The degree to which Sunni insurgent groups have turned against al Qaeda and are working with US troops and Iraqi security forces is an underreported story in the war. Approximately 25,000 Sunni insurgents from groups such as the 1920s Revolution Brigades, the Jaysh Mohammed, and the Islamic Army of Iraq have turned against al Qaeda at the behest of their tribal leaders. “Tribe members and others who agree to support Iraq’s government have to sign a pledge form and consent to biometric scans of their fingerprints and retinas so their data can be kept on file,” USA Today reported on August 6. “They are also vetted by the Iraqi government.”
The strategy of turning the tribes and insurgent groups has been successful in Anbar, and is being applied inside Baghdad, Diyala, Salahadin, Ninewa, and Babil province. This is reconciliation at the micro level. Al Qaeda is threatened by this development and is actively targeting members of groups that have turned on them.
Lots more at the link.
(Via Newsbeat1)
Related –
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security.
“I believe that the decision to invade Iraq and the post-invasion management of that country were among the largest foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. I voted against them, and I still think they were the right votes,” Baird said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.
“But we’re on the ground now. We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work.”
Notice how large a role Iran is playing in this insurgency; Iran doesn’t want a democratic state next to it – and besides, Iran has imperial ambitions over Iran.
Notice also how Al Qaeda and Islamic fascism is changing. In the ME, it is less ideological, ie, the supremacy of Sharia law etc, and more openly focused on political and economic power. I suspect that the various tribes are realizing that political and economic success will no longer be possible for only one dominant tribe but requires collaboration (democracy)- and that the Islamic fascist/Al Qaeda mode of tribalism won’t succeed.
I think we’ll see Al Qaeda, in the ME, moving more and more into the criminal economic realm, as it is politically marginalized. It will lose its ideological focus (the purity of fundamentalist Islam) and become primarily criminal. After all, once you are living as an Al Qaeda militant, funded by Al Qaeda/Iran etc, then, you can’t become a shopkeeper. But what do you do if the funds dry up and if the society you are attacking rejects you? You become a criminal. Iraq will, on its own, fight that element. It won’t need the US for that.
But, Iran still has to be confronted – not for its Islamic fundamentalism, which is primarily a front for its imperialist ambitions in the ME – but for those imperialist ambitions. It wants to control the ME – and the only nation preventing that at the moment – is the US.
In the West, I suspect that Islamic fascism will move into a primarily ideological stance of increasingly belligerant demands for ‘multicultural rights’. That is, Islamic fascism in the west is cut off from major economic and political agendas and is reduced to cultural agendas. The West has to confront and strongly resist this – and insist on a collaborative assimilation.
The next stage – over the next 10-20 years, is the modernization of the ME, which has to move out of its tribalism past, and its oil economy, into a modern democratic mode and modern service oriented economy.
What started the transformation? The US invasion of Iraq – the right thing to do. Without that invasion, which moved Islamic fascism back into the ME – as it was spreading out into the West – who knows what would have happened. But islamic fascism is ‘rooted’ in the stifling tribalism of the ME – and that’s what had to be confronted. The US invasion of Iraq – moved it right back to the ME.
DemocRats back pedaling from their America Defeated! solo routine. Daily Kos probably going into meltdown mode, eh?
Defeat is a pretty hard sell, I guess somebody over there at ‘Rat Central finally figured that out.
Man Joe leiberman is looking better and better all the time with his stance on the war in Iraq
I am from Canada and I thought it was the right thing to do. and now it’s starting to pay off.
just wish besides FOX news that there was another Conservative news station on TV especially in Canada all we have are CTV and CBC and CBC is called the comunist Broadcast Corporation. there so left it’s not funny I stopped watching them about 5 yrs ago, and CTV is a bit better not much though. they only tell of the bad things that happens in IRQ. I sure am glad to have the americans as our best friends and good neighbours.
“…a strategic interest in making this work.”
Spoken like someone that wants to be re-elected. Iraq is the keystone to the ME region-to have a strong democratic ally in that geographic position will affect the activities of its’ nefarious neighbours. Obviously this is something Iran’s mullahs despise and are actively fighting. They don’t want the reality of an american supported united Iraq on their border.
Of course it was all a big mistake based on lies to invade the genocidal dictatorship in the first place…
A very faulty analysis, ET. What the invasion of Iraq did was to fuel the fires of Islamic fundamentalism by giving credence to Bin Laden’s claim that the U.S. was fighting a war against Islam. It provided a training ground for militants the likes of which they could have only dreamed of. The repercussions of this will be felt for decades. Witness the subsequent spread of Jihadism to Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan, as well as its regeneration in the Phillippines, Algeria and Afghanistan.
While the signs are encouraging, the war in Iraq is still far from won. A great deal more time will be required, with more loss of soldiers and financial burden on the U.S. treasury.
It’s critical that the U.S. prevail in order to show the Jihadists that they cannot win. An early departure would be an enormous propaganda victory for al-Qaeda and disastrous for international security.
Trying to modernize the ME through invasion is foolish in the extreme. There are much better and less costly ways to accomplish this. War should always be the absolute last resort.
A very faulty analysis, belisarius.
There is no way that Islamic fascism would have died down, on its own, without that US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent freeing of ONE state in the ME, from tribalism and enabling the development of non-tribalism or democracy.
Islamic fascism began with the emergence of an industrial economy, based solely around oil, within nations that were politically organized around the tribalism of primitive peasant agriculture.
The conflict between the economic and political realms – led to Islamic fascism. And, the tribal powers in the ME managed to externalize this fascism by defining the cause of the problems in the ME (lack of a middle class, dictatorship) – as due to the West. Rather than due to their own tribal political structure that denied economic and political power to the people. The spread of jihadism to the western world was going on LONG before Iraq.
What the Iraq war did – was to move this externalization of the problem – back to the ME. And we are seeing the results, where jihadism is collapsing as a military and political agenda, and islamic fascism, in the west, is becoming a cultural agenda.
The US should gradually leave – as Iraq becomes stronger and more capable of itself, and, as Islamic fascism in the ME becomes more of a criminal rather than a political agenda.
Really? There are better ways to modernize the ME dictatorships rather than by an invasion? No kidding? Kindly tell us how you would change a tribal infrastructure, kept in place by vicious military dictatorships, and theological inquisitions? Tell us how you would have ‘negotiated’ with the Taliban. Tell us how you would have enabled the Afghan women to go to school, under Taliban rule. Tell us how you would have a parliament under Saddam Hussein. Hmmm?
ET,
Afghanistan was invaded because forces based there had attacked the U.S., and they refused to hand them over. That is a legitimate casus belli.
Invading a sovereign nation because you don’t like their form of government is not.
The defeat of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan had left the world jihadists demoralized and on the run. Most of the world supported the U.S. at this point. What the subsequent invasion of Iraq did was to revitalize the jihadis and cause the U.S. to lose the support of countries and people around the world. They lost the moral high ground.
I fully support the need for victory in Iraq today, understanding the consequences of defeat.
But in the larger picture the invasion of Iraq in 2003 made the problem of Islamic Fascism much worse in the world.
Sunnis, huh?
Saddam was part of the Sunni minority in Iraq.
Strange place.
I support the troops and the mission to a tee, but it is too soon to be getting our hopes up.
These people thrive on treachery and deceit. They will make and break agreements without regard to who they are making them with. Just as they turn on each other, they won’t hesitate to turn on us. The democracy they need must be put in place and kept working for a few years before they believe in it and see for themselves that it is a better way to live than the way they have been. But it is encouraging.
ET…on an unrelated note…here is a little clip you might like on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltSiCI0z36Q&mode=related&search
Have a good Sunday, all.
I disagree, belisarius.
First, the invasion of Iraq was not because the US didn’t like their form of gov’t. Don’t trivialize tribalism and its result – islamic fascism. I don’t think that you understand Islamic fascism.
You can’t confine Islamic fascism to Afghanistan. Islamic fascism is not a ‘nation’ but an ideology – and is found in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt etc. That is, it emerges within a tribal political mode -a mode that is dangerously dysfunctional in populations in the multimillions and industrial economies.
The enemy, again, is Islamic fascism. Not ‘a nation’ – which was the mode of conflict in the 19th century.
Al Qaeda forces had attacked the US long before 9/11; Clinton refused to deal with it. But 9/11 was – the end, and Bush dealt with it. Again, al Qaeda is not a ‘nation’ but an ideology, and it emerges within dysfunctional tribalism. To fight and deal with Al Qaeda – you have to defeat tribalism.
Furthermore – Iraq was in violation of the UN’s sanctions on WMD and was busily arming itself with them. But, the basic need to invade Iraq was to defeat tribalism. Again, the ‘root cause’ of Islamic fascism – is tribalism. If you enable political and economic power to move out of the control of a dominant tribe and into the hands of the people (a middle class)..then, tribalism dissipates – and Al Qaeda, as I said, will marginalize and move into a criminal element.
No, Islamic fascism is not a larger but a lesser problem in the world today. In the West, it is moving into the cultural zone (we want no piggy banks)..and the West has to reject these demands and insist on a collaborative assimilation.
In the ME, it is moving into the criminal economic level – abandoning its hopes for political power and a ‘return to the purity of pure Islam’.
So- the US invasion of Iraq was absolutely right, because, again, the root of Islamic fascism is those tribal dictators of the ME. Get that to crumble – and islamic fascism crumbles.
Now – we have to deal with Iran’s imperialist ambitions…and the ME states have to also be involved in that. They don’t want to be run by Iran.
ET
Why are you conflating the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq? I thought that only the leftoids indulged in that trick.
I believed, at the time, that the invasion of Iraq was madness and I took a lot of crap for vigorously opposing any possible Canadian participation. (Remember that 52% of Canadians were-gung ho when it was expected to be a walkover.) Unfortunately, you can’t turn back the clock. America is trapped and, as Belasarius says above “It’s critical that the U.S. prevail in order to show the Jihadists that they cannot win. An early departure would be an enormous propaganda victory for al-Qaeda and disastrous for international security.”
Trouble is, I’m not sure that the U.S. can win, because:
a) there has never been a willingness or ability to commit the amount of force required for a decisive victory;
c)the American public has tired of the venture and wants out.
One hell of a situation because the ramnifications of a Vietnam-style defeat are infinitely worse than the Vietnam outcome. Picture the world 20 years from now with Iranian hegemony in the ME and the nutty ayatollahs still in power.
The government of Bush Senior understood realpolitik well enough to leave Iraq intact and Hussein in power. Pity that Junior didn’t have advisors of similar calibre.
No, zog – I disagree on all your points.
You must be kidding – leave Hussein in power? Why? That’s like standing by and watching Darfur self-massacre its own people. That’s what the UN is doing. Do you agree?
No, you don’t seem to understand the nature of Islamic fascism; it has nothing to do with nations but with a political mode – tribalism. It’s found in afghanistan and iraq..and..
The term ‘US victory’ which suggests a military victory doesn’t mean anything. It isn’t a military victory but a political and economic victory. The ME has to move out of tribalism or Islamic fascism will move, again, out into the West.
Again, islamic fascism is a political and economic mode- what will defeat it is a political and economic mode. And that’s exactly what the US did – it took out two tribal dictatorships, in Afghanistan and Iraq – to enable democracy. This is what must be encouraged and strengthened.
Joe Leiberman should run for President as an independent.
ET, here is a scenario for you. After 9/11, US, NATO, UN coalition puts massive military resources into Afghanistan, pulling no punches and destroying AQ and Taliban, including all their forces near the border. The amount of troops in Iraq could have done the job nicely. This would have sent message to terrorists and those nations who support and protect them – it will not be tolerated. I can’t see Saddam wanting to get involved with AQ this way. Now US can be blamed for rise of Islamism (it isn’t, AQ is doing that, along with their proxies, Hez etc), and loony left can lump Iraq and Afghan into one uniting theme: US oil imperialism and militarism. Bush should have made it clear to the world that US would not tolerate attacks from foreign countries and would unhesitatingly invade and destroy (ie-kill) the responsible governments (ie their leaders – make sure it’s personal), along with the terrorists.
WRT moving ME out of tribalism mode, why should we do that. I have a better idea, let’s deprive them of MONEY. US and Canada could boycott ME oil and let Europe, Japan and Russia secure their own sources. Combine that with emerging non-carbon technologies, and we have succeeded in choking the monkey on our back.
Unfortunately, propaganda does work and AQ et al have been master, easily sucking in the looney left to their cause, mostly because of Iraq invasion. Without that invasion, the anti-US Chonmsky and Ward Churchill moonbats would have been totally isolated on the fringe of politics. Bush let them into the mainstream.
Having said all that, US must finish Iraq job, to give the people of Iraq the means to make their own decisions. If they choose Islamism over democracy, so be it. We must deter them, not ignore them as Clinton did. Pre-emption was an unnecessary doctrine change – deterrence with teeth (are you listening Bubba?) and containment with a clear message that response to attacks would be massive and deadly.
Instead, they have their causis belli, proof of US imperialism, securing their oil resources, along with a slew of conspiracy theories that have moved from the fringe into the mainstream. Clinton and Bush (both) screwd up the AQ and Iraq file, bigtime.
What the subsequent invasion of Iraq did was to revitalize the jihadis and cause the U.S. to lose the support of countries and people around the world.
Belisarius – The support we lost weren’t from the people that count. The English speaking world for the most part aligned with the US. So did many in Eastern Europe. Anti-American lefties entrenched in Europe chose to triangulate the situation, no surprise.
The jihadis were always in place with 40 years of establishing funding and networks. They’ve acted out prior to 9/11 at their convenience, they alone chose the location and date with no resistance. In Iraq we are forcing them to a designated location and date, eating up their money and manpower, may they pay dearly. A dead terrorist, make that collectively in the hundreds and thousands, is a good thing.
It was really a matter of time and attrition before the Sunnis figured out that resistance to the new political seachange in Iraq was futile.
You are so right, past the point of agreement or disagreement on whether Iraq was the right thing to do, leaving now isn’t an option.
Iran really is a different kettle of fish. It has a very young population that is fed up with the current leadership and control by the mullahs. It really is about money not religion, religion is only the cover to obtain and maintain control. Apparently there are numerous factions at work against the government but I just wonder if the US has the smarts to use, help and supply them. According to my friend/business acquaintance and his friends the US is not helping because they are afraid of backing the wrong horse. Seems a rather stupid tack to take when there isn’t much to loose and what could be much worse.
It was quite an experience listening to 5 Iranian’s talk about their homeland for over 4 hours. One thing was unanimous and came across very clearly to me, it isn’t about religion it’s about money and power.
shamrock – I’m surprised at you; usually you have a better analysis.
No, taking out the Taliban would have done nothing to show ‘Al Qaeda’ that the US wouldn’t put up with attacks. Nothing. Because the CAUSE of islamic fascism is not a nation but a political and economic mode – tribalism. Which operates in the ME. It is tribalism that has to be taken out – and if we don’t – then Islamic fascism remains. That’s why Iraq’s tribal dictator had to be taken out…
Boycott ME oil? Not yet possible.Impossible – and it’s that oil money that funded tribalism.
No, Bush didn’t lead the left into the Islamic fascist world. Islamic fascism is a utopian ideology and that’s the home base of all leftists – a utopian socialism. Same ideology, quite frankly – a notion of ‘when we are all purified of evil and sin, we will all be happy’. Same thing.
Clinton screwed up Iraq. Bush did the right thing. And we’ll see the results more and more as Islamic fascism moved into criminality in the ME, and into cultural multiculturalism in the West.
ET,
What did Iraq and Hussein have to do with Islamic Fascism? Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. None of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. Hussein and his Baath government were secular Arab nationalists, not Islamists.
Are you advocating the invasion of all ME countries in order to install democracies as the answer to jihadism?
Zog says “when it was expected to be a walkover”
The battle of Iraq was a walkover. Saddam was out in 6 weeks.
But now this isn’t simply the War in Iraq it’s the War on Terror. The enemy is Islamofascism. The front line has found a locus point around Baghdad where the US is not fighting Iraq it is fighting Iran and the AQ. But finally the locals in Iraq are now starting to fight the AQ too, the surge is working and the Democrats are backtracking.
There are several fronts and several groups to fight… the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. Canada as part of NATO happened to choose Afghanistan to fight to remove the Taliban and to help chase the AQ into Pakistan. But then the AQ also moved into Iraq where Iran funds and supports it because Iran has imperialist designs on the whole ME and must be stopped.
We’re fighting state and non-state actors who are using tribal, medieval Islamofascism as their rally cry.
But we’re winning. They can’t win. They are tribal, be they Islamists or Baathists; they are medieval tribal. To some extent even our own “multiculturalism” promotes tribalism, which has to stop; we need tolerant, competitive, diversity not multiculturalism.
Much of the ME doesn’t even consist of real historical countries, they are essentially just lines in the sand drawn by the West after WW I and II. The resulting regimes are incompetent and can’t even get their own oil out of the ground without the West (which worked nicely for the West for awhile).
But the ME tyrannies hate us because our government systems separate Mosque and State and treat women equal to men and no longer sanction tribal groups such as the 20% Baathist parties to rule 80% of the population. Saddam and the Mullahs are all part of the same warped medieval approach to governance which won’t work in a globally connected economy. The good news is that the stage has been set with Western boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan wedging in imperialist Iran. The ME tribes now have to decide who’s the real enemy and who do they want as partners to protect themselves. It will be a mess for decades, but better there than here.
No, ET, my analysis is far more sound than yours; in fact, you are emeshed in utopian thinking yourself. You don’t democratize at gunpoint, giving hostile forces (UN, far left, et) an excuse to change the subject. Our doctrine should be about deterring future attacks. Setting up a bloodbath in Iraq is not the answer, it gives common cause to our enemies, and makes ludicrous views such as those held by Jack Layton appear moderate and mainstream.
I strongly disagree that stage is set for end of tribalism; yes, by all means help where there is a reasonably popular will to ask for our help. I haven’t seen that yet.
You seem alone in you anaysis; that should be a signal to you to reconsider the soundness of your approach.
If Muslims insist on killing each other, then it’s unlikely we will be able to stop them. We must disentangle ourselves from the Sunni/Shiite war. Depriving them of oil revenues will be a first step. Also, the reality is that when US leaves Iraq, they will still be a mess. They were before the invasion and will likely be after.
Fortify yourself from attack, and make it clear aggression will be met swiftly, forcefully and brutally. End this utopian idea that ME will achieve democracy by force. It won’t happen overnight, no matter what doctrine is chosen.
belisaurius – Iraq and Hussein had a great deal to do with islamic fascism. The root cause of islamic fascism is tribalism – an outdated tribalism that, because it is maintained by military dictatorship in a population that has grown too large for tribalism – leads the population to fascism.
Islamic fascism is not confined to a nation but to a system – the system of tribalism. And Iraq and Hussein were a prime example of that.
nomdeblog- yes, multiculturalism promotes a cultural tribalism – and it’s very dangerous because it prevents collaboration and progress. It locks everyone into ‘their origins’ and ‘the way they were’. Why on earth are we insisting that people behave as they behaved 200, 500 years ago?
shamrock – no-one is democratizing at gunpoint. That’s a ridiculous statement. What happened is the release of a population from tribalism – and THEY moved into democracy. Why democracy? Because it is not a choice. There is only ONE political system possible in a multimillion population that is industrial – and that is one that empowers and enables a middle class. And only democracy does that, because it puts economic and political control into the hands of the majority.
No, belisaurius, you don’t have to invade all ME countries to move their systems out of tribalism; just one or two. The thing about a dysfunctional system – whether it’s tribalism or whatever – is that it reaches a ‘critical threshold stage’ when, if pushed, it can ‘flip’ and collapse. Tribalism in the ME should have reached that stage long ago, just because of its internal dysfunctions.
But, it was kept in place by dictatorships. So, you have to remove the dictatorships, and the system will ‘flip’ on its own.. Then, it goes through a phase of ‘in-between’ when the old system is fighting to retain its powers (tribalism). But, the population base is too large for tribalism, and it will move, inexorably, into democracy, ie, into empowering a middle class.
shamrock – the phase after the removal of a military dictatorship of tribalism, is a phase where tribalism will fight to retain itself as the dominant political mode. In this case, you will have tribes fighting tribes – which is what is happening in Iraq. Of course, in iraq, you also have neighbouring nations, iran, fighting for their own imperialist agendas.
But, the first phase after release from a dictatorship, is an internal fight that was repressed by the dictatorship. This should have happened LONG ago. Long ago – before the dictatorships…for these would have prevented the dictatorships..for democracy would have moved in. But, oil funded the dictatorships..and you had to remove the dictatorships first..and now, you have the internal fighting.
Actually, I’m not alone in my analysis – and I’ve spent over 30 years analyzing societal infrastructures and their dynamics.
I disagree that Iraq will be a mess when the US leaves; i think it will open itself up to science and progress. And, I think that Iran will move out of its current dictatorship – and into the same.
Again-there is no way that the ME is being ‘forced into democracy’. The US did not and has not ‘forced’ the ME into democracy.
What you don’t understand is the relation of population size to economic mode – and the relation of both these variables to political mode. They are linked. A large population can only be maintained by an industrial economy. And these two variables REQUIRE democracy as the political mode. It’s as simplistic as that – that’s the basic infrastructure.
The ME can’t retain tribalism, much as some of its old guard would like such utopianism. AFter all, like our socialist left, al Qaeda is utopian, and thinks that ‘if only’ we are ‘pure’, then, everything will be OK. And purity is defined as homogeneity. Everyone must be equal and similar in thought and mode.
But a complex system such as a society doesn’t operate that way – it requires gradients of power within the society – and a large population that is adaptive requires that the largest ratio has the economic and political power. Interestingly, a large population in the many hundreds of thousands that IS NOT adaptive and not changing, has the power within a small elite. But, a system taht is adaptive, has to be flexible- and that requires a large middle class. That – is democracy.
Nothing to do with guns and force and everything to do with organization of energy ratios.
ET – nice theories. Too bad they’re not supported by the facts. If Hussein and Iraq had a lot to do with Islamic Fascism then one would have expected to see an al-Qaeda presence prior to 2003 and Iraqis forming a significant part of the jihadist movement. Neither of these were the case.
Based on your criteria for invasion the more logical target would have been Saudi Arabia.
As for your academic theories concerning industrial economies, large populations and political structure – they are just exactly that: theories. You should be clear to state this rather than presenting them as fact.
one would have expected to see an al-Qaeda presence prior to 2003
Belisarius – the US, self-admittedly, had lousy intel in Iraq during the years before the invasion. Your assumption that ME thugs and their shadow dealings with whoever was of conveniece to them didn’t happen is a bit naive. Abu Nidal died in Baghdad. He was given asylum there when he was useful to Saddam. Who knows to whom Saddam placed phone calls or where he dropped a few bucks in a bank account.
The anti-Iraq war crowd loves to maintain that borders were never breeched by terrorists, they were isolated entities operating independent of many state sponsors nor as useful mercenaries when needed by a thug gov’t, and it defies commonsense. I don’t buy it.
Let’s agree that all ME terrorists agree with the objectives of other terrorists that attack the US and Israel and would assist if asked. Enough said.
belisarius – theories about the relation of population size to economy – and to political mode are hardly abstract nonentities. All you have to do is correlate the three variables – and it becomes obvious that, as theories, they are factually valid.
You simply don’t get it. Hussein wasn’t an agent WITH al Qaeda; and the reason al Qaeda and islamic fascism was externalized in the ME – into the West – was because of the military repression of the people by the dictators. So, naturally, you didn’t find it in the ME – because of those dictatorships. That’s the point I’ve made; that it was externalized to the West – rather than being focused in the ME where it should have been.
al Qaeda/Islamic fascism was able to take over Afghanistan because it had no infrastructure to prevent such a takeover.
Yes, I agree that Saudi Arabia would, on the surface, seem to be a good place to invade. So would Egypt after all, for it too was a breeding ground for fascism – but not if you want to destabilize the region and enable democracy to take root. Any of them – Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq – all of them were repressive tribal dictatorships that bred fascism. But, how would you destabilize tribalism in the region? Which one would be the one to fall first – and, like a domino – enable the population to move out of totalitarianism?
For that, you needed a regime that was in trouble with the world over its immediate open behaviour, not its hidden behaviour and that was Iraq – with its violation of WMD UN sanctions. That’s why it was Iraq. OK?
What Saddam and the Islamists shared was that they were both using tribalism to avoid democracy from taking place in the hell-hole regions of the ME. Also Iraq has oil which is money which can be used to fund terrorism and buy WMDs on a just in time inventory basis. Plus Saddam and his crazy kids were living breathing WMDs.
Democracy to Saddam or the Mullahs or bin Laden is like a Cross to a vampire. Democracy kills their totalitarian dominance over the tribes. Islam needs to reform because it perpetuates the cultures of tribalism.
The ME tribes would have just imploded in the normal course of growing populations and growing global interdependency in industrial economies. But oil funds in the hands of despots holds it together and instead of imploding inwards these cultures have exploded outwards … toward us … the WTC, the London Subway, Madrid etc.
Tribalism is being defeated in the ME and the resistance by the despots like Saddam or the Mullahs in Iran to this inevitable coming of democracy is not surprising. Because democracy means men and women will get to vote the despots out and voters will all be equal before the law and there will be separation of church and state. But this only happens with democracy which rejects tribalism.
None of this would matter if it we were dealing with the Viet Cong, we’d just leave and let them kill each other, like what happened the last time. But this time we have Islamists living amongst us and WMDs are as available and as low cost as iPods.
So it is in our interest to help remove despots that are propping up tribalism and who obviously resist democracy in the ME. Unlike poverty stricken Vietnam, the ME has the oil funds to cause a lot of damage throughout the West before their tribalism inevitably dies out.
Meanwhile we need to remove the utopian notion of the tribal ways of multiculturalism in our own ranks. We need to switch that notion to competitive diversity which tolerates weak cultures but does not promote them. Instead let Darwin do his work, let weak tribal cultures just die out as they compete within democracy and capitalism.
Penny – Abu Nidal died in Baghdad. He was given asylum there when he was useful to Saddam. Who knows to whom Saddam placed phone calls or where he dropped a few bucks in a bank account.
True enough. But Abu Nidal was an old school Palestinian terrorist, not an Islamist. He was associated with Fatah and the older socialist/nationalist terrorists sponsored by the Soviets. Saddam certainly supported Palestinian terrorists, but there is no evidence that he backed Islamists. Quite the contrary actually, as he viewed the Jihadists as posing a threat to his secular regime.
The CIA believes that Saddam’s intelligence service had meetings with al-Qaeda operatives prior to 9/11 to discuss cooperating against their mutual enemy – the U.S. Apparently nothing came of this, as they found themselves unable to agree on anything. Hussein was very suspicious of the jihadists. The only real connection happened just prior to the 2003 invasion when Saddam cloaked himself in the Islamic mantle and began allowing jihadists to enter Iraq to help fight the “infidels”.
ET – All you have to do is correlate the three variables – and it becomes obvious that, as theories, they are factually valid.
They are still only theories which you believe to be valid, not fact. As an aside, do you define China as a democracy? Russia?
ET – Hussein wasn’t an agent WITH al Qaeda; and the reason al Qaeda and islamic fascism was externalized in the ME – into the West – was because of the military repression of the people by the dictators.
Doesn’t make sense. There was no Iraqi presence in the Jihadist movements, so Hussein wasn’t externalizing anything. Your theories make more sense when applied to the tribal dictatorship that is undeniably Saudi Arabia (with its export of Wahhabism and the large number of Saudis in al-Qaeda, et al) but not Iraq.
As for the “invade one and they all fall like dominos” theory, I suppose that would depend upon the ultimate success of the enterprise. Certainly a strong, prosperous and democratic Iraq would be an excellent example for its neighbours to follow (and lets hope that is how it turns out).
On the other hand, Turkey is a Muslim ME country with a relatively strong democracy, but that doesn’t seem to have influenced similiar change in neighbouring countries (Syria, Iraq, Iran).
belisarius –
Naturally, Hussein wouldn’t support Islamists IF he considered they threatened his own dictatorship, but, if they were focused on the west – that was fine.
The fact that you don’t seem to know anything about the varieties of political structures, economic structures, population demographics and their correlations – isn’t something I can do anything about. No, they are not just theories – which you seem to think means ‘fiction’; they are analytic conclusions based on hard data – of political structures, economic systems, population demographics – and the correlations between them.
China is not yet a democracy but most certainly will be, as it is rapidly moving into a capitalist and industrial economy – and developing a middle class.
Russia is a democracy – albeit one that is struggling with its economy and its political mode.
Islamic fascism is not, as I keep repeating, a movement operating within a nation, but within a system – of dysfunctional tribalism. The choice of Iraq was – it was already ‘in the bad books of the UN/world’ for its refusals to stop WMD development.
Turkey is not the ME and was not operating in a tribal mode. It isn’t simply a copy-cat action, for that would mean that all the ME would have to do would be to copy the West. Or Turkey. That wont’ work. Turkey, again, was not tribal.
The system that must be changed is the tribal infrastructures. Therefore, you have to move in and change one/two. That was done – with Afghanistan (Taliban) and Iraq (Saddam). Then, the people there set up democracies. This two-step action will exert a tremendous pressure on the other tribal powers in the area. That’s the agenda – and it’s already happening.
No, they are not just theories…
Come on, you can’t be serious! Of course your “analytic conclusions” are just theories. I do happen to think they are mostly ivory-tower nonsense not borne out in the real world, but my real objection is your continuing statements of a particular socio-economic theory as hard fact and belief in it as justification for war.
Islamic fascism is not, as I keep repeating, a movement operating within a nation, but within a system – of dysfunctional tribalism.
Iraq had neither Islamic Fascism within its borders nor did it export it. If dysfunctional tribalism produces Islamic Fascism one would expect the opposite. Islamic Fascism arose out of religious extremism in countries which permitted the Wahhabi strain of Islam to be practiced.
Turkey, again, was not tribal.
Really? What was the Ottoman Empire, then? Modern, democratic (for the most part) and secular Turkey arose out of the ashes of the Ottomans. The Ottomans were a Turkish tribe. Using your rather generous definition of what constitutes a tribal government, this makes the predecessor to modern Turkey tribal.
As for whether or not Turkey forms part of the Middle East, according to some definitions it does to others it does not. At the very least, it is Muslim and borders Muslim nations in the ME. Why doesn’t this “exert tremendous pressure on the other tribal powers in the area”?
Belisarius:
I admire your insight and your grip on the realities and ramnifications of the Iraq debacle. I’m not trying to blow your cover, but I am curious. Have you lived in the ME and/or are you ex-DFAIT?
“Hussein was very suspicious of the jihadists.”
That’s why totalitarians never succeed. They are paranoid. They have to be. What they are proposing as a system of government does not work, never has, never will.
To argue whether Iraq was secular under Saddam is a moot point, it had 3 main tribes and sub-tribes under them, he held them together with his sick murderous, fascist methods. The point is that despots can use the weakness of tribal Islamic cultures to hold onto power. Saddam didn’t have to have a prayer rug under him to figure that out.
Ataturk in Turkey tried to break up the Islamic tribal customs and get Turkey to join the modern world and he was at least partially successful. But it appears he needed the help of the army to keep secularism in place. It remains a question if Turkey will remain secular without the army overseeing things or will it have to go through another iteration before becoming secular without the army’s involvement.
Unlike Christianity, Islam will not tolerate religious competition so many of Islam’s leaders are essentially fascist. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Saddam, Arafat, the Mullahs … these despots all have one thing in common, they literally kill the opposition.
That’s why uncompetitive tribalism won’t work. A modern economy with a lot of people in it needs leaders that like competition versus killing it. That only happens in a democracy. Iraq and Afghanistan are just a start. We have a long ways to go. Iran is a bigger problem and so is Pakistan, they have big populations and they have nukes. Iran and Pakistan also have some middle class people whose education and commercial interests tend to make them want to adopt Western values, particularly the role of women.
So let’s quit quibbling over whether Al Qaeda was in Iraq before or just after Saddam was removed .. who cares… AQ and Iraq are just a tiny piece of this. But Bill Roggio’s post says this is about tribalism and that the strategy is working, read the post:
“The strategy of turning the tribes and insurgent groups has been successful in Anbar, and is being applied inside Baghdad, Diyala, Salahadin, Ninewa, and Babil province. This is reconciliation at the micro level. Al Qaeda is threatened by this development and is actively targeting members of groups that have turned on them.”
Zog, no on both counts. My background is military. You?
belisarius – no.
The fact that Turkey was, many years ago, operating in a tribal political mode isn’t relevant; it isn’t NOW operating in that mode. After all, all early non-industrial societies were political tribal – that was valid for the west as well.
Again, my ‘theories’ are substantiated by data. Data without a theory is random and meaningless. For example, a temperature of 0 celcius, of 15, of 25, of 45 etc – all of this data is meaningless without an explanatory hypothesis of how water behaves at those temperatures, how plants behave at those temperatures, how humans etc.
Therefore, if you take the data from the four variables of ecological resources, population demographics, economic mode and political mode – all of these can be found to be closely correlated. But the data by themselves are meaningless. Asserting that a group has a population of 30, or 3,000 or 300,000 or 3 million is, on its own, meaningless. You have to correlate with the other variables.
No, islamic fascism did not emerge out of religious extremism. Islamic fascism IS religious extremism – and you aren’t examining why this religious extremism emerged. It wasn’t a random emergence – it is directly related to the political tribalism of the regions – in Iraq, Iran, SA, Syria, etc.
Belisarius: Retired geologist and engineer. Worked overseas for about 1/3 of my career including a couple of years in Arab countries. Was intermittently a consultant to the UNDP between 1970 and 1990 (I hope that’s foregiveable, the rot wasn’t yet terminal then) so I know a bit about the inner workings of UN bureaucracy. Minor in history and a lifelong facination with history and politics.
and I even know how to spell “fascination”.
and I even know how to spell “fascination”.