I’m going to try hard from now on to avoid debating whether the war with Iraq was a mistake, and to focus on the question of what should be done from here onwards.
I’ve argued for some months that the most plausible option for a stable allocation of power in Iraq is a de facto two-state solution in which the Kurds get effective autonomy and a share of the oil and the rest of Iraq gets a government which will be dominated by the Shiites. With luck, they won’t try and settle too many scores and will recognise the need to keep much of the Sunni professional elite on side. The government would be Islamist, but not a direct theocracy like Iran.
The key to all this, almost certainly, is Ayatollah Sistani. He’s not the person I’d want running my country (or more precisely acting as the eminence grise for its day-to-day rulers), but he seems like the only plausible choice who wouldn’t be an absolute disaster.
Thus far, the occupation government has done its best to preclude the emergence of a government dominated by followers of Sistani, most obviously by trying to put off elections as long as possible. The assumption has been that, given time, a secular pro-American government will emerge (Chalabhi being the favoured leader). This approach is not absolutely hopeless[1]. Still it’s a long shot at this stage, and policy in matters of life and death shouldn’t be based on long shots.
More importantly, with the apparent blowback of Bremer’s decision to take on Sadr (the latest in a series of disastrous misjudgements on his part), there’s now a big danger that Sistani will either be outflanked by Shi’ite radicals unwilling to accept his quietist position or will feel compelled to advocate overt resistance to the Americans and particularly to the “government” to be installed on June 30, which, on current indications, will lack both legitimacy (being nominated by the Americans) and effective power (since the Americans have announced that they will maintain military control indefinitely). Something needs to be done soon to prevent this.
The urgent requirement is to dump both Bremer and Chalabi and try to find a path that can shift Sistani’s position from passive resistance to active support. This almost certainly entails a commitment to direct elections as soon as possible and an agreement that once an elected government has taken power it should have actual sovereignty, including control over its own military and the right decide what foreign forces if any, are wanted in Iraq. Ideally, the US should bind itself to this course by subordinating its command to the UN (or, failing that, some other international body such as NATO) as soon as the June 30 deadline is reached
Since I can’t see the US Administration following a course of action remotely like this except under extreme pressure, I think it’s appropriate for allied governments to drop the “we broke it, we own it” line and announce that they will not continue to support the occupation beyond June 30 in the absence of a change of policy.
I should say that I’m not claiming that this strategy is guaranteed to work at all, let alone to work well. But I can’t see a better alternative. And, of course, I didn’t support the policies that got us (the world and the Iraqis) here in the first place.
fn1. As is suggested by this report, which notes the success of secular candidates while also making it clear that a reasonably democratic interim government could have been elected using the approach proposed by Sistani and rejected by Bremer, based on using ration books for voter ID.
John Quiggin 
Pr Q mournfully concludes:
Spoken like a true dismal scientist!
The grand talk that certain bloggers and con-artists made about democracy-promotion was a form of Western-democratic wish-fulfillment projected onto Arab despotic cultures. But the reality is that democracy cannot be forced top-down onto the Arabs, particularly those Arab states that are riven by sectarian and ethic disputes. It must grow, if at all, from the bottom-up – perhaps after a long period of civility.
It is dispiriting to realise that a properly border-contained, province-partitioned, weapons-inspected, rights-monitored and sanctions-lifted Saddam Hussein dictatorship was probably the most workable and beneficial medium term political solution for most Iraqis. One wonders if the implications of this dismal conclusion diminish Pr Q’s fond hopes that progressive nurture might ameliorate the ills of human society.
That other great dismal scientist of the blogosphere, Steve Sailer, has the Hobbesian Alpha-Male-ish Arabic political culture summed up in a nutshell:
I prefer a three state option. Otherwise, I can’t see why the sunni rebels are not going to continue a civil war against the shiite government.
Horsehocks – until the Iraqis learn the idea of personal responsibility for one’s actions, respect for contrary opinion, respect for others to hold those intellectual goals, nothing will change.
The goal which I point to is capitalism.
John, prove me wrong.
Louis, you may well be right, though Iraqis are far too diverse a group to be lumped together in the way you implicitly do.
I assume, given your pessimistic view of the prospects, that you regard the war as a mistake.
Q – you do not assume that at all. Which is the very reason you said you did. 🙂 Cheeky bugger…
It’s broke and the west, and australia, can’t fix it. We can just hope there will not be too much blood spilled after the invaders leave.
The shiites are the natural majority even if they are not a bloc per se.
History usually shows the oppressed becoming the oppressors and I am not sure the Shiites will settle for anything less than complete power.
Neither the Sunnis nor the Kurds ( nor the 4m christians) want this as they can never wield power given the voting blocs.
On the other hand it is likely neither the Kurds nor the Sunnis would like a ‘democratic’ Government interfering with them.
This is leaving both AQ and Iran out of the equation.
No matter what happens now the US and the Coalition will almost certainly be losers.
The moves by Sadr and the potential alignment with al Sistani described at Surfdom seem to indicate a political situation that changes faster than Bremer and Co.can keep up with.
We can be pretty sure of these things: A draconian crackdown will just make things worse; a UN legitemised peacekeeping force will take too long to set-up, and will not carry any moral authority amongst the Iraqi’s anyway; Sticking to the current plan is not working, the Iraqis are too fractured and recalcitrant to let it work.
John Q’s and John H’s plan, that of splitting the country into ethnic areas will require the use of large scale coalition forces, impossible logistics and incomprehensible Iraqi tribal politics. It will almost certainly entail massive bloodletting like in Bosnia as the ethinic refugees move to their new land.
So nothing’s going to work. It’s a fiasco as Latham says. The reality that needs to be faced is that there will most likely be chaos, and so the best thing to do is for the US to swallow its pride, and withdraw into the deserts, let the civil war begin if it must, (or maybe with luck it will let the Iraqi’s feel some sense of victory, and organise themselves if they can) and then try to secure a deal (or re-engage militarily) with the eventual leaders or victors when it becomes apparent who they are.
It is not possible for the US to make a dignified exit. A smart Administration will realise this, and be prepared to sacrifice their dignity as collateral damage sustained in the least worse exit strategy.
The Sunni resistance is organised around well trained army fighters who can take out a dozen US troops at a time.
Al Sadr has been underestimated and has taken control of the centres of the southern cities. This is consistent with stated options at the start of the war when Hussein was organising the resistance.
The cities are defensible against superior firepower with guerilla war and street to street fighting. Trapping the US forces between the cities and the desert is an obvious tactic.
A hot summer will soon be coming into play and the US has limited reserves. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US is routed by August.
Destruction of one of the holy Shiite mosques will provide an excuse for Iran to enter the war. Certainly the risk of uniting the Arab world into action against the US grows as the situation worsens.
THe US is demoralised and confused, the blind giant is dancing his last drunken waltz(apologies to Stephen Sewell). The Iraqi people are currently on a high and it will take a catastrophically brutal response to puncture their willingness to die for liberation at the moment.
You would have to say that the Shiites do not really show terrific political smarts, whatever the other merits of their culture. They are the majority in Iraq, they have co-religionists next door in Iran and in Saudi Arabia. Yet they still let the Suunis walk all over them for centuries.
Now the Americans have handed Iraq to the Shiites on a plate and yet they still shun the serve. Saddam Hussein deposed, his army disbanded, a democratic electoral system under construction that guarantees them dominance.
What do they do? A significant minority of crooks and thugs start an uprising against their liberators. And the rest either cant be bothered to knock the Sadr-ites out or have a sneaking sympathy with the uprisers, whom they should regards as fools at best, knaves at worst.
Meanwhile the number one social priority is the mass participation in an orgy of grief over some character who got topped about 1,000 years ago.
This is as good a shot as any that a large Arab country is going to get at democracy. And they look like they are going to blow it. The AMeericans will give the whole show up for a bad job and quit in disgust.
Then Iraq will resume it’s traditional political cycle of sectarian feuding, anarchy and strong-man ruling.
What a bloody waste.
The greatest asset of the Canberra Times is its cartoonist, Pryor. Today we have a Presidential briefing on Iraq (with a tiny JHoward in Bush’s lap) staring at a wall-map of Iraq. Iraq is drawn in the shape of a giant pear.
Rex is almost right. The trick that could work is, you do not give control to the majority in any area, but rather to a strong group that isn’t quite strong enough. Then you keep your own forces in cantonments as back up to keep the local proxies in power. The proxies are dependent enough that they need a period of transition themselves, which you use to allow for a slow movement or acceptance of remaining smaller minorities, maybe on the “optant” principle that was used with success for the Danes of Schleswig-Holstein after 1864 (but was abused for the Transylvanian minorities remaining in Rumania after 1918).
Essentially, you do this over three generations for Kurdistan, under neighbouring countries’ condominium; you do the same for the south turning it into a greater Kuwait (the one generation path to regular democracy is no longer available); and you do allow the middle to degenerate into a warlord zone, a “bled es-siba” where the law’s writ does not run (yes, I know that is Moroccan dialect), but you enforce a low level of armament and have regular incursions and safety zones to let minorities have a way out. That leaves them controlled but not occupied, and can be done on the cheap if certain tricks are used to make it self financing (like the British presence in old Hyderabad, for instance).
P.M. Lawrence: I’m mostly in agreement with you except I don’t see how the coalition can give control to anyone. The control has to be assumed by those Iraqis on the ground who have the power or tribal approval to take it.
To elaborate on what I said before. The only way that the US can make the best of this situation is to think laterally, and not behave like a superpower, who wishes to maintain its image of itself. If the US is willing to sacrifice its ego it might just win in the end.
It the Administration were to publicly admit they are wrong, issue an humble apology and withdraw, it would completely wrongfoot its opposition. Although this may encourage civil war, It would force al Sistani’s hand. If al Sistani wants to maintain peace and maintain his leadership over the moderate majority, then he would need to come to terms with the only entity capable of reigning in the extremists, The US. In this way the US (or UN) gets invited in by al Sistani to help maintain order. But the US has to act now. It can’t escalate and then later adopt this plan, its too late by then.
“P.M. Lawrence: I’m mostly in agreement with you except I don’t see how the coalition can give control to anyone.”
Here’s how the trick works. It does not involve giving power to those who don’t need help, it involves giving it to those who will need occasional support. We know it works, becuase it’s an old trick. So, e.g., you put the less powerful of the Kurdish groups in charge (or you put the Sunni in charge of the Shiites, in the old days).
Outside intervention needs to be re-applied from time to time, e.g. overthrowing Rashid Ali or invading Suez, but without that need you don’t get leverage. What you buy is the ability to avoid continual intervention (since day by day work is done by the precarious and nervous locals). It works like the Hiller or Bell systems of making helicopters more stable, so they don’t wear the pilots out; the equipment starts working like a bicycle, needing regular small corrections which are entirely manageable.
It’s no use for instant democracy, of course. That would mean going directly to the end situation, with no growing in. the techniques of empire are well known, but not instantaneous. Read Sir Lionel Curtis and Sir Reginald Coupland (the latters 1930s speech to the Empire Club of Canada is now on the internet, and shows an amusing contrast between how well the British ran things and what the USA has made of things since Eisenhower’s day).
Its clear then that the gruff old mutton chop bearded pragmatists from the days of the British Raj are the only ones who can save the situation. Pity they’re all dead. We could learn from them.
Maybe this was a part of the US strategy? Indeed, I’ve never heard of the secular sunnis, the wahabists and the shi’ites getting along so well! The US has succeeded in briding the gaps between different muslim sects and creating Iraqi unity!
Maybe their best strategy is to overtly fight the ‘insergents’ while also funding them and letting them win a few battles. As the ‘war of independence’ goes on, the Iraqi side would develop into a single entity with a leadership structure (this would require the US intentionally not trying to win). The US could then let themselves be pushed back and eventually retreat – leaving the new united Iraqi entity to take over. 🙂
JH has actually described how British police are (or at any rate used to be) trained to handle domestic disputes – take a side, then cause the couple to form a common front, then retreat tactically.
But I dount if the USA is that deep or that lucky.
Dynamic duo?
John Quiggin posted the other day about available options for stabilising Iraq and suggested that Ayatollah Sistani was the key figure: The urgent requirement is to dump both Bremer and Chalabi and try to find a path that can shift…