BAGHDAD – For the past two weeks I’ve been embedded with the United States Army in Baghdad, and I find myself unable to figure out what to make of this place. Baghdad, despite the remarkable success of the surge, is as mind-bogglingly run-down and dysfunctional as ever, even compared with other Arabic countries. Iraq is a dark place. At times it feels like a doomed country that has only been temporarily spared the reckoning that is coming. Other times it is possible to look past the grimness and see progress beyond the mere slackening off of violence and war. Is Iraq truly on the mend, or has a total breakdown been merely postponed? Opinions here among Americans and Iraqis are mixed, but nearly everyone seems to agree about one thing at least: terrorists and insurgents will respond with a surge of their own in the wake of the upcoming withdrawal of American forces.
Sergeant Nick Franklin took me to meet an Iraqi woman named Malath who works with the local Sons of Iraq security organization in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad. When I asked her if she thought her area was ready to stand on its own without American help, she bluntly answered “Of course not.” She doesn’t think Iraq needs another year or two or even three. She thinks it will need decades. “We won’t be ready until young people replace the older generation in the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police. They need to replace the old Baath Party members who are still inside.”
Her view is the darkest. But Iraqis who think the job should only require a few more years are still pessimistic about what they think is likely to happen when the negotiated Status of Forces Agreement goes into effect and American troops withdraw from Iraqi cities in 2009. “We’ve seen hell,” an Iraqi intelligence source said when I met him in his house. “And that hell, if the American forces evacuate, will repeat. If Obama forces an evacuation from Iraq soon, everything will turn against him in this land.”
Iraq is like the current bear market. Once in a while you see a sucker's rally like the surge followed by yet another collapse.
There is a 5,000 year old systemic problem in Mesopotamia that is not going to be solved by anyone for the foreseeable future and by that I mean generations.
This is the outcome of the absolutely asinine Neo-Con view of the world.
The Iraqis seem to have one chance at this point. the American withdrawal scares the living hell out of the competing factions and they learn to co-exist on a temporary basis. I doubt that anything else is possible, taking into account the history of the area and the deep divisions that stretch back for millennia.
Millennia - Not years, not decades, not centuries, Millenia!
If you are not looking at it in these terms, you are not seeing it. It is tragic, but it is not our problem.
Err, seems like a pretty steady decline in violence over the last year and a half actually.
Show me a place on earth and i'll show you and endless cycle of violence... until there wasn't.
Millenia! Just like the Germanics and Japanese, thousands of years of belligerence and no end in sight!
I, for one, am keeping my composite horseboy ready, because god knows its only a matter of time before the Golden Horde is unleashed again.
Horsebow, I think you meant? :)
LOL. Wow, I really tossed up a softball on that one. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
May your horseboy ever be grooming and praising your battle horse to the very best of his abilities...
Mark B.,
Err, seems like a pretty steady decline in violence over the last year and a half actually.
That's certainly true. But that is a decline from a huge spike, is it not? That spike didn't just come out of nowhere, without a cause. Crediting the surge for this is rather like crediting the quarterback for a brilliant tackle of the guy who just picked off his pass.
"That spike didn't just come out of nowhere, without a cause. Crediting the surge for this is rather like crediting the quarterback for a brilliant tackle of the guy who just picked off his pass."
Perhaps, but casualties are still far lower than they were during any time of the occupation. The data is all at icasualties and the current US casualty rate is 3x lower than it was between May 03 and June 04, which was the previous lowest casualty period.
As far as Iraqi civilians, Iraq Body Count shows Iraqi casualty rates in 2008 being at its lowest level since the war began as well.
There is just no way to honestly look at the data and not conclude that Iraq as at its least violent point since the war began and dropping.
You can argue that the spike was a failure of the Bush administration, and indeed it ultimately was, but the simple existence of that period of intense violence doesn't preclude the possibility of significant improvement. I know some people are in love with the 'cycle of violence' craze, but Iraq isn't a very good example to date.
General Barry R. McCaffrey's (USA-Ret) After Action Report for Nov 2008 talks about this. The AAR provided feedback on his strategic and operational assessment of the current security operations in Iraq. He has been going through the Theater regularly and providing his perspective for the last several years.
The November report was tempered by his view of future needs in Afghanistan and our changing political leadership.
He mentioned discussed that the success in Iraq could still go into collapse under certain circumstances, but was relatively upbeat. He mentioned that the security forces did not want the US to leave yet.
He believes that the US is now clearly in the end game in Iraq to successfully achieve what should be the following principle objectives:
- The withdrawal of the majority of our US ground combat forces in Iraq in the coming 36 months.
- Leaving behind an operative civil state and effective Iraqi security forces.
- An Iraqi state which is not in open civil war among the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds.
- And an Iraqi nation which is not at war with its six neighboring states.
#2 from Mark Buehner at 4:34 am on Dec 02, 2008
Err, seems like a pretty steady decline in violence over the last year and a half actually.
Show me a place on earth and i'll show you and endless cycle of violence... until there wasn't.
Millenia! Just like the Germanics and Japanese, thousands of years of belligerence and no end in sight!
I, for one, am keeping my composite horseboy ready, because god knows its only a matter of time before the Golden Horde is unleashed again.
Mark,
Germany was decimated to the point of famine with an entire generation of males wiped from the face of the earth. The same went for Japan plus, two cities obliterated by nuclear weapons. There is no parallel here. Stop using it as a comparison since it it utterly absurd and false on its face.
#9 from TOC at 9:04 pm on Dec 03, 2008
Err, seems like a pretty steady decline in violence over the last year and a half actually.
Great observation, Mark. The only problem with it is that in relation to my statement you are trying to read the situation in a manner akin to telling what century it is by observing the second hand on a clock. Again, it does not speak to the point.
Micheal goes back to Baghdad and finds it worse. Why would he be surprised unless he, like you, only look at the second hand on the clock.
#7 from Mark Buehner at 8:34 pm on Dec 02, 2008
As far as Iraqi civilians, Iraq Body Count shows Iraqi casualty rates in 2008 being at its lowest level since the war began as well.
Ah, The Iraq body count over 8 years has declined. this is another of your second hands that you somehow think points to some sort of bulwark against the history of the region for Millenia.
What can we expect now, we will soon hear strains of Kumbaya wafting from the Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, and Turkmen areas. That a new day has finally downed because Iraqi deaths are at their lowest level since the war began? That the whole culture of violence that has existed in this area since the freaking Sumerians is going to change?
You can't possibly believe this crap, can you?
"Ah, The Iraq body count over 8 years has declined. this is another of your second hands that you somehow think points to some sort of bulwark against the history of the region for Millenia."
Oh. Yeah. Millenia. I forget. How many Franks will the Vandals kill this century in your estimation?
Not only is your cycle of violence theory contrary to every other region of the world that was equally if not more violent over the MILLENIA but settled down in the 20th century, its also not particularly familiar with history. Compared to many other regions of the world what is currently Iraq has been positively tranquil over its history. You want to match up the history of, say, Palestine and the Baghdad region? or Rome?
"That the whole culture of violence that has existed in this area since the freaking Sumerians is going to change?"
Go read a book. When are the Romans going to change their barbarous ways? The mongols? The Scots? When they do. And, again, go read up on the years... oh 600AD through 1914 and tell me how much more violent current day Iraq was than somewhere else. If its not Switzerland you're probably in big trouble. But stick with your barbarians at the gates, white mans burden mentality all you like.
#12 from Mark Buehner at 11:40 pm on Dec 03, 2008
"Ah, The Iraq body count over 8 years has declined. this is another of your second hands that you somehow think points to some sort of bulwark against the history of the region for Millenia."
Oh. Yeah. Millenia. I forget. How many Franks will the Vandals kill this century in your estimation?
Mark, If you actually read what I have written you will notice imlicit in the Gemany and Japan experiences is an answer to this rather weak reply on you part. But I will make it explicit. If you olliterate the warmaking population you may be able to effect change. do you want to dotthat in the ME. Be my guest.
Not only is your cycle of violence theory contrary to every other region of the world that was equally if not more violent over the MILLENIA but settled down in the 20th century, its also not particularly familiar with history. Compared to many other regions of the world what is currently Iraq has been positively tranquil over its history. You want to match up the history of, say, Palestine and the Baghdad region? or Rome?
I spoke of Mesopotamia. Iraq has not been around for Millenia. enough of the red herrings. this one was a particularly long stretch in order to waive bait.
"That the whole culture of violence that has existed in this area since the freaking Sumerians is going to change?"
Go read a book. When are the Romans going to change their barbarous ways? The mongols? The Scots? When they do. And, again, go read up on the years... oh 600AD through 1914 and tell me how much more violent current day Iraq was than somewhere else. If its not Switzerland you're probably in big trouble. But stick with your barbarians at the gates, white mans burden mentality all you like.
That last paragraph wqas paerticularly good, even for you. One question, were you speaking to yourself or to someone else?
Wait a minute... Mesopotamia. Sumeria, Akkadia, Assyria, Babylon, Parthia... these are all empires based out of the region. If these folks have been slaughtering themselves mercilessly for MILLENIA just how did they manage to forge so many empires across the entire Middle East? I seem to recall the first written laws in history came out of this rabid den of Reaveresque mayhem. Was Egypt less violent? Ancient Greece? I don't seem to recall that.
And then of course they settled down for a brief 1300 years of Caliphate and we hardly hear a peep out of them. Quite different from Europe's concurrent history of endless wars, pillage, and disaster.
Oh- but that was the problem right? Everybody else killed off all there 'hotblood' like the Germans and Japanese did in WW2 (hard to explain WW1 of course). Strange that a single generation losing its menfolk can influence MILLENIA of agression and destruction.
Or maybe your theory is just bull.
#14 from Mark Buehner at 11:15 pm on Dec 04, 2008
Mark,
I suspect you ought to take your own advice and read a bookc more in depth than the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.