One group who is worrying is the Bush Administration. With Bush’s latest change in strategy tactics in Iraq, the Administration issued a PowerPoint presentation warning us ominously that “Al-Qaida in Iraq has declared and shown its intentions to establish a caliphate in Iraq and then to expand the caliphate widely.” Is this likely? Well, Shiites by virtue of their religion do not believe in establishing a caliphate. They’re not about to go for that. In fact, the World Public Opinion survey shows Iraqis have a 96% unfavorable opinion of Al Qaeda. What about the Sunnis? Well, Al Qaeda is more popular among them. 77% view Al Qaeda unfavorably. I think the chances of caliphate being established in Iraq rank up there with socialism coming to Utah.
A second group worrying is Al Qaeda itself. In a letter captured in autumn of 2006 addressed to a leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq from Al Qaeda proper, the author writes that the “most important thing is that you continue your jihad in Iraq. … Indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest, with God’s permission.” Actually this should come as no surprise to Americans since the National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iraq occupation was helping Al Qaeda recruiting. Unlike the Bush Administration, Al Qaeda sees itself principally trying to win an ideological war rather than a military one. So from its point of view, things that inspire hatred of the West are extremely helpful. It was not for nothing that Osama bin Laden practically endorsed Bush going into the 2004 elections.
A third group worrying about Al Qaeda is our pottery barn liberals. (Not to be confused with the partisan liberals, the process liberals, the rabid lambs, and the moonbats.) The pottery barn liberals take non-liberal Colin Powell’s “if you break it, you own it” very seriously. The pottery barn concern is certainly worthy. How much damage can Al Qaeda in Iraq do without the U.S. hanging around?
Al Qaeda in Iraq or Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (usually abbreviated JTJ) has taken on the tactic of suicide bombing. This is not, by the way the preferred tactic of the Baathist elements of the insurgency. The letter mentioned above expresses concern that JTJ’s attacks on Sunni leaders (yes, Sunni leaders) was not winning them Iraqi friends. If JTJ does not have many Iraqi friends, the Christian Science Monitor reports that they don’t have many foreign friends either. In an article titled “Iraq war draws foreign jihadists, but not in droves,” they report that only about seventy foreigners are joining the insurgency a month. In total less than 10% of the fighters are from abroad. I have heard much lower numbers.
It’s difficult to get a handle on the composition of the insurgency, but it would seem that Baathists would constitute its largest faction. Baathists had an organization before the war. They represented the Sunnis for decades. As a nationalist grouping, they were adamantly secular. (For example, they supported women’s rights much more than any Islamist party would.) It does not seem likely to me that the Sunnis in Iraq would have a strong Islamist tradition and want to establish a caliphate or even a state on the model of Saudi Arabia.
In this light, it would be wise to remember a few things about the U.S. presence in Iraq. The abuses at Abu Ghraib had a huge effect on Iraqi public opinion. They essentially turned Iraqi opinion against the coalition presence. The Sunni insurgency has been known for its media savvy and you can bet that photos you have never even seen from Abu Ghraib have been widely viewed throughout Sunni Iraq. That’s what they think of when they think of U.S. forces.
Further, there is the Vietnam analogy. Faced with an indistinguishable enemy and the need to win hearts and minds, soldiers and Marines must decide and decide quickly, “Do I shoot or not?” Winning ideologically requires reluctance to use lethal force; saving American lives requires aggressive use of lethal force. Our British allies have criticized the U.S. forces for their quickness of trigger. The result is that we have wasted a lot of Iraqi lives and that is the horrible side effect of a counter insurgency. The Sunnis really want us out of there – despite recent reports. 57% want us out in six months and 91% want us out within a year. 97% think our forces provoke more conflict than we prevent and 92% think approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces. The U.S. is simply in no position to make the JTJ less attractive to Iraqis.
So what might we conclude from all of this? I would say the following:
- Al Qaeda internationally wants and needs us to stay in Iraq. To undercut them, we should withdraw pronto.
- JTJ lacks significant support even among Iraqi Sunnis. The Sunni part of the insurgency is predominantly Baathist.
- JTJ’s main tactic is suicide bombing against which military inventions have been notoriously unsuccessful.
- The presence of U.S. forces will only solidify oppositional sentiment among Sunnis.
Rule by tyranny does not require popular support. Recent polls in Afghanistan have shown little support for the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. Given there are no polls on the level of Taliban or Al-Qaeda support (that I’m aware of) during Taliban rule I’m going to go out on a limb and say support for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was perhaps marginally more than the current poll, but yes this is a guess (although I base this on my reading of The Kite Runner… sarcasim implied)
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Link to Poll of Afganistan Opinion
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Part of what lead to the Taliban’s rise to power was a vacuum of effective (organizationally), disciplined leadership. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to see the same vacuum arise in Iraq if we were to leave and yes perhaps it does exist today but it will get much worse if we leave.
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On Pakistan
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1. There is no significant presence of US troops in Pakistan
2. Overall support of the US has been growing in Pakistan while support of Al Qaeda has been dropping since the earthquake in 2005.
3. There no wide spread support of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
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However as you stated worries about Pakistan becoming an Al-Qaeda base have been growing.
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I suspect we could go back and forth until we are both blue in the face and not convince each other to change our position…
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Can you answer explicitly answer my previous question?
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Let’s look at what JTJ would be up against establishing a caliphate in Iraq:
You are right to say dictatorships don’t require support, but they do require a power vacuum of the sort that does not exist in Iraq and they also require much more aquiesence than the Sunni Arabs are likely to want.
The problems with Pakistan revolve around the degree to which its secret service and parts of its government do side with Al Qaeda. Having survived four assasination attempts, General Musharraf’s rule seems fragile. The fact that Pakistan does have nuclear weapons makes their situation orders of magnitude more dangerous to us than Iraq’s.
KBusch-
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Your posts on this subject have been uniformly excellent. I look forward to the rest of your series.
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While I agree with you that it is not realistic to expect the newly minted majority to have a detailed position, it also seems like the “withraw immediately!” crowd leaves little room for any nuance.
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It would be nice to see the Democratic leadership in Congress find a way to have the debate that has been going on in this thread to go on in a public way that demosntrates that adults are now in charge. That means listening to those who disagree with the pre-determined outcome (maybe not Richard Perle, but someone, even if, maybe especially if they refuse to “say it! say it”). Limit the recourse to Cindy Sheehan type analysis: eschew the following words and phrases: militarist, profiteer, imperialist, war for oil). Acknowledge and prepare the country for the possibility that withdrawal may cause problems of its own.
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I think most reasonable people will see the contrast to “freedom fries,” etc.
I’ve appreciated this discussion, too.
You have moved me from thinking that outright withdrawal is lunacy to the fence.
Let us get this straight there will never be a full withdrawl from Iraq.
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Even before the war the US was in Iraq, it was bombed on nearly a daily basis in the interim period between the two Gulf Wars, sanctions, special forces, assasination attempts, etc. Furthermore before the first Gulf War US munitions and military advisors were in Iraq helping Saddam gas Iranians. And believe me even if the US military presence leaves there will still be periodical special forces raids to take out terrorist targets, an air campaign will bomb elements opposing the Iraqi government limiting US casualties, and we will arm the Malaki government and the different factions in the civil war to ensure that “our side” wins.
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Quite frankly had we been playing realpolitik all along we could have used an air campaign to incinerate Saddams military, contact Tariq Azziz or another “moderate” general and install a puppet dictatorship and Iraq would be like Jordan, Egypt, or any other “moderate” dictatorship that we support. WMD threat eliminated, threat Saddam poses to neighbors eliminated, message to other dictators sent, no need for occupation, no need for lives lost. And frankly this operation should have occured after the job was done in Afghanistan.
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Unfortunately we got into Iraq and the current mess and it will take a generation to get us out. Remember the US was in Vietnam right until the evacuation from the embassy, ditto Iraq.
describe “withdrawal” they mean an end to the occupation. I regard this as a return to the status quo ante March of 2003 (at least with respect to the posture of US forces in the region), rather than an end to all force projection– of any kind– in the middle east. The latter isn’t remotely realistic as long as the Gulf accounts for so great a share of such an important commodity as petroleum.
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Cetainly any kind of presence that does not entail the bulk of the armed forces, along with a steady American casulaties, would be far more palatable for the political public.
I’ve now added a second in the series. When writing it, I realized I had to write separately about the Iraqi Shi’a and Iranian policy — otherwise I’d end up with a Leviathan diary. So in this next one, I look at the possibility for Iranian meddling by wondering who the agents of meddling are.