Rule, Not Reconciliation
As we mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, rhetoric around the “success” of the so-called surge continues. Presidential hopefuls, along with members of the Bush administration, continue to tout “progress,” citing fewer U.S. casualties and moves amongst Iraqi groups towards “reconciliation.” While indeed, there has been a reduction in violence, it is lost in the headlines that thousands of Iraqis still are losing their lives each month in the conflict. But even worse, the “success” of the surge has the potential to bring violence to all time highs.
In his final State of the Union address in January, George W. Bush proudly held up the newly formed “Awakening Groups,” known locally in Iraq as the Sahwa, as examples of both Iraqi cooperation and independence. Members of these groups now total nearly 80,000, and are paid $300 of U.S. taxpayer money a month to not attack occupation forces. These groups are referred to as “Concerned Local Citizens” by the military, as though they are comprised of concerned fathers and uncles who suddenly became keen to collaborate with members of a foreign occupation force which has eviscerated their country.
In reality, most of the Sahwa are resistance fighters who are taking the money, arms, and ammunition, whilst biding their time to build their forces to move, once again, against the occupation forces which now support them, in addition to planning to move against the Shia dominated government. Furthermore, it is widely known in Iraq that many of the Sahwa are al-Qaeda members, the irony of which is not lost to Iraqis, who heard the U.S. propaganda as to the reasons the Sahwa were formed: to drive al-Qaeda from Iraq and to promote security so as to enable political reconciliation within the government in Baghdad by providing the space for this to occur.
Illustrating the counter-productive nature of Bush’s plan, Iraq’s puppet government, led by U.S.-installed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is having nothing to do with the Sahwa. When the U.S. military began to organize the Sahwa by buying off prominent Tribal Sheikhs across Iraq’s al-Anbar province, Maliki made it clear that none of the Sahwa would ever be granted positions within the government security apparatus.
And why should he feel differently? With Shia mlitiamen and death squad members he supports comprising the brunt of the Iraqi military and police, why would Maliki choose to grant legitimacy to the very groups who wish to gain a counter-balance of power in the Baghdad government?
Despite the periodic bickering and blaming from the Bush administration aimed at Maliki and his government, the Prime Minister remains in power for the sole reason that he and his cronies enjoy the backing of the occupation forces. After all, this is an “Iraqi” government that is located within the Green Zone. It is an “Iraqi” government that would not last five minutes without that kind of protection, as polls in Iraq indicate that it enjoys less than one percent support from the Iraqi population.
Arming (and splitting) Shia and Sunni
“I can’t think of a more classic example of divide and rule,” Phil Aliff, a then active duty U.S. soldier with the 10th Mountain Division told me at Fort Drum last October. He served nearly one year in Iraq from August 2005 to July 2006, in the areas of Abu Ghraib City and Fallujah, both west of Baghdad. Aliff was disgusted in the U.S. policy of, as he described it, “Arming the Sunni while politically supporting the Shia … how is that promoting reconciliation?”
According to the U.S. military, 82 percent of the Sahwa are Sunnis. Now the Sahwa, as my Iraqi colleague Ahmed Ali and I have been reporting for Inter Press Service, are openly challenging the government in Baghdad. In Baquba, the capital city of Diyala province, they are in the process of forcing the resignation of the Shia police chief of the province, Gen. Ghanim al-Qureyshi. A local Sahwa member told Ali in Baquba recently that their demands also include “the nomination of four Sunni assistants to be available as the new police chief, hiring 5,000 members of the Sahwa to serve as government security personnel, and government police no longer to be allowed into certain predominantly Sunni districts in an effort to eliminate the sectarian conduct of the police.”
So much for reconciliation. The Sahwa albeit wrought with its own infighting, corruption, and power struggles, now form an effective counterweight to the Iraqi government and are beginning to demand posts in various ministries in Baghdad, as well as power within government security forces.
General Mahdi Subeih, the commander of the order preservation forces in the interior ministry in Baghdad, announced to the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper in the U.K. on March 3: “The growth in the security role of the members of the Awakening Councils made them a third security force in the country alongside the army and the police.” He went on to state, “The councils are trying to exploit their successes in order to acquire political gains as their leaders are demanding the formation of a ministry dedicated to running the affairs of the councils.”
Subeih claimed, “The rebellion by some of the members of the Awakening Councils and the confrontations that erupted between them and the security forces reveal the depth of the chasm between the two sides.”
Thus, the U.S.-backed predominantly Sunni Sahwa is now both large and powerful enough to make demands of the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, and hopes of reconciliation have never been so distant as the U.S.-backed elements of the Sunni and Shia power structure have never been as divided.
The U.S. military continues to train hundreds of thousands of members of the Iraqi Army/Police/Security forces. These forces, the majority of which are members of various militias or criminal gangs whose loyalty lies elsewhere, remain largely unable or unwilling to operate effectively. Nevertheless, there numbers are in the hundreds of thousands now, tens of billions of dollars have been spent, and the result is the U.S. backing of both sides of a growing conflict.
A Colonial Strategy
Divide and rule is not new to the United States, nor is it new as imperial strategy. Even before the U.S. existed, colonial strategy was keen to it. In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn quotes Gary Nash, who writes of the period in the 1750’s when native American’s and blacks greatly outnumbered white Europeans, “Indian uprisings that punctuated the colonial period and a succession of slave uprisings and insurrectionary plots that were nipped in the bud kept South Carolinians sickeningly aware that only through the greatest vigilance and through policies designed to keep their enemies divided could they hope to remain in control of the situation.”
Zinn writes, “The white rulers of the Carolinas seemed to be conscious of the need for a policy, as one of them put it, ‘to make Indians & Negros a checque upon each other lest by their Vastly Superior Numbers we should be crushed by one or the other.’ And so laws were passed prohibiting free blacks from traveling in Indian country. Treaties with Indian tribes contained clauses requiring the return of fugitive slaves. Governor Lyttletown of South Carolina wrote in 1738: ‘It has always been the policy of this government to create an aversion in them [Indians] to Negroes.’”
And not just between “Indians and Negros,” but also strife between poor whites and blacks was fomented during the 1700’s so the powerful elites could remain in control of the colonies. Zinn adds, “It was the potential combination of poor whites and blacks that caused the most fear among the wealthy white planters.”
Spring 2004 was perhaps the closest time in the occupation a unified Sunni-Shia front of resistance to the occupation existed. While the U.S. military assaulted the city of Fallujah in April of that year, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was carrying out his first intifada against the occupiers across much of Baghdad and southern Iraq. I witnessed Shia and Sunni demonstrating together against the occupation in the Khadamiya and Adhamiya neighborhoods of Baghdad. When I was in Fallujah there were members of Sadrs’ militia, the Mehdi Army, as well. Later, during Sadr’s second intifada, Sunni mujahedin from Fallujah would cart weapons to Najaf to the Mehdi Army there.
Also during Spring 2004, the U.S. military had supply lines cut, and later admitted to losing control of swaths of Iraq it usually controlled. Thus, a new strategy was needed for the occupiers, because “only through the greatest vigilance and through policies designed to keep their enemies divided could they hope to remain in control of the situation.”
Nearly three years later, the fruits of this strategy are clear.
The Political Splits
Added insurance comes from internal divisions within parties and alliances within the U.S.-backed government. Recently, Iraq’s presidential council refused to ratify a provincial election bill passed by the Iraqi parliament, purportedly due to the refusal of Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi (a member of the Supreme Islamic Council) to sign the bill. The move angered several political groups, particularly the Sadr movement and the Dawa Party, which has soured the “three point deal” agreed upon by the main political coalitions of the parliament, which would have entailed three main laws at once: the provincial elections bill, the general pardon bill, and the federal budget.
On March 7 al-Hayat newspaper reported, “The refusal by the Iraqi presidential council to ratify the provincial election bill opened the door for the emergence of new political disagreements between the various parliamentary coalitions, especially in the ranks of the Shia dominated ‘United Iraqi Alliance.’” Analysts are predicting new splits between the four major parties that comprise the UIA, the Supreme Islamic Council, the al-Sadar movement, the Fadhila party, and the Dawa party. al-Hayat noted, “The al-Sadr movement expected that the results of the elections for the provincial councils in the provinces of southern Iraq, which are supposed to be held before the end of this year, will lead to the loss of the Supreme Islamic Council of more than half the seats it now possesses. The Fadhila party also expected that the elections might shift the balances of power in central and southern Iraq…”
Some political observers considered that the presidential council’s decision, which forced the bill to be returned to the parliament, caused a disturbance in some of the political agreements between the various political coalitions. Abdul-Karim al-Salami, one of the leaders of the al-Sadr movement, told al-Hayat: “the al-Sadr movement enjoys wide popularity in the provinces of the south” and that ratifying the provincial election bill and holding the elections on schedule would lead to the SIC “losing control” of the southern provinces…”
In the Kurdish controlled north the situation is no different. The U.S. simultaneously supports both Kurdish warlords, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, as well as Marzoud Barzani, in their continuing struggle for power against one another.
Nevertheless, the U.S. has relied heavily on the Kurds from the beginning, even using Kurdish Pershmerga militiamen to augment U.S. forces in that region during the invasion. Yet, when Turkey decided to begin launching air strikes, artillery barrages and ground incursions into Kurdish villages in northern Iraq, the U.S. supplied the Turkish military with coordinates of Kurdish rebel groups, without, of course, notifying their puppets in Baghdad or Northern Iraq.
A “Success” Doomed to Fail the Iraqi People
The various U.S. military and political strategies in Iraq are the primary cause of the continuing sectarianism. The occupation forces and their methods are dividing Iraqi groups, and rather than promoting reconciliation, are encouraging increases in violence, power struggles, and strife. Thus, the military strategy is actually making the political process more difficult by failing to provide the actors the space needed for any progression towards reconciliation. The ultimate (and tragic) irony, is that this strategy also makes the possibility for a much larger civil war far more likely.
Perhaps this is the “success” and “progress” Bush and others refer to when they reference the so-called surge.
Dahr Jamail has reported from inside Iraq and is the author of Beyond the Green Zone. He writes for Inter Press Service, The Asia Times, and is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.
Copyright © 2008, Institute for Policy Studies
In spite of all my admiration for him, I can’t exactly agree with great reporter Dahr Jamail that “The various U.S. military and political strategies in Iraq are the primary cause of the continuing sectarianism.”
It seems to me that this analysis gives too much credit to the incoherent and generally ineffectual occupation forces. “Divide and conquer” worked for subtle British viceroys deeply immersed in the culture of their colonial subjects, but I can’t believe the idiots in the Green Zone are capable of anything similar.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq have destroyed Iraqi society with a complete destruction, and Dahr Jamail has reported on it better than anyone. In this chaos, all sorts of monstrous growths appear spontaneously, as the miserable survivors compete for the most basic necessities.
I agree that the occupation itself has produced these monstrosities, but attributing anything like a “strategy” to boobs like Petraeus, Bremer, and Abizaid gives them too much credit.
I think there is a general American strategy of dividing Iraq into three units.
The Sunni militias we are arming and training are being used to control the Sunni area and to put pressure on the Shia government.
The south of Iraq seems to be a battle between the Sadr and Hakim families/organizations. That is the real civil war we should be paying attention to. The occupation will continue until the southern Iraqi oil is privatized and controlled. We will use all types of imperial strategies to make this happen with little regard for democracy, freedom, human rights and any other talking points our leaders feed us.
The absurdly lopsided Shiia victory in the “national elections” and parliamentary logjam is now balanced by the questionable policy of arming the Sunnis … civil war in slow motion with us playing both sides against the middle.
Our failure to get the Shiia government (and army and police) to share power and respect Sunni rights (and protect Sunni’s in their homes), led to this.
Once the “elected government” was in place, our hands were tied. They weren’t friendly or grateful or cooperative or any good at running a country. The militias rose to power in this vacuum.
We were much too eager to hold elections, “declare victory and go home”** or at least declare that Iraq had it’s own sovereignty and that could legitimately negotiate oil contracts and permit our forward bases …
Remember, this war was supposed to pay for itself, the Iraqi reconstruction was supposed to pay for itself, that friendly Iraqi government would make it happen out of oil revenues — as if.
Fascinating and sobering; your comparison of the concerns of colonial white Rulers and the concerns of ‘Iraq’s Rulers’ and the tactics to divide and conquer the people and the land, there and then - as well as here and now, for their own gain.
For a brief time in America in the 1970’s there was a time that all the things the Rulers have done to keep us all apart were a thing of the past and people thrived and were happy.
Divide and conquer (back by demand), not to mention dark aged torture techniques with a modern spin, is the Rule of the Land, whichever land someone of the lower classes (the 90-99% of humans and animals) live in. We all have alot more in common than differences. Especially as awareness increases (with great efforts to supress), awareness of our common good; common air, water, land quality - on a Planetary scale. Good planets are hard to find as the old bumper sticker used to say.
Thanks Dahr Jamail and CD.
Great article. The connection with the strategy that is being imposed upon Iraq today and its historical connection with the division between Native Americans and blacks is a strong point. Too often when the collective look back upon history do they error in chalking up racism to the “mindset of the times.” This fails to acknowledge the underlying issue that society was deliberately set up that way so those who had power, could stay in power.
The United States has been in this mess for 5 years and now, as Dahr Jamil points out, we are seeing increasing sectarianism fueled directly by the actions of the United States. The “surge is working” mentality fails (as usual) to take into account the bigger picture of long-term effects. The blowback from this conflict is going to be frightening, the large population of Iraqi children will bring the US a mess of a situation for generations to come, especially now that Iraq continues to become more divided.
Anytime Cheney is dispatched, ahead of war anniversary demonstrations in the US, before the April testimony in Congress from Cockburn and Petraius, you know whatever the VP says is a lie, this time for damage control what with the US elections coming up.
He assured viewers today during his press conference that there really is progress so we know there really is not.
He had to keep looking at his list of which members of the press to call on for questions. Why on earth does a free press from a supposedly democratic country even go to these things. The brave press is trying to get around the streets of Baghdad and see for themselves.
jacob,
One can accuse the Bush gang of being diabolical, murderous, sociopathic, criminal, and just plain fascist. But if we regard them as stupid, we do so at our peril.
Rooted in greed, fear, ignorance, superstition and reactionary authoritarianism favoring our bestial side, conservatives will always look for and find opportunities to establish dictatorships here and elsewhere.
Used often, the referendum can keep conservatives at bay.
Important to note that in anticipation of the American miliary surge and during that surge, there was another surge of de facto ethnic cleansing … people left their homes and neighborhoods, sometimes “voluntary,” often after death threats.
You cannot hope for reconciliation when you have over a million Iraqi refugees and another million Iraqis internally displaced with no mechanism for restitution, reparation or protection. I read of a bunch of Iraqis, hearing about how much better things were, returned to Iraq and found themselves without recourse, without homes, without protection …
Yes, the United States is disappointed by the lack of reconciliation …
Thanks to Dahr (I hear him on Democracy Now periodically) for exposing that the Iraq occupation is now resembling colonialism.
It is amazing that we have people in this country who still think we can “win” in
Iraq. To “win” in a conflict we have to pick side(s). So whose side are we on?
We are for the Shias and against the Shias (The Shias have a strong bond with Iran our “supposed” enemy). We are for the Sunnis (arming them) and against the Sunnis (supporting Shias automatically ensures this). We are for the Kurds and against the Kurds (Turkey is our ally and we let them waltz into Kurdish territory). Finally horror of horrors, we are against Al Qaida in Iraq and we are arming their militants however inadvertently.
The Bush-McCain-Petraeus path appears to be one of confusing alternatives towards a mythical victory which, even they are unable to define in operational terms.
The common theme throughout the occupation of Iraq as US policy shifts, and American military strategy ebbs and flows as the violence rises or lulls, is to translate whatever is happening on the ground there as evidence that the invasion and democratization process are working successfully. Richard Nixon was able to tap dance this sort of partisan propaganda schtick in the Vietnam war for about six years worth of GOP partisan gain at home (and 25,000 additional American deaths in southeast Asia).
Divide and conquer the opposition factions is a control mechanism for imperial powers to use abroad on those they occupy, but also as a wedge to manipulate the domestic opposition.
Bill from Saginaw
Jacob - I’m afraid you are quite off base with your comments. Please reconsider. It really is a case of ‘the proof is in the pudding’.
From what I heard from refugees in Damascus, the author is even understating the extent of the “divide and conquer’ strategy.
Remember there are even more groups than he mentioned such as Christians, Yazids, and even more critically, Turcomans. The disenfranchisement of the latter really could bring a full scale invasion by Turkey to retain Kirkuk and protect the Turkomans.
Divide and rule seems to work everywhere it has been applied. From the beginning, the Iraqi/Baath Party military was allowed to go home with weapons taken from unguarded weapons depots…why? Also, the “El Salvadoran Strategy” of executing the enemy was applied which seem to have forment anger between the various parties to prolong the war far beyond when the US Troops leave Iraq.
Looks like the Congo!
Actually, fwiw, the Iraq occupation has been characterized by shifting goals and leaders; almost laughably so in the first years, except it wasn’t funny, y’know?
I think General Petraeus’ leadership may well be the longest, most coherent. I vaguely recall when Allawi as annointed and Bremer departed wondering if we intended to bug-out only to re-invade when things went to hell in a handbasket. I recall reading sometime later that many/some Iraqis feared that Allawi would become the next strongman, that he would never relinquish power (of course he and his contingent are still trying to get back on the dais).
“Conscious,” “deliberate”, “intentional” may be hard to prove as I also think that our “policy” has been shaped at least as much by what we DIDN’T DO as by what we did… didn’t do because didn’t think of it, or didn’t do because of competing priorities, etc.
“Ethnic cleansing” picked up during the surge, but it’s doubtful (I hope) that we consciously aided or abetted same. Everyone now acts as if it happened under the radar, Buggs Bunny saying, “oops where’d everybody go?” Doubt it’s that simple.
Divide and conquer is working right here as well…
Excellent analogy to 18th c No. America.
I have a hard time believing British viceroys at the time were all that brilliant compared to today’s. The most likely explanation for Geo. Washington being alive in the 1770s is that someone fragged Gen. Braddock on the mission to Ft. Duquesne.
The british perfected the policy of ‘Divide And Rule’ in their 300 year occupation of India. Colonialism was sustained by this policy. Clearly their progeny, modern day Americans, have mastered it and have been doing a wonderful job so far.
The Bush administration too incompetent to orchestrate divide and rule? Is it that difficult to ascribe intent to the actions described by Dahr Jamail? It ought to be pretty clear by now that, in clear violation of many international laws, the aim is to sell the public assets of Iraq on the cheap to American corporations, without the consent of the Iraqi people, who will doubtless live in poverty, not unlike Nigeria, where leaders are bribed off, and the country and its people are mired in debt and poverty. It is a brutal project, Iraq, but the oil industry is equal to the task. Let’s not be naive and say it is anything other than oil-profit-driven, pure and simple, the people be damned. The actions are too internally consistent to be anything other than intentional. If something will weaken the Iraqi society’s ability to organize and resist the occupation, human or cultural cost notwithstanding, then it is being openly permitted or promoted. Yes, the things discussed by Dahr Jamail here, and more, such as allowing the looting of the public buildings (except the ministry of oil of course), bombing hospitals, bridges, and power and water facilities, and failing to rebuild just about anything. Not to mention the use of radioactive “depleted uranium” weapons, which toxify the land for billions of years and have already resulted in massive birth defects.
As the fifth anniversary of the occupation approaches (it should not be called a war), the New York Times published an article today called “Fateful Choice on Iraq Army Bypassed Debate”. We are told some details of how it was that Paul Bremer, the Bush administration special envoy in Iraq in 2003, came to dissolve the Iraqi army, “a decision that is widely seen as one of the most momentous and contentious of the war, assailed by critics as all but ensuring that American forces would face a growing insurgency led by embittered Sunnis who led much of the army.” Apparently even within the Bush administration this massively consequential act could not be openly debated, and had to be rammed through secretly and quickly without any discussion with the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser, or the many professionals on the ground in Iraq who had apparently been duped when they previously agreed to an entirely different plan. Who first proposed the decree to dissolve the Iraqi military? Bremer “can’t recall.”
Wake up people. What’s going on in Iraq is part of a pattern–imperialism without the informed consent of the American people. In 1947 we created covert intelligence agencies that have operated with massive financial backing, secrecy, and the power to use violent means with the full authority of the US government but with little or no effective oversight. We have institutionalized the ability to overthrow foreign governments with impunity (Iran in 1953 was a classic US overthrow, which planted “the roots of middle east terror” according to NY Times writer Stephen Kinzer) and to perform who knows what atrocities in our name, abroad and at home. Google John Stockwell, the highest-ranking official ever to leave the CIA, and read his presentations from 1987, a long time ago and it hasn’t gotten better. Read Daniele Ganser’s “NATO’s Secret Armies” about how NATO with CIA involvement performed car bombings and other terrorist acts on Italian citizens in the 70s that were blamed on the socialists to move the political climate in Italy to the right. And David Ray Griffin’s works (about the events of 9/11) and learn that our clandestine military and intelligence agencies, this cancer on our society, appear to be responsible for engineering massive state-sponsored terrorist events that mobilize public opinion to support right-wing wars that they would otherwise not support. How such cruelty as we see in Iraq has been institutionalized will not be fully understood until we dismantle this clandestine capability and the terms “state-sponsored terrorism” and “false flag terrorism” are fully understood by the public. Let’s not allow ourselves to be deceived any longer.
The presentation of the Iraq War has always been one sided. The domestic American economic condition has been very difficult for many and impossible for too many others. It is only now that the hardship has broken through into the upper 50% of the American population that economics has again become a story. Now that we are facing economic conditions that best compare to economic conditions prior to the Great Depression are the wealthy awakening to the threat. How can we justify Iraq when America is suffering and threatened with further serious economic decline? Now that the wealthy are suffering too the Iraq War will fade in importance and be seen for what it is, a horrific blunder. The medicine will be harsh and minds will become clear again.
Curmudgeon99, I am confused, are you referring to the Iraq Turkmen or Turkmenistan Turkoman? Why would you think the Turkish Military, the Torch Bearers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk would invade Iraq for the Iraq Turkmen?
The market crashed there this morning, Erdogan has his hands full, the Turkish Military would never be placed in such an unlikely scenario by PM Erdogan, never ever happen.
TIM BOYLE: Excellent post. I agree. CD is the already awakened (to all these shenanigans) community.
Nothing reported-above in this Article is “blowback” — all, of course, ‘goes according to Plan’. [A Plan approved LONG before 9/11…]
Hell, after his indoctrination at Oxford, Clinton probably felt ‘cheated’ that he was just to ‘lay-up the ball, for Bush spiking-it’ (as Bush-I layed-it-up for Clinton in Kosovo). But, never-fear — BillHilly (and sidekick, Gore) will be back in 2008 — to ‘finish with some loose-ends’…
As far as I can tell, Team Bush couldn’t organize a church social and most of the neocons are legends in their own minds … Team Bush is so busy congratulating themselves, sabotaging each other and playing office politics, there’s no time or energy left over to actually “focus” on any problem at hand.
They are not masterminds, y’all give them too much credit. But like the 2-ton canary they do a lot of damage just walking around. Sure, they thought all sorts of good things would come from invading Iraq … but they also — stupidly — thought it would be easy to set up a USA-friendly caretaker government.
Yes, they do want to control the world’s oil … but reality intervened and they screwed up and now new oil producers like Russia and Venezuela are rolling in oil profits and even their “legacy” most-favored-nation sweetheart deals with the Saudis can’t keep oil below $100/barrel.
They bet on Maliki and the Shiia and they lost …. now they’re playing the other side of the street … The Kurds and Pakistan are other “bad bets,” the fall out from which is still to be reckoned.
Wouldn’t it have been easier and cheaper just to pay Saddam not to build nukes and to kill any Jihadists for sport? It seems like he already stabilized the country by the same divide-and-conquer methods. They and we were better off with him in charge. If he only hadn’t violated the map drawn up by the Britsh Empire. We’d still have that market for our chemical weapons.