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Enabling Iraqi Dysfunction
I was always fairly skeptical of the boilerplate Democratic charge that Iraqi politicians will only act on matters of national reconciliation when the US threatens to withdraw and leave them to their fate. I doubted this because I felt a) It was just a rhetorical ploy to foist failure in Iraq on the Iraqis themselves, and b) It naively underplayed the true depth of Iraqi political paralysis. Some surge supporters have offered my second objection too, saying that threatening to leave will only encourage the various sides to dig in their heels in anticipation of all-out war and not compromise in the face of the abyss.
But this AP article makes me think the Dems are on substantive ground here. Iraqi politicians feel no pressure to compromise because Bush has promised to sustain US troop levels for at least a year (with a minor drawback of 30,000 in the Spring due to operational limitations).
As Robert Reid reports:
Washington threw more personnel and firepower into Iraq to give the Iraqi leadership more room to settle disputes and adopt U.S.-backed reforms.
But the signals this week of just modest troop withdrawals ahead — perhaps back to pre-surge levels of about 130,000 — mean the Shiite-led government feels little pressure to accelerate work toward true political reconciliation.
Instead, they are focusing their energy on shoring up their positions: outflanking political challengers, leaning on more-radical Shiite factions to behave and flirting with Sunni sheiks to build personal alliances.
Iraq’s national security adviser was asked Wednesday to explain why the government has been so slow to enact power-sharing agreements that Washington deems necessary for lasting peace. He had nothing new to offer.
“Of course we want to do it, but they are so complicated,” Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said.
And now we get even worse political news: the compromise oil law hammered out in February and sent to the Iraqi parliament has “collapsed” because of Kurdish objections. I don’t know that this latest development is tied directly to the decision to maintain a US presence in Iraq, but it certainly underscores the depths of paralysis at the heart of Iraq’s government.
The fancy Petraeus slides showing marginal security gains in the last six months should not obscure the deeper turmoil facing Iraq, and the utter failure of Iraqi politicians to reconcile in any meaningful way. Alas we have placed our hopes in an even more dubious “bottom-up reconciliation” plan, though Administration flaks are never quite explicit to whom disgruntled Sunnis and Shi’ite are supposed to reconcile. Making peace with US forces is not the same thing as making peace with each other. More likely, Sunni-US peace in Anbar is driven more by local warlords seeking money and weaponry for the inevitable fight against the Shi’ite government than any desire to make peace with Shi’ite hegemony. Certainly the Maliki government sees it that way.
I have my doubts over whether or not the Iraqi factions could EVER reconcile, regardless of US threats to pull out. The issues are, indeed, “complicated.” But this latest development should at the very least disabuse us of the false notion that Iraq’s political leadership is taking advantage of the so-called “breathing space” to settle the underlying issues in the country’s four year old civil war. It’s up to American political leadership to ask why we should continue to expend blood and treasure to reconcile the irreconcilable.
7 Responses to “Enabling Iraqi Dysfunction”
Crocker claimed thatr revenue sharing was taking place despite the absence of a law.
Joe Biden claims a Sunni chief told him that alMaliki had been holding on to the money and only released it because of the presence of Ameticans.
Who knows.
With no law, anything can happen. In Iraq, anything can happen even with a law.
doma,
That’s called extortion, right? The US has to force Maliki to share money even though his government hasn’t passed a law to do so. How long can that continue? Without a law there is no transparency or consistency. And without that there is rampant corruption, cronyism and warlordism. It seems all we want to do is enrich our local warlord, Sheikh Sittar. That’s not a prescription for stability.
Corruption in Iraq is a given, laws or no laws.Their anti-corruption official (I forget his title) has fled the country, reportedly due to death threats
Corruption and nepotism have been the lingua franca in these tribal societies forever. We should not be surprised that much of our billieons gets lost through that route.
When Croker was talking about how complicated Iraq was, I wondered if that was one of the things he had in mind..
It’s also a major reason why the Afghan government is unpopular. Too much government money evaporates, and the police are paid so little they extort protection money from the people to make ends meet.
Operating in the ME is not like rebuilding Europe!
That’s one of the many things we should have known before invading.Iraq.
Sorry, but the idea that Iraqi political progress is tied to US troop levels is dubious at best. No amount of US pressure can force the Iraqi factions to agree, and that includes using troops levels at leverage. Threats to reduce troop levels or pull-out entirely will not provide much incentive for cooperation – quite the opposite.
Welcome to the Middle-East. I suggest that the concepts you deride here are perceived much differently in the region.
Entropy -
You are right about the ME, where bribes are just part of doing budiness and negotiating political alliances.
Does that make it okay for the US to resort to ‘when in Rome’ tactics? That’s a serious question for us to consider as a mtter of princeiple. Behond that, we’re not good at playing ME games and are likely to be outwitted at every turn.
That’s why the Anbar success makes me so nervous.
Our new found friends, the Sunnis, have their own agenda, and what is good for us one day can turn against us in the twinkling of an eye.
You say troop levels won’t influence political progress, but at the same time say that threatening to withdraw troops is counterproductive. That sounds self-contradictory. If troop levels can’t make a difference, why would changing troop levels make a difference?
Are you saying that even though nothing we do helps, we should keep doing it (what?) anyway?
“More likely, Sunni-US peace in Anbar is driven more by local warlords seeking money and weaponry for the inevitable fight against the Shi’ite government than any desire to make peace with Shi’ite hegemony.”
How much of that money and weaponry you think made its way into hands of Sunni’s on friendly terms with AQI? What would Bush say if he found out that we are actually in such a confused state over in Iraq that we are supplying terrorists accidentally? Aiding and comforting the enemy indeed.