This is the New Iraq (US "Democracy"/Troops Peripheral)

Journalist Tom Ricks, author of two high-profile books on the US and the Iraq War, featured this comment on his blog from Nir Rosen, who has been notable for his reportage from Iraq. I found it illuminating for several reasons:

1. Rosen offers a pragmatic, rather than wish-driven, assessment that Iraq will not return to sectarian war. That prediction, which is being hotly debated amongst Iraq specialists, is one of the key issues behind and beyond the forthcoming Iraqi national elections on 7 March.

2. Don't confuse this, however, with "democracy", which is likely to be the superficial headline in much press coverage. Democracy promotion was never the goal of the Bush Administration when it invaded Iraq, and it is not the primary concern of the Obama Administration, either. This episode is power politics.

3. And an irony: Rosen's assessment highlights that the US military is largely a bystander in this process. There will continue to be a running argument as to whether the vaunted "surge" of 2007/8 created the space for a measure of stability and security, but those matters are now in the hands of Iraqis. Not sure, however, that Ricks will appreciate this point even as he posts Rosen's thoughts: he is one of the spokesmen for the US military's current push to delay and even break President Obama's declared date for withdrawal of American forces.

It's been frustrating to read the latest hysteria about sectarianism returning to Iraq, the threat of a new civil war looming, or even the notion that Iraq is "unraveling." I left Iraq today after an intense mission on behalf of Refugees International. My colleague Elizabeth Campbell and I traveled comfortably and easily throughout Baghdad, Salahedin, Diyala and Babil. We were out among Iraqis until well into the night every day, often in remote villages, traveling in a normal Toyota Corolla. Our main hassle was traffic and having to go through a thousand security checkpoints a day. Stay tuned for our report next month about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq (which deserves more attention than political squabbles) and the situation of Iraqis displaced since 2003. Stay tuned for my own article about what I found politically as well. And finally stay tuned later this year for my book on the Iraqi civil war, the surge, counterinsurgency and the impact of the war in Iraq on the region.



From the beginning of the occupation the US government and media focused too much on elite level politics and on events in the Green Zone, neglecting the Iraqi people, the "street," neighborhoods, villages, mosques. They were too slow to recognize the growing resistance to the occupation, too slow to recognize that there was a civil war and now perhaps for the same reason many are worried that there is a "new" sectarianism or a new threat of civil war. The US military is not on the streets and cannot accurately perceive Iraq, and journalists are busy covering the elections and the debaathification controversy, but not reporting enough from outside Baghdad, or even inside Baghdad.

Iraqis on the street are no longer scared of rival militias so much, or of being exterminated and they no longer have as much support for the religious parties. Maliki is still perceived by many to be not very sectarian and not very religious, and more of a "nationalist." Another thing people would notice if they focused on "the street" is that the militias are finished, the Awakening Groups/SOIs are finished, so violence is limited to assassinations with silencers and sticky bombs and the occasional spectacular terrorist attack -- all manageable and not strategically important, even if tragic. Politicians might be talking the sectarian talk but Iraqis have grown very cynical.

When you talk to people they tell you that the sectarian phase is over. Of course with enough fear it could come back, but Shiites do not feel threatened by any other group, and Sunnis aren't being rounded up, the security forces provide decent enough security, and they are pervasive, there is no reason for people to cling to militias in self defense and besides militiamen are still being rounded up, I just don't see enough fuel here for a conflagration -- leaving aside the Arab/Kurdish fault line, of course. (Though if Maliki went to war with the Kurds that would only further unite Sunni and Shiite Arabs.) The Iraqi Security Forces like Maliki enough, even if they prefer Alawi. The Iraqi army will not fall apart on sectarian lines, it would attack Sunni and Shiite militias, if there were any, but these militias are emasculated. They can assassinate and dispatch car bombs but they can't hold ground, they can't engage in firefights with checkpoints. The Iraqi Security Forces might arrest a lot of innocent people, but they're also rounding up "bad guys" and getting a lot of tips from civilians. The Iraqi Security Forces might be brutal, sometimes corrupt, but they no longer act as death squads, they take their role very seriously, perhaps too seriously, but these days anything is better than the recent anarchy and sectarian massacres.

Of course Maliki is in the end still a Shiite sectarian actor and has a core constituency, as Chalabi cleverly forced him to reveal, but Maliki is not pro-Iranian (though Iran is too often demonized as well as if the dichotomy is pro-American and good or pro-Iranian and bad). It's not a dichotomy of pro-Iranian or nationalist either.

It's not about whether Iraqis are sectarian or not. They are, though the vitriol and hatred have decreased. It's that they are not afraid of the other sect anymore. Fear is what led to the militias taking power and to the political and military mobilization along sectarian lines. There are attempts by some Shiite and Sunni parties to scare people again but in my conversations I feel it is failing. The fear is gone and the Iraqi Security Forces fill the security void, even if it's not pretty.

There is concern about Sunnis being disenfranchised or getting the shaft. But they have been disenfranchised since 2003. In part they disenfranchised themselves but anyway none of them expect to get unshafted. It's already done. The government is in Shiite hands and now it's a question of whether it will remain in the relatively good Shiite hands of [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki, who provides security and doesn't bring down an iron fist on you unless you provoke him (sort of like Saddam), or the dirty corrupt and dangerous Shiite hands of Maliki's rivals -- [Ibrahim al-] Jaafari, [Abdul Aziz al-] Hakim, etc. I think these elections mean a lot more to Americans (as usual) and maybe to Iraqi elites than they do to Iraqis.

Besides, what can Sunnis do? Nothing, they're screwed and they have to accept it, and they have. The alternative is far worse for them. Sunnis in the region will not go to war alongside the Sunnis of Iraq. That moment came and went in 2006. Iraqi Sunnis don't even have a single leader who is charismatic and has real appeal, they're divided among themselves and these days your average Iraqi just isn't that into politics. I've heard it hundreds of times by now, they blame the religious parties, they say they got fooled and now they understand. Now that's not completely true, but the militias were able to mobilize people because of a security vacuum. These days it doesn't matter how remote and shitty the village I visit is, there are Iraqi Security Forces, and people have good things to say about them. Compared to the first three years of the occupation, Sunnis seem downright docile, maybe bitter or wistful, maybe angry, but their leadership is emasculated, in jail, abroad, just trying to survive, or just trying to make money.

Maliki will probably emerge the victor in the elections. His more sectarian and corrupt Shiite rivals are discredited and unpopular, but more importantly, he is an authoritarian ruler in the Middle East, he would have to be really incompetent if he couldn't stay in power. If Karzai could do it, then Maliki should be able to as well. Of course there is nothing uniquely Middle Eastern about this. In fact maybe looking at post-Soviet states is useful -- that is, the new ruler will not readily relinquish control, even if he has to bend the rules a bit, or operate outside the constitution. This has happened in Asia, Africa, and other places in transition. I hate to admit that I hope Maliki wins. He's the best of all the realistic alternatives. It's not like a more secular candidate is likely to win, so if it's not Maliki it will be Jaafari or [Ahmad] Chalabi. Frankly this is a rare case where I hope Maliki violates the constitution, acts in some kind of authoritarian way to make sure he wins the elections, because the alternative is fragmentation, or a criminal, sectarian kleptocratic Shiite elite taking over, and then Iraq might unravel. For now it's still "raveling."

Afghanistan Latest: Anger at US over Civilian Deaths; Karzai's Power Move; Drug Users Training Afghan Police?

Juan Cole offers a full round-up of developments:

Pajhwok News Agency reports that on Tuesday, the Afghanistan senate deplored the foreign airstrikes that killed 21 innocent civilians in the province of Daikundi on Sunday, and demanded that NATO avoid any repetition of this sort of error.

But some senators went farther, demanding that NATO or US military men responsible for the deaths be executed. Senator Hamidullah Tokhi of Uruzgan complained to Pajhwok that the foreign forces had killed civilians in such incidents time and again, and kept apologizing but then repeating the fatal mistake: "Anyone killing an ordinary Afghan should be executed in public."

Afghanistan Analysis: Dutch Government Falls Over Troop Withdrawal

Lawmaker Fatima Aziz of Qunduz concurred, observing, "We saw foreign troops time and again that they killed innocent people, something unbearable for the already war-weary Afghans."


Maulvi Abdul Wali Raji, a senator from Baghlan Province, called for the Muslim law of an "eye for an eye" to be applied to foreign troops for civilian deaths. Pajhwok concludes, "Mohammad Alam Izdiyar said civilian deaths were the major reason behind the widening gap between the people and Afghan government."

Note that those speaking this way are not Taliban, but rather elected members of the Afghanistan National Parliament, whose government is supposedly a close US ally.

Sarah Chayes, a former National Public Radio correspondent who lived for years in Qandahar but has been on Gen. Stanley McChrystal's staff for the past year, told CNN that she sees increasing frustration in the Afghan public over the killing of civilians by NATO and US strikes. She implies that how the government of President Hamid Karzai deals with this issue could determine its fate, given that it is acting like, and perceived as acting like a criminal syndicate.

In the meantime, Karzai is taking no chances. Radio Azadi reports in Dari Persian that Karzai took control of the supposedly independent Electoral Complaints Commission, and will appoint all 5 of its members. The system had been that 3 members were appointed by the United Nations, and the other two chosen by the supreme courty chief justice and the independent high electoral commission.

The ECC threw out about 1 million fraudulent ballots in last summer's presidential election, a move that could have forced Karzai into a run-off election against rival Abdullah Abdullah. But the latter withdrew from the race on the grounds that Karzai controlled the in-country electoral commission and refused to relinquish control of it. Many observers believe that Karzai stole the election. In short, Karzai is increasingly acting like a Middle Eastern dictator, manipulating state institutions to ensure that he cannot be unseated in an election.

Whatever US troops are fighting for in Afghanistan, it is not democracy.

As for those nearly 100,000 trained Afghan troops that Washington keeps boasting about, it turns out that the Pentagon sub-sub-contracted the troop training and "a Blackwater subsidiary hired violent drug users to help train the Afghan army." Many journalists doubt that there are actually so many troops in the Afghanistan National Army, citing high turnover and desertion rates, while others suggest that two weeks of 'show and tell' training for illiterate recruits is not exactly a rigorous 'training'-- even if it were done properly, which it seems not always to have been.

Canadian Brig. Gen. Daniel Ménard said that some estimates of the number of Taliban roadside bombs planted in Marjah were too low, putting them at 400 to 500. He said that despite what happened in Marjah, where Taliban took advantage of the ample warning NATO gave that it was coming, the same procedure will be followed this May when the Kandahar campaign begins. It is aimed at blunting the summer campaign of Taliban coming over the border from Pakistan.

Former Pakistan chief of staff, Mirza Aslam Beg, wrote in Nava-e Waqt for February 23, 2010, explaining Taliban strategy in Marjah. These passages were translated from Urdu by the USG Open Source Center:

Marjah is located some 15 km from Lashkargah City, which is the provincial capital of Helmand Province. It is a flat desert area. It has a few scattered mud houses. There is a green belt to its north and west, which is irrigated by the Helmand River. This green belt has large agricultural farms and orchards, with a population of about 6,000 to 7,000 people. The entire terrain is flat and totally unsuitable for guerilla war, which is the preferred style of the Taliban. It will be very easy for the allied air forces and ground war machine to control the movement of the Taliban in this area. Now, the question arises is why are the allied forces preparing for a similar kind of heavy attack in an area where there is hardly any resistance?

It appears there is a historical and psychological factor behind this decision. History says that every army that went to this area did not return safely. The allied forces believe that if they succeed in taking control of Marjah and the Taliban are compelled to back off, the allied forces will gain a psychological upper hand, making it easy for them to carry out operation against the Taliban in other provinces in Afghanistan as well.

The Taliban have become experts in fighting a war in the difficult desert terrain of the northern regions for the past 30 years. They are brave mujahids [holy warriors] who have full confidence in themselves and in their quest for success against their enemies. Time and circumstance are totally on their side. Thus, it is easy to understand their strategy in the battle of Marjah.

One of their strategies is to send 1,000 to 2,000 fighters under the command of Commander Mullah Abdul Razzaq. These fighters are committed to fight until their last breath and will bleed the allied forces to the end. They will defend the region with their scattered fighters spread all over the area. They will also defend the area against the attacking forces through the use of improvised engineering devices (IEDs), including the Omar bomb and booby traps. Their ground defense system, which was used by the Hezbollah against Israel in 2006, can also be used as a defense weapon. This strategy has been used by the Taliban during the last four days of this war.

The number of Taliban present in the adjacent areas of Helmand is around 10,000 to 12,000. These troops have the ability to attack the allied forces from the nearby areas of the main battleground and keep them engaged by attacking them regularly. Moreover, they will cut off the supply line of the allied forces. Under this strategy, on one side, the Taliban will continue the battle in Marjah, and on the other side, they will create problems for the allied forces by increasing attacks on them in provinces under their control.

Afghanistan-Pakistan: Top Insurgent's Son Killed; Taliban Leaders Captured

Juan Cole looks over the breaking news from the US-led military-covert offensive in Afghanistan and Pakistan:

A US drone strike on N. Waziristan has allegedly killed Muhammad Haqqani, a son of guerrilla leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Haqqani network is considered particularly skilled insurgents, and is the faction closes to both the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and to al-Qaeda. Jalaluddin's health is said to be poor and he may have already turned most decisions over to his other son, Siraj. The Telegraph hinted that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence has ceased supporting the Haqqanis behind the scenes, and may even have helped the Americans target their drone strike.

Afghanistan Mystery: What’s Behind the US, Pakistan, and the Captured Mullah?

According to Dawn, the governor of the Afghan province of Qunduz is reporting that Pakistan has "arrested Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammad, respectively the shadow governors of the northern Afghan provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan" in Pakistani Baluchistan (presumably in Quetta). Islamabad has yet to confirm the report.


The New York Times revealed that Pakistan had captured the Old Taliban's no. 2 man, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and it is not impossible that these two were picked up with intelligence gained from him. Pakistan and the US have still not decided whether to treat Mullah Baradar as an enemy combatant or to attempt to persuade him to back a reconciliation of the Taliban with the Karzai government in Islamabad. Gareth Porter believes that the reconciliation idea was put forward by Pakistan as a means of asserting Islambad's indispensability to any settlement between Hamid Karzai and Mullah Omar.

These actions are degrading the leadership abilities of the Taliban and the Haqqani network, and creating a sense of momentum against the Taliban.

As US special envoy to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, arrived in Islambad Thursday for consultations with the government, a bomb was set off at a cattle market in the Khyber Agency. It killed 20 and wounded 80. One of those killed was militant leader Azam Khan, of the Lashkar-i Islam or army of Islam. The bombing may have been the work of Ansar-i Islam, a rival political grouping which has feuded for some time with the Lashkar.

Aljazeera English probes the possibility of reconciliation between the Taliban and the Kabul government, which it believes is very difficult.

Meanwhile, on the Afghan side of the border, guerrilla foes of the Karzai government and the foreign troop presence in Marjah killed 4 NATO troops with roadside bombs and sniping.

Richard Holbrooke claimed that some Taliban in the Marjah area are considering defecting to the side of President Hamid Karzai. (This assertion is not far-fetched. Some clan chieftains adopt a Taliban allegiance rather as a franchise, and they drop it just as easily.)

Al Jazeera English interviews the former governor of Helmand, now a cabinet member, about the progress of the Marjah campaign.

Brave New Films reports on the condition of Afghan women.

Nick Turse writes about US bases in Afghanistan at Tomdispatch.

Afghanistan: Did The Way Forward Come Out of London Conference?

Writing for Foreign Policy, Gilles Dorronsoro looks over the political and military strategy discussed at last week's London Conference between Afghan leaders and "Western" powers and comes away unimpressed:

Washington, Paris and Berlin made their best efforts to keep up appearances during last week's Afghanistan conference here, but the gap between official rhetoric and reality could not have been wider. Participants called for reintegrating members of the Taliban who accept the Afghan constitution, enacting measures against government corruption, and building more regional cooperation.

Afghanistan: America’s Secret Prisons

Yet the coalition is systematically undermining what's left of the Afghan state. The New York Times reports that the Shinwari tribes have agreed to fight the Taliban -- in exchange for about $1 million. What's lesser known and less understood is that Washington didn't even feel obligated to notify the Karzai government of this decision.


Since last summer, the United States has supported all manner of militias in Afghanistan, creating fragmentation and a dangerous degree of competition in the security sphere. Critics rightly observe that this is a formula for an even weaker government in Kabul. In a number of cases, the U.S. is dealing directly with armed groups that are beyond the control of the central government,including the group that was reportedly responsible for the killing of the Kandahar police chief in 2009.

In restive provinces like Helmand and Kandahar, rallying the foot soldiers of the insurgency is simply never going to work, because they are fighting in defense of values -- such as Islam, and freedom from foreign occupation -- that they see under attack. Even if the coalition achieves limited tactical successes, the Taliban will quickly replace the fighters it loses, and it can easily target the "traitors." These coalition tactics are not new and have never worked before. Why does the White House think they'll work now, with the insurgency stronger than ever?

Washington's gravest error, however, is its manifest lack of interest in shoring up the Afghan central government. Whatever the official word about fighting corruption, the international coalition is bypassing Kabul in favor of local strong-men, on whom it is growing more and more dependent for protection and logistics, especially in the south. Worse, the population rejects the militias, which are often brutal toward civilians, and do little to increase support for Karzai or the coalition.

The so-called "tribal policy" has been tried before in the eastern provinces, with no results, between 2006 and 2008, when the Taliban were much weaker than they are today. Even inside the Afghan legal system, the coalition is choosing its partners at a local level, skirting the political center. NATO's Provincial Reconstruction Teams act with total independence from Kabul, which is often not even informed of their actions.

The big problem the London conference failed to tackle is the Karzai government's lack of credibility with the Afghan people, especially since the flawed election of August 2009. Working with essentially the same networks, and more and more alienated from Washington -- which has repeatedly and unceremoniously criticized him in public -- Karzai will not deliver on his political reforms.

And the return of the old Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom the coalition opposes but who supported Karzai in the latest election, signals that Karzai will become even more independent from Washington. As Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal have said, the U.S. cannot shoot its way to victory in Afghanistan, so with no prospect of building Afghan institutions for the foreseeable future, the coalition has less of an exit strategy each day.

The real game now is negotiating with the Taliban leadership in Quetta. Karzai and the Afghan government are trying to open some negotiations with the head of the Afghan Taliban Mullah Omar, as is the U.N., through special representative Kai Eide. The U.S. should also pursue direct negotiations, as it has very direct interests in a larger agreement with the Taliban -- namely, a guarantee that al Qaeda does not return to Afghanistan. If the U.S. cannot reach such a resolution, who else will?

The London conference, sadly, gave little confidence that NATO is moving any closer to its objectives in Afghanistan. A few days before leaders met here, we learned that the Afghan National Army and Police forces will be substantially increased: from 97,000 to 171,000, and 94,000 to 160,000, respectively, by the end of 2011. The security of a growing number of provinces will also come under the responsibility of the Afghan army after 2011. It all sounds nice on paper, but these policies are not remotely realistic, and as Anand Gopal reported in the Christian Science Monitor in April 2009, they have all been tried and found wanting already.

The number of ANA troops who are capable of combat is about 60,000, and turnover is reported to be as high as 25 percent per year. Given the insufficient number of Western military trainers, NATO will almost certainly miss its target numbers for the ANA. The key problem is training officers, which requires a lot of time the coalition doesn't have. And it is extremely difficult to build an army when the structures of the state are crumbling around it on all sides.

U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has become almost bewilderingly self-destructive. The White House has constantly slapped Hamid Karzai in public, demanding that he make reforms that would be difficult at the best of times, while performing an end run around him that diminishes his standing even further.

At this rate, when it withdraws, Washington may leave nothing behind in Afghanistan but warring factions -- a mess not unlike the one that precipitated the Taliban's rise to power in the first place.

Afghanistan: US-Karzai Conflict Over Taliban Talks?

Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service, who has been following this story closely, reviews recent events and analyses the current situation:

On the surface, it would seem unlikely that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presides over a politically feeble government and is highly dependent on the U.S. military presence and economic assistance, would defy the United States on the issue of peace negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban insurgency.

But a long-simmering conflict between Karzai and key officials of the Barack Obama administration over that issue came to a head at last week's London Conference, when the Afghan president refused to heed U.S. signals to back off his proposal to invite the Taliban leaders to participate in a nationwide peace conference.

Afghanistan-Pakistan: Talks with Taliban, Top Insurgent Dead?, Fighting Intensifies

The peace negotiations issue is imbedded in a deeper conflict over U.S. war strategy, which has provoked broad anger and increasing suspicions of U.S. motives among Afghans, including Karzai himself.

The current source of tension is Karzai's proposal, first made last November, to invite Taliban leaders - including Mullah Omar - to a national "Loya Jirga" or "Grand Council" meeting aimed at achieving a peace agreement.


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded by pressing Karzai to demand far-reaching concessions from the Taliban in advance of the meeting. Clinton's conditions on Taliban participation included renunciation of al Qaeda and of violence and acceptance of the Afghan constitution, conditions that would make it impossible for leaders of the insurgency to agree if they are interpreted literally.

On Nov. 23, Clinton said the United States had "urged caution and real standards that are expected to be met by anyone who is engaged in these conversations, so that whatever process there is can actually further the stability and peace of Afghanistan, not undermine it."

Instead, Karzai publicly asked the United States to join in talks with the Taliban. Following the issuance of a statement by Mullah Omar on Nov. 25 that implied the Taliban would negotiate if they did not have to give up their demand for withdrawal of foreign troops, Karzai said there was an "urgent need" for negotiations with the Taliban.

In the face of what he knew was U.S. hostility to the idea, Karzai announced on Dec. 3, "Personally, I would definitely talk to Mullah Omar. Whatever it takes to bring peace to Afghanistan I, as Afghan president, will do it."

But he added, "I am also aware that it cannot be done by me alone without the backing of the international community." That is the phrase Karzai uses to refer to the United States and its NATO allies.

A few days later, Karzai appeared to give way to U.S. pressure against unconditional talks. He said he wanted to negotiate with Mullah Omar, "provided he renounces violence, provided all connections to al Qaeda and to terrorist networks are cut off and denounced and renounced."

But Karzai announced at the London Conference that he would invite the leadership of the Taliban to a Loya Jirga without specifying that they would have to meet specific conditions in advance of the meeting.

The Obama administration again reacted with scarcely-disguised disapproval. The State Department spokesman repeated the U.S. line that "anyone who wants to reconcile and play a more constructive role in Afghanistan's future must accept the constitution, renounce violence and publicly break with extremist groups such as al Qaeda."

Clinton pointedly avoided endorsing the invitation and did not use the word "reconciliation", which is the term in U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine reserved for negotiations with insurgent leaders. Those conditions for participation in negotiations would represent demands for concessions by the Taliban on all key issues before negotiations even begin.

Karzai showed no signs of turning back from his intention to meet with the Taliban without conditions. Two days after the London Conference, Karzai announced that he would convene the peace conference in less than six weeks.

And in an implicit response to U.S. demands for conditions on participation in negotiations, Karzai called on the Taliban not to pose the condition that U.S. troops must be removed before negotiations could begin.

In fact, a statement by Mullah Omar on Nov. 25 did not say foreign troops had to be withdrawn before peace talks could begin, but only that the Taliban would not participate in "negotiations which prolongs and legitimises the invader's military presence..."

Significantly, the Taliban spokesman did not dismiss Karzai's invitation out of hand, as might have been expected, but announced that the Taliban would make a decision "soon" on attending the conference.

The growing divergence of U.S. and Karzai's policy toward the Taliban appears to be imbedded in a wider clash over U.S. war policy.

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