor right out of the gate would be ludicrous and suicidal. Second, the Iraqi and Iranian leadership are natural allies. Most of the current leaders of Iraq spent their time in exile under Saddam in Iran. That the Iraqi leadership doesn't acquire the US animosity toward Iran simply as quid pro quo for greasing the tracks to their positions of authority is no surprise, nor should such a relationship be expected.

Remarking at Ahmadinejad's March 2 visit:

"I think that the level of trust is very high," Maliki said. "And I say frankly that the position Iran has taken recently was very helpful in bringing back security and stability."

Again, this argument speaks not to Iran as a constructive player on the world stage, only the relationship between the neighboring countries.

The New American:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Baghdad on March 2 on an historic trip to Iraq, the first ever for an Iranian president. Iraq’s political and religious leaders greeted him with great fanfare, laying out red carpets and having military bands play for him. Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani fondly asked Ahmadinejad to call him “Uncle Jalal.”

Ahmadinejad also held meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, and Shiite religious leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, chairman of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council.

Perhaps nothing exemplifies the myriad allegiances of Iran more than the al Hakim-led ISCI and its military arm, the Badr Brigade.

From Globalsecurity.org:

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shi'i resistance group also known as the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), was formed in Iran in 1982 to provide an opposition to Iraqi aggression against Iran. Following the Iran-Iraq war, the organization continued to operate with the aim of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. SCIRI was directly supported with funds by Tehran and with arms by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. The movement advocated theocratic rule for Iraq and conducted a low-level, cross-border guerrilla war against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Absent Saddam, ISCI was in a position for a slight makeover, as this Reuters article explains. Aside from dropping the 'Revolution' part of its name, ISCI also aligned itself more visibly with Iraq and Grand Ayatollah al Sistani. But, as the article states, as of May 2007 "the group [got] its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran."

The reason behind the change is not difficult to discern. Surely, it is less an attempt to side-step Iran and more a strategic maneuver borne of an accurate perception that allying themselves with the Iraqis and the Americans would put them in a much better position to obtain further power. It's a relationship of convenience more than an altruistic change of heart.

Consider the influence the ISCI has already gained in light of its archrival Muqtada al Sadr's political party's increasingly marginalized position within the political sphere.

Peter Galbraith for Salon:

At the same time, L. Paul Bremer's CPA appointed party officials from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) to be governors and serve on governorate councils throughout southern Iraq. SCIRI, recently renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), was founded at the Ayatollah Khomeini's direction in Tehran in 1982. The Badr Organization is the militia associated with SCIRI.

In the January 2005 elections, SCIRI became the most important component of Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition. In exchange for not taking the prime minister's slot, SCIRI won the right to name key ministers, including the minister of the interior. From that ministry, SCIRI placed Badr militiamen throughout Iraq's national police.

In short, George W. Bush had from the first facilitated the very event he warned would be a disastrous consequence of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia.

Indeed, despite having told the Sunni Awakening Councils that there wasn't room for them in the Iraqi Security Forces, 10,000 Badr militia men were inducted into the ISF after the recent fighting in Basra. This is the same organization that until a year ago was not shy about its origins in--and continued ties with--Iran.

Just today, Dick Cheney raised the specter of al Qaeda control of Iraqi oil reserves upon a US withdrawal. But reality suggests Iran is already in a significantly better position to do just that. Basra contains 70 percent of the Iraqi oil reserves, and that town is solidly in the hands of Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

Galbraith:

Since 2005, Iraq's Shiite-led government has concluded numerous economic, political and military agreements with Iran. The most important would link the two countries' strategic oil reserves by building a pipeline from southern Iraq to Iran, while another commits Iran to providing extensive military assistance to the Iraqi government. According to a senior official in Iraq's Oil Ministry, smugglers divert at least 150,000 barrels of Iraq's daily oil exports through Iran, a figure that approaches 10 percent of Iraq's production.

Given the complex political scene that is Iraq, any over simplification is sure to fall short of the mark. But to insist without a hint of uncertainty that Iran is backing the opponents of the US-backed Maliki government to the exclusion of all other elements is foolish.

Iran most certainly desires significant influence in Iraq, and it undoubtedly has a pipeline toward that end. That path leads through ISCI and Da'awa, though, not al Sadr. Why would Iran put all its force behind pushing al Sadr alone, when it can ride the coattails of the US-allied government and its surrogates all the way to the top?

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Nir Rosen Goes Off Message

As the President eagerly awaited his mouthpieces' appearance on Capitol Hill next week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on progress in Iraq involving un-embedded individuals, including Nir Rosen, a fellow at the New America Foundation. Rosen, unlike the other testifiers in this and next weeks' hearings, has spent the majority of the last five years outside the Green Zone in Iraq and speaks Arabic.

This administration and its supporters in the media continue to portray the conflict in Iraq as a battle between good and evil, light and dark. Nowhere is this more evident than the assessment of the failed military endeavor undertaken by the Maliki government last week. Former Press Secretary Tony Snow exemplifies this fallacy by claiming, "What happened was the bad guys backed down because they were getting crushed! … Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding in Iran. That’s how tough it is."

Ignore of course that al Sadr has been in Iraq for reasons unrelated to the recent fighting. Or, for that matter, that al Maliki's domicile prior to Saddam's ouster was none other than Iran, but the point here, as I said earlier this week, is that claiming that a government which had the tenets of the cease fire dictated to it, accomplished not a single aim of its operation, and showed itself increasingly reliant on Iran's influence is far from a clear victor.

Juan Cole:

For the Iraqi government to depend on Badr and Peshmerga militias, however, weakens its independence and makes it hostage to allies of Iran (both Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq and a Kurdish leader, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, have close relations with the Iranian ayatollahs.) So not only did Iran gain stature and authority in Iraq by negotiating a (fragile) ceasefire between al-Maliki and Muqtada al-Sadr, but al-Maliki has is now more than ever dependent on Iranian clients.

While Snow and his counterparts continue to fantasize about the world as they want to see it, in the schoolyard environment of clear delineations and demarcations of good and evil, the world goes on as it is. Iraq is not a battle between two factions, it is, in the words of Nir Rosen, "a collection of different fiefdoms controlled by warlords."

Rosen speaking to Amy Goodman:

First of all, the Iraqi government doesn’t matter. It has no power. And it doesn’t matter who you put in there. He’s not going to have any power. Baghdad doesn’t really matter, except for Baghdad. Baghdad used to be the most important city in Iraq, and whoever controlled Baghdad controlled Iraq. These days, you have a collection of city states: Mosul, Basra, Baghdad, Kirkuk, Irbil, Sulaymaniyah. Each one is virtually independent, and they have their own warlords and their own militias. And what happens in Baghdad makes no difference.

On Friday, al Maliki again took the stance of the clear victor:

Iraq's prime minister on Friday ordered a nationwide freeze on raids against suspected Shiite militants after the leader of the biggest militia complained that arrests were continuing even after he ordered fighters off the streets.

The announcement was a major shift from comments Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made a day earlier, and came after Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr — whose Mahdi Army militia fought government troops in the southern city of Basra and in Baghdad last week — hinted at retaliation if arrests of his followers did not stop.

A victory so thorough and unambiguous that the leader of the country is still beholden to the will of the defeated.

Last week's debacle for US aims aside, Rosen's testimony slaughters a few more Bush, Petraeus, and Crocker sacred cows.

Regarding the success of the surge:

So one of the main reason less people are being killed is because there are less people to kill. This is a key to understanding the drop in violence. Shiites were cleansed from Sunni areas and Sunnis were cleansed from Shiite areas. Militias consolidated their control over fiefdoms. The violence in Iraq was not senseless, it was meant to displace the enemy’s population. And if war is politics by other means, then the Shiites won, they now control Iraq. Fortunately for the planners of the new strategy, events in the Iraqi civil war were working in their favor. The Sunnis had lost. They realized they could no longer fight the Americans and the Shiites, and many decided to side with the Americans, especially because many Sunnis identified their Shiite enemy with Iran, America’s sworn enemy as well.

Surely he meant that people willing to martyr themselves in the name of a cause saw a couple thousand more troops in and around Baghdad and gave up, right?

The Government of Iraq is dominated by sectarian Shiite Islamist parties. They also dominate the security forces which often targeted Sunni civilians for cleansing. The Government and Security Forces also worry about the empowered Sunni militias who they will one day have to fight again. As we saw last week, rival Shiite militias are also bitter enemies. The clashes throughout Shiite areas of Iraq were not between the Mahdi Army bad guys and the Iraqi government good guys. They were between more nationalist and populist, and popular, Shiite militias who reject the occupation and are opposed to federalism and on the other side the Shiite militias such as Badr who collaborate with the Americans and are competing for power, territory, resources and votes with the Mahdi Army. The Iraqi security forces are divided in their loyalties and hence the Iraqi Army units that fought in the south were recruited from areas where they were more likely to be loyal to the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and its Badr militia. (Emphasis mine)

Indeed, as the US presents a case for withdrawal contingent upon a strengthening of the Iraqi security forces, it becomes increasingly clear that these forces are far from a bastion of light in a sea of darkness.

Rosen, on the state of the Iraqi National Police:

I met Iraqi National Police officers who complained to me that all their men were loyal to the Mahdi Army and their commanders were loyal to the Mahdi Army or the Badr militia. If they were suspected of disloyalty to the Shiite militias their own men informed on them and the Mahdi Army threatened them with the knowledge of their superior officers

The New York Times reports that "more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week," and al Maliki then filled the void with members of the Badr militia. Further evidence to both the influence of Shiite militias in the security and government sectors and the further affront to Sunnis who already view the government as a Shiite-led tool of an "Iranian occupation."

Proponents of the surge will certainly try to convey that a vacation of US troops will create a power vacuum in their upcoming testimony. While a US withdrawal will undoubtedly result in a rise in violence, the implication that there is a tenable point at which such a relationship would not exist is fallacious.

The power vacuum was created long ago, in April 2003. As Rosen insists--and he's been there enough to gauge--Iraq is already bereft of a centralized government. Al Maliki doesn't control the state of affairs any more than al Sadr or al Hakim. The US hitches itself to his coattails out of necessity, as he is representative of its perceived commitment to democracy. But it was the nationalist al Sadr and the Sunni boycott of the elections that led to his rise, and in time it will be al Sadr who stands long after al Maliki has become even more irrelevant.

In the current political arena, to say that al Sadr is stronger than al Maliki will be portrayed as somehow rooting for the wrong side. Rooting interests don't affect reality, though, no matter how hard Bush, Patraeus, or Crocker try. All the cheerleading and grandstanding in the world hasn't propelled al Maliki to competency yet and there's no reason to support a willfully-blind, ridiculously-optimistic assessment of Iraqi affairs that fails to include reality at any point.

If there's one thing to take from the events of the last two weeks, it's that there aren't two sides, and this isn't a choice between good and evil. What began as inter-sect ethnic cleansing has evolved into an intra-sect power grab. The sooner the United States changes the narrative from Hollywood script to murky reality, the sooner we can begin rational discussion which includes the often-blurred lines of real-world affairs.

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Changing the Rules of the Game

The time has long passed to change the framework of the debate over the occupation of Iraq.

Since 2002, proponents of the war and subsequent disastrous occupation have flooded the rhetorical landscape with ad hominem, fallacious arguments for a policy and execution that have spun a demonstrably different tale than they continue to weave. The disdain this motley crew have for logic and the American public are both plainly evident and appalling.

That time has seen dereliction of duty by Congress prior to the invasion and unparalleled incompetency by the administration after. This combination, however, has not led to a more reflective and intellectually-honest debate over the occupation, but instead to an even greater reliance upon misdirection, misinformation, and Orwellian fabrications that would pass for satire were they not so sadly said in earnest.

Marginalize, Propagandize, Fantasize:

The first, and most utilized, tactic of war proponents is to marginalize their opposition. Faced with facts that belie their position, supporters of the war and occupation have no choice but to change the framework of the debate, and all too often their victims are happy to oblige. By tossing around terms like 'pacifist' or 'cut-and-run,' or questioning patriotism or commitment to America's security, the war supporter instantly makes the debate about his opponent and not the war.

The marginalization and ridiculing of opponents allows the true believers to avoid having to actually answer factual questions or examine the actual reality of the situation. Their opponent is sent into defense of self rather than the preferred defense of position.

Part and parcel of the marginalization scheme is utilizing words which dampen any discussion of things below the surface. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain are all masters of the schoolyard theory of foreign policy. Words like 'victory' are thrown about with reckless abandon without anyone ever asking for their definition. Their attitude toward foreign affairs is one of retribution akin to baseball teams trading bean balls, their sense of right and wrong guided only by some sadistic sense of standing among their imagined peers. In this light, saving face is more important than reason. Pride more important than substance.

But 'victory' is a word one must define before he can achieve it. This administration has never given--nor, seemingly, been asked to give--a clear definition of when victory will occur in Iraq. We know through endless repetition that the US must stay until "the job is done," but no one seems all that interested in when that is. As it stands, the military are involved in an interminable contest between two teams where only one gets to decide when time is out. Or allocate points. Or know the score.

This is as much the fault of the opponents of the occupation as its propagators. The refusal to require a clear definition for a word that has an absolute need for one if it is to acquire any meaning beyond the rhetorical has allowed this train to continue, derailed as it may be, unabated while a country burns.

If victory was ridding Iraq of Saddam, the US has succeeded. If victory was ridding the country of WMDs, it succeeded before it even began. If victory was democracy, it's succeeded. If victory is ending insurgency, Bush and McCain can forget about it. IOZ puts that point as blunt as it requires:

How the hell do you "oust Shiite militias"? They're militias. Citizens. Not. A. Regular. Army. The motherfuckers live there. They're not visiting from Shiitopia, dropping in for some combat before heading home for dinner. They're not bivouacing. The motherfuckers motherfucking live there. I mean, how do you "oust" them unless you kill all the men in . . . oooohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The circular logic of occupation again rears its ugly head. We won't leave until they stop fighting, they won't stop fighting until we leave. To suggest that the citizens of any country, especially the United States, would acquiesce to foreign invaders because the invaders promised it was good for them is outright insanity.

This Isn't a War Anymore

Bush declared war on Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is dead. The objectives of the war are complete. To continue calling the occupation a war serves only to muddy the picture of the debate surrounding it. To leave from a war implies one has 'cut-and-run,' as the war supporters are want to say. But to simply stop occupying a foreign country carries no such implication. That is why Bush cannot, and will not, ever call the US presence in Iraq what it is: an occupation.

Comparisons to the US military presence in countries such as Germany, South Korea, and Japan abound, but all of them come up short on noting distinctions. First and foremost, the world view of a Shiite Iraqi is not the same as a German or a Korean. Failure to understand Islamic reaction to foreign forces throughout history at this point is unforgivable. Agreement is not necessary, but recognition of the fact is, and its relevance to the current situation is ignored only at the price of logic. Second, the Americans in those countries are confined to bases, are invited guests, and aren't taking casualties.

Orwellian Fantasy

Somewhere between ad hominem attacks and irresponsible linguistic travesties lies a world of shear fantasy. A world in which al Qaeda is the main purveyor of evil and violence in Iraq. A world in which Iran supports only those Shiites we oppose and somehow remains out of the way if they're on our side. One in which less than a hundred murders a day is progress.

Last week, as al Maliki impotently confronted the Sadrists in Basra, Bush was discussing al Qaeda and praising al Maliki for standing up to "Iranian-backed militias."

Problem is, fighting Sadr's militia were the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade, the militia of the ISCI, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Sadr's rival but more importantly friend and ally of Iran. Presenting a fight between two Shiite factions both supported by Iran as a battle between good and evil only stands to highlight the (lack of) depth to President Bush's knowledge of foreign affairs. In the rush to turn every issue, every occurrence into a clear-cut delineation of good versus bad or light versus dark, the proponents of the occupation have stifled all discussion or understanding of the situation.

When the truce was brokered it was Sadr, not al Maliki, who set the terms. The Iraqi government had gone from giving a firm ultimatum to being told that Sadr would call of the dogs if al Maliki (and the US) would just go away.

John McCain has a different understanding:

Apparently, it was Sadr who asked for the cease-fire, declared a cease-fire. It wasn‘t Maliki. Very rarely do I see the winning side declaring a cease-fire.

Aside from the fact that he has his facts a little backwards, the prescient part of the quote is that he finds a way to slip playground anatomy-measuring contests into the argument. Forget that al Maliki was told to take his ultimatum and go home. Forget that al Sadr's fighters get to keep their weapons. Forget that the Sadrists will be allowed to fade back into the population until they fight again. Forget all that. This week of fighting can be boiled down to "you blinked first."

But, while on the subject of facts, perhaps McCain should examine some:

The backdrop to Sadr's dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday by Iraqi lawmakers to Qom, Iran's holy city and headquarters for the Iranian clergy who run the country.

There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

It was the government, not al Sadr who sought to broker the cease fire.

"The statement issued today by (Muqtada al Sadr) is a result of the meetings," said Jalal al-Din al Saghir, a leading member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. "The government didn't have any disagreement with the Sadrists when it went to the city of Basra. The Sadrist movement is the one that chose to face the government."

"We asked Iranian officials to help us persuade him that we were not cracking down on the Sadr group," said an Iraqi official, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Again, this illustrates a progression in one short week from a government gaining its sea legs and cracking down on bad apples to running to Iran and telling Sadr they didn't mean it. That odor wafting up isn't the smell of victory, John. It's something else entirely.

The Qom discussions may or may not bring an end to the fighting but they almost certainly have undermined Maliki - who made repeated declarations that there would be no negotiations and that he would treat as outlaws those who did not turn in their weapons for cash. The blow to his own credibility was worsened by the fact that members of his own party had helped organize the Iran initiative.

Fortunately for al Maliki, when his credibility and standing take a tumble, they don't fall far.

Oh, and the Iranian broker?:

The Iranian general who helped broker an end to nearly a week of fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen in southern Iraq is an unlikely peacemaker.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who helped U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders negotiate a deal with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to stop the fighting in Iraq's largely Shiite south, is named on U.S. Treasury Department and U.N. Security Council watch lists for alleged involvement in terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and missile technology.

The week of fighting illustrated several things. One, Bush, McCain and their ilk either don't have more than a surface knowledge of the forces at work in Iraq or they don't care to share (for the aforementioned reasons). Two, there is no clear distinction between good and evil in intra-faction fighting. Three, and most importantly, the US invasion of Iraq handed the country to Iran on a silver platter. As much as the US loathed Hussein, he at the least stood as a slightly-impotent check upon Iranian influence in the region. Not anymore.

Altering the Frame of Reference

The debate over Iraq needs a new direction. It needs a direction that points to a discussion of the realities on the ground instead of hopeless clinging to long-debunked theories supporting retroactive, revisionist justification of war.

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If the President Spoke and No One Was There to Hear Him, Would He Still Be Full of Crap?

After months of being assaulted with the insurgent falsehood that "the surge is working" by the President, his administration, and his new BFF, John McCain, it seems that Muqtada al Sadr has thrown a wrench into their new reality. Or so you would think.

To hear Bush tell it, that violence you're hearing about in Basra and the Green Zone, it never happened. And if you don't believe that, well then consider that the renewed attacks are actually a good thing.

Concerning the efficacy of the surge in the first place, the decrease in violence was attributable to many factors, the greatest of which certainly wasn't a couple thousand more troops. The cease-fire called for by al Sadr last August is arguably the most significant factor, taking his formidable Mahdi army (militia) out of the equation. You take the largest Shiite faction and outspoken opponent of the Maliki government off the table and that violence was reduced should come as no surprise.

Additionally, it has been well-publicized that the US government is paying off a large number of Sunni (former) insurgents to not attack us. Of course, they don't call them Temporarily-Bribed Noncombatants, they call them the Concerned Local Citizens.

Another aspect of the drop in violence--one that people seem loathe to address--is the pure logistics of the sectarian violence. Upon the fall of the Hussein regime, sectarian killings were easy due to the mixed neighborhoods which bred close proximity and accessibility. Five years and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, sectarian killings have become harder because the population is mostly segregated along Sunni/Shia lines. That is, it's literally harder to find people to kill (that aren't protected by their own kind.)

So, clearly there is a number of ingredients to the mirage of success, but an increase in troops isn't high on the list of most significant. That said, somehow Gen. Petraeus has become an untouchable among the US government and media, and to question the success of the surge pure blasphemy.

Then came the week of March 24:

Is 'success' of US surge about to unravel?

Clashes spread as US, Iraqi forces attack Shiite Militia

From the first link:

A cease-fire critical to the improved security situation in Iraq appeared to unravel Monday when a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr began shutting down neighborhoods in west Baghdad and issuing demands of the central government.

Simultaneously, in the strategic southern port city of Basra, where Sadr's Mahdi militia is in control, the Iraqi government launched a crackdown in the face of warnings by Sadr's followers that they'll fight government forces if any Sadrists are detained. By 1 a.m. Arab satellite news channels reported clashes between the Mahdi Army and police in Basra.

That this renewed violence by Sadr's loyalists is generally considered as a less-than-full-scale rollback of the cease-fire should scare supporters of the the efficacy of the surge. If this is only a slight upturn, the likelihood of the Iraqi forces pushing back successfully against a full-scale onslaught is extremely low.

Basra is Iraq's only port city and contains 80 percent of the country's oil reserves. Not a small tactical region by any stretch.

But when life hands President Bush lemons:

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will provide more details about the progress of the surge when they testify before Congress early next month. But this much is clear: The surge is doing what it was designed to do. It's helping Iraqis reclaim security and restart political and economic life. It is bringing America closer to a key strategic victory in the war against these extremists and radicals.

On the security side, the surge has brought important gains, which I discussed in detail last week in a speech at the Pentagon. In Baghdad, we've worked with Iraqi security forces to greatly diminish the sectarian violence and civilian deaths. We've broken the grip of al Qaida on the capital. We've weakened the influence of Iranian-backed militias. We've dramatically improved security conditions in many devastated neighborhoods in what some have deemed a "re-liberation."

In Anbar Province -- which 18 months ago was declared "lost" to al Qaeda -- we joined with (read: paid off) the brave local sheiks who launched the first large-scale Arab uprising against al Qaeda.

This speech was given Thursday, as the situation in Iraq deteriorated into chaos. As that Shiite militia that we've rendered impotent interrupted the functions of government and daily life. As significant instability spread to the all-important oil-exporting port town of Basra.

Besides the obvious unwillingness to look at the situation as it is, and not as he wishes, President Bush continues to stress the impact of al Qaeda at every opportunity. This repetition is clearly his effort to continuously conflate al Qaeda and Iraq as retroactive justification for the war, despite ample evidence that no such relationship existed prior to the US occupation.

While spending plenty of time on al Qaeda--not the group responsible for the most recent uprising--in his speech Thursday, Bush mentions al Sadr and his Mahdi militia by name precisely zero times.

That omission is no accident. The actual situation on the ground is of no significance to Bush. All that matters is his continued desire to make this debate about al Qaeda even when the facts belie his case. No one can read a speech that doesn't once name the actual root of the violence, yet centers on a rival group, and suggest that he has any other goal in mind.

The surge isn't working. It never was. Al Sadr was calling the shots from the beginning, and, admit it or not, this administration knows it.

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Update (3/27, 1915):

Glen Greenwald points to this prophetic article from February in the The Guardian predicting the very outbreak of violence that now threatens Basra.

This indicates two distinct options: One, that Dan Smith, a newspaper reporter, has better intelligence and a firmer grasp on the situation than the US government. Or, two, the US government is not being particularly honest about the reality of the situation.

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