Disunities
By Noah Feldman
New York Times Magazine
April 9, 2006
It is almost poignant to hear President Bush urging the Iraqis to solve their problems by forming a national unity government. After all, national unity is just what he lacks at home. In Iraq, continued violence by Sunni insurgents has led to repeated counterattacks by Shiite militias. A national unity government's goal would be to create a political process that could reduce the sectarian violence. In the United States, meanwhile, partisan disagreement about the justification for the war has been deepened and broadened by the fact that after three years and more than 2,300 American deaths, withdrawal of U.S. troops seems as far away as ever.
In a sense, the effectiveness of the Sunni insurgency underlies the divisions in both Baghdad and Washington. In the absence of an insurgency, Iraqi politics might still have been dominated by parties based on ethnic and religious loyalties, but their alliances would have been entirely different. Shiite and Sunni politicians would have banded together to limit Kurdish autonomy; Kurdish leaders would have teamed up with Sunnis to limit the power of the majority Shiites. These cross-cutting interests would most likely have generated a government broadly composed of all the major constituencies, excluding only hard-liners unwilling to renounce violence. Instead, Sunni violence has driven the Kurds and Shiites into an increasingly uneasy marriage of convenience, in which their mutual distrust is nonetheless outweighed by their suspicion of Sunnis.
The American political scene, too, would look different had the insurgency in Iraq never materialized. Democrats might express equally strong objections to President Bush's domestic policies, and no doubt there would be well-deserved criticism of Pentagon contracting techniques. But it is hard to picture the same degree of dissatisfaction with the president's performance.
All this division suggests that the insurgents have made some progress toward their basic goal of defeating the Americans. They discovered relatively early that the U.S. public had a greater tolerance for casualties than was imagined, and they also had to cope with the U.S. military's increasing ability to harden its targets. The insurgents then made a judgment that killing Shiites would generate reprisals against innocent Sunnis, and so they began to single out Iraqi police officers and then Shiite civilians in the hope of fomenting civil war. Such a war, some responsible observers say, has already begun.
But civil war is not an end in itself for the insurgents. It is, rather, another tool designed to make the U.S. leave without having established a credible government. For the mainstream Sunni insurgents, U.S. withdrawal before an effective Iraqi security force exists would mark a victory over the invader who took away their privileges. Even if it did not lead to the reassertion of Sunni primacy over other Iraqis, it would drastically improve their position vis-à-vis their Shiite rivals, who, they are gambling, would then have little choice but to compromise and share power. For the jihadi wing of the insurgency, U.S. withdrawal could also be claimed as a historic victory against a non-Muslim invader, on par with the epochal success of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
On at least one strategic point, the insurgents are correct, perhaps more than they know. Civil war in Iraq raises the likelihood that the United States will leave before a meaningful state comes into being. This is not only because civil war slows state building and so tests the patience of the American public. The public's willingness to sustain a military presence even in the face of human and financial costs is connected to the idea that there are good guys in Iraq whom we are supporting against terrorists. President Bush speaks of sustaining a U.S. presence at least into 2009 — when his term will end — and there is no reason to doubt his commitment to the project on which his legacy rests. But if the Shiites continue to engage in atrocities, through their militias and through the Iraqi Army and the police, it will become much harder for President Bush to justify our continued involvement on one side of the conflict. We cannot plausibly claim to be fighting the war on terror if some of the terrorists — backed by Iran, no less — are essentially on our side.
Yet in an odd twist of fate, it is precisely the danger that American domestic opinion might interfere with our continued presence in Iraq that gives Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad some leverage in urging the formation of a national unity government. Khalilzad cannot credibly threaten that the current administration would willingly withdraw its support for the elected government — President Bush has said otherwise, and Iraqi leaders are savvy enough to know he means it. But he can tell the Iraqis that a full-on civil war, with the atrocities that would entail, all but guarantees that the next president, Democrat or Republican, would have to withdraw in a hurry. And he may be able to say that continuing human rights abuses by Iraqi forces could compel even President Bush to re-evaluate his support for the elected government.
The threat of precipitate U.S. withdrawal would have a meaningful effect on the political players in Iraq. The great majority of Shiites want the U.S. to leave eventually — and opinion polls show that they favor a timetable for withdrawal to make sure we don't overstay our welcome. But until they have security forces united under the Iraqi flag, and until state institutions are secure enough to withstand the challenge of insurgent violence, they are stuck with us as the protectors of their weak state under construction.
Many Kurds would like an American presence to continue indefinitely in their own region so as to offer protection against potentially hostile neighbors in Turkey, Iran and Iraq itself. (Polls show that only the Kurds oppose a timetable for withdrawal.) For them, a U.S. withdrawal threatens their ability to sustain the autonomy they value so highly.
The newly elected Sunni political leaders are in the most delicate position of all. They hope to join a national unity government and gain power in a way that will let them placate their most violent constituents. To do so, they need the U.S. to pressure the Shiites and Kurds to go along, and then to supervise the new government to make sure promises are kept.
Meanwhile, ordinary Sunnis who voted in the elections but tacitly support the insurgents face a quandary. Immediate U.S. withdrawal might serve their interests by forcing the government left behind to negotiate a deal. But the longer the U.S. stays, and the stronger the police and army become, the more risky U.S. withdrawal becomes for them. They face a danger that years of insurgent attacks against civilians have pushed the Shiites too far, and that a reciprocal bloodletting is inevitable. Their worst-case scenario is for the Americans to create a Shiite-Kurdish army strong enough to crush them, then leave that army to fight on its own terms, without the limitations on intentional civilian deaths imposed by the presence of U.S. troops following American rules of engagement.
Bizarre though it may seem, Sunnis — the wellspring of the insurgency — badly need American help if they are to enter into and trust a national pact. Iraq's Sunnis tend to be strong nationalists and highly resentful of foreign occupation. And yet the moment they choose to participate in the new Iraqi state, they become reliant on the Americans to serve as guarantors of the equal treatment (and access to resources) that the Iraqi Constitution promises them. In the long run, say some Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere, the Sunnis are natural U.S. allies in moderating a Shiite-led regime dominated by parties close to Tehran.
It emerges that all the parties have a stake in avoiding the further destabilization that would accompany U.S. withdrawal in the next couple of years. If he maneuvers adroitly, Khalilzad can help the National Assembly members to see that whatever their mutual mistrust, they all need one another because no one can afford a vicious civil war. But like other milestones in Iraqi constitutional politics, the formation of a government will not on its own bring an end to the violence. Governments of national unity are notoriously sluggish, and a government is useful only if it is able to rule effectively. The horse trading over ministries and portfolios that will be needed to reach an agreement will also inevitably fragment governmental powers. Militias will remain. And the clock on civil war and American public opinion will be ticking.
Noah Feldman, a contributing writer and a law professor at New York University, is the author of "What We Owe Iraq."
New York Times Magazine
April 9, 2006
It is almost poignant to hear President Bush urging the Iraqis to solve their problems by forming a national unity government. After all, national unity is just what he lacks at home. In Iraq, continued violence by Sunni insurgents has led to repeated counterattacks by Shiite militias. A national unity government's goal would be to create a political process that could reduce the sectarian violence. In the United States, meanwhile, partisan disagreement about the justification for the war has been deepened and broadened by the fact that after three years and more than 2,300 American deaths, withdrawal of U.S. troops seems as far away as ever.
In a sense, the effectiveness of the Sunni insurgency underlies the divisions in both Baghdad and Washington. In the absence of an insurgency, Iraqi politics might still have been dominated by parties based on ethnic and religious loyalties, but their alliances would have been entirely different. Shiite and Sunni politicians would have banded together to limit Kurdish autonomy; Kurdish leaders would have teamed up with Sunnis to limit the power of the majority Shiites. These cross-cutting interests would most likely have generated a government broadly composed of all the major constituencies, excluding only hard-liners unwilling to renounce violence. Instead, Sunni violence has driven the Kurds and Shiites into an increasingly uneasy marriage of convenience, in which their mutual distrust is nonetheless outweighed by their suspicion of Sunnis.
The American political scene, too, would look different had the insurgency in Iraq never materialized. Democrats might express equally strong objections to President Bush's domestic policies, and no doubt there would be well-deserved criticism of Pentagon contracting techniques. But it is hard to picture the same degree of dissatisfaction with the president's performance.
All this division suggests that the insurgents have made some progress toward their basic goal of defeating the Americans. They discovered relatively early that the U.S. public had a greater tolerance for casualties than was imagined, and they also had to cope with the U.S. military's increasing ability to harden its targets. The insurgents then made a judgment that killing Shiites would generate reprisals against innocent Sunnis, and so they began to single out Iraqi police officers and then Shiite civilians in the hope of fomenting civil war. Such a war, some responsible observers say, has already begun.
But civil war is not an end in itself for the insurgents. It is, rather, another tool designed to make the U.S. leave without having established a credible government. For the mainstream Sunni insurgents, U.S. withdrawal before an effective Iraqi security force exists would mark a victory over the invader who took away their privileges. Even if it did not lead to the reassertion of Sunni primacy over other Iraqis, it would drastically improve their position vis-à-vis their Shiite rivals, who, they are gambling, would then have little choice but to compromise and share power. For the jihadi wing of the insurgency, U.S. withdrawal could also be claimed as a historic victory against a non-Muslim invader, on par with the epochal success of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
On at least one strategic point, the insurgents are correct, perhaps more than they know. Civil war in Iraq raises the likelihood that the United States will leave before a meaningful state comes into being. This is not only because civil war slows state building and so tests the patience of the American public. The public's willingness to sustain a military presence even in the face of human and financial costs is connected to the idea that there are good guys in Iraq whom we are supporting against terrorists. President Bush speaks of sustaining a U.S. presence at least into 2009 — when his term will end — and there is no reason to doubt his commitment to the project on which his legacy rests. But if the Shiites continue to engage in atrocities, through their militias and through the Iraqi Army and the police, it will become much harder for President Bush to justify our continued involvement on one side of the conflict. We cannot plausibly claim to be fighting the war on terror if some of the terrorists — backed by Iran, no less — are essentially on our side.
Yet in an odd twist of fate, it is precisely the danger that American domestic opinion might interfere with our continued presence in Iraq that gives Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad some leverage in urging the formation of a national unity government. Khalilzad cannot credibly threaten that the current administration would willingly withdraw its support for the elected government — President Bush has said otherwise, and Iraqi leaders are savvy enough to know he means it. But he can tell the Iraqis that a full-on civil war, with the atrocities that would entail, all but guarantees that the next president, Democrat or Republican, would have to withdraw in a hurry. And he may be able to say that continuing human rights abuses by Iraqi forces could compel even President Bush to re-evaluate his support for the elected government.
The threat of precipitate U.S. withdrawal would have a meaningful effect on the political players in Iraq. The great majority of Shiites want the U.S. to leave eventually — and opinion polls show that they favor a timetable for withdrawal to make sure we don't overstay our welcome. But until they have security forces united under the Iraqi flag, and until state institutions are secure enough to withstand the challenge of insurgent violence, they are stuck with us as the protectors of their weak state under construction.
Many Kurds would like an American presence to continue indefinitely in their own region so as to offer protection against potentially hostile neighbors in Turkey, Iran and Iraq itself. (Polls show that only the Kurds oppose a timetable for withdrawal.) For them, a U.S. withdrawal threatens their ability to sustain the autonomy they value so highly.
The newly elected Sunni political leaders are in the most delicate position of all. They hope to join a national unity government and gain power in a way that will let them placate their most violent constituents. To do so, they need the U.S. to pressure the Shiites and Kurds to go along, and then to supervise the new government to make sure promises are kept.
Meanwhile, ordinary Sunnis who voted in the elections but tacitly support the insurgents face a quandary. Immediate U.S. withdrawal might serve their interests by forcing the government left behind to negotiate a deal. But the longer the U.S. stays, and the stronger the police and army become, the more risky U.S. withdrawal becomes for them. They face a danger that years of insurgent attacks against civilians have pushed the Shiites too far, and that a reciprocal bloodletting is inevitable. Their worst-case scenario is for the Americans to create a Shiite-Kurdish army strong enough to crush them, then leave that army to fight on its own terms, without the limitations on intentional civilian deaths imposed by the presence of U.S. troops following American rules of engagement.
Bizarre though it may seem, Sunnis — the wellspring of the insurgency — badly need American help if they are to enter into and trust a national pact. Iraq's Sunnis tend to be strong nationalists and highly resentful of foreign occupation. And yet the moment they choose to participate in the new Iraqi state, they become reliant on the Americans to serve as guarantors of the equal treatment (and access to resources) that the Iraqi Constitution promises them. In the long run, say some Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere, the Sunnis are natural U.S. allies in moderating a Shiite-led regime dominated by parties close to Tehran.
It emerges that all the parties have a stake in avoiding the further destabilization that would accompany U.S. withdrawal in the next couple of years. If he maneuvers adroitly, Khalilzad can help the National Assembly members to see that whatever their mutual mistrust, they all need one another because no one can afford a vicious civil war. But like other milestones in Iraqi constitutional politics, the formation of a government will not on its own bring an end to the violence. Governments of national unity are notoriously sluggish, and a government is useful only if it is able to rule effectively. The horse trading over ministries and portfolios that will be needed to reach an agreement will also inevitably fragment governmental powers. Militias will remain. And the clock on civil war and American public opinion will be ticking.
Noah Feldman, a contributing writer and a law professor at New York University, is the author of "What We Owe Iraq."
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 10:44 AM
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