{"id":316,"date":"2007-07-16T10:36:14","date_gmt":"2007-07-16T14:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=316"},"modified":"2007-07-16T10:44:14","modified_gmt":"2007-07-16T14:44:14","slug":"there-is-no-decider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=316","title":{"rendered":"There Is No Decider"},"content":{"rendered":"
The great problem with the Bush<\/title>The great problem with the Bush administration in Iraq is <em>not<\/em> that the “decider” is motivated by a singular, narrow, myopic ideology.<\/p>\n<p>No, the real crisis is that there is <em>no decider<\/em> at all; nobody to resolve the internal factional fighting that plague the administration and its entire military misadventure in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>If there is one central reason why the war in Iraq has lasted<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/stories\/2006\/11\/26\/ap\/politics\/mainD8LKO10O0.shtml\"> longer<\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/stories\/2006\/11\/26\/ap\/politics\/mainD8LKO10O0.shtml\"> than World War II<\/a>, it is because the United States has moved on two distinct <em>and mutually contradictory<\/em> tracks for four years.<\/p>\n<p>I do not mean to downplay the difficulty of fighting a guerilla war against the determined resistance of a popular insurgency.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, the war in Vietnam lasted more than eight years.<\/p>\n<p>But <em>one<\/em> of the two mutually contradictory tracks of US policy in Iraq has been to <em>not fight a guerilla war <\/em>against the Sunni Arab insurgency.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">Right Arabists in Washington <em>never<\/em> wanted to topple the ruling Sunni Arab minority<\/a> and they have been fighting to restore Sunni Arab political and military dominance since Paul Bremer’s 2003 de-Baathification orders.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the Right Arabist track of US policy moves rapidly toward <em>military reconciliation<\/em> with the Sunni Arab insurgency.<\/p>\n<p>In his most recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/07\/12\/AR2007071200937_pf.html\"> press conference<\/a>, President Bush welcomed progress made along this track as an affirmation of “political reconciliation from the bottom up.”<\/p>\n<p>Right Arabists always favored this line of policy–toppling Saddam but without undermining Sunni Arab political and military dominance–and can plausibly argue that there <em>never would have been<\/em> a Sunni Arab insurgency if George W. Bush had remained true to the Right Arabist aspirations of his father’s administration: Saddamism without Saddam.<\/p>\n<p><em>New York Times<\/em> reporter Richard A. Oppel, Jr. offers a profile of the military reconciliation between US forces and the Sunni Arab insurgency–“<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/07\/16\/world\/middleeast\/16reconcile.html?ref=world&pagewanted=all\">Mistrust as Iraqi Troops Encounter New U.S. Allies<\/a>“–and suggests that some American soldiers think of this reconciliation as a ticket home.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>First Lt. Tom Cherepko said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We fully understand that maybe a few months \tago they were attacking us. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trust them, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll work with them. \t<strong>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my way of not having to come back for a third rotation<\/strong>, \tgetting them to stand up for themselves.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And yet, George W. Bush has always also pursued another very different–indeed, contradictory–track that emphasizes the “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.iht.com\/articles\/ap\/2006\/11\/06\/america\/NA_GEN_US_Saddam.php\">young democracy<\/a>” of Shiite majority rule in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>It is this track that originally sparked the Sunni Arab insurgency and–as one Sunni militant explained to the <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/07\/13\/AR2007071301792_pf.html\"> Washington Post<\/a><\/em>–continues to inflame the insurgency.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Over the course of a 90-minute interview, a leader of an armed Sunni \tgroup in western Baghdad described his hatred for Iran and the current Iraqi \tgovernment…<\/p>\n<p>Abu Sarhan, as the 37-year-old insurgent wished to be known, said Iraq’s \tSunnis are deep into an entrenched and irresolvable civil war against \tIranian-backed Shiites. He said the premise of the U.S. military’s \tcounterinsurgency strategy — deploying thousands of soldiers in small \toutposts in violent neighborhoods — only inflames the insurgency and \tprompts attacks against the Americans…<\/p>\n<p>Abu Sarhan said that the leading Shiite parties in the government, including \tthe Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, along with the Supreme \tCouncil and prominent Shiite militias, are beholden to Iran. The Iranians \tappeared to be of such grave concern to him not just because of the bloody \thistory of war between the two countries, but also because of Iran’s \tperceived intolerance toward Sunnis in general. He said his long-term \tpolitical goal was to recapture the prominence that Sunnis had enjoyed under \tHussein’s government.<\/p>\n<p>“The problem is that the Americans have a relationship with the slaves: Dawa, \tBadr Organization, the Mahdi Army are slaves to Iran,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/10747aca-32f3-11dc-a9e8-0000779fd2ac.html\"><em> Financial Times<\/em> suggests<\/a> that today there is almost as much anti-Maliki sentiment within the US political establishment as there is among Sunni Arab insurgents like Abu Sarhan.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s any debate in the Senate about \tdisappointment with the Iraqi government. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty uniform,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mitch \tMcConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, told CNN.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Right Zionists like Reuel Marc Gerecht, however, argue that victory in Iraq requires <em>strengthening<\/em> the US alliance with Iraqi Shiites and suggests that nothing has <em>slowed<\/em> progress in Iraq so much as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.all,pubID.26005\/pub_detail.asp\"> the US reluctance to <em>finish<\/em> what it started<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Critics of the surge often underscore the absence of a \tclearly defined post-surge political strategy. Echoing Rumsfeld and Abizaid, \tthese critics believe that only a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political solution\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201cthat is, Shiite and \tKurdish concessions to the once-dominant Sunni minority\u00e2\u20ac\u201ccan solve Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \ttrauma. The Bush administration has largely been in agreement with this \tview, following a strategy since 2004 of trying to placate the Sunnis.<\/p>\n<p>It hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worked. In all probability, it could not. Certainly an approach \tthat centers on de-de-Baathification is destined to fail since the vast \tmajority of Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shiites, and probably Kurds, too, oppose any deal that \twould allow the Sunni Baathist elite back into government. And de-de-Baathification \tis not about letting Sunni Arab teachers, engineers, and nurses back into \tthe government job market. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about the Baathist Sunni elite getting the \tpower and prestige of senior positions, especially in the military and \tsecurity services. If we really want Iraq to succeed in the long term, we \twill stop pushing this idea. Onetime totalitarian societies that more \tthoroughly purge despotic party members have done much better than those \tthat allow the old guard to stay on (think Russia). Grand Ayatollah Sistani \tis right about this; the State Department and the CIA are wrong.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunni insurgency will likely cease when the Sunnis, who have been \taddicted to power and the perception of the Shiites as a God-ordained \tunderclass, know in their hearts that they cannot win against the Shiites, \tthat continued fighting will only make their situation worse. Thanks in part \tto the ferocity of vengeful Shiite militias, we are getting there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">To date, the Bush administration continues to support the Shiite-led government in Iraq, even as it also pursues military reconciliation with the enemies of that government.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Republican Senators–led by Richard Lugar–have pressed Bush to <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=314\">dump the Maliki government<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The White House <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601103&sid=aT16AfTnDLB4&refer=us\"> appears to have rejected this idea<\/a>–at least for now.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">But suppose the “Decider” did actually settle on full reconciliation with the Sunni insurgency.\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t soldiers like First Lt. Tom Cherepko avoid a third rotation?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Only if Iraqi Shiites relinquish power without a fight.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">US military reconciliation with the Sunni insurgency could easily lead to confrontation with Iraqi Shiite power.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Richard Oppel’s <em>New York Times<\/em> article hints at the ways in which the contradictions of US policy might create new problems in Iraq.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Abu Azzam says the 2,300 men in his movement include members \tof fierce Sunni groups like the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade and the \tMujahedeen Army that have fought the American occupation. Now his men patrol \talongside the Americans, who want to turn them into a security force that \tcan bring peace to this stretch between Baghdad and Falluja.<\/p>\n<p>A few miles away, in the town of Abu Ghraib, Brig. Gen. Nassir al-Hiti and \this brigade of Iraqi Army soldiers also have the support of the American \tmilitary. But they have a different ambition, some American commanders here \tsay: doing everything they can to undermine Abu Azzam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s men…<\/p>\n<p>If General Nassir\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unit, the Muthanna Brigade, is any indication, the \toutlook is not promising, said Lt. Col. Kurt Pinkerton, a 41-year-old \tCalifornia native who has spent the past months cultivating his relationship \twith Abu Azzam…<\/p>\n<p>About a month ago, the Iraqi brigade, which is predominantly Shiite, was \tassigned a new area and instructed to stay away from Nasr Wa Salam, Colonel \tPinkerton said. But he said he believed that the Iraqi soldiers remain \tintent on preventing Sunni Arabs, a majority here, from controlling the \tarea…<\/p>\n<p>Recently, and without warning, Colonel Pinkerton said, 80 Iraqi soldiers in \tarmored vehicles charged out of their sector toward Nasr Wa Salam but were \tblocked by an American platoon. The Iraqis refused to say where they were \tgoing and threatened to drive right through the American soldiers, whom they \tgreatly outnumbered.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, with Apache helicopter gunships circling overhead and American \tgunners aiming their weapons at them, the Iraqi soldiers retreated. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<strong>It \thasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come to firing bullets yet<\/strong>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Colonel Pinkerton said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Not yet.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">But there are clearly elements of the US military and the Sunni Arab insurgency who favor the US-Sunni alliance and fear the Shia of Iraq and Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 Oppel reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Colonel Pinkerton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experiences here, he said, have inverted \tthe usual American instincts born of years of hard fighting against Sunni \tinsurgents.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I could stand among 1,800 Sunnis in Abu Ghraib,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and feel more \tcomfortable than standing in a formation of [Shiite] Iraqi soldiers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Pinkerton’s Sunni Arab ally agrees:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">The Americans will someday leave, [Abu Azzam] said, and the \tfar bigger threat is a permanent Iranian occupation. He fears the Muthanna \tBrigade is a harbinger of that, because he says it is infiltrated by \tIranian-sympathizing militiamen who abuse Sunnis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Will the Decider <em>ever<\/em> embrace a <em>decisive<\/em> policy in Iraq?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Maybe the Bush administration will join with the Sunni insurgency and launch <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/07\/15\/AR2007071501248_pf.html\">a direct confrontation with the Shia of Iraq<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/pubID.25344\/pub_detail.asp\">against the advice of Right Zionists like Reuel Marc Gerecht<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Or maybe the Bush administration will break with the “Anbar Model,” adopt the “<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=200\">Shiite Option<\/a>,” and launch a direct confrontation with the Sunni insurgency.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Or maybe President Bush doesn’t understand what it means to <em> decide<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">In the meanwhile, soldiers like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtwp.com\/honor_roll.htm\">First Lt. Tom Cherepko of Elizabeth Township Pennsylvania<\/a> stand in the crosshairs of the Bush administration’s contradictory policies.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The great problem with the BushThe great problem with the Bush administration in Iraq is not that the “decider” is motivated by a singular, narrow, myopic ideology. No, the real crisis is that there is no decider at all; nobody to resolve the internal factional fighting that plague the administration and its entire military misadventure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}