BAGHDAD -- That pink-o, liberal workers' rag DefenseNews (thanks to Robert for the link!), also known as a trade publication for defense contractors, published a depressing piece on Iraq calling the situation here an "undeclared civil war." I think it's time we journalists faced up that this is, indeed the case.
I remember many discussions over the past few months with colleagues as to whether this place is in civil war yet or not, but I think this article lays out the argument for it pretty well:
'Things Are Getting Worse By the Day'
Undeclared Iraq Civil War Signals Worse to Come
5 Sept 05By Riad Kahwaji, Dubai
"The current sectarian and ethnic killings in Iraq are actually the beginning of a civil war," said Georges Sada, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and the executive secretary of the Iraq Institute for Peace. "Sectarian divisions in Iraq have started back in the '90s, which prepared the ground for the civil war spreading today."
Iraq's long-feared civil war is escalating and will engulf the entire country unless ethnic leaders take drastic steps, according to officials and analysts.
Kahwaji notes that the Americans have downplayed deep cultural differences between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds despite the increase in sectarian and ethnic killings since April 2003. And while Amb. Zalmay Khalilzad and military commanders now acknowledge the possibility of civil war, none of them will label the violence going on right now as such.
Hundreds have been killed for being Sunni, Shi'ite or, less often, Kurdish. Entire neighborhoods of Baghdad are being cleansed (paid link, sorry. c'mon, guys!). Sunni leaders accuse the government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shi'ite from the Dawa Party, of allowing the Badr militia to settle scores and eliminate enemies by using the security apparatus of the state. (Badr controls the Interior Ministry and its dreaded commando units.)
And yet, I've been reluctant to call it a civil war because I just haven't been able to. I felt unsure and perhaps a little unwilling to see that it's gone as far as it has. And others say the existence of a political process means it's not yet a civil war. I now think that's simplistic. After watching this place for two years, I'm now prepared to call this thing a civil war, aligning myself squarely with the America-haters at DefenseNews.
"For over a year now, there has not been a day in which Iraq did not witness sectarian killings where the victims were either Shiite, Sunni or Kurds," said Ghassan Attiyah, chairman of the Baghdad-based Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy. "I'm not talking here about random shooting. I am talking about targeting people individually on the roads and killing them for being from one group or another."
In the article, Qassem Jaafar, a Doha, Qatar-based Middle East security analyst, listed the symptoms of a civil war:
- A weak central government with incompetent security apparatus.
- Spread of sectarian and ethnic killings.
- Existence of armed sectarian and ethnic militias.
- High threat perception among the sectarian and ethnic groups of the country.
- Insistence of each group on its demands.
- Foreign interference and support to feuding groups.
All of these elements are present now in Iraq, and the constitution process didn't help matters.
Trumpeted by Khalilzad as a "national compact," the constitution is instead a greater source of division, and privately the Americans are barely stomaching it. The problem is not so much the content as is the process. It's not a bad document, as written, and the contradictions within -- with the exception of federalism -- can probably all be finessed. But the process of drafting it, which largely excluded the Sunnis, deepened distrust among the various groups. The Sunnis, who didn't participate in January elections and who have themselves to blame for not having legitimately elected leaders to sit on the panel, distrust the Shi'ites and Kurds as making a power grab. The Shi'ites and Kurds, however, never trusted the Sunnis who did show up to help draft the charter, saying they weren't elected so who knows who they represent. (Both fair enough points, I suppose, but not very helpful ones for bridging divides.)
"If the constitution is not amended to meet Sunni demands and goes as-is to the referendum, then moderate Sunni figures would lose ground to the radical forces and an all-out civil war will spread to each corner of the country," Attiyah said.[UPDATE: It was amended slightly, but whether it will be enough to assuage Sunnis remains to be seen. The hard core rejectionists obviously will never vote for it.]
Jaafar agreed. "The U.S. is facing a serious dilemma in Iraq, where its Shiite and Kurdish allies have gone out on their own pushing for their own agendas that do not seem to meet with Washington's vision of a future Iraq," he said.
"The Shiites, for example, have been pushing for an Iranian-style Islamic republic, which would not suit U.S. interests," while "the Kurdish secessionist drive is growing stronger every day, which is getting Turkey and other neighboring states more worried."
The question is what is Washington going to do? They're in a no-win situation, Jaafar says, neither able to withdraw nor able to maintain Iraq's unity and establish a democratic Iraq as a model for neighboring countries. Attiyah believes the U.S. might choose to sacrifice Iraq's unity for its own goals.
"I believe some U.S. officials have started entertaining the idea of dividing Iraq on ethnic and sectarian lines to ensure stability and facilitate their exit after establishing some military bases in the oil-rich Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq," Attiyah said. "In this case, Washington would blame the Sunnis and other neighboring states like Iran and Syria for the breakup of the country."A dismembered Iraq with various militias fighting over the corpse on top of 20 percent of the world's oil. It's a nightmare scenario that looks more more likely by the day, and the current civil war is just a smolder compared to the inferno to come.
Technorati Tags: Baghdad, Iraq, Middle East, News and Politics
Maybe the country should be split up. What would be the problem with that?
http://canadianspectator.ca/articles/beekeepers.html Bush and his Gang of Mad beekeepers / March 2003 / Canadian Spectator “Kurdish nationalists have long experience with betrayals and alliances of convenience, and have first hand experience of American perfidy. After an invasion, they will defend themselves from Turkish incursions. They will not lose the autonomy they have gained over the last eleven years in Northern Iraq. This not only puts them at odds with US ally Turkey, it may also put them at odds with the US itself, even with US wishes that they participate in indigenous actions against Iraqi forces. A complication of post-invasion Iraq will likely be the demand that US commanders disarm the Kurds.
Northern Iraq could easily become contested, terrain involving partisan warfare between Turks, Kurds of three factions, the Iranians, and the US, with Syrians based groups also throwing in their three pennorth. This would amount to the devolution of Northern Iraq, a key strategic region, into another Afghanistan or Somalia.
….Think of the grief of millions after this slaughter, the conversion of that grief into rage, combine that with the internecine struggles based on historical ethnic fault lines (that the Ba’ath Party has repressed), and we begin to appreciate the explosive complexity of post-invasion Iraq. This invasion will also ignite the well financed fires of Arab and Muslim (of all shades, hues and fealties) humiliation and anger. Either in the sands of the desert or on city streets, far from this war, the body bags will build up.
Predictable and predicted. But Bush cannot find the sign marked EXIT … meanwhile back in the Deep South
Not for nothing — and not that this changes the actual realities on the ground one bit — but I have a tough time calling somehing a civil war just because it meets certain criteria some academic drew up. Life is too complex and messy for that.
I guess I’d call it a civil war if there are two or more sides trying to kill each other, and THEY are all calling it a civil war.
They would just call it ‘jihad’, and do things in the name of Allah. Nobody but politicians care what it’s called. But, the fact that these ethnic/religious factions would fight eachother for control has always been a given. They can’t live in peace and harmony, they have no idea how to and there are too many external forces which won’t allow it.
Here’s a link to the DefenseNews article Chris.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/message/60549
BTW, DefenseNews is owned by Gannett Corp.
Whats curious to me is what role the constitution plays in this evolution toward “civil war”. As I understand it, the writing of the constitution evolved from more or less a “socialist” document that would preserve Iraqi control over natural& manufacturing assets, which would be distributed equally among the population — into a document that cow-tows to US neo-liberal “interests”, preserving the Bremmer (#39) edict of total privitization of all Iraqi assets. This evolution also includes the evolution from Iraqi sovereignity over the disposition of foreign military on Iraqi soil to one most unclear about that disposition (a move clearly sympathetic to US long range plans). So, what I’m thinking is could’nt the so called civil war just as easily be defined as a rejection of the US interests, which obviously are being caved into by the Shia& Kurd political puppetry — as it can be defined on secretarian grounds? After all, the current Shia/Kurd arrangement of complicity with US interests (in exchange for armed back-up) does entail the rather monsterous proposition of allowing the countrys assets to be sold out of reach (to the average Iraqi) and far down the river.
The British just seems to have “succeeded” with a major screw-up i Basra which reeks black ops. Are they trying to instill sectrian hatred in order to prevent a socialist constitution? That is at least the what it looks like at a glance:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/20/iraq.main/index.html
“The official said two unknown gunmen in full Arabic dress began firing on civilians in central Basra, wounding several, including a traffic police officer. There were no fatalities, the official said.
The two gunmen fled the scene but were captured and taken in for questioning, admitting they were British Marines carrying out a “special security task,” the official said.”
Side note — if you’re going to link to articles which require payment up front in order to read (such as the Time piece on ethnic cleansing), it might be nice to say so. Even better would be to try to find a free alternate source if one is available.
Fiat Lux— Good point. Fixed.
Johannes,
It was imperative for the Brits to have recovered this pair of operatives before they spilled the beans on what was obviously a dirty misssion.
“Trumpeted by Khalilzad as a ‘national compact,’ the constitution is instead a greater source of division…”
It hurts to say this to someone who is doing such a great job of reporting (and damn, Michael Ware ain’t bad either), but I told you so:
http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1832
(P.S. Can I join everyone else in asking WTF is “the wedding community”?)
I fear you’re right, Christopher. Unfortunately your information pretty much matches what I’m told by my inlaws in Baghdad. Things are getting worse. Last week my father in law went for a stroll in his neighbourhood (Doura). He made a chat with a young man whom he knew. And then walked on down the street. After having walked a few hundred meters he hears gunshots and turns around. The young man he had been talking to was being shot, execution style, by some men in a car with machineguns. Stuff like this happens all the time. Life in Iraq under Saddam was real bad. But it may get even worse now….
duh, ok here we go again. duh, “is it or is it not civil war?” why all this frat boy drivel you put on the net?
hang out with dahr jamail or at least riverbend. the shoes might not be as highly polished as yours, but egads, at least they have something original to communicate.
U (Posted by: at September 21, 2005 06:46 PM), you could be right; it’s getting a bit boring and uninteresting around here.
But some sites, it makes you feel sick and uncomfortable while reading it (the last blog of CA may give such a feeling) may be it telling some facts but still don’t like that feeling. You know why it makes me feel sick…those sites… Because they are simply ignoring the majority! Yes, we are all in this damn bloody chaos together, but we shouldn’t ignore the majority.
If anyone wants to read only the minority opinions because that will make him happy, telling him that he is right and understanding the story well, then go ahead.
Now, let me see if I am getting it in the right way. When the extremists -Jordanian, Syrian, Saudis..etc.(getting logistical support from some people by their dirty money)- are in Latifiyah, killing the innocent Iraqi citizens for being Shias according to their names in civil ID, and when -unknown groups- spreading rumour leading to such a catastrophe of Al-Ayema bridge, or the explosion in Kadhimyah (Where many victims were Sunni workers not only Shias, that you can notice from the traditional black labels Iraqi families used to scatter in their neighborhoods to announce the death of one of their sons, as many names were Al-Dulaimy a famous Sunni tribe).
And when the Iranian (or parties backed by Iran) are killing and arresting Sunnis, for being ex-Baathis or any kind of reasons. Or even the same above gang disguised as NG or IPs grabbing young Sunnis from their houses and execute them.
All that means, Iraq now is in a civil war!
Issaam Al-Rawi (Muslims Scholar Association) declared that they are absolutely against murdering of any civilian, even American or British, so how come they aren’t against the killing of their own people for being Shias! he mentioned clearly that Al-Zarqawi or whoever else doesn’t represent the Sunnis. Salih Al-Mutliq also had a similar announcement, but he indicated that he still isn’t quite sure of the existing of Al-Zarqawi!
Meanwhile, Al-Sistani declared that even if half of the Iraqi Shias will be slay, there will be no civil war in Iraq, i.e. there will be no Fatwa from his side for such a thing.
If there is/will be a civil war in Iraq, it must be mentioned that it was triggered by non-Iraqis or some people who lost their power/life with the end of the ex-regime and they are supported/supplied by some countries intelligence.
The last writer makes a good point. It would be interesting, Chris, to hear information about who is behind the terrorist attacks going on in Iraq. Are they foreigners? Are they Sunnis? Are they Shiites? Who is financing them? Why even talk of a constitution if everyone has already settled on the fact that the country is in a civil war? I’ll also add that the symptoms you cite from Qassem Jaafar could easily be used to describe the current situation in several other countries in Latin America and Africa ( I’ll grant that it certainly it seems Iraq is more dramatic and critical). And if it is in fact a civil war, what is the proper response…to encourage it? To find someone to blame? To complain about failed policies? To hold a debate at the UN? It seems at this point that the only viable path is to go ahead formulating the constitution. The real solution for Iraq must come from the Iraqis, and not from foreigners, be they fanatic “insurgents” or Americans. The only thing the U.S. military can do in the meantime is try to help hold the violence to a minimum.
heh- having something like the US military to “hold the violence to a minimum” sounds like using lighter fluid to hold a raging fire to a minimum.
Well, another country messed up by the US. Just hope the US will get one day the final bill for this.
“Well, another country messed up by the US” Iraq was allready messed up well before the US took over. Saddam used, but didn’t realy need the US to turn the country into a killing field.
As an Iraqi medical doctor argued: “Irak was critically ill and dying. We needed an operation badly.”
It just leaves me wondering if this patient will survive…..
USA…..just get the fuck out of Iraq.
Look, what Iraq has is a war of resistance against a fucked up occupation, an occupation that always intended to flame sectarian conflict if it helped them to occupy. An occupation that endorsed weak federalism in order to get what it wants. Al Sadr and the Shia Sadrists and the Sunni are fighting a last ditch effort to defeat this abomination. More power to them.
Reports circulating suggest that Russell Crowe, in the event of further arrests, is to be denied his right to a phone call on the grounds that a phone in the actor’s hand constitutes an unacceptable risk to police!
@kodia
Then spend some time to study how Saddam came to power and look at the pictures where you can see Saddam & Rumsfeld. If the US doesn’t learn to stay home one day the world will teach them a lesson. Time will come for the final bill, let’s just hope it is as high as others had to pay already.
Sadly, all this started as a currency war on 11/2000 as Saddam announced he would only sell OIL in euro’s not dollars anymore. This placed the USA currency at high risk for default (not to be known as the world reserve currency). Note data from IMF site of all the countries that have DUMPED the dollar in last 4 years. Note China is a basket currency NOW. First barrel shipped out of Iraq last year was done in DOLLARS. Bush’s puppets made the switch. Further, the entire issues from Afghanistan to Iraq to IRAN are all over oil / currency. Caspian Sea ; BTC Pipeline; TAPS Pipeline ; IRAN’s new oil exchange to open march 2006 to compete with NYMEX. Further, every barrel of OIL made in Iraq is now shipped into USA. Check IMF site and IMPORT data;to USA via IEA . All of this has be able to be completed relative to most american’s can’t even handle their own 401k accounts let alone figure out the marriage of indices. Bush has been able to HIDE behind his wizard of oz iraq Democracy curtain for the past 4 years meanwhile the truth is above. Many traders have been waiting for the curtains to be opened. But when? And by whom? Mean while Uncle Al is screaming over these deficits……why cause the entire financial system is getting ready to BLOW! He knows; Volvcker knows; Robert Rubin knowns; and many others…..tick tick tick…
Skype_fan: “Then spend some time to study how Saddam came to power” I did. The US may have had something to do with it, but certainly not everything. Saddam was primarily home-grown, fitting into a long line of harsh dictators. Read the history books. Then you might also see what’s with the name ‘Kodia’ (in english often spelled as Gudia).
And while I fully agree the US should learn not to stick their nose in somebody else’s business, (not only the US, for that matter…), they should at least first clean up the mess the made. Powell was right: ‘If you break it you own it’.
Commodore Luke Perry at September 24, 2005 06:17 PM: “What Iraq has is a war of resistance against a fucked up occupation”
I don’t want to be rude, sorry, don’t want to bring you down or grab the joy of the patriotic scene in your mind about Iraq.
But, excuse me; are you in Iraq so you can define the current situation?
A daily slaughter of Iraqis in the name of resisting the occupation or in the name of putting down the insurgency, that what I am seeing.
Shall we make a comparison how many operations are carrying out against the MNF and how many are against the Iraqi civilians? How many Iraqi civilians are slaying on daily basis comparing with the MNF losses?
The Sadrist –should I say the the Muqtadists- (and C’mon, not all the Sunnis, try to be realistic) want to take the armed fight as a choice to get the American out of Iraq (by using what? the old rusty Russian weapons or the Iranian guns, so we’ll fight for the Iranians and the Syrians now!), as everyone want them out, but is that the effective way to get the US army out of Iraq?…It’s just looks hopeless and anarchic. Violent leads to violent…we are now trapped in this hideous circle which was started by the ex-regime and the US.
Apparently, It’s seems that this is the excuse the American using to stay in Iraq! The continued disturbance which is eventually caused by the so called resistance!
skype_fan:
“The pictures where you can see Saddam & Rumsfeld”
Should we talk about one of the favourite “Conspiracy Theory” in Iraq…
There are talks that Khalid Jamal Abdul Nasser (Abdul-Nasser of Egypt), mentioned in his biography that one day while he was visiting his father in his office he saw Saddam and G.Bush there, that’s was during the 60s, some Iraqi believe that this is the period when Saddam had been recruited by the CIA. The news papers head lines during the 80s was (The US looking for a host in the Arabian/Parisian -u pick one- Gulf) but it looks that they were working on this case since a long period, considering the Iranian threats against them and there friends in Israel. Eventually, Saddam did open the door for USA to Iraq. Meanwhile the current scenario (and for the last 30 years) is the worse; it’s a real bad gory movie with used scenes and bad actors with illogical story. Unbelievable and disgusting.
It’s no secret that Saddam had dealings with many countries, the U.S., Russia, France and Germany, among others, so to hold the U.S. solely responsible for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq is stretching things.
Let’s face it…the U.S. is held responsible for problems all over the globe whether it takes action or not. The same people who criticize the U.S. for intervening in Iraq would have criticized its entering WWI and WWII too late. What is to be said of the 10 years that the U.S. waited to go into Iraq, spending tax dollars to enforce “no-fly zones” there while Saddam negotiated oil shipments with people at the U.N.?
To Whisky Tango Foxtrot, if you really want to see lighter fluid on a raging fire, let the U.S. leave Iraq now. Nobody would like that short-term solution better than U.S. citizens, who have seen the country called on to put out fires every time they erupt around the globe. My point was that the U.S. military presence can only be a temporary measure.
To Currency Trader, maybe it really was better that Saddam and a few folks at the U.N. controlled the oil supplies coming out of Iraq. Maybe that really was the true path to world prosperity and equitable distribution of resources…It sounds like you’re taking a libertarian position that democracy is of little importance as long as we have free markets. Things don’t work like that. If you need proof, take a look at the history of free markets in Iran and China over the last 50 years.
I’m just writing to you on this as I couldn’t find your email address anywhere else on the website and I wanted to ask (although since you must get hundreds of emails I don’t entirely expect a reply). Anyway, I was just wondering whether there’s a journalists mailing list of the bulletin-board type - where people can ask questions and share information as regards Iraq? I only ask because there was one for Afghanistan, and I’m trying to find a driver to take me between Baghdad and Erbil later on in the end of November etc etc.
At any rate, if you could let me know (either about a driver, or about a mailing list) I’d be very grateful.
Alex
I don’t know if it’s just me, but September 11,2005 came and went just like any other day this year. It surprised me when I remembered the significance of that day a week or so after it had gone by. I for one sympathized and grieved with America for the victims of 911, but after all the excesses and blunders perpetrated in the name of crushing terrorism, I have grown numb and deaf to the destruction and devastation that has followed. The sadness and loss I felt for the few thousand 911 victims have been washed away by the blood of the tens of thousands of casualties in Iraq and other parts of the world.
Hey Chris, just dropping a few link about the happinings in the ME
The below link is about “Iraq insurgents guilty of war crimes” Placing blame on brutal elements that are doing the fighting, in the name of allah, is extrordinary . MSM appears to be embarrassed to release such a report. Maybe it would appear to be religiously biased against a wahibi sect I suppose. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02313037.htm
hey Nobody minds the fact the civil war has roots hundreds of years old, roots deeper than the US military presence that has only been a blink of an eye. But in todays short term memory, sound byte , time lapse world, knee jerk results are expected, like a 30 minute pizza delivery guarentee. That aint gonna happen. The US presence has lifted a yoke placed by the ruling minority upon 80 % of the Iraqi population.
So, what kind of minority the Iraqi Sunnis ( 20 % ) want to be. Do they want to be the Palestinians and spend the next 100 years trying to mobilise the Arab-Muslim world to reverse history and restore their “right” to rule Iraq as a minority ?
Let the vote take its course.Let them figure out what must be done. Maybe the Middle East ( according to European media reports ) is beyond redemption. Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighbourhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the 20 % in Iraq intend to be.
?
Chris, you know this Michael J. Totten guy ?
http://www.michaeltotten.com/
Here are some of his words, about fellow journalists, of recent memory ;
……Samir Kassir was a journalist, an activist in the Movement of the Democratic Left, a most articulate opponent of Syrian occupation, and a most articulate proponent of freedom for people in Syria. I met him three times when I was here in April. Shortly after I went home to the States, the goons killed him with a car bomb.
May Chidiac is alive. But she’s an almost-martyr in Lebanon, too, and I’m seeing her portrait around in quite a few places. She, like Samir, is an anti-Syrian journalist. And she, like Samir, was car bombed.
She’s lucky to be alive. A bomb was placed directly under the driver’s seat of her car. Somehow she “only” lost one leg below her knee.
The first time I came to Beirut the martyr portraits (of Rafik Hariri) made me feel better. I felt safe here seeing omnipresent photos of a decent man who did good instead of portraits of a tyrant.
It’s different now. Middle Eastern martyrs are supposed to be dead presidents, dead guerilla fighters, and dead terrorists. They aren’t supposed to be people I know. They aren’t supposed to be people like me. I cannot – not yet – walk past photos of May and Samir without shuddering.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at 12:52 AM …. …..
I found this Journalist / blogger located in Bierut. Seems like Lebanon is getting interesting but it remains under the US MSM radar. Unless massive bomb blasts get reported of course.
You stay safe in your sandbox Chris
BTW I read a comment somewhere about an Imam that was expelled from Great Britain, sent back to his home country …..of Lebanon… … not long after he returned, seems a rash of bombings occured in Beirut. Probably nothing.
Everybody is all worked up over the constitution. They put it forth as the defining moment for Iraq. Bull poopie.
It is but the opening volley in a struggle to control which political process the moderate sunni arab will choose. The real event is the January elections. That is the event in which the greater sunni arab community will choose to join the process or make a defacto declaration of war.
The reason we are being led to believe that the referendum is THE event is beause of who we are listening to. The current leaders who have control of the various podiums and media attentions are sectarian in nature pursuing sectarian goals. Each of them increases their chances of election by creating divides and securing their base constitutency. Hence, each of them is strengthened by the calls for war. What we are not being told is that many Iraqis support unification candidates. I believe I read somewhere that 52% of polled Iraqis now support Allawi over the sectarians. In the press the unification candidates have no podium and their voice gets shouted down. It will not be the shouting that determines Iraq’s future and drives them towards or away from civil war. It will be the ballot box. It will be the acceptance or rejection of divisive leaders pursuing sectarian agandas by the voters.
So don’t get your panties in a wad. The real fork in the road is months away.
oh, by the way … civil war? well, duh. It’s been a slow motion civil war ever since the baathi got kicked out of office. The question isn’t whether or not it’s a civil war, the question is whether or not it will shrink or grow. and, yes, of course it will grow in advance of elections. We will not know until spring if the speed control has been turned up or down.