In Washington, DC End Game In Iraq Means Ongoing Occupation
Kevin Zeese
December 16, 2005
The World Affairs Council held an event in Washington, DC entitled “The Endgame in Iraq” on December 12. But the presentations made it sound like the United States will be in Iraq one way or another for a very, long time. None of the panelists was an advocate for immediate withdrawal or even withdrawal within the next year.
The speakers included three mainstream inside-the-beltway thinkers.
Peter Galbraith drove home the point that the United States does not understand Iraq at its most basic level and in fact has not sought to understand Iraq. His view is that there really is no “Iraq” rather there are several groups that are being held together under the label of Iraq but think of themselves as Kurds, Shia'a and Sunni. Galbraith made the point that at the outset of the war President Bush did not know the difference between Iraqi Shia'a, Sunni and Kurds.
Galbraith mocked the idea that the election on December 14 was any type of turning point as it will merely confirm the ethnic and sectarian divisions in the country and as a result the outcomes are entirely predictable. After the election the government will be dominated by a Shia'a and Kurd alliance – just like the current government. And, as it becomes evident to the Sunnis that they have little or no political power and that the Constitution will not be amended to give them power, it will result in the already existing civil war between Sunni and Shia'a escalating with the Sunni using the car bomb and similar tactics and the Shia'a conducting a 'dirty war.' As far as the Kurds they are already an independent area in all but name e.g., their own military, their own government, their local laws are superior to Iraq on most subjects (except for in currency and weights and measures) as well as they control the oil in the Kurdish region of Iraq. (The Constitution says all “future” oil but in reality there only is future oil in Kurdish Iraq.)
Galbraith also emphasized that the failure to understand that so-called 'Iraqis' allegiance is not to Iraq but to their ethnic or sectarian group results in not understanding that President Bush's claim: “The U.S. will stand down as the Iraqi military stands up” makes no sense. In his view, the reality is there is no army loyal to the nation Iraq. There are armies loyal to the Kurds – the Kurdish Army has nine battalions with no Arab officers. Further, Kurdish law prohibits other elements of the Iraqi Army from entering Kurdish Iraq. The so-called Iraq Army is rife with corruption – one-third to one-half of the payroll is not delivered to real soldiers but to “ghost” soldiers. The Sunnis see a religious Shia'a army that is close to Iran and is attacking them. When they see the Kurdish Army they see an Army that is loyal to the United States as the Kurds are more loyal to the United States of any country in the region except Israel.
Galbraith says the solution is to “face-up to to reality.” The first reality to face is that U.S. strategy – whatever there was of one – has failed. The U.S. can take advantage of the divided military. The Kurds are very supportive of the United States we can move U.S. troops to the Kurdish region and get them out of harms way. We have to accept the Shia'a Army because the Shia'a are 60 percent of the country and are closely linked to Iran. If we challenge them we will also be challenging Iran something the U.S. cannot do effectively. Regarding the Sunnis Galbraith suggests that the Arab League might play an effective role.
U.S. presence is not doing much good, not accomplishing anything, according to Galbraith so we should begin a draw down. But he does not favor a total withdrawal because the Sunni area could become a terrorist base and once the U.S. leaves it cannot get back in. He suggests keeping most U.S. troops in Kurdistan and sees this as an amendment to Rep. Jack Murtha's redeployment over the ridge recommendation.
Galbraith sees as a success that George W. Bush has corrected Winston Churchill's error in creating Iraq. It was never a real state and has only been held together by a succession of abusive strongmen. The only other thing he can see that we accomplished was bringing Iraq and Iran together – two countries that used to be bitter enemies.
Jon Alterman believes the United States is moving away from developing democracy in Iraq and now is just seeking to manage Iraq. He says that if you want a government that protects women's rights, is progressive, socially liberal and with a strong central government than you will be disappointed with the government being created by the U.S. occupation.
Alterman sees three elections in one year to be a remarkable feat. Further, prior to the invasion Iraq elected its Parliament in national elections, now they are regional elections. Alterman sees that as more representative of the peoples wishes. However, elections in Iraq are remarkably content free. They are more about dividing the nation's resources.
He believes the next four to six months after the election will be critical. Then we will see what types of alliances are forming and whether there will be any changes in the Constitution. This will be a high stakes time for Iraq as people will realize it will put in place a government and laws likely to last awhile. He agrees the election is likely to result in a strong Shia'a-Kurdish alliance. He also sees the central state based in Baghdad getting weaker and describes this as a recipe for civil war.
He sees the corruption, poor administration and poor services as leaving a void that religious groups are filling. Religious forces are believers in “real truths” this makes it very hard to develop compromises that please all the parties.
Tom Donnelly tried to look at Iraq from a larger, longer-term perspective. He does not see the current stage as an endgame, rather it is part of a process. He goes back to the watershed year of 1979. This year was critical as it was when Saddam formalized direct power, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, when Iran revolted against the Shah and when a Saudi mosque was held with a call for U.S. troops to leave the country. From these threads he sees the old order, an artificial structure, imposed by Churchill et al. after World War II that put in place illegitimate governments which are now becoming unstable. Today, we are paying the price for supporting these illegitimate governments.
He points out that the United States has had a large number of forces in the region since 1979. Even excluding the Gulf War there has been an average of 25,000 U.S. soldiers in the region by the time of the Clinton Administration.
Donnelly describes 9/11 as a threshold not only for the U.S., Afghanistan and Al Qaeda but also showing the unstable and violent political order in the region. He emphasized that despite all this instability the U.S. and the world still needs the oil that is located in the Middle East. However, we need to create a new political environment so that the oil wealth is not used corruptly for the wealth of political leaders but for the people of the region.
Regarding terrorism and anti-Americanism he believes it is important to realize that Al Qaeda is merely the tip of the ice berg. In fact there is a whole infrastructure of violent anti-Americanism in the region. This is very serious to U.S. security and we cannot turn our back on it, according to Donnelly.
He sees Iraq as beginning to move in a positive direction. Donnelly sees a tipping point as having been reached and therefore it would be a mistake to withdraw just as this is occurring. However, he also believes it was a misplaced hope to expect to see a liberal democracy in the region. The positive changes he sees are:
President Bush has finally decided that he will fight a war against an insurgency. His Administration resisted this but is now putting in place an anti-insurgency strategy. Two years too late but it is finally getting done.
He believes Zarqawi has shown weakness recently but is still a dangerous force. He points to research that shows that while attacks have increased the number of attacks against U.S. forces has remained stable and the targets are now Iraqis. He claims nearly half of all attacks are against government institutions and usually occur at key times when the process is showing legitimacy, e.g. elections.
He believes Iraqis support the process. Kurds and Shia'as which make up 80 percent of Iraq have always supported the process.
Perhaps most critically he points to progress in domestic U.S. politics. President Bush is finally speaking out and making his case while the Democratic Party is not putting forth any serious positions about what to do in Iraq – instead they are merely posturing.
Regarding where we are headed in Iraq he does not see a formal division occurring as dividing areas like Baghdad where all three groups live will be difficult. He says it is important to get the Sunni issue right because Sunnis are the majority Muslim group and they extend well-beyond Iraq. If we get the Sunni question wrong in Iraq this will be an extremely long and violent war that is likely to lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
According to Donnelly, Bush is on the least bad path. Withdrawal might result in things calming down for the short term but in the long run it will be an error that will lead to more violence.
In the discussion after their presentations, Galbraith emphasized that by putting our resources in Iraq the U.S. has been unable to deal with the real threats of North Korea and Iran. Donnelly responded we had the problems in North Korea and Iran before the Iraq War and if we withdrew from Iraq today we would still not have a strategy to deal with North Korea.
Galbraith emphasized that he is not advocating separation but saying it is a reality. The Kurds voted by 98.5 percent in favor of independence. He predicted that the next generation of Kurds will insist on a formal separation from Iraq. We are not prepared to disarm them or to disarm the Shia'a. We should not build on 85 years of repressive regimes that have tried to hold the country together.
Alterman sarcastically commented that the only sure thing for the future is that Middle East is that experts like us will continue to have a job. A questioner from the audience asked: “If the United States can't get it right in Louisiana where there are no Kurd, Shia'a Sunni disputes, how can we expect the United States to get it right in Iraq where we do not understand and do not seem to want to understand what the people want.”
Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising. You can comment on this article on his blog at www.DemocracyRising.US. Zeese is also a candidate for U.S. Senate, see www.KevinZeese.com.
The speakers included three mainstream inside-the-beltway thinkers.
- Ambassador Peter Galbraith who has worked for two decades on Iraq issues primarily from the perspective of the Kurds. He is the former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and was a professor of National Security Strategy for the National War College. His thinking was the most “outside” the beltway perhaps because he now resides in Vermont.
- Thomas Donnelly is a Fellow in defense and security studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously served as the Deputy Director at the Project for the New American Century and as the Director of Strategic Communications and Initiatives at Lockheed Martin Corporation.
- Jon Alterman, who moderated the discussion, is the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has worked at the State Department as an assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs and is a former international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Peter Galbraith drove home the point that the United States does not understand Iraq at its most basic level and in fact has not sought to understand Iraq. His view is that there really is no “Iraq” rather there are several groups that are being held together under the label of Iraq but think of themselves as Kurds, Shia'a and Sunni. Galbraith made the point that at the outset of the war President Bush did not know the difference between Iraqi Shia'a, Sunni and Kurds.
Galbraith mocked the idea that the election on December 14 was any type of turning point as it will merely confirm the ethnic and sectarian divisions in the country and as a result the outcomes are entirely predictable. After the election the government will be dominated by a Shia'a and Kurd alliance – just like the current government. And, as it becomes evident to the Sunnis that they have little or no political power and that the Constitution will not be amended to give them power, it will result in the already existing civil war between Sunni and Shia'a escalating with the Sunni using the car bomb and similar tactics and the Shia'a conducting a 'dirty war.' As far as the Kurds they are already an independent area in all but name e.g., their own military, their own government, their local laws are superior to Iraq on most subjects (except for in currency and weights and measures) as well as they control the oil in the Kurdish region of Iraq. (The Constitution says all “future” oil but in reality there only is future oil in Kurdish Iraq.)
Galbraith also emphasized that the failure to understand that so-called 'Iraqis' allegiance is not to Iraq but to their ethnic or sectarian group results in not understanding that President Bush's claim: “The U.S. will stand down as the Iraqi military stands up” makes no sense. In his view, the reality is there is no army loyal to the nation Iraq. There are armies loyal to the Kurds – the Kurdish Army has nine battalions with no Arab officers. Further, Kurdish law prohibits other elements of the Iraqi Army from entering Kurdish Iraq. The so-called Iraq Army is rife with corruption – one-third to one-half of the payroll is not delivered to real soldiers but to “ghost” soldiers. The Sunnis see a religious Shia'a army that is close to Iran and is attacking them. When they see the Kurdish Army they see an Army that is loyal to the United States as the Kurds are more loyal to the United States of any country in the region except Israel.
Galbraith says the solution is to “face-up to to reality.” The first reality to face is that U.S. strategy – whatever there was of one – has failed. The U.S. can take advantage of the divided military. The Kurds are very supportive of the United States we can move U.S. troops to the Kurdish region and get them out of harms way. We have to accept the Shia'a Army because the Shia'a are 60 percent of the country and are closely linked to Iran. If we challenge them we will also be challenging Iran something the U.S. cannot do effectively. Regarding the Sunnis Galbraith suggests that the Arab League might play an effective role.
U.S. presence is not doing much good, not accomplishing anything, according to Galbraith so we should begin a draw down. But he does not favor a total withdrawal because the Sunni area could become a terrorist base and once the U.S. leaves it cannot get back in. He suggests keeping most U.S. troops in Kurdistan and sees this as an amendment to Rep. Jack Murtha's redeployment over the ridge recommendation.
Galbraith sees as a success that George W. Bush has corrected Winston Churchill's error in creating Iraq. It was never a real state and has only been held together by a succession of abusive strongmen. The only other thing he can see that we accomplished was bringing Iraq and Iran together – two countries that used to be bitter enemies.
Jon Alterman believes the United States is moving away from developing democracy in Iraq and now is just seeking to manage Iraq. He says that if you want a government that protects women's rights, is progressive, socially liberal and with a strong central government than you will be disappointed with the government being created by the U.S. occupation.
Alterman sees three elections in one year to be a remarkable feat. Further, prior to the invasion Iraq elected its Parliament in national elections, now they are regional elections. Alterman sees that as more representative of the peoples wishes. However, elections in Iraq are remarkably content free. They are more about dividing the nation's resources.
He believes the next four to six months after the election will be critical. Then we will see what types of alliances are forming and whether there will be any changes in the Constitution. This will be a high stakes time for Iraq as people will realize it will put in place a government and laws likely to last awhile. He agrees the election is likely to result in a strong Shia'a-Kurdish alliance. He also sees the central state based in Baghdad getting weaker and describes this as a recipe for civil war.
He sees the corruption, poor administration and poor services as leaving a void that religious groups are filling. Religious forces are believers in “real truths” this makes it very hard to develop compromises that please all the parties.
Tom Donnelly tried to look at Iraq from a larger, longer-term perspective. He does not see the current stage as an endgame, rather it is part of a process. He goes back to the watershed year of 1979. This year was critical as it was when Saddam formalized direct power, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, when Iran revolted against the Shah and when a Saudi mosque was held with a call for U.S. troops to leave the country. From these threads he sees the old order, an artificial structure, imposed by Churchill et al. after World War II that put in place illegitimate governments which are now becoming unstable. Today, we are paying the price for supporting these illegitimate governments.
He points out that the United States has had a large number of forces in the region since 1979. Even excluding the Gulf War there has been an average of 25,000 U.S. soldiers in the region by the time of the Clinton Administration.
Donnelly describes 9/11 as a threshold not only for the U.S., Afghanistan and Al Qaeda but also showing the unstable and violent political order in the region. He emphasized that despite all this instability the U.S. and the world still needs the oil that is located in the Middle East. However, we need to create a new political environment so that the oil wealth is not used corruptly for the wealth of political leaders but for the people of the region.
Regarding terrorism and anti-Americanism he believes it is important to realize that Al Qaeda is merely the tip of the ice berg. In fact there is a whole infrastructure of violent anti-Americanism in the region. This is very serious to U.S. security and we cannot turn our back on it, according to Donnelly.
He sees Iraq as beginning to move in a positive direction. Donnelly sees a tipping point as having been reached and therefore it would be a mistake to withdraw just as this is occurring. However, he also believes it was a misplaced hope to expect to see a liberal democracy in the region. The positive changes he sees are:
Regarding where we are headed in Iraq he does not see a formal division occurring as dividing areas like Baghdad where all three groups live will be difficult. He says it is important to get the Sunni issue right because Sunnis are the majority Muslim group and they extend well-beyond Iraq. If we get the Sunni question wrong in Iraq this will be an extremely long and violent war that is likely to lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
According to Donnelly, Bush is on the least bad path. Withdrawal might result in things calming down for the short term but in the long run it will be an error that will lead to more violence.
In the discussion after their presentations, Galbraith emphasized that by putting our resources in Iraq the U.S. has been unable to deal with the real threats of North Korea and Iran. Donnelly responded we had the problems in North Korea and Iran before the Iraq War and if we withdrew from Iraq today we would still not have a strategy to deal with North Korea.
Galbraith emphasized that he is not advocating separation but saying it is a reality. The Kurds voted by 98.5 percent in favor of independence. He predicted that the next generation of Kurds will insist on a formal separation from Iraq. We are not prepared to disarm them or to disarm the Shia'a. We should not build on 85 years of repressive regimes that have tried to hold the country together.
Alterman sarcastically commented that the only sure thing for the future is that Middle East is that experts like us will continue to have a job. A questioner from the audience asked: “If the United States can't get it right in Louisiana where there are no Kurd, Shia'a Sunni disputes, how can we expect the United States to get it right in Iraq where we do not understand and do not seem to want to understand what the people want.”
Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising. You can comment on this article on his blog at www.DemocracyRising.US. Zeese is also a candidate for U.S. Senate, see www.KevinZeese.com.
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