The Case for Withdrawal -- Nir Rosen

[raveneye]

With the speech and the new impetus towards withdrawal from Iraq from several quarters, I think it's appropriate to consider the arguments in favor of speedy withdrawal, both from the U.S. and from the Iraqi perspective.

Nir Rosen is an American-Israeli (born in NYC, grew up in Israel, speaks Arabic), was an embedded freelance reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan, also lived in Mogadishu, and is a fellow with the New America Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan Washington think tank. He has written many articles about Middle East culture and politics (New Yorker, New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Asia Times), and just wrote a short, informal piece for the current Atlantic magazine that outlines his argument for withdrawal from Iraq.

Because he is dark-complexioned and speaks Arabic, he was trusted and was allowed access to many places and people that other reporters could not experience during his 15 months in Iraq, including the insurgency in Fallujah.

Here are his main arguments:

--Al Qaeda is an insignificant presence in Iraq.

--The U.S. military is not fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, they are fighting Iraqis, the very people they intended to liberate. This is not a "war on terror" at all; it's a war against an Iraqi insurgency that would dissolve if the U.S. withdrew.

--The purpose of the insurgency is to fight the U.S. occupation. The targets are American soldiers and any Iraqis that collaborate with the Americans.

--The main obstacle to recognition of and respect towards the current government in Iraq is the U.S. presence. Withdrawal would allow negotiations to proceed freely without negotiators branded as quislings of the U.S. occupation. [Note: this is also a major point of John Murtha's speech.]

--Escalation of the current civil war is a possibility, but the sooner the U.S. leaves the less likely this is going to happen, because the core impetus of the current civil war is the U.S. presence. The longer the U.S. stays, the more the current civil war will escalate.

Those are the main points, there are many details in his article (quoted below) worth reading.

I'm personally interested in hearing any counter arguments, especially from people who have lived in Iraq, speak the language, or are as familiar with the culture as Rosen. But of course everybody is welcome to discuss the article and its thesis

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-withdrawal

If America Left Iraq
The case for cutting and running

by Nir Rosen

The Atlantic, Vol. 295 No. 5, December 2005

At some point—whether sooner or later—U.S. troops will leave Iraq. I have spent much of the occupation reporting from Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Fallujah, and elsewhere in the country, and I can tell you that a growing majority of Iraqis would like it to be sooner. As the occupation wears on, more and more Iraqis chafe at its failure to provide stability or even electricity, and they have grown to hate the explosions, gunfire, and constant war, and also the daily annoyances: having to wait hours in traffic because the Americans have closed off half the city; having to sit in that traffic behind a U.S. military vehicle pointing its weapons at them; having to endure constant searches and arrests. Before the January 30 elections this year the Association of Muslim Scholars—Iraq's most important Sunni Arab body, and one closely tied to the indigenous majority of the insurgency—called for a commitment to a timely U.S. withdrawal as a condition for its participation in the vote. (In exchange the association promised to rein in the resistance.) It's not just Sunnis who have demanded a withdrawal: the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is immensely popular among the young and the poor, has made a similar demand. So has the mainstream leader of the Shiites' Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who made his first call for U.S. withdrawal as early as April 23, 2003.

If the people the U.S. military is ostensibly protecting want it to go, why do the soldiers stay?

The most common answer is that it would be irresponsible for the United States to depart before some measure of peace has been assured. The American presence, this argument goes, is the only thing keeping Iraq from an all-out civil war that could take millions of lives and would profoundly destabilize the region. But is that really the case? Let's consider the key questions surrounding the prospect of an imminent American withdrawal.

Would the withdrawal of U.S. troops ignite a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites?

No. That civil war is already under way—in large part because of the American presence. The longer the United States stays, the more it fuels Sunni hostility toward Shiite "collaborators." Were America not in Iraq, Sunni leaders could negotiate and participate without fear that they themselves would be branded traitors and collaborators by their constituents. Sunni leaders have said this in official public statements; leaders of the resistance have told me the same thing in private. The Iraqi government, which is currently dominated by Shiites, would lose its quisling stigma. Iraq's security forces, also primarily Shiite, would no longer be working on behalf of foreign infidels against fellow Iraqis, but would be able to function independently and recruit Sunnis to a truly national force. The mere announcement of an intended U.S. withdrawal would allow Sunnis to come to the table and participate in defining the new Iraq.

But if American troops aren't in Baghdad, what's to stop the Sunnis from launching an assault and seizing control of the city?

Sunni forces could not mount such an assault. The preponderance of power now lies with the majority Shiites and the Kurds, and the Sunnis know this. Sunni fighters wield only small arms and explosives, not Saddam's tanks and helicopters, and are very weak compared with the cohesive, better armed, and numerically superior Shiite and Kurdish militias. Most important, Iraqi nationalism—not intramural rivalry—is the chief motivator for both Shiites and Sunnis. Most insurgency groups view themselves as waging a muqawama—a resistance—rather than a jihad. This is evident in their names and in their propaganda. For instance, the units commanded by the Association of Muslim Scholars are named after the 1920 revolt against the British. Others have names such as Iraqi Islamic Army and Flame of Iraq. They display the Iraqi flag rather than a flag of jihad. Insurgent attacks are meant primarily to punish those who have collaborated with the Americans and to deter future collaboration.

Wouldn't a U.S. withdrawal embolden the insurgency?

No. If the occupation were to end, so, too, would the insurgency. After all, what the resistance movement has been resisting is the occupation. Who would the insurgents fight if the enemy left? When I asked Sunni Arab fighters and the clerics who support them why they were fighting, they all gave me the same one-word answer: intiqaam—revenge. Revenge for the destruction of their homes, for the shame they felt when Americans forced them to the ground and stepped on them, for the killing of their friends and relatives by U.S. soldiers either in combat or during raids.

But what about the foreign jihadi element of the resistance? Wouldn't it be empowered by a U.S. withdrawal?

The foreign jihadi element—commanded by the likes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—is numerically insignificant; the bulk of the resistance has no connection to al-Qaeda or its offshoots. (Zarqawi and his followers have benefited greatly from U.S. propaganda blaming him for all attacks in Iraq, because he is now seen by Arabs around the world as more powerful than he is; we have been his best recruiting tool.) It is true that the Sunni resistance welcomed the foreign fighters (and to some extent still do), because they were far more willing to die than indigenous Iraqis were. But what Zarqawi wants fundamentally conflicts with what Iraqi Sunnis want: Zarqawi seeks re-establishment of the Muslim caliphate and a Manichean confrontation with infidels around the world, to last until Judgment Day; the mainstream Iraqi resistance just wants the Americans out. If U.S. forces were to leave, the foreigners in Zarqawi's movement would find little support—and perhaps significant animosity—among Iraqi Sunnis, who want wealth and power, not jihad until death. They have already lost much of their support: many Iraqis have begun turning on them. In the heavily Shia Sadr City foreign jihadis had burning tires placed around their necks. The foreigners have not managed to establish themselves decisively in any large cities. Even at the height of their power in Fallujah they could control only one neighborhood, the Julan, and they were hated by the city's resistance council. Today foreign fighters hide in small villages and are used opportunistically by the nationalist resistance.

When the Americans depart and Sunnis join the Iraqi government, some of the foreign jihadis in Iraq may try to continue the struggle—but they will have committed enemies in both Baghdad and the Shiite south, and the entire Sunni triangle will be against them. They will have nowhere to hide. Nor can they merely take their battle to the West. The jihadis need a failed state like Iraq in which to operate. When they leave Iraq, they will be hounded by Arab and Western security agencies.

What about the Kurds? Won't they secede if the United States leaves?

Yes, but that's going to happen anyway. All Iraqi Kurds want an independent Kurdistan. They do not feel Iraqi. They've effectively had more than a decade of autonomy, thanks to the UN-imposed no-fly zone; they want nothing to do with the chaos that is Iraq. Kurdish independence is inevitable—and positive. (Few peoples on earth deserve a state more than the Kurds.) For the moment the Kurdish government in the north is officially participating in the federalist plan—but the Kurds are preparing for secession. They have their own troops, the peshmerga, thought to contain 50,000 to 100,000 fighters. They essentially control the oil city of Kirkuk. They also happen to be the most America-loving people I have ever met; their leaders openly seek to become, like Israel, a proxy for American interests. If what the United States wants is long-term bases in the region, the Kurds are its partners.

Would Turkey invade in response to a Kurdish secession?

For the moment Turkey is more concerned with EU membership than with Iraq's Kurds—who in any event have expressed no ambitions to expand into Turkey. Iraq's Kurds speak a dialect different from Turkey's, and, in fact, have a history of animosity toward Turkish Kurds. Besides, Turkey, as a member of NATO, would be reluctant to attack in defiance of the United States. Turkey would be satisfied with guarantees that it would have continued access to Kurdish oil and trade and that Iraqi Kurds would not incite rebellion in Turkey.

Would Iran effectively take over Iraq?

No. Iraqis are fiercely nationalist—even the country's Shiites resent Iranian meddling. (It is true that some Iraqi Shiites view Iran as an ally, because many of their leaders found safe haven there when exiled by Saddam—but thousands of other Iraqi Shiites experienced years of misery as prisoners of war in Iran.) Even in southeastern towns near the border I encountered only hostility toward Iran.

What about the goal of creating a secular democracy in Iraq that respects the rights of women and non-Muslims?

Give it up. It's not going to happen. Apart from the Kurds, who revel in their secularism, Iraqis overwhelmingly seek a Muslim state. Although Iraq may have been officially secular during the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam encouraged Islamism during the 1990s, and the difficulties of the past decades have strengthened the resurgence of Islam. In the absence of any other social institutions, the mosques and the clergy assumed the dominant role in Iraq following the invasion. Even Baathist resistance leaders told me they have returned to Islam to atone for their sins under Saddam. Most Shiites, too, follow one cleric or another. Ayatollah al-Sistani—supposedly a moderate—wants Islam to be the source of law. The invasion of Iraq has led to a theocracy, which can only grow more hostile to America as long as U.S. soldiers are present.

Does Iraqi history offer any lessons?

The British occupation of Iraq, in the first half of the twentieth century, may be instructive. The British faced several uprisings and coups. The Iraqi government, then as now, was unable to suppress the rebels on its own and relied on the occupying military. In 1958, when the government the British helped install finally fell, those who had collaborated with them could find no popular support; some, including the former prime minister Nuri Said, were murdered and mutilated. Said had once been a respected figure, but he became tainted by his collaboration with the British. That year, when revolutionary officers overthrew the government, Said disguised himself as a woman and tried to escape. He was discovered, shot in the head, and buried. The next day a mob dug up his corpse and dragged it through the street—an act that would be repeated so often in Iraq that it earned its own word: sahil. With the British-sponsored government gone, both Sunni and Shiite Arabs embraced the Iraqi identity. The Kurds still resent the British perfidy that made them part of Iraq.

What can the United States do to repair Iraq?

There is no panacea. Iraq is a destroyed and fissiparous country. Iranians and Saudis I've spoken to worry that it might be impossible to keep Iraq from disintegrating. But they agree that the best hope of avoiding this scenario is if the United States leaves; perhaps then Iraqi nationalism will keep at least the Arabs united. The sooner America withdraws and allows Iraqis to assume control of their own country, the better the chances that Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari won't face sahil. It may be decades before Iraq recovers from the current maelstrom. By then its borders may be different, its vaunted secularism a distant relic. But a continued U.S. occupation can only get in the way.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by raveneye

I'm personally interested in hearing any counter arguments, especially from people who have lived in Iraq, speak the language, or are as familiar with the culture as Rosen. But of course everybody is welcome to discuss the article and its thesis

I'm sorry I left my Arabic to Leftist dictionary at home

I am not qualified to refute point to counter point, nor am I interested to google points and counter points.

So in this case I will in fact attack the source, since I view the source as reliable and clear thinking as the left would view Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.

The December issue of the Atlantic Monthly features a "Hypothetical" essay entitled "If America Left Iraq: The case for cutting and running." The author is Nir Rosen, a freelance journalist who over the last year or so has published a series of long, meticulously reported examinations of the Iraqi insurgency in au courant journals like the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. Rosen's journalism is noteworthy, the editors of the Atlantic inform us, because he "speaks Arabic" and "has spent 16 months in Iraq," mostly "among ordinary Iraqis." That, and he probably has more sources in the insurgency than any other American reporter.

And those sources, incredibly, have led him to the following insight: "If the occupation were to end," Rosen writes, "so, too, would the insurgency." Because, "after all," the "resistance movement" is "resisting" the "occupation." And if there were no "occupation" . . . well, "who would the insurgents fight"? Q.E.D.

Say what you will, this Zen-koan approach to geopolitics struck us as pretty original. Yet it turns out "If America Left Iraq" is merely a shorter, better-edited version of a September 21 "outside view" article Rosen penned for UPI entitled "The Small, Daily Abu Ghraibs." The opinions expressed in this article "are not," Rosen assures, "the ramblings of a leftwing polemicist." And he's right. They are something more sinister.

"I spent about a year and a half in Iraq," Rosen writes, and "it was obvious early on, and continues to be, that the main problem in Iraq, the main obstacle to progress, is the U.S. occupation." Cue ridiculous tautology: "When it ends, attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq will end as well."

What is more, Rosen continues, all of this is "true worldwide as well":

The American empire will cease to be a target when it ceases to directly or indirectly oppress weaker people. Terrorism--inasmuch as the word has any meaning, but that's another argument--is not a phenomenon or an entity. It is a tool of politics by other means, just like war. . . . In Iraq, America is attacked because it is a brutal occupier, humiliating Iraqis, destroying villages, arresting, beating, and killing countless innocent men, women and children. This is the main cause of the resistance. . . . If America was not occupying Iraq, there would be no resistance.

[In August], a few thousand Jewish fanatics who illegally settled on occupied land in Gaza and went on the occasional pogrom, attacking Palestinians whose land they had settled, were given more attention and sympathy by the American media in a week or two than it has given in five years to the Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed, who are not permitted to live as humans, and who inhabit a giant prison.

Bottom line: "An American withdrawal from Iraq and an Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories to the 1967 lines would do more to fight terrorism than any military action ever could." No wonder Rosen has such great access to the Baathists and jihadists who make up the Iraqi insurgency. He's on their side.

(From the Weekly Standard, but it requires you to be a member)

[Rekna]

These are interesting points. While i'm not fully convinced of his arguements he does raise some good questions. I have long believed that occupation leads to insurgancy and for every insurgent the US kills 5 more are created.

So how can the US pull out of Iraq without the risk of a civil war? I propose a stagged withdraw but not the type you are thinking. Stage one, hand over cities to local authorities, maintain military bases in the rural areas outside of the cities. The US does not enter the city unless violence errupts within the city that the local authorites cannot deal with. When a city seems to be able to patrole itself then redirect the troops near that city to problem areas. Eventually this will either work and most or all cities will gain sovernty and the US will be able to start withdrawing troups or it will fail and the US can quickly take recontrol because its troups are still in close proximity.

Kurds deserve their own nation in my opinion and I think forcing them to be part of Iraq is only going to cause problems now and in the future. I don't really care what Turkey thinks, it is not its nation and if it wants to invade a soveregn nation then it better be ready for other countries to stand up against it.

The US cannot win this war! This war can only be won by the Iraqis and as long as this war is the US against Iraqis we will loose it. We have removed Saddam from power, wasn't that our goal?

We should not be afraid of a Muslim state and we should instead embrace them and make sure they know that we are not the enemy. A peaceful muslim society is better than a nation in chaos and war within its own boarders. As long as they maintain human rights we should not worry about them being a muslim nation.

[Lebell]

As Ustwo pointed out, the greater reality is that Americans are targets because of their support of Israel.

We KNOW from their own literature that many radicals believe we are paper tigers; bloody our noses enough and we will run. And they have been right up until now.

This is not how you want to be perceived.

The other troubling point is that the radicals attack those Iraqis that cooperate with us. In otherwords, anyone who disagrees with them is a viable target.

IMO, this is another reason not to cut and run.

[roachboy]

the trash "refutation" of the op posted by ustwo is not even logical--all it does is to repeat the main arguments of what it tries to crituqe in a snide manner and ends up by smearing the author. way to go: i'd expect nothing different or better from the right.

it seems to me, though, that lebell's interpretation is more interesting and raises some interesting binds/problems: i am short of time right now, so will only point out one of them--it seems to me that the argument you advance, lebell, amounts to a constant possible defense of any military action that finds itself in a parallel circumstance---the americans find themselves caught in a vicious circle, in which their attempts to squash an insuency legitimates and extends the reach of that insurgency. your argument simply repeats the character of that vicious circle and draws a logical conclusion from it: that american military credibility is at stake in this, no matter how self-defeating the situation may in fact be, and for that reason--and that reason alone--the mlitary should remain involved/enmeshed/entrapped.

this is a difficult problem. i do not see any elegant solution to it, short of a concerted effort on the part of the u.s. to internationalize the reconstruction, concede that it is hopelessly caught in occupation mode, and to withdraw as the transnational reconstruction effort gets put into place. sadly, this administration seems too arrogant--and too much a victim of its own ridiculous policies--to manage this change in its thinking, and so this circular situation is the one it faces.

two problems:

1. the political questions around this war are not a function of the military situation itself, but rather a function of the fact that the war was launched under false pretenses. given that, it appears to me that arguments for continued military engagement are motivated primarily by the administration's collective desire to avoid the political consequences of lying to itself, to the american people and to the international community about the reasons for war itself. as such, the real argument behind sustained military involvement come down to damage control: teh bush administration is willing to continue to sacrifice the lives of americans, of its meager pool of allies, and of the iraqi people in the interests of its own political survival. eXcellent, isnt it, this situation george w bush and company have created for all of us?

on the other hand, taken on its own terms, i think the article cited in the op is pollyana in its assessment of the situation in iraq: i do not think that everything will right itself immediately upon the american withdrawal---this seems to me little more than an inversion of the horseshit that wolfowitz peddled about the invasion. this war has created a real mess. it seems to me that unless the americans do something to shift the reconstruction away from its control, the mess will only get worse. there is no easy way out.

on the other hand, to worry about damage to credibility is to assume that the bush administration has credibility to be damaged. on questions pertaining to the war in iraq, i dont see that as a going concern--such credibility as the administration enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 internationally was blown to hell by its "case" for war.

either way, in the context of this fiasco, many many people will die and will in all likelihood continue to die based on political calculations that have almost nothing to do wth assessments of the military situation and everything to do with political survival for this administration domestically.
it is a debacle of the highest order

perhaps withdrawal in fairly short order is the only way to staunch the damage this war has done and is doing to the united states, but the withdrawal is going to be really ugly because of the policy orientation of this administration and for no other reason. but perhaps there is no other way to deal with such an unparalleled situation (well, since the spanish-american war and vietnam)---the bush squad would have to be prepared to therafter assume the full political consequences of the war it launched--which would lead to the total implosion of itself and the politics for which it stands. the way to repair this damage is not to kill more people as a function of dwelling on the circularity of the military sitation in iraq, but to get rid of the bush administration, replace it with a saner one that would necessarily have to repudiate everything about bushworld as a preliminary step to the longer-term process of restoring american credibility internationally.

[Mojo_PeiPei]

Originally Posted by Lebell

As Ustwo pointed out, the greater reality is that Americans are targets because of their support of Israel.

We KNOW from their own literature that many radicals believe we are paper tigers; bloody our noses enough and we will run. And they have been right up until now.

This is not how you want to be perceived.

The other troubling point is that the radicals attack those Iraqis that cooperate with us. In otherwords, anyone who disagrees with them is a viable target.

IMO, this is another reason not to cut and run.

Beirut and Mogadishu are personal re-enforcers to OBL about the American paper tiger. Plus I think there is a strong anti-war Vietnamesque aid that is going on.

[roachboy]

Plus I think there is a strong anti-war Vietnamesque aid that is going on

what do you mean by this? i can't quite figure it out...it looks like you are making some mcarthyesque claim about the "fifth column" status of those who oppose the war--which is just another way of repeating the old bushcanard that woudl equate dissent and treason. but your sentence is so strange that i am not sure: could you expand/explain?

[Mojo_PeiPei]

There is a difference between dissent and treason. Some people are walking a dangerous line, that is close to mirroring what people did in Vietnam; providing aid and comfort to an enemy while we have troops on the ground in harms way.

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

There is a difference between dissent and treason. Some people are walking a dangerous line, that is close to mirroring what people did in Vietnam; providing aid and comfort to an enemy while we have troops on the ground in harms way.

Mojo, where exactly are these "some people?" Here on the forum, or elsewhere?

"Treason" or "Dissent" is a worthy discussion if you make clear your position and defend it. I honestly don't know where you are going with this line of thinking.

You bring Viet Nam into the equation, but the comparisons to Iraq are usually poo-poo'd by those that support the Iraq war. Please tell me you aren't basing you opinion on what a silly, Hollywood actress said in the '70's?

Publicity stunts didn't hurt our ground forces in Viet Nam, but our government certainly did. Mojo, please be more explicit about what you are charging here.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Publicity stunts didn't hurt our ground forces in Viet Nam, but our government certainly did. Mojo, please be more explicit about what you are charging here.

You mean propaganda is harmless?

[rofgilead]

There was a story today on the NYTimes about how the US military is buying propaganda articles in the Iraqi press, and paying Iraqi journalists to write pro-US stories. I think that is very messed up, and shows, among other things, how desperate it has gotten in Iraq to change the direction things are going...

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You mean propaganda is harmless?

IGNORE is recommended by the mods.

[Rekna]

Mojo stop with the vague assertions and tell us who is giving aid and comfort to the enemies. Either produce a solid example of people who are being treasonous or withdraw your statement please.

[raveneye]

Originally Posted by Lebell

We KNOW from their own literature that many radicals believe we are paper tigers; bloody our noses enough and we will run. And they have been right up until now.

This is not how you want to be perceived.

I don’t think Rosen is saying that we should withdraw to avoid bloodied noses; rather he’s saying that our continued presence is not in the best interest of the Iraqi people and government, and the longer we stay, the less the likelihood that the current government will survive.

No matter when we withdraw the “radicals” will interpret that as a humiliating defeat. So we might as well do what’s in our best interests, and in the best interests of the Iraqis.

Originally Posted by roachboy

on the other hand, taken on its own terms, i think the article cited in the op is pollyana in its assessment of the situation in iraq: i do not think that everything will right itself immediately upon the american withdrawal---

I don’t think that’s what Rosen is saying; he’s saying that the violence that will inevitably occur after withdrawal will be more far-reaching and devastating the longer we wait to withdraw. If we wait too long, then the current government hasn’t a chance of surviving. Better then to withdraw soon; there will be a Kurdish secession and Sunni/Shiite reprisals, but at least they will be short-lived and the government and the current infrastructure (such as it is) have a decent chance of surviving intact.

the way to repair this damage is … to get rid of the bush administration, replace it with a saner one that would necessarily have to repudiate everything about bushworld as a preliminary step to the longer-term process of restoring american credibility internationally.

Well I agree that the idea that, of all people, George W. Bush is the one capable of taking the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, and bringing them all together into one harmonious, stable, united democracy, is one of the more absurd ironies of our time . . . .

But if Rosen is correct, then we can’t really wait three years for the next president. We need something substantial and valuable right now to offer the Sunnis that will provide an incentive to become a cooperative participant in the process. What they demand is withdrawal. Maybe though they will accept something less than that, something that we can afford. Whatever it is (and Bush rhetoric isn’t going to cut it with anybody anymore) it needs to be soon.

Originally Posted by Rekna

The US cannot win this war! This war can only be won by the Iraqis and as long as this war is the US against Iraqis we will loose it. We have removed Saddam from power, wasn't that our goal?

I agree this is the key right here. Bush has made the sophomoric mistake of defining victory in a way that guarantees that "victory" is impossible. I predict some creative, lawyerly waffling is in our near future

[Locobot]

What about the goal of creating a secular democracy in Iraq that respects the rights of women and non-Muslims?

Give it up. It's not going to happen. Apart from the Kurds, who revel in their secularism, Iraqis overwhelmingly seek a Muslim state. Although Iraq may have been officially secular during the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam encouraged Islamism during the 1990s, and the difficulties of the past decades have strengthened the resurgence of Islam. In the absence of any other social institutions, the mosques and the clergy assumed the dominant role in Iraq following the invasion. Even Baathist resistance leaders told me they have returned to Islam to atone for their sins under Saddam. Most Shiites, too, follow one cleric or another. Ayatollah al-Sistani—supposedly a moderate—wants Islam to be the source of law. The invasion of Iraq has led to a theocracy, which can only grow more hostile to America as long as U.S. soldiers are present.

I'm not particularly comfortable with this, and as an extension I may not be able to accept this proposal as a whole. The idea that we need to just accept that whatever government is put in place will be more oppresive towards women and less tolerant of other religions than Saddam Hussein doesn't sound right to me. I understand that there needs to be a unifying force in place to fill the void left by Hussein's oppression but do we need to replace that with another form of oppression? Why are the foreign jihadist's goals all unrealistic and unlikely except these?

[raveneye]

Originally Posted by Locobot

Why are the foreign jihadist's goals all unrealistic and unlikely except these?

I think what he's saying here is that these are the goals of the Iraqis; it's not the foreign jihadists, but the Iraqis themselves that have little interest in a secular state. Plus the larger point is that, whatever the role of religion turns out to be in the next government, it's not a role that can be forced or constrained by anything the U.S. military can do.