[Peace-discuss] A new situation in Iraq?

[Morton K. Brussel]

I found this article hopeful and disturbing at the same time. For  
those  against U.S. imperialism, it's not clear what the article  
forebodes, if its analysis is valid. In some sense, it means that the  
U.S. will have achieved the objective of remaining in Iraq  
indefinitely. On the other hand, a coming together of Iraqis, as  
Dreyfus asserts, may allow the formation of a unified Iraqi political  
resistance which will still demand the removal of the U.S. presence.  
And one must say that less killing and destruction is desirable.

[From http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=11895]

  November 12, 2007
Fighting Whom in Iraq?
by Robert Dreyfuss and Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch

Think for a moment of what has happened in Iraq since the Bush  
administration's shock-and-awe invasion in March 2003. There are, by  
now, perhaps a million dead Iraqis, give or take a few hundred  
thousand. If a typical wounded-to-dead ratio of 3:1 holds, then  
you're talking about up to 4 million war, occupation, and civil-war  
casualties. Now, add in the estimated 2-2.5 million who went into  
exile, fleeing the country, and another estimated 2.3 million who  
have had to leave their homes and go into internal exile as Iraqi  
communities and neighborhoods were "cleansed." Despite a growing  
number of recent returnees, these internal refugee figures increased  
significantly in 2007, quadrupling between the beginning of the  
"surge" in February and the end of September, according to the Red  
Crescent Society, with up to 83 percent of them being women and  
children (with, in turn, most of those children being 12 or under).  
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, in a recent  
report to Congress, estimated that 14 percent of the population, or  
one out of every seven Iraqis, has been "displaced by war." So  
perhaps you have 6-8 million Iraqis put out of action in one way or  
another from of a pre-invasion population that was only an estimated  
26 million to begin with. A striking percentage of those who remain  
are children, and conditions remain grim. This is certainly one way  
to pacify a country – by setting off one of the true disasters of our  
time.

It's within this context that new figures on what is clearly a real  
decrease in violence for the first time in years in Iraq – whether  
against Americans or Iraqis – are coming in. Various partial  
explanations have been offered for this (or sometimes none at all),  
but no one has put this changing moment together better, or more  
provocatively, than Robert Dreyfuss, author of Devil's Game: How the  
United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. Tom

Who's the Enemy?

In Iraq, it's getting harder to find any bad guys
by Robert Dreyfuss

Who is the enemy? Who, exactly, are we fighting in Iraq? Why are we  
there? And what's our objective?

Nearly five years into the war, the answers to basic questions like  
these ought to be obvious. In the Alice in Wonderland-like wilderness  
of mirrors that is Iraq, though, they're anything but.

We aren't fighting the Sunnis. Not any more, anyway. Virtually the  
entire Sunni establishment, from the moderate Muslim Brotherhood- 
linked Iraqi Islamic Party (which has been part of every Iraqi  
government since 2003) to the Anbar tribal alliance (which has been  
begging for U.S. support since 2004 and only recently got it) is  
either actively cooperating with the American military or sullenly  
tolerating what it hopes will be a receding occupation. Across Sunni- 
dominated parts of Iraq, the United States is helping to build army  
and police units as well as neighborhood patrols – the Pentagon calls  
them "concerned citizens" – out of former resistance fighters, with  
the blessing of tribal leaders in Anbar, Diyala, and Salahuddin  
provinces, parts of Baghdad, and areas to the south of the capital.  
We have met the enemy, and – surprise! – they are friends or, if not  
that, at least not active enemies. Attacks on U.S. forces in Sunni- 
dominated areas, including the once-violent hotbed city of Ramadi,  
Anbar's capital, have fallen dramatically.

Among the hard-core Sunni resistance, there is also significant  
movement toward a political accord – if the United States were  
willing to accept it. Twenty-two Iraqi insurgent groups announced the  
creation of a united front, under the leadership of Izzat Ibrahim al- 
Douri, a former top Ba'ath Party official of the Saddam era, and they  
have opened talks with Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia who was Iraq's  
first post-Saddam prime minister.

We aren't fighting the Shia. The Shia merchant class and elite,  
organized into the mostly pro-Iranian Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council  
and the Islamic Dawa Party, are part of the Iraqi government that the  
United States created and supports – and whose army and police are  
armed and trained by the United States. The far more popular forces  
of Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army aren't the enemy either. In  
late August, Sadr declared a cease-fire, ordering his militia to  
stand down; and, since then, attacks on U.S. forces in Shia-dominated  
areas of Iraq have fallen off very sharply, too. Though recent,  
provocative attacks by U.S. troops, in conjunction with Iraqi forces,  
on Sadr strongholds in Baghdad, Diwaniya, and Karbala have caused  
Sadr to threaten to cancel the cease-fire order, and though intra- 
Shia fighting is still occurring in many parts of southern Iraq,  
there is no Shia enemy that justifies a continued American presence  
in Iraq, either.

And we certainly aren't fighting the Kurds. For decades, the Kurds  
have been America's (and Israel's) closest allies in Iraq. Since  
2003, the three Kurdish-dominated provinces have been relatively  
peaceful.

We're not exactly fighting al-Qaeda any more either. Despite  
President Bush's near-frantic efforts to portray the war in Iraq as a  
last-ditch, Alamo-like stand against Osama bin Laden's army, U.S.  
commanders on the ground in Iraq are having a hard time finding  
pockets of al-Qaeda to attack these days, though the group still has  
the power to conduct deadly attacks now and then. In recent weeks,  
Gen. David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and other authorities  
have pretty much declared al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) dead and buried.  
That happy funeral is the result not of brilliant U.S.  
counterinsurgency efforts, but of the determination of our newfound  
Sunni allies to exterminate the group. No lesser authority than Gen.  
Petraeus himself now admits that al-Qaeda has been expelled from  
every single one of its strongholds in Baghdad. In Anbar province,  
according to Crocker, "People do feel the weight's off. Al-Qaeda is  
simply gone."

And, nearly a year after President Bush proclaimed Iran to be Public  
Enemy No. 1 in Iraq, blaming Tehran for supporting both al-Qaeda and  
Shia militias, things are even getting better on that front. Last  
week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declared that Iran had  
quietly promised to halt the smuggling of weapons and advanced  
roadside bombs into Iraq. "I don't know whether to believe them. I'll  
wait and see," he said, in what was a rather dramatic downgrading of  
the White House's warnings about Iran.

Confirming Gates' comments, Gen. Ray Odierno, the commanding general  
of the multinational forces in Iraq, noted a sharp decline in the use  
of EFPs (explosively formed penetrators), the sort of IED that the  
United States blames Iran for supplying. In July, Odierno said, there  
were 99 EFPs used against U.S. forces; in August, 78; in September,  
52; and in October, 53. Partly as a result, Crocker announced that he  
is resuming a dialogue with his Iranian counterpart, Ambassador  
Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, soon. At the same time, the United States  
announced its intention to release a number of Iranians detained in  
Iraq, a move seen as a goodwill gesture toward Tehran.

Surge or Not, Things Are Getting Better

All in all, violence in Iraq has dropped precipitously since late  
summer. With al-Qaeda declared dead, former Sunni resistance fighters  
wearing American-supplied uniforms, and the Mahdi Army lying low,  
killings in Iraq are way down. The security situation in Iraq is far  
better than it's been at any time since 2005. Many American antiwar  
critics, who are invested in the notion that no good news can come  
out of Iraq and who (secretly or openly) revel in the Bush  
administration's Iraqi failures, are reluctant to admit that things  
are getting better.

Perhaps they worry that, if the situation in Iraq improves, the  
prospect of Democratic gains at the polls next November will  
diminish. Perhaps they've convinced themselves that Iraq's ethnic and  
sectarian divide is so enormous that partition is the only solution,  
and that Iraq doesn't deserve to be a country anyway. Perhaps their  
distaste for President Bush (which I share) is so all-consuming that  
they fear any improvement in the situation will be credited to the  
president – something they can't tolerate.

If so, that's perverse. The fact is: There is a critical window of  
opportunity opening for the United States to withdraw and for Iraq to  
hold itself together and rebuild. To the extent that things are  
getting better, that's good news. The majority of Americans – from  
the Left to conservative realists – who want the United States to get  
out of Iraq quickly ought to seize this news and push for an  
acceleration of the momentum for withdrawal. Certainly, as the polls  
all indicate, this is the course Americans generally want their  
politicians to follow.

There's really no disputing the improvement since August. According  
to the careful compilers at the website ICasualties.org, both U.S.  
and Iraqi deaths have fallen dramatically. In May, June, and July,  
more than a hundred Americans were killed each month; for August,  
September, and October the totals were 84, 65, and 38. For Iraqis,  
the numbers have been even more dramatic, with Iraqi military and  
civilian deaths falling from 3,000 per month earlier this year to 848  
and 679 in September and October. There are, of course, other counts,  
and reliable statistics are hard to come by in Iraq, but there's no  
doubt that the numbers represent something real, that the violence is  
down in Baghdad and most of the rest of the country.

There is other, anecdotal news to support the notion that security is  
better these days. Last week, Iraqi officials announced that, since  
the summer, 46,000 Iraqis have returned to the war-torn capital.  
Hundreds of shops are reopening; taxi drivers say the streets are far  
safer; and Christian Berthelsen and Said Rifai the Los Angeles Times  
report that "the booze business has rebounded" after years of  
puritanical suppression by Islamists, another sign that al-Qaeda has  
been driven from the premises. On Nov. 3, the Associated Press  
reported that an entire day passed in Baghdad without a single  
bombing or shooting. That same day, according to Agence France Press,  
the U.S. Air Force, for the first time in memory, declared that it  
had carried out not a single bombing raid or combat mission anywhere  
in Iraq, due to an "improved security situation."

In Anbar province, including its capital, Ramadi, the news is rather  
remarkable. In January, attacks on U.S. forces in Ramadi came at the  
rate of 30 per day; today, there is less than one a day. During the  
recent month-long Ramadan holiday, there were only four attacks on  
U.S. forces; during Ramadan 2006, there were 442.

None of this means that Iraq has become Sweden. It's still a violent  
place. There is no real government; the economy is in shambles; basic  
services – electricity, water, trash collection – are nonexistent;  
and most areas of the country are ruled by militias, gangs, criminal  
elements, or local warlords. But for the first time since the  
invasion in March 2003, there is a real opportunity for the two main  
blocs of Iraqi Arabs, the Sunni and Shia communities, to strike a  
deal. If such a deal were indeed struck, the Kurds would have little  
choice but to buy into it. Problem is, the United States cannot  
broker the deal. Having spent five years boosting sectarianism in  
Iraq, killing innocent Iraqis, busting down doors in small villages,  
and trying to turn Iraq into an American colony, the United States  
simply has no credibility left.

Any deal we broker, any leader we promote, any government we sponsor  
has just gotten the kiss of death. What unites Iraqi Arabs, from the  
Sunni resistance to the Mahdi Army, is opposition to the U.S.  
occupation of Iraq, as well as opposition to al-Qaeda and to Iran's  
heavy-handed interference in Iraqi affairs.

Next Step: A New Iraqi Accord?

A new, nationalist Iraq is emerging underneath the presence of  
160,000 U.S. troops. That nationalism extends from the current and  
former Sunni resistance fighters to Sadr's Mahdi Army to a range of  
moderate, secular Sunni and Shia politicians, all of whom – albeit  
under exceedingly difficult circumstances – are talking to each other  
about a new political framework for a new Iraqi government.

Two urgent steps are needed in order capitalize on the reemergence of  
Iraqi nationalism. First, the broad-based majorities among Sunni and  
Shia Arabs must be reconciled under a new Iraqi constitution, with  
new Iraqi elections creating a new Iraqi government untainted by  
American oversight. Second, Iraq's neighbors – all of them, including  
Iran and Syria – have to underwrite the new Iraqi nationalism. With  
its track record, the Bush administration is utterly incapable of  
accomplishing either of these tasks. It's a job for the United  
Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference,  
and other parties. And all of this, in turn, depends on the United  
States announcing a timetable for withdrawing its forces from Iraq.

As noted by countless observers, including official ones, the United  
States has so far been unable to translate the decline in violence  
into political gains. A recent report from the Government  
Accountability Office (GAO) made exactly that point, accusing the  
administration of failing to take advantage of the improved security  
situation. With a great deal of understatement, the GAO said: "U.S.  
efforts lack strategies with clear purpose, scope, roles, and  
performance measures." (In other words, the United States doesn't  
know what it's doing.)

Similarly, the Center for American Progress, a think tank that has  
truly distinguished itself from other establishment bodies by  
unequivocally calling for the total and rapid withdrawal of U.S.  
forces from Iraq, picks up on this in an astute memorandum called  
"Strategic Drift in Iraq." It notes (accurately in my reading): "The  
United States' current Iraq debate has three key dynamics: a lame  
duck president looking to hand Iraq off to his successor, a  
conservative movement promoting fear over reason for perceived  
political gain, and a progressive movement frustrated by a lack of  
change in Iraq policy and vague positions about what to do."

In fact, the "strategic drift" that the Center for American Progress  
refers to is beginning to look more and more like a Washington  
establishment with every intention to stay put in Iraq for decades to  
come. Even if the more rabid neoconservative calls for escalating the  
war into Iran and Syria are left aside, it's still clear that many  
centrist Republicans and moderate Democrats expect a long occupation  
followed by an even longer period in which the presence of U.S.  
forces will remain significant. Former Centcom Commander Gen. John  
Abizaid, a realist-minded, anti-neocon officer, recently predicted  
that U.S. forces would have to stay in the Middle East "for the next  
25 to 50 years," and he was pretty blunt about the importance of oil.  
"I'm not saying this is a war for oil, but I am saying that oil fuels  
an awful lot of geopolitical moves that political powers may take  
there." Notably, it was recently reported that U.S. legal advisers to  
the Iraqi Ministry of Oil helped Iraq to cancel an enormous Russian  
oil deal with Iraq to develop its West Qurna oil field, which the New  
York Times called "one of a dozen or so supergiant oil fields in the  
world." Not that the war had anything to do with oil, mind you.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in a glum forecast, put forth  
two scenarios for Iraqi war costs. The first – envisioning 30,000  
U.S. troops in Iraq through 2017 – would cost an additional $570  
billion over 10 years. The second – involving a slow decline to  
75,000 U.S. troops by 2013 and then the maintenance of that force  
through 2017 – would cost an additional $1,055 billion, bringing the  
war's cost to a conservatively estimated $1.7 trillion. CBO didn't  
project beyond 2017, so feel free to take out your calculator.

Robert Dreyfuss is an independent investigative journalist in  
Alexandria, Virginia. He is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone,  
The Nation, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington  
Monthly. He is also the author of Devil's Game: How the United States  
Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan, 2005).  
His Web site is RobertDreyfuss.com.

Copyright 2007 Robert Dreyfuss

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