Iraq - Why Unrest Now?

[Airbornelawyer]

All of the factors identified above, as well as a few others not mentioned, played a role, but at least with regard to the so-called "Sunni Triangle", no factor really played a central role.

Besides factors already mentioned - the Kurdish mini-uprising in Syria that has Ba'athists there worried, the confluence of religious and secular Iraqi holidays, the ramp-up of pressure on al-Sadr, the lesson the terrorists took from 3-11, the jockeying for position in the lead-up to June 30, US electoral politics (or at least how it is being covered in the Arab media - there are also a couple of factors not mentioned.

One of the big ones, especially in the Shi'ite south, is the troop rotation. In one sense, the terrorists missed an opportunity: 3-11 exposed weaknesses in the coalition. Had such an attack come earlier, it might have affected many coalition members. As it is, most of these countries, including Spain, had already started or completed troop rotations before 3-11. This ranged from minor partners like El Salvador and Latvia to bigger players like Poland, Ukraine and the Netherlands (which has actually undergone its third rotation). Some of these countries might have rethought their contributions had a 3-11-like attack already occurred, and rotated their first contingents back home without allowing for a follow-on. As it is, almost all reconfirmed their commitment to keep the forces they had just deployed.

But on the other side of the equation is this: throughout most of Iraq are troops only recently arrived in country, so they are being tested. All but the Ukrainians have responded aggressively. Unfortunately the Ukrainians have one of the largest contingents -a separate brigade with three mechanized infantry battalions - so while their pulling out of al-Kut proper and returning to their bases outside the city might have been tactically sound, it was a propaganda victory for al-Sadr's supporters. Luckily, US, Ukrainian and Iraqi forces quickly retook the city, mitigating the damage.

In Fallujah, also, a troop rotation had just begun, with the Marines moving in, so a test of our resolve was on the horizon.

But back to my "no factor" premise. At least as regards Fallujah, the attack on the Blackwater contractors was nothing new. Terrorists and insurgents in the so-called "Sunni Triangle" have been attacking and killing US forces, Iraqi police, civilians and foreign aid workers on a low level pretty much incessantly for the past year. These four more were really only different in the sense that the savage brutality of the terrorists and the local mobs was televised worldwide. It was our response that escalated it into a major campaign.

In a sense, the "why now?" question should be asked of President Bush and GEN Abizaid - i.e., why now, instead of weeks ago when terrorists, many apparently operating out of Fallujah safe havens, killed hundreds of Shi'ite pilgrims in coordinated strikes, or months ago, when that Iraqi judge issued the sealed warrant for al-Sadr's arrest, or any number of incidents? I don't mean to sound like I am armchair generalling. The fact is, the coalition has been actively conducting operations throughout the past year - operations which had been quite successful in reducing the threat to American forces (but leading the terrorists to shift their focus to softer targets like Iraqi police and civilians and foreign workers). But there has been a sense that we have been trying to keep a lid on things, playing whack-a-mole with the terrorists, and just hoping we could get through to the transition, and get more Iraqi forces on the streets to reduce the burden on the coalition and give the occupation more of an Iraqi face. A number of our coalition partners have gone out of their way to portray their missions as almost entirely humanitarian, and de-emphasize the combat aspect, which may have led them to not deal as aggressively with some armed factions like al-Sadr's militias. The coalition, especially the Americans in Baghdad, treated this as a problem to be dealt with later, after the other problems had been addressed. "Later", unfortunately, arrived at the same time as those other problems showed they still needed addressing.

At the end of the day, this was a fight we needed to fight, and we are fighting and winning, as near as I can tell. The media and the Democratic Party solons are doing their best to turn this into another Tet, in both senses (i.e., a flawed Vietnam analogy because that is all they can come up with, and yet another attempt, like Tet '68, to turn a potential victory into a defeat). I guess, what it comes down to is this: the reason it is happening now is that we are making it happen now. We are seizing the initiative. I hate to sound too cheerleaderish, but we are KATN, not the terrorists. The only ones who can defeat us here are ourselves.

AL

I was waiting for you to show up with some enlightening
view.

Thanks

[Ockham's Razor]

Originally posted by NousDefionsDoc


I'm a little frustrated because I don't know as much as about the area as I wish I did, and I can't seem to figure out what they are thinking. They seem to be fairly simple in their strategic approaches most of the time, then they throw in something that makes absolutely no sense to me.

I think you are wrong about not knowing the situation. It was you who stated a while back and I'm paraphrasing here "the Southern part of Iraq is already basically under Sharia Law." For the most part.

Whilst, the crminal and jihadi aspects are also obvious reasons to attack now, I think when you say they saw what the June 30th handover might mean and they don't like it. I think there are enough people (not the majority perhaps) on the Shia side who do not like the compromises made in the consitution and might be worried that the hand-over date will simply make it harder to change than if they act now.

Honestly, I don't think they understood how strong our resolve would be. I remember hearing that Saddam passed around copies of BHD to his people in the run-up to the war. Now, I have nothing to support that, but it is somewhat understandable because for quite some time people have thought that if they inflict enough damage to US troops and it gets enough press, the public will force a pull-out.

In my estimation, if that is what they were thinking, they made a grave miscalculation. Though, I could also be very wrong.

[Airbornelawyer]

This is a bit of a gross oversimplification, but among the Shi'ite Arabs of Iraq there are basically three political factions:

1. Those who want some sort of secular democratic system ("separation of mosque and state"). They have a variety of motives, some good, some bad ("take the power away from the mullahs and give it to... me"). They include politicians such as Ahmed Chalabi, Raja Habib al-Khuzaai, Ahmed al-Barak, Wail Abdul Latif and Iyad Allawi.

2. Those who want a system that preserves the preeminence of Islam. They don't mind democracy. The people can elect whomever they want to organize schools and run jails, and to raise the taxes to fund them, as long as Islamic judges get to decide what curriculum is taught and what is a crime. Grand Ayatullah Sistani is just the most prominent voice for that viewpoint.

3. Those who want an Iranian style system where religious leaders run things as sort of a Shi'ite vanguard of the proletariat. Moqtada al-Sadr is the most prominent of these voices. This is not a popular position, even among Iraqi Shi'ite clerics, who generally reject the late Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini's political philosophy. But al-Sadr and people like him make up for unpopularity by militancy and money. They are funded by Iranians and, like good Bolsheviks, know how to make up for their relatively small numbers.

Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its armed wing, the Badr Brigades, shares this viewpoint but has been more pragmatic, working within the IGC and waiting for the Americans to leave. Al-Hakim also probably hates Moqtada al-Sadr, since al-Sadr's people likely killed not only Ayatollah al-Khoei last April, for which an arrest warrant has been issued, but also al-Hakim's brother, Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim last August. Al-Sadr was also reportedly behind the attempted assassination of Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim's uncle Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Sa'id al-Hakim.

One thing which may affect the timing of al-Sadr's uprising, and our response, is his relationship with these other factions. We need to bring him down, but not at the cost of strengthening SCIRI or Sistani to too great an extent (getting rid of al-Sadr will inevitably strengthen them; the question is to what extent).

Another factor in the timing and the attitude of the parties in categories 2 and 3 is that there have been a series of local elections to town councils and the like in parts of Iraq, especially the predominantly Shi'te Dhi Qar province (around an-Nasariyyah), and secular parties have beaten Islamist parties in most of them.

[NousDefionsDoc]

THAT'S knowing the situation. You have to know who are the players are and what their relationships are to each other. That's the part I don't know in that AO. Good stuff AL. I'm learning.

[Sacamuelas]

Great post AL. me lernin too Thanks

[Sigi]

I can't fathom how someone can be this intelligent, yet write in such a way that helps me better understand the situation. Thanks for the info, AL. I'm also learning.

[DunbarFC]

Very interesting post AL

Appreciate you taking the time

[Airbornelawyer]

A little extra reading:

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pub...rgy/clergy.htm

The United States and Iraq's Shi'ite Clergy: Partners or Adversaries?, by W. Andrew Terrill, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, February 2004.

[Airbornelawyer]

From CSIS, here is a chronology of events in Iraq since May 1, 2003 (as of April 6, 2004): http://www.csis.org/features/iraq_lowintesity.pdf

And more of CSIS' Iraq analysis: http://www.csis.org/features/iraq.cfm

[Roguish Lawyer]

Thanks, AL. Great stuff.

1919 GMT - A chemical bomb plot that could have killed 20,000 people has been uncovered, Jordanian officials claimed. The plot, believ ed to have been planned by a Qaeda-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, allegedly targeted the General Intelligence Department, the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office.



This was actually posted this weekend. I think this ties into
why al-sadr's uprising started. I have run a few searches and reports imply the weapons originated in Syria. There were also reports last week (didn't get much press) about Syria starting
to capture and torture Kurds. Count was 1000 and arbritray capture would continue.

I understand and have read everything AL posted, but I am really starting to believe there is more to this than a rogue cleric and some tribal conflicts. To me it looks like Syria and Iran are using al-sadr as a pawn and a distraction.

my .02

[NousDefionsDoc]

I read somewhere where the Jordanians also thought the King was targeted - quote was "decapitate the government of Jordan".

Now, can you imagine the King dead from a terrorist attack and Jordan without a leader? Jordan is about 60% "Palestinian" from what I have seen. I would imagine they would rush to fill the vacuum. Talk about destabilizing the region.

What do you think AL?

[Airbornelawyer]

Syrians working with Iranians? Ba'athists working with Islamic fundamentalists? Don't you read the New York Times and your daily Democratic National Committee talking points? That doesn't happen.

This, BTW, was one of the biggest pieces of idiocy from the antiwar Left - that Ba'athists like Saddam wouldn't work with Islamists like al-Qa'ida - since as amply demonstrated with Hizbullah in Lebanon, Ba'athists had been working with Islamists for decades. There are differences - while Syria is predominantly Sunni Arab, its Ba'athist ruling elite is dominated by members of a small religious sect, an offshoot of Shi'ism called the 'Alawis - that many Muslims consider apostates.

Muqtada al-Sadr is a pawn of certain factions in Iran, but Iran's main horse in Iraq is SCIRI. SCIRI has, perhaps, been too accomodating to the IGC and the CPA for the tastes of some Iranians, so more money and weapons have been funneled to al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi. Neither al-Sadr nor SCIRI, though, is especially popular among Iraqi Shi'ites. Al-Sadr's people are acting like good Bolsheviks, though, using their militancy and propaganda to project greater strength.

One of the main critiques Iraqis have of the US-led coalition is its failure to adequately police the borders, allowing Syrian and Iranian agents and fighters to infiltrate. Of late, we have been more aggressive along the Syrian border - witness this weekend's engagement between Marines and militants - but this is another area where it appears we do not have adequate resources. Wasit province, which includes a portion of the Iranian border that is the main route from Iran into the heart of Shi'ite Iraq, is in the hands of the Ukrainian 6th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which does not have the resources or the ROEs to aggressively deal with the threats in its zone.

As I noted, the proximate causes of the recent unrest were more accidental (the killings in Fallujah don't appear to be part of the Syrian game plan) and opportunistic, but the build-up of tension does fit the Syrian and Iranian goal of keeping Iraq unstable. And I wouldn't be surprised if those high-profile Shi'ites going to join their brethren in Fallujah included a fair number of Iranian agents.

As for Jordan, is the king were killed, my guess is the JAF would rally around Prince Hassan bin Talal, his uncle and the late King Hussein's Crown Prince for three decades. Prince Hassan has been not-so-subtly pushing himself as a candidate for an Iraqi throne (the Hashemites of Jordan are close cousins of the Iraqi royal family, whose most senior princes had been killed by the Ba'ath), but would certainly prefer the Jordanian throne. He has good relations with the West, the JAF and the Jordanian elites.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Programs HERE! Get your programs HERE! Can't tell the players without a scorecard - programs HERE!