It's Looking Like Laura Rozen Was Right

Laura Rozen reported on a possible tilt toward the Shia and against the Sunnis within the Bush administration. I'm coming to the conclusion she was right about this at least as a backup plan or a threat. Plan A seems to be to lean on the Iraqi Sunnis to give more support to the al Maliki government while also leaning on al Maliki to disarm Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi militia. I think there are a number of reasons this isn't likely to succeed (see my What Next post).

When and if this fails, Plan B could be to forget about reconciliation between Sunnis and Shia, forget about 'national unity government, and side with the majority Shia against the Sunnis. The Shia could probably drive the Sunnis out of Baghdad and perhaps isolate them in the Sunni Triangle. (There was a report today that our troops are admitting defeat in Al Anbar province, which, if I'm not mistaken is much of the Sunni triangle. What if all troops from Al Anbar went to Baghdad?) Of course if the administration sided with the Iraqi Shia, Sunni governments in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan would be very upset. At least the Saudis would worry about political mobilization of their Shia minority. The Shia Iranians and Shia Hizballah would of course be very much strengthened.

That such a Plan B is being considered, at least as a threat to pressure Iraqi Sunnis to compromise and cooperate with an Iraqi Shia-dominated government, comes from Laura Rozen's piece, from this video of an MSNBC interview with Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post who has superb Pentagon sources, as well as other hints. The other hints include: 1) this line from a New York Times article, "'There’s been some discussion about whether you just try to deal first with the Sunni insurgency, but that would mean being seen to be taking just one side of the fight, which would not be acceptable,' the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic practice." Obviously "taking one side" against the Sunni insurgency is being considered. 2) this other snippet from Laura Rozen re Cheney, "The fault lines going into that meeting included Cheney's office and some in the NSC arguing for more aggressively backing the Shias, and in particular, Hakim. Note the Hadley memo's recommendation to press Hakim/SCIRI to support Maliki, and the overall concern about whether Maliki is up to the task."

Since there are such significant downsides to Plan B I wonder if it isn't more in play as a threat with which to pressure moderate Sunnis to support al Maliki's government. My overall reading leads me to the hunch that the administration will send some more troops to Baghdad as a last ditch attempt to stop sectarian violence and disarm the Mahdi militia and that as usual there will be no benchmarks to judge whether this plan is succeeding and this will simply extend Bush's 'stay the course' stance in Iraq indefinitely. Bush and Cheney absolutely hate to compromise or admit they have been wrong so they'll do something that they package as a 'new' approach and keep on keepin' on. Never forget that 'packaging' is their longest suit and they'll say anything to 'sell' their latest gambit.

Tilting in Iraq, Part 2

Laura Rozen pointed out this from the Washington Post as evidence for her view that the Bush administration may tilt toward the Sunnis:

But in a sign of the discord in Washington, the senior U.S. intelligence official said the situation requires that the administration abandon its long-held goal of national reconciliation and instead "pick a winner" in Iraq. He said he understands that means the Sunnis are likely to bolt from the fragile government. "That's the price you're going to have to pay," he said.

This "senior U.S. intelligence official" was not identified in the article and note that the article says his comments were "a sign of the discord in Washington". Thus we still don't know what the administration is going to do and who, if anyone, they are going to tilt toward.

But here's a scenario stressing accomodating the Sunnis, under the title "Will Bush Rehabilitate the Baathists?" Juan Cole reports from Arabic newspaper Al-Zaman but doesn't say whether Al-Zaman tends to be biased toward Sunnis or not.

More Signs of Change in Iraq

I don't believe in saying I understand something better than I do so at this point I can share that it seems as though there are increasing signs of jockeying for power and possible realignment of alliances going on in Iraq, however, I don't know how to accurately judge the significance of these signs or predict the outcome. If one looks at recent posts of Juan Cole and Laura Rozen you may see what I mean. Cole reports:

Harith al-Dhari, Secretary-General of the Association of Muslim Scholars said in Cairo that the Arab League and the United Nations should withdraw their support from the Shiite-dominated government of PM Nuri al-Maliki.

This sounds like non-Iraqi Sunnis trying to weaken support for the Shia-dominated al Maliki government. Cole also reports:

Iraqi Speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani recommended entrusting peshmargas with guarding members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives. Al-Mashhadani made his recommendation during the council's in camera session that discussed the members' safety, today 23 November 06. Al-Mashhadani's proposal comes following an unsuccessful assassination attempt against him in which his convoy was targeted by explosive devises.

For a long time the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, has wanted to be allowed by the Americans to be more involved in defeating the insurgency and increasing the power of the Kurds. Presumably the Americans wanted to do it without calling on militias representing only sub-groups within Iraq. This report makes it sound like the Kurdish Peshmerga may be called upon now to become more involved.

Moreover, Laura Rozen noted a newspaper report:

Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis 'terrorists' and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms. [...] Al-Maliki's administration acknowledged it was powerless to interrupt the pro-Sadr program on the official Iraqiya channel, during which Sadr City residents shouted, 'There is no government! There is no state!' Several speakers described neighborhoods and well-known Sunni politicians as 'terrorists' and threatened them with reprisal.

This sounds like further disintegration of the Iraqi central government's power and Sadrists, who have until recently been within the al Maliki coalition now calling for al Maliki's fall. As I said, what I sense in this is increased jockeying for power, possible disintegration of the central government's support, and the possibility of new power alignments within Iraq and among the surrounding states. This seems to have been accelerated by the American elections which makes it look to all as though potential changes in American policy might be imminent; thus Iraqi and regional groups are trying to get themselves in the strongest possible position.

New Peace Feelers in Iraq

Today The Times of London published a story consistent with the report Tom Hayden shared two days ago. The Times said that a new phase of negotiation between the Sunni+Baathist insurgency and the Shia-dominated al Maliki government would soon begin. This appears to conflict with Laura Rozen's reporting that the Bush administration was planning a tilt toward the Shia and against the Sunni+Baathist insurgency.

We are in a state of policy flux right now because of the pressure placed on politicians by the U.S. elections; there will be a number of attempts to find a way to at least appear to be trying to end the conflict. There was a report that British troops may leave Southern Iraq by next spring.

It is entirely possible that both the Shia tilt and the Sunni tilt plans and more are being considered simultaneously. Now is the time to take a look at Barbara F. Walter's book, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars. Walter's book is an empirical study of the 72 civil wars fought between 1940 and 1992 and chronicles all the major difficulties encountered in trying to arrange a negotiated peace. After reviewing prior theories about civil war resolution her major conclusion is (p. 17): "Negotiations are unlikely to succeed unless an outside power is willing to guarantee the security of the combatants during demobilization, and unless specific political, military, or territorial guarantees are written into the terms of the treaty." In other words treaties fall apart because combatants don't trust one another to lay down their arms and adhere to agreements unless an outside power guarantees enforcement of treaty provisions. This emphasizes how important it will be in Iraq that some adequate and credible outside force supports and guarantees any agreements reached. There are obstacles to even reaching the stage of serious negotiaitions and Walter discusses those as well.

Tilting in Iraq: Toward Shia or Sunnis?

In a previous post I noted Laura Rozen's article suggesting the Bush administration was planning a tilt toward Iraq's Shia as a new strategy for more quickly extracting themselves from their self-inflicted quagmire. Now comes Tom Hayden with what sounds to me like his guess that there will be a Bush administration tilt, but toward the Sunni insurgents minus al Qaeda. Hayden speculates that such a tilt "could include a political coup against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki." Of course al Maliki is a Shia. Someone has to be wrong here but I don't know whom. We'll just have to keep watching.

A Last Desperate Gambit to 'Save' Iraq War?

Yesterday Laura Rozen wrote in the LA Times that the Bush administration was considering a tilt toward the Iraqi Shiites. Today the same newspaper reports that the Shiite-dominated al Maliki government has issued a warrant for the arrest of a popular and prominent Sunni cleric, Shaikh Harith al-Dhari, the leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Juan Cole today wrote: “This arrest warrant, coming after the attack by Interior Ministry Special Police Commandos on the Sunni-led Ministry of Higher Education and recent kidnappings by the Sunni Arab guerrilla groups of Shiites-- all this activity points to a war among Iraq's major parties, many of whom have parts of the government under their control.”

Let us speculate by connecting some dots: 1) the election has placed great pressure on the administration to change its Iraqi policy; 2) Bush is very stubborn and may make a last stab at ‘saving’ his Iraq war policy; 3) Laura Rozen reported: “This past Veterans Day weekend, according to my sources, almost the entire Bush national security team gathered for an unpublicized two-day meeting. The topic: Iraq. The purpose of the meeting was to come up with a consensus position on a new path forward”; 4) today the al Maliki government issues an arrest warrant for a prominent Sunni opponent.

Virtually all of the Bush administration’s policies in the Middle East have been extremely risky and ill-advised. Laura Rozen wrote: “A U.S. tilt toward the Shiites is a risky strategy, one that could further alienate Iraq's Sunni neighbors and that could backfire by driving its Sunni population into common cause with foreign jihadists and Al Qaeda cells.” Recall that al Qaeda is a Sunni group. Although Bush’s favored ‘reason’ we can’t withdraw is that there would be “chaos” and “civil war” if we left, siding with the Shiites against the Sunnis would be likely to further enflame civil and sectarian war. We must never be surprised by such apparent contradictions. Most of the public pronouncements of the Bush administration are propaganda aimed to emotionally manipulate public opinion, not sincere revelations of their true motives. (Recall that Karl Rove's favorite book is Machiavelli's "The Prince".) What they say about their ‘reasons’ almost never accurately reflects their true thinking. That’s why Bush could say he was keeping Rumsfeld a couple of days before the election and fire him the day after. He blithely assumes that public statements can be false if he deems it necessary to influence the public.

I believe this again underlines why we must end our occupation of Iraq and only do those things we are called upon to do by the Iraqi authorities. (See my How to Get Out of Iraq.) We must stop trying to influence their affairs and only function as a helpful resource. If we engage in risky strategies to influence Iraq then we put ourselves in position to be blamed for any bad outcome and put ourselves at further risk of blowback.