Hard to be more upbeat
Author and adventurer Bartle Bull, who has spent his life in many dangerous, awful, and interesting places, has an incredibly upbeat report about Iraq. He says he saw the seeds of these positive findings as early as three years ago. His report comes as Iraqi civilian and US military deaths hit a new low, and another al Qaeda treasure trove of killers and documents is uncovered. Are we seeing an aberration or a trend? WSJ:
These outlines of Iraqi politics duly asserted themselves over the last three years, providing the basis for the victory that is happening today. The Baathist Sunnis continued to kill to get back what they used to have, until accepting this past summer that they had suffered an historic defeat in a Battle of Baghdad of their own calamitous making. Shiite Iraq has arrived to stay, and today the drawing rooms of Baghdad’s dealmakers are full of Baathists, cap in hand, terrified of the Shiite death squads they inspired and hungry for their slice of the coming oil pie. Meanwhile the Wahhabis, mostly foreigners, answering to a higher power and blind to selfish thoughts of wealth and survival, continue to kill but find themselves increasingly unwanted.
A third element of the Sunni violence was tribal. This was particularly prevalent in Anbar province in western Iraq, where Sunni tribes have traditionally prospered from banditry on the Damascus road. Fighting outsiders is an old habit in Iraq’s Sunni bandit country. So is making money, and Anbar today, as Iraqis prepare to gorge themselves at the oil trough, is one of the safer places in Iraq.
It was always clear that Iraq’s Sunni tribes would eventually take up arms against the Saudis, Jordanians and Syrians in their midst who were banning smoking, killing whisky vendors, blowing up their utilities and oil infrastructure, executing sheikhs of ancient tribes, and forcibly marrying local girls to “emirs” of the absurd Islamic State of Iraq. Anbar’s tribal leaders and Baathists were going to be bought off eventually, either directly or by the indirect promise of owning a chunk of what will be a very rich country.
At least 14,000 Anbari young men have joined the state security services since the surge began in February and Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, started reaching out to the chiefs. Now the insurgency has decamped to other provinces, where it does not want to be. Beating them there will be even easier, as is proving to be the case in Diyala.
As for Mr. Sadr…He is the leader of the country’s biggest popular movement. Today, controlling five major ministries and about 30 members of Parliament (one of the two largest blocs in the government) he underwrites the pluralist project in Iraq as he has done since late 2004.
So–with the Sunni insurgency defeated, the Shiite nationalists inside the government, breakup and true civil war avoided, Iran a pest at worst, regional sectarian disruption a fantasy and a White House that will not be forced into declarations of defeat by three IEDs a day–the main questions of Iraqi politics have been resolved. Despite the huge prices paid for these victories, the resolutions have mostly been for the best.
Mr. Bull has a new book, Babylon, coming out next year. Apparently this is among the current conclusions: “Thousands of Americans and their allies have died helping to give Iraqis this opportunity. We have shown enormous skill and bravery in helping them fight their enemies, and immeasurable goodwill in sending our young men to protect Iraqi schools, mosques and polling booths. The reason we and Iraqis are winning this war together is that its purpose is to give Iraqis what they want.” Let’s hope so.