Fallujah: the new world "order"
I can't add much to what everyone is learning, thinking, and feeling these days about Fallujah.
I just note that the current massive incursion of foreign (that is, US) fighters into the city is a tragedy and a travesty against all the norms of reason and international law.
The Guardian, citing NPR, is reporting some large-scale desertions among the Iraqi forces who were supposed to be "spearheading", or at least accompanying, the US assailants:
- One Iraqi battalion shrunk from over 500 men to 170 over the past two weeks - with 255 members quitting over the weekend, the [NPR] correspondent said.
Juan Cole reports that the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni party that has been in the interim government so far, is now threatening to quit it. Also, Moqtada Sadr's people and the (Sunni) Association of Muslim Scholars have both called on the members of the "Iraqi" forces to desert rather than join the operation against Fallujah.
If the "Iraqi" forces have indeed now lost two-thirds of that battalion-- and who knows what has happened with other battalions?-- it strikes me that once again, as already happened in April and July, the US-Allawist insistence on pushing forward with a militaristic assault has resulted in setting back the project to (re-)constitute a new national force, as well as to (re-)constitute a new national political order.
It is quite possible that the only people left in the "Iraqi" battalions after the big desertions, are Kurds. What will that do for inter-ethnic entente in the country, I wonder?
... It seems clear to me that the timing of the assault has been calibrated to fall between last week's US elections and the opening November 22 of the "Iraqi reconstruction conference" in Sharm al-Sheikh. I guess the Americans wanted to have the worst of the assault all over and "mopped up" before the conference opens.
But who on earth knows what will happen between now and then? Violence will always beget more violence.
Timing-wise, the synchronicity between these extremely tragic affairs in Iraq and Arafat's long demise in Paris is also very significant...
It is, indeed, possible, that the leaders from G-8 countries, and Iraq and all its neighbors, and representatives of the UN, the Arab league, and the Islamic Conference who will be meeting together on Nov. 22-23 in Sharm al-Sheikh will be there at the same time that Arafat needs a big funeral.
It is anyway inconceivable that those particular world leaders will be meeting there at that time and not discussing the Palestinian issue with great gravity...
Note that in contrast to the big, hastily-convened, "anti-terrorism" conference held in Sharm al-Sheikh in spring 1996, Israel will not be present at this one, but Syria will be...
Anyway, no time to pursue this further now. Watch this space.
As I argued in another thread, one of the saddest things about the situation in Iraq is that the Badrists (though not the Sadrists) are fighting alongside the US and its puppet regime. I would like to think this is a subtle infiltration tactic ; but whatever it is, the Qutbists (i.e. the Sunni guerrillas, excuse my jargon) are now shooting and blowing up the Badrist 'collaborators', as well as the US troops. Sadr was unable to get the SCIRI leaders to boycott the occupation army : so much for Shi'a solidarity. On the other hand, this has not stopped the occupiers from claiming that Iranians are stoking the resistance, which means the Shi'a are getting the worst of both worlds politically, if not at this stage militarily.
Is this still the case, or are the Badr/SCIRI leaders beginning to turn against the occupation and cease to allow their cadres to fight within it? If they took a Sadrist line (ie. refused to cooperate with the occupation forces and the puppet Allawi regime) there would be a great chorus of attacks on Iran for being responsible, but nevertheless it would be a clarification of the issues.
Iran is in any case much less vulnerable than Western propaganda makes out. China is actively developing its links with Iran. Russia would have to choose once and for all which side it was on vis-a-vis Iran if a real crisis arose, as opposed to the sort of 'phony war' we have now between Iran and the West.
p.s. - don't all jump down my throat about "the Qutbists (i.e. the Sunni guerrillas, excuse my jargon)" - I am not trying to suggest that all Sunni guerrillas are Qutbists, only that the most aggressive ones are, the ones who positively crow about the number of Badrists they have killed (see Jihad Unspun or Free Arab Voice for many examples of this crowing).
For those who don't know, Qutbists are followers of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), and may be described as like Wahhabis but lacking in loyalty to or respect for the Saudi regime and its clerics.
I am constantly reading in the media that we cannot leave Iraq because it will fall into civil war. Yet by any definition of the term, Iraq IS in a civil war! what else can you call it. The very use of the term 'insurgent' suggests civil war!
We have taken sides in this civil war. In fact, we started the civil war. And the Iraqi's on our side have now been warned what will happen to them once America leaves.
I honestly believe the administration is getting the Iraq they have wanted all along. Every single decision they have made leads to this conclusion. They want an Iraq so ridden with poverty, debt, anarchy, anger and hatred that it wont threaten Isreal for many generations. They will be to busy tearing themselves apart.
Rowan, this administration has the same EXACT plan for Iran. If we attacked Iran tomorrow absolutely no country would defend them. They would be totally on their own. The ONLY limit to our aggression is our stretched military. But our Air force and Navy are completely available! You can destroy a country with air power easier than you can with ground forces.
Look for that next year.
I never understood the whole "Cauldronization of the Middle East" thing. It seemed more a fantasy than a plan. After all, if the lynchpin of the world if oil, and oil gets disrupted by infighting within and between countries in the region, how can that EVER be good for Israel? Of course, in considering where the whole post Fallujah road is taking us all, Issues like Sanity seem more and more.....quaint.
Helena, I was just thinking today that perhaps many of the remaining Iraqi guardsmen are Kurdish. You are the first person I've read who has said it aloud. Is there any reporting being done on this?
Deb, I haven't seen any such reporting yet but am looking out for it.
It's true that as oil supply is tightened by what the media call 'unrest', oil profits RISE.
However, there is a reductio ad absurdum in the idea that the USA and its satraps can simply bomb the entire planet into submission. What will happen is that the sources of dollar support will dry up, and in fact this is already happening. Not only Asian banks but European ones too will simply move out of dollars.
The role of the Kurds as Western auxiliaries is a fait accompli, and has been for decades. It is the Shi'a who are the strategic variable.
Deb, it is a given that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqis who are willing to kill their fellow Iraqis for the Americans are Kurds. I say this with a very heavy heart as my name is Kurdish, some of the most fiercely Iraqi people I know are Kurds, and my best friend is a Kurd.
What I have heard, for what it is worth, from Kurdish sources, is that many if not most of those Kurds who are fighting on the side of the Americans are not Peshmerga, but are from a group of tribes who live in a particular, somewhat isolated part of Kurdistan. These tribes have, according to my sources (and for whatever it is worth), a history of "loyalty" to whomever is in the position of power at any given moment. Thus, they were "loyal" to the British colonial authorities, to the King, and now to the Americans. This is somewhat plausible, as there WERE Kurdish forces who were very loyal to the British and to the King (which was pretty much the same thing) and who had no hesitation about killing their fellow Iraqis on their behalf.
I cannot verify the stories I have been hearing, but they are certainly worth looking into if someone has the means to do so.
Two classic mechanisms which I tend to assume operate vis-a-vis the Iraqi Kurds are these :
(1) There have for a long time been two main Iraqi Kurdish factions, the Barzani and Talibani ones. The advantage of this from the Western point of view is that if either faction leans towards an alliance with Iran the other faction can be reinforced against it.
(2) In addition there is the Qutbist 'Ansar Al Islam', which although not pro-Saddam but fanatically against the man, is also hostile to Kurds who are not Qutbists too. This has been an extremely useful little show, being accused of hosting Zarqawi, holding chemical weapons, backing Saddam, backing Iran, and probably of being an Illuminati front too for all I know (joke). A perfect thorn in the side of Kurdistan, in fact.
By the way, does anyone know the origin of the useful term 'hezbi-contras'?
p.s. Scott Ritter has an article mentioning the Kurdish soldiers, here:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/718AE278-58EE-431F-8045-5A3F505021B8.htm
Hierarchy of Iraqis
GOOD Iraqis:
Sunnis (except those serving in the Interim Government)
al-SADRistas
MIXED (Rooting for them but too embarrassed to publicy support) Iraqis:
al-Zarqawites
Saddam loyalists
Ansar al-Islamites
Common Criminals (subcontractors for the insurgents)
BAD Iraqis:
Interim Governmet supporters
Kurds (except for Ansar al Islam)
Sistani's followers (especially when they are insisting upon early elections).
Hierarchy of Iraqis
GOOD Iraqis:
Sunnis (except those serving in the Interim Government)
al-SADRistas
MIXED (Rooting for them but too embarrassed to publicy support) Iraqis:
al-Zarqawites
Saddam loyalists
Ansar al-Islamites
Common Criminals (subcontractors for the insurgents)
BAD Iraqis:
Interim Governmet supporters
Kurds (except for Ansar al Islam)
Sistani's followers (especially when they are insisting upon early elections).
oops...sorry for the double post...my bad.
hmmm... you need to be clearer about whose tabloid logic it is you're criticising. My own analysis is entirely unconcerned with 'good' and 'bad'. Sistani is in a position I find somewhat questionable in its own terms : he is on record as arguing that what is necessary is to hang on until fair elections can occur 'after the Americans have left', even if not before. But will they ever 'leave', in the sense he means? I doubt it : they may physically retire to the back seats, when they feel that the puppet administration and its electoral machinery are guaranteed to secure their continued control of oil and security issues, but only as long as they think this is the case. If they think it has ceased to be the case, they will either orchestrate a putsch or physically occupy all the centres of government all over again. Sistani presumably knows this, and is being disingenuous, and this is not to his advantage or to anyone else's. 'Good' doesn't enter into it from my point of view.
Sistani is a canny player. The "occupation" doesn't bother him as long as America plays the useful role of midwifing a transition to Shiite (likely Islamist - on the Turkish model) rule. Of course, he has to give lip service to his opposition to the destruction and death in Falluja and other places in the Sunni Triangle. But he knows that those Sunni nests must be cleared if his goal is to be achieved. The result is a rhetorical balancing act but strategically he needs the Americans just now, yet gains little by public admitting it.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. Voltaire (1694 - 1778)