Rethinking Iraq: We have to do better

We are mired in a false narrative about Iraq.  Getting out of the false narrative will require us to to gain a better understanding of the political factions in Iraq, their manuverings, and their attempts to both deal with the American occupiers and to evict them.  

In brief, over the past few months political factions in Iraq have moved from making largely violent arguments in their bids for power and independence to making largely political ones.  As a result, we, the progressives in the United States who wish to end the occupation of Iraq, have been caught totally flat-footed.  We have been relying on their deaths, and the deaths of American soldiers, to make our arguments for us.  

I am going to start by saying some very critical things about us.  Be assured that I include myself in group that is targeted by this criticism.  From there I will offer some information and a different story about Iraq.  A way of talking about Iraq that is not merely a reaction to the story we are getting from the major news companies and opinion-makers.

We have been stuck reacting to the story put out by the traditional media, rather than looking to see for ourselves what is really going on in Iraq, and making our own narrative.  We have not been offering a unique perspective from the left.  Instead, we have limited ourselves to trying to knock-down other perspectives.  If Washington and CNN say “the surge is working,” we say “the surge is not working.”  If Washington and CNN say, “the new peace in Iraq is trouble for Democrats,” we say, “the peace won’t last” and we, because we are ashamed of ourselves, merely leave the implication that this is good for Democrats out there to be understood.

I can see the effects of the false narrative everywhere on the political left in America.  We are constantly being assured that “the Surge” has failed because it was meant to bring political reconcilliation in Iraq, but has not.  I see it in the reminders that the Iraqi parliament has not passed “benchmark” laws, and that this was Bush’s own measure of success when he announced the increase in troop levels a little more than a year ago today.  The left’s argument from there proceeds to an angry demand that Bush and Washington just admit that “the Surge” failed by its own standards.

All of this is a testament to our lack of information about what is really going on in Iraq, and our own laziness and lack of imagination in failing to try to dig it up.  We get frustrated by the relative reduction in insurgent explosions because that means “Iraq is out of the news” and because, we think, the relative lack of violence (obviously!) makes the Republicans’ argument that we should stay in Iraq easier by default.  

About the lack of information.  This is not entirely our own fault.  The netroots depends upon the major media, both in America and abroad, to provide the information that we analyze and use to generate arguments.  Violence in Iraq is the easiest kind of information for the major media to pass along, and it is the only kind of information — the only kind of any use to the left — that the major media have any interest in passing along.  Violence in Iraq is exciting.  War is sexy.  If it bleeds, it leads.  Further, it’s easy.  All a reporter has to do is sit in a briefing room and take notes about deaths.  Make recordings of explosions.  A brave reporter can go out and see the violence for herself, aim a camera at it and then she is lauded as “intrepid”.  I don’t mean to play this down; the bravery and work of such reporting is essential and invaluable.  We are in those reporters’ debt.

Much harder, though, — and much less interesting to editors back home — to translate, interpret, and convey the goings-on of inter-party political negotiations in Iraq.  Much harder to get across the nuance and texture of life there.

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Let me stop here for a moment and give an example.

On January 18, the major media in America reported on an outbreak of violence in Iraq.  A cult-group, armed with guns, attacked other Iraqis during religious observances.  This event was of course not in any obvious way indicative of larger internecine problems.  It wasn’t Sadr militias attacking American troops and it wasn’t Sunni insurgents blowing up a Shiite mosque.  It was just a cult.

Eighty dead in Iraqi bloodshed

By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

4:16 PM PST, January 18, 2008

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Members of an obscure messianic cult fought pitched battles Friday with Iraqi security forces in two southern cities, leaving at least 80 people dead, injuring scores and spreading panic among worshipers marking Shiite Islam’s holiest holiday.

The clashes, which erupted as worshipers marched, chanted and beat their chests in Basra and Nasiriya, represented the first major test for Iraqi security forces since Britain completed a transfer of responsibility for security in the region in December.

Members of the cult, which calls itself the Supporters of Mahdi, mingled with the crowds in at least three sections of Basra and in Nasiriya, then fired shots at worshipers and the security forces, police and witnesses said.

Police said the cult’s leader, Ahmed Hassan Yamani, was killed along with nearly 50 followers in the fighting in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city. About 60 gunmen were arrested and large quantities of weapons were seized from a mosque linked to the group, said the Basra police chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf.

We were told that Iraqi security forces managed to contain and quell the violence, and that this was evidence of improvements in Iraqi troops training.  CNN:

The British Defense Ministry said Iraqi security forces dealt well with the incidents in Basra. British troops, based in southern Iraq, were not involved.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office said in a statement that “security and military forces were able to impose full control and restore calm” in Basra and Nasiriya and that they arrested several attackers.

“Our security forces were able to crack down a … network and arrest a big number of its members, who were planning to kill the religious scholars in Najaf and Karbala,” al-Maliki’s office said.

This was largely spun as evidence of the increasing effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, who combated the cultists without a lot of assistance from coalition forces.  The fact that this attack, by a mere cult, was unusual in its violence, was taken as a sign that “the Surge and the concommitant realignment of Sunni factions had succeeded.  AP:

A relatively uneventful passage of Ashura had been seen by U.S. and Iraqi officials as a rigorous test of the decline in violence in the country since Washington sent 30,000 additional troops last year and many Sunni insurgents joined American forces in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq.

To get at the extent to which all of this completely misses the point, that all of it is just the official veneer one would expect tocome from official sources, and would merely dismiss out of hand under normal circumstances, in which one had other sources of info to rely on, I will quote from an anomymous Iraqi reporter working for McClatchy newspapers.  He or she wrote on their blog:

January 20, 2008

you still have the chance

Sometimes, I feel it is so hard to write a blog because we almost talked about every single detail in our life but I found out that there is always something new in Iraq. The incident of the last two days revealed a very important truth. For those who didn’t follow the news from Iraq, I just want to give a quick hint about the incidents during the last two days. Simply an insurgents group attacked some police check points in two southern provinces. Those gunmen followed the instructions of a man who claimed that he is a deputy of a famous and main Islamic character especially for the Shiite Muslims, it’s the character of Imam Mahdi which the Shiite believes that he will appear to save humanity. Many of the insurgents were killed and of course some of the policemen were killed also but this is not the point I want to talk about. My main point is a question which is (Who were killed? Weren’t they Iraqi people?) This question leads to others questions. One of the most is (why did those men followed this guy?) Excuse me if I ask the question and answer it but I think most of the readers would agree with me. I believe that those people joined this guy because they are unemployed, they need money to live and since they have no jobs and since the authorities (mainly the Iraqi government and the USA) failed in winning the simple people to their sides. Before the elections of 2005, we heard and read thousands of promises about huge and great projects especially in the south of Iraq but after the election, all these promises evaporated. No one paid any attention to the safe cities and this thing gave the chance to the insurgents group to gain more people especially the poor simple people. One or two hundreds dollars a month is fortune for those simple people and here we are, we have now more violence and more blood shedding. Our government didn’t say anything but describing those people as misguided people but it didn’t say who’s false is it? Who is the one who led these guys to this tragic end? Is it only the man who deceived them or someone else?

The government still have the chance to win the battle. The southern provinces need hundreds of infrastructure projects and these projects needs thousands and thousands of workers and this is the best chance to avoid any more fields of battles because hungry stomachs are always dangerous.

I point this out because it is, or ought to be, an obvious point, and would be obvious, if the cult attack had occured in a country with anything like reasonable communication with outside world.  

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The people of Iraq are trying political solutions to their problems.  They are realigning.  From another, less obscure source, Juan Cole:

Monday, January 14, 2008

12 Parties Sign Letter of Understanding:

Seek to Block Kurds from Taking Kirkuk

Several Sunni, Shiite and secular political parties have come together in a new pact aimed at challenging the dominant coalition of the Kurdistan Alliance and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). They appear to aim at blocking the formation of a Shiite regional confederacy in the South. They also want to stop oil-rich Kirkuk Province from going to the Kurdistan Regional Authority. In March, the 18 month delay in the implementation of the Shiite region (comprising 8 provinces) will end.

Who they are:

The Sadr Movement (30 seats)

The Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi (25 seats)

Dawa Party – Iraqi Organization (15 seats)

National Dialogue Front of Salih Mutlak (11 seats)

National Dialogue Council (1/3 of the Tawafuq party)

The Turkmen Front

The Yezidi Progressive Movement

What they want:

* Central control of oil resources — rather than regional

* Kirkuk settled by negotiation, rather than referendum

* US out of Iraq

The Kurds, of course, don’t like this one bit.  Cole again:

Kurds Miffed by New Coalition

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that altogether 150 deputies in parliament (well over a majority) signed a memorandum of agreement aimed at resolving the most contentious issues facing Iraq.

For their part, the Kurds considered the new alliance as a “wave against them.”

Now here is my point.  Do you know who the Iraqi List of Ilyad Allawi is?  Do you know who the factions in Iraq are, who tend to side with Maliki, and who against?

Here is a partial list of some of the political parties in Iraq:

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Shia parties on the United Iraqi Alliance list

Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (al-Majlis al-alalith-thaura l-islamiyya fil-Iraq) – led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim

Islamic Dawa Party (Hizb al-Da’wa al-Islamiyya) – led by Nouri al-Maliki

Iraqi National Congress – led by Ahmed Chalabi

Islamic Fayli Grouping in Iraq – led by Muqdad Al-Baghdadi

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Kurdish parties on the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan list

Kurdistan Democratic Party (Partiya Demokrat a Kurdistanê) – led by Massoud Barzani

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Yaketi Nishtimani Kurdistan) – led by Jalal Talabani

Kurdistan Islamic Union (Yekîtiya Islamiya Kurdistan)

Kurdistan Toilers’ Party (Parti Zahmatkeshan Kurdistan)

Kurdistan Communist Party (Partiya Komunîst Kurdistan)

Assyrian Patriotic Party

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Secular parties on the Iraqi List (al-Qayimaal Iraqia)

Iraqi National Accord – led by Iyad Allawi

The Iraqis list – led by Ghazi al-Yawer

Iraqi Turkmen Front (Irak Türkmen Cephesi)) (same as Alliance of the Turkomen Front of Iraq?)

National Independent Cadres and Elites

People’s Union (Ittihad Al Shaab)

Iraqi Communist Party – led by Hamid Majid Mousa

Islamic Kurdish Society – led by Ali Abd-al Aziz

Islamic Labour Movement in Iraq

National Democratic Party (Hizb al Dimuqratiyah al Wataniyah) – led by Samir al-Sumaidai

And here is a list of important members in that first one, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council:

Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim (Leader of the SCIRI from 1982 to 2003)

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (Leader of the SIIC and the United Iraqi Alliance)

Adil Abdul-Mahdi (Vice President of Iraq)

Hadi Al-Amiri (Head of Badr Organization and Iraq parliament member)

Ammar al-Hakim (Secretary General of Al-Mihrab Martyr Foundation)

Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi (Iraq minister of finance)

Riad Ghareeb (Iraq minister of municipalities and public works)

Mahmoud al-Radi (Iraq minister of labour and social affairs)

Akram al-Hakim (Iraq minister of state for the national dialogue affairs)

Mohammad Jassem Khodayyir (Ex.Minister for Immigration)

Jalal al-Din Ali al-Saghir (Iraq parliament member)

Humam Hamoudi (Iraq parliament member)

Ridha Jawad Taqi (Iraq parliament member)

When I say “lack of information about Iraq” I don’t mean “lack of information about violence.”  I don’t mean that we need to be more clever about finding under-reported ways in which Iraqis are killing each other.  I have no reason to think there are any.  That’s not the point.

We have been stuck making the argument that the relative peace in Iraq cannot last, and that either (a) the United States should leave while the gettin’s good, or worse, (b) that “the Surge” has not really worked, Iraq is still in total chaos, and Bush and Petraeus are merely putting lipstick on a pig.  (b) is worse because it more comprehensively misses the point by relying on narratives we get from Washington.

Of course talk of “success of the Surge” is misguided.  But stopping there, or assuming that our argument has to be that the relative peace cannot last or that the relative peace falsely attributed to “the Surge” is itself a sham, is both morally suspect and pragmatically useless.

We should not be relying on an increase in violence to show that McCain is wrong to support “the Surge”, as Juan Cole himself does in Slate.  In a January 15 article he wrote:

. . . McCain’s strategy of declaring an ongoing victory is extremely risky. January has already seen a sharp uptick in violence, leaving dozens of Iraqi civilians and 20 U.S. soldiers dead since the beginning of the year, with the potential to bring into question the Arizona senator’s credibility if the violence continues at that rate.

A parallel mistake is made, I think, by Andrew J. Bacevich in Sundays Washington Post.  he describes a perceived lack of effectiveness on the part of the Iraqi parliament.

Oil production still has not returned to pre-invasion levels. Reports of widespread fraud, waste and sheer ineptitude in the administration of U.S. aid have become so commonplace that they barely last a news cycle. (Recall, for example, the 110,000 AK-47s, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets intended for Iraqi security forces that, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon cannot account for.) U.S. officials repeatedly complain, to little avail, about the paralyzing squabbling inside the Iraqi parliament and the rampant corruption within Iraqi ministries. If a primary function of government is to provide services, then the government of Iraq can hardly be said to exist.

It’s certainly true that the Iraqi parliament is failing to provide services.  But the “paralyzing squabbles” that cause this are largely between forces in the parliament who wish to do Maliki’s — which is to say Bush’s — bidding, and those who don’t.  I don’t know the details of this fight.  You saw the lists up there; I can’t keep track of all that, myself.  But I do know that to call this fight “squabbling” is to assume that progress has to be identifiable as positive by Washington.  On the contrary, the failure to pass “benchmarks” is undoubtedly a sign of great success on the part of Iraqi political parties fighting the imposition of Washington goals.  

What we should be doing, instead, is pointing out that the Iraqis themselves have slowed down the shooting of each other and the Americans, and this is good.  They have started to try other methods of reconciling, and of resisting the occupation.  We should be investigating these efforts.  We should be investigating the recent attempts by the Bush administration to rely on a decentralized (you read the right) distribution of oil contracts, now that they’ve decided that no suitable Oil Law will be forthcoming, and how that runs counter to the wishes of the Iraqi people themselves, Kurds aside (a hopefully resolvable problem).  

What I would like to see, above all, is for us to break out of the frame in which events in Iraq have anything to do  with the “success or failure of the Surge”.  I want to see us arguing on behalf of Iraqis to our fellow Americans.  They are trying to find ways to organize, to get along, and to get along without us.  That is exactly what we should be wanting.  They will find this task easier if there are voices in America speaking of their concerns.  

And they will find that task easier if our occupying forces are not there to prop up a Maliki government whose primary purpose seems to be to legitimize the occupation itself.  The success of that part of the Iraqi government is not something we should want from “the Surge” or anything else.

We have to do better.