docbungle

Will the Iraqi "government" ever be able to gain a large enough foothold over its populace that it can actually be heard over all the chaos? If so, how? And if not, what is the U.S. going to do differently to bring some sort of order to the region? More importantly, is that even possible? The U.S. seems to think so, but I still haven't heard how this is going to be accomplished.

Elections over there haven't seemed to change anything, not really, have they? It sounds good to say the people have voted and all, but is Iraq anywhere near being able to support this new infastructure? And again, if not, what is the U.S. going to do differently to make this happen?

This is not a condemnation of U.S. policy or the Iraqi government: this is simply a question. Can this war ever really end, and if so, how?

__________________
Bad Luck City

Charlatan

It seems to me that Iraq is drifting increasingly into a civil war between the sh'ias and the sunnis... I don't think stability will be possible until that conflict has been resolved.

The problem is that the US created a power vacuum when they removed Saddam. The populace isn't ready for democracy... as they don't seem to respect the outcome of elections the way we do here in the west (US election 2000 aside).

Ultimately, the US has a responsibilty to clean up the mess it created in Iraq. The US can leave now and leave instability in its wake or it can keep spending lives and treasure in an effort to restabilize Iraq. This will take years.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Ustwo

"ever" is a long time.

You don't change a government like changing a lightblub. The real question is what needs to be done to help the change and make them 'ready' for democracy.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

politicophile

I find this attitude somewhat paternalistic. Iraqi voter turnout in the recent elections has been as high or higher than that in the United States. There were irregularities and a few instances of violence and intimidation, but even the elections' biggest critics had to admit that the process went very smoothly. Given this history, I don't understand what it would mean for the Iraqi people to not be "ready for democracy".

Generally speaking, the war in Iraq is already over. The insurency will continue to regenerate so long as the U.S. is still in Iraq, but they are small enough now that it will not be possible to topple the government.

The real danger is that another war will begin if the political process breaks down: an Iraqi Civil War. However, I find even this possibility unlikely because of the multiple alliances held by many prominent Iraqis. The American media absolutely adores the view that all Iraqis are either Sunni, Shiite, or Kurd. Unfortunately, that division doesn't tell the whole story. Most obviously, Kurds are almost entirely Sunnis, but they also oppose Ba'athist sympathizers (also Sunnis) because of the genocides of the 1980's and 90's. Sunnis are further divided into many political parties, some secular, some devoutly religious. Likewise, Shia vary greatly in their religiousness. Long story short: there is no "us" and there is no "them", so there will not be civil war.

In the short term, however, (timeframes are reasonably meaningless, but I'm thinking 3-5 years) government will make little progress because the extremely fractured nature of the electorate will make compromise more difficult. This will result in some need for continued U.S. presence, although it seems likely that fewer and fewer troops will be needed.

I, for one, appreciated the irony of war protests held on the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq, the time when it became clear that the insurgency had already lost.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Charlatan

Perhaps. What I am getting at is that there really isn't a culture of democracy there yet. Sure things went smoothly and that bodes well. Things went smoothly in Weimar Germany as well. Now I am not attempting to draw the conclusion that they are headed towards Facism. What I am trying to show is that, like Iraq today, Weimar Germany did not not have a culture of democracy when it was thrust upon them post WWI.

In order for democracy to work (amongst other things) you need to have a populace that trusts the system to work. That the government in power can meet *all* the people's needs. That just because a sunni is in power the shias won't go without or wosrse.

I get the feeling that these concerns are at the base of the growing civil war (amongst other historical issues). That fundamentally there is no faith in the democratic process... it will come with time as the populace grows accustomed to the process. But these years of "getting used to it" will be full of turmoil.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

ubertuber

Despite what the Bush administration is saying, this is a null question if we persist in thinking in terms of the short-term. Hell, we've still got military bases in Germany and Japan - and those are our notable nation-building successes. Even economic/infrastuctural reform would be a challenge to complete within 3 years, and that doesn't address the political/ethnic/religious component. There was no reason other than wishful thinking to believe that we'd be in and out of Iraq in anything less than 5-7 years with a positive result. That said, I think in that 5-7 year timeframe, the prospects are still decent, as long as we manage to make positive steps on multiple fronts in Iraq.

Politicophile, you've made some great points about the true complexity of the situation in Iraq. However, if Iraq is anything like Afghanistan was in the 80's, the cult of personality that surrounds the charismatic leaders within the sects you described makes the situation much less predictable and much more volatile. In other words I'm not disagreeing with you - I'm saying that your point is valid and doesn't go far enough.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

Ustwo

Could you back this up? I've never heard anyone in the Bush admin say this would be a short process, or easy. I don't follow all the political BS like I used to so I could be wrong on this, but I have to wonder what the Bush admin is 'saying' thats so wrong. Saying there is progress does not even impy the job is near done.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

rainheart

What about that whole "mission accomplished" thing on that air carrier? Something about "major combat operations", I inferred a thing or two from that.

Willravel

There's a war in Iraq?! Sorry.

Can the war between the US soldiers and insurgents end? Yes, we could leave.
Can the war between different sects and organizations in there arab states end? I hope so, but we are talking about generations of understanding and honest intentions.
Can the war between the Arabs and Jews in the Middle East end? It will take massive progressive movements in both groups possibly hundreds of years.

Poppinjay

It's amazing the amount of animosity between two groups of muslims. And some people say that the religion itself is one of terror and hatred towards the west - they clearly are more intent on killing each other than us.

I think we should end normal combat operations, but maintain a presence similar to the one we have maintained in Cuba all these years.

Rumsfeld should be sacked. That would be a start. He’s spent the past year trying to claim that nobody is reporting how great things are going, then he turned around this weekend and said that if leave Iraq, it would be the same as giving Germany back to the Nazis.

Yeah, things are going great.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

ratbastid

"I can't say whether it will be six days, six weeks, or six months, but it won't be longer than that." --Head Governmental Light Bulb Changer Donald Rumsfeld

Ustwo

Context?

.....(to make it long enough)

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Pacifier

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

ratbastid

Selling the war to a gullible public. (Also, it was a paraphrase, but that was the sense of it.)

host

I am grateful that the former U.S. Army General, Paul Eaton, "dubbed Father of the Iraqi Army", (note the date of the defendamerica "article", it's 21 months ago...and our troops are still in Iraq, now, with nearly the entire troop strength that existed back then...) on the military propaganda website created by the DOD in 2002, cared enough about our troops and our country's failed "war of choice" to speak out, on the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq

The true irony is that Gen. Paul Eaton, just like the "war protestors", chose the "anniversary" date, to make his own, much better informed "protest", even at the risk of his own reputation, and the certainty that the "tribute" I've linked to below, will vanish from the defendamerica.mil site.

If you've read Gen. Paul Eaton's entire NY Times Op-Ed piece, linked above,
doesn't his opinion of Rumsfeld's treatment of Gen. Eric Shinseki, and the impression that it made on other senior officers, including Gen. Tommy Franks, make this <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051219-2.html">Dec. 10, 2005 statement</a> by President Bush, seem...misleading?
How can anybody have any confidence in the accuracy of anything that Rumsfeld or Bush tells us concerning "progress" in Iraq, or policies related to the treatment of Iraqi prisoners....or......?

dksuddeth

Iraq is already in a civil war. its just not that organized yet.

What needs to be done is for the US forces to change their strategy. They need to get away from the security/training aspect and get right down to fighting the insurgency and not in the 'conventional' text. This would reduce the number of troops there, allow the iraqis to start performing their own security, and force the insurgents on the defensive.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

I'd be curious to see how negotiations would go. The US doesn't negotiate with terrorists, but these insurgents are obviously not terrorists. While there is no formal leadership, so far as we know, in the resistence, there are those who would be looked upon as leaders. Open up peace talks. "What do you want?" and "What are you willing to give to get what you want?" are questions that should be asked, instead of simply fighting one another. Had we asked these questions in Vietnam, we could have avoided a conflict that claimed over 250,000 lives on both sides.

politicophile

For all those who believe there is already a civil war occurring, I ask you: Who are the two (or more) factions fighting each other? All I see is a group of foreign Al-Qaeda fighters and former Ba'athists attacking Coalition troops and Iraqi Police. The momentum for the insurgency is coming from outside Iraq.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Charlatan

How do you tell the difference between an insurgent and those fighting the civil war? I suppose you can say, those who attack the US troops are insurgents but what if all sides in the civil war are attacking US troops?

For that matterm, is the US in any position to pick sides?

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

ratbastid

There's plenty of precedent for one side of a civil war receiving support and materiel from foreign sources. This isn't evidence against claims that there's a civil war afoot or brewing.

For that matter, the Al-Qaeda group that is claiming responsibility for all insurgent activity is a Falludjia-based Iraqi cell. Al-Qaeda isn't a nation, it's a pan-national movement/organization. The Ba'ath party is Iraqi, though with admitted ties to Syria. I don't really see what makes you say "the momentum for the insurgency is comin from outside Iraq." That doesn't appear to be true at all.

There's very clearly a pro-US faction that's under assault from an anti-US faction. But that's an oversimplification too; our presence merely magnifies the divides already present in Iraqi society. In the last three years, we've shifted the balance of power there 180 degrees. You can't expect that not to have massive and long-lasting repercussions.

ratbastid

It's a little late for that!

That ship has sailed. Now we're in there for the long haul, because it turned out that ship was a garbage scow.

dksuddeth

the civil war is down to the shia vs the sunni. it was fomented by other groups, but thats what it was intended to do.

Iraq has been this way for 1,000 years. The only reason it wasn't as violent before was because of the brutality of its leaders. Now that that particular stabilizing influence is gone, the insurgency needs to be gutted so the iraqi security forces can deal with the factions before it gets too much further out of hand.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

politicophile

Some small minority of Sunnis in Iraq (those participating in the insurgency) are interested in starting a war against the Christians, Jews, Shia, Kurds, Non-relgious persons, etc. In this sense, I guess you could say that there is a civil war going on between the shia and the sunni. But here's the thing: the Shia alone are a majority of the population. When you combine them with the groups mentioned above AND the sunnis who are not interested in fighting, you don't have much of an opposition left. If by civil war you simply mean that Iraqis are killing other Iraqis, I would agree with you that Iraq is in a state of civil war. If, on the other hand, civil war is defined as a largescale military conflict between organized factions within a single nation, I would have to conclude that there is no civil war in Iraq.

Some people would undoubtedly like to see the emergence of a Sunni v. Shi'ite war, but that hasn't happened yet, as the group of radical Sunnis is small and will grow smaller as more people realize that the way to power is through elections, not IED's. These colors don't run (except in 1991 ).

I also highly recommend you take a look at this inside perspective on what is happening on Iraq. His conclusions are realistic, but relentlessly positive.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

dksuddeth

by civil war, I did mean that iraqi's are killing iraqi's. sunni vs. shia. it's not 'countrywide' at this point, very sporadic, but its happening. could get bigger, might not. hard to say.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

kutulu

Last time we took sides in Iraq, we ended up with Saddam in power. Great job!

trickyy

it's definitely not all foreigners anymore
this is a communal war
the momentum for the "insurgency" comes (among other things) from perceived inequalities in gov't and the security forces...and of course daily violence between the respective sides.

when will it end? good question. i don't think that the training of iraqi security forces is as effective of a progress metric as many in washington have said. in fact, turning over security detail to iraqis might just make things worse, especially if the forces are primarily shiite-kurdish. pulling out of iraq when the country is strongly divided is not a very good solution, regardless of how many people are in the iraqi security force. (furthermore, rapid democratization (with deadlines) may have increased tension between the opposing sides.)

i think a constitutional compromise is a very important element to ending the chaos. this compromise must be reflected in iraqi society. more economic development would be good, too.

politicophile

My point is simply that the situation is not Sunnis killing Shia: it is a small minority of violent Sunnis killing everyone else, including Christians, Jews, Americans, non-violent Sunnis, Shia, etc. Although the background is obviously competely different, I see this as more akin to the Detroit race riots than to any sort of civil war. A small, small segment of the population is attacking everyone else. As has become apparent, the differences I am stressing are the size and the focus of the terrorist insurgent Sunnis. In my view, they are getting less numerous and have always been small enough to not be considered a rival faction. Secondly, their political objectives (focus) are not clear: they want to topple the government, but what then? Even if they succeed in prompting an actual civil war, they still have little chance of coming to power because they are far less numerous than other factions.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

roachboy

the category civil war has quickly become yet another ideological marker.

on the weekend, allawi gave a speech somewhere during which he said that iraq was in a civil war---almost immediately the administration started a campaign in the press to deny that it was.

so it has transpired that the evaluation of the situation in iraq has developed into another way of demarcating the line that seperates those who support the administration from those who do not.

the context of the 3rd anniversary of the iraq debacle, and the global protests against it that accompanied this sorry marker of the passage of time, was no doubt signficant in motivating the administration to begin pressing on this. what they are afraid of, it seems to me, is the term "civil war"--not because it cannot be applied to the situation, but rather because of the damage it can do to what credibility the war, and the administration that launched it, the administration imagines there to remain.


you could see this coming in the other thread on this topic, during the course of which it was evident that there was a problem with defining civil war---in particular, given restrictions on information flows from iraq (which have not gone away), was there any consensus on what, if any tipping point there was that would enable us, who are trapped within a sphere in information shaped by these controls, whether we like it or not, to make an informed conclusion for ourselves on the question.
whence the impetus to gather and post information that could function as data and to pose questions about how to interpret it.

which seems to me a better way to go about this than is a rehersal of the current ideological conflict over the term itself, which--once again--reduces a complex interpretive question to one of perception management and disposition maintenance.

i have to say that, i am not sure of exactly how to characterize the situation in iraq--which is far more complicated than it is made out to be in some posts above. it is obviously in a grey area that very easily could tip into civil war.
i dont know any better than anyone else whether it already has or not, in fact.

but it seems to me that informational threads do not fare so well in this forum---perhaps they are less fun in that they duplicate complexity rather than functioning to swat it away. this does not reflect so well on the potentials for real debate here, really because without information, debate is little more than partisan pissing matches, which are now, as they have been, tedious beyond measure.
maybe my comrades in 3-d are right in that this comes with the nature of messageboards themselves.
i am trying to figure this one out.
such motivation as i retain to play this game hinges on it.


another note, to link this back to the op:

bush gave a speech this morning in which he uttered a curious double negative, that cnn dutifully translated into a version of what he said by eliminating the double negative.

what he said was: "if i knew our strategy wasn't working, i wouldn't pull those kids out of there."
what cnn said he meant was: "if i knew the strategy wasn't working, i would pull those kids out of there."

the answer to the question posed in the op probably lay between these sentences somewhere.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

docbungle

This seems to bring the question back around to if Bush knows what he's doing or not. I'm afraid that argument will never be agreed upon by the warring factions on this board.

What is of more interest to me is looking past that for just a moment, and trying to see if there is anything - anything at all - that can be done to make Iraq able to take some sort of control over its own people.

__________________
Bad Luck City

roachboy

it is really hard to answer that as a function of many factors--the hopeless intertwining of information and marketing of war, for example--for example, in the past couple weeks i remember reading that an edict had come down requiring that hosptials stop counting execution style deaths as a seperate category. this has obvious effects on the organization of information, which in turn makes all murky and most efforts to extend what you think is happening in the present toward some plausible outcome wobbly undertakings at best.

if the americans are finding themselves reduced to a faction amongst others in a civil war, then plausible outcomes are all quite bleak in the shorter run.

given the bizarre duplication of saddam hussein's ruling style by the occupation forces (see the closed thread on torture in iraq for information behind this--amongst other things) then it seems to me that any attempt to form a viable government is doomed so long as the occupation continues.

if there is a civil war and the americans decide to cut their losses and pull out, i dont know what the outcome would look like.

i can see a way out if the administration would accept the short-term political humiliation of asking another organization--perhaps the un--to enter the situation and they rolled out of it in a rational manner, simply because it would switch the signs around and maybe create a neutral 3rd party that would be in a position to navigate all this---but i do not know if the un would be in a position to do it, and even if they were, whether this administration is capable of eating that level of--um---crow.

perhaps another organization could be enlisted, but i cant think of one off the top of my head, really---nato is an american puppet, and so would do no good...it would seem that some kind of ad hoc coalition would have to be formed, but i dont see anyone lining up to do it. i suppose the americans could engender the process that would be required and then get out of the way, but again, i dont see it happening with this administration in power.

sometimes it seems like incompetence opens onto situations that offer no obvious way out---sometimes nothing can save a situation.
maybe it has to be allowed to play out to some unforseeable conclusion on its own.

i dont see any of the proposals coming from the administration or the right being viable simply because the way the arguments are set up--that is the information that is admitted and that which is excluded--make all seem to me little more than pipedreams.

so i dont know.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

shakran

Yes, of course it can end. But I don't think there's a chance in hell it's gonna end before the country gets embroiled in a civil war. There's just no way to avoid it now. There are too many factions that want to be in charge, and no matter which one takes over, the others are gonna be pissed.

Before we showed up, Saddam prevented civil war. Anyone who tried to start one got themselves, their families, and quite possibly their entire town, executed. That's a pretty good incentive to keep quiet.

I'm of course not saying that it's a good thing that Saddam maintained control with these methods - just stating the fact that he did maintain control.

But now that the US has toppled him, there's no incentive to avoid starting a civil war. Add to that the fact that Saddam's removal has allowed factions from the rest of the region to saunter in and start stirring up trouble, and you have a perfect recipe for a civil war.

The only questions now are: How long will it last, how many people will die as a result, and how long will it be before the Bush administration admits that it's happening?