The Civil War In Iraq
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (25) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more.
If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
The idea that Iraq might be on or over the brink of a civil war really isn’t new. But it has gained currency recently. The idea made the move from military analysts into the mainstream with the bombing of the mosque in Samarra.
There is a civil war in the offing in Iraq which we are attempting to forestall, but that war is not the one the press is watching.
Read on
When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USMC General Peter Pace, the CENTCOM commander Army General John Abizaid, and the service chiefs testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee the subject of a civil war came up:
Asked by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, whether Iraq risked falling into civil war, Abizaid replied, "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war." But, he later added, he did not think civil war was probable.
What exactly was Abizaid talking about?
The first problem is definitional. What, exactly, is a civil war? Not a really simple question. For instance, the writers at Wikipedia define it so broadly as to be meaningless and make some astonishingly arbitrary choices. For instance, few would argue that the Ibo’s struggle for independence from Nigeria in what is termed the Biafran Secession was not a civil war. On the other hand, the Katanga Secession is omitted from the list for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.
A panel of experts assembled by The Council on Foreign Relations (SFX: ominous music and the sound of helicopter rotors) produced similarly useful results.
In my view, to be useful a civil war must entail one of two key elements: either a portion of an existing nation is seeking independence resulting in military force being used to resolve the dispute or a war is being waged by a political faction with the goal of overthrowing the current government. Otherwise the landscape becomes cluttered with conflicts like the Rwanda genocide.
This is not pedantry as some claim. Michael Yon for whom I have immense respect as soldier, a writer, and a journalist says:
When I first alerted the public about the growing civil war in Iraq back in February 2005, those cautions were dismissed or ignored. Yet in all the time since, the fire has been growing in Iraq, while people here quibble over the pros and cons of using terms such as “sectarian violence” versus “civil war.” Painfully silly. It’s as if firefighters rushed to a conflagration and instead of recognizing it for what it is, fighting it for what it is, calling it what is, instead of unrolling hoses, the firefighters instead began arguing over radios and loudspeakers about whether to call the fire a conflagration or an inferno. And while they argued, people were burning to death, and the blaze was spreading, and firefighters were being surrounded.
Despite incredible progress in Iraq, we are now in great peril of losing the war entirely. At the current rate, we will witness genocide as a nation rips itself apart along sectarian seams.
I think that is a misguided point of view. Firemen might not be interested in the semantic difference between an “inferno” and a “conflagration” but they are certainly interested in whether they are fighting a chemical fire, an electrical fire, or the run-of-the-mill Class A fire. To say that we can’t be concerned over the difference between a civil war and sectarian violence, though, is really akin to a doctor diagnosing a viral infection but having no interest in determining whether you have a cold or AIDS.
If we use as a baseline for discussing civil war that there must be an attempt to change the government or a quest for independence then that war is not even close to happening between the Sunnis and Shias. There is no government in exile as one would recognize. Indeed, one would have to conclude that the war is being fought by the Sunni insurgents in order to extract concessions from the government in anticipation of Sunni participation in that government. They are bankrolled, to some degree, by Ba’athist refugees who, like the White Russian aristocracy, cling to the conceit that sufficient misery will make the people long for their rule.
Yon may be right that Iraq teeters on the razor’s edge of a genocide but calling that a civil war does nothing to help our understanding of that conflict or how to ameliorate it. The Sunnis simply lack the wherewithal to make a grab for ruling Iraq and they have no interest in a partition which would leave them without oil but in a position to corner the silica market. To the contrary, where ethnic minorities have historically fought wars for independence the Iraqi Sunnis appear to be fighting against independence and federalism.
Bill Roggio did a superb job of defining warning signs of an impending Sunni-Shi’a civil war in the immediate aftermath of the Samarra bombing. The list is solid and you will see none of the critical warning signs are present.
The true fault line necessary to precipitate a civil war lies within the Shi’a community. Some portions, like the wing represented by SCIRI, are ascendant. They control the levers of, power; they have the ability to stick their hands deeply into the national till, and contrary to a lot of commentary they have shown no interest in becoming an Iranian puppet state.
Within the government, but not as well situated are al-Sadr’s allies and several other minor power players. If they remain in the government they will never be more influential than they are today and as the government tightens the screws on the various militias they will loose most of their clout.
They have a choice: be relegated to minor party status in a ruling coalition or carve out a fiefdom over which they can rule.
In Karbala, fierce gun battles erupted Tuesday between the followers of radical cleric Mahmoud Sarkhi al-Hassani and Iraqi security forces who raided his office, leaving seven people dead. The clashes quickly spread to nearby towns. The crackdown on Hassani came after his followers apparently tried to take over several districts in Karbala, authorities said.
Karbala is key terrain because of the tourist trade. Anyone controlling Karbala would be in a position to levy fees and taxes on the pilgrims and to extort the businesses. In the same article:
Clashes between rival Shiite Muslim militias erupted Wednesday in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, when scores of gunmen stormed the governor's office after accusing his supporters of assassinating their tribal leader. Meanwhile, car bombs in Baghdad killed 25 people.
The gunmen in Basra, a predominantly Shiite city, laid siege to the office for two hours, lobbing mortar shells and barricading nearby bridges, before British troops and Iraqi police pushed them back. The fighting left at least four policemen dead, police said. Authorities imposed a curfew on the city.
Here is where the real game is being played out between the government of Iraq, on one hand, and Sadr and Iran on the other. I think all the evidence points to the fact that Iran has concluded that its investment in SCIRI, Sistani, and others has not paid off. Whatever deals they may have had with Iran have been abrogated by their ascension to legitimacy. Sadr, on the other hand, has to know by now that his appeal is limited and needs a patron. The vigorous thumping he received in April 2004 resulted in his Mahdi army evacuating Najaf and Karbala for Basra and there he has established his headquarters.
Basra province has a lot of advantages for anyone looking to carve out a new state. It has revenue from oil and from controlling Iraq’s only ports. Essentially Iraq’s economy is centered in Basra. Iran borders Basra making for easy movement of men, money, and materiel.
As Maliki ratchets up the pressure eventually Sadr will be forced to either fold or fight. If he fights, as he almost certainly will, odds are that American troops will be in the thick of it. From what we’ve seen of the Iranian penchant for adventurism it is difficult to believe that they will stand idly by as Sadr is beaten for a second and final time. We must expect that we are going to come into direct conflict with substantial numbers of Iranian troops.
So while I would agree that a civil war is possible in Iraq I would heartily disagree with the idea that the protagonists will be Sunni and Shia. The Sunni are too weak and demoralized to attempt to seize the government and have shown no desire in going their own way. The danger lies in the melting down of the fragile and superficial unity shown by the myriad Shi’a parties as the danger presented by AQIZ and Ba’athists recedes.
Sadr is bright enough to know he can never rule all of Iraq but he has probably calculated that he can directly control Basra province presenting the central government with a host of unpleasant choices. This is the civil war that Iraq is facing.
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I believe yes on both counts. Sadr had demonstrated he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, those who study him have noted that his handlers never allow him to speak extemporaneously.
In April 2004 the fault lines weren't really visible yet and the Shi'a political leadership prevailed upon Bremer to call off the fight on Sadr. There was a feeling that he had been sufficiently chastized and would be more circumspect in the future.
If he does pull the trigger on carving out Basra, and I think he must do that within the next 6 months or see himself become irrelevant, I think we and the Iraqis will try to kill him. I don't believe he'll do this from inside Iraq but rather he will attempt to command and control the war from inside Iran.
I didn't get a "harumph" out of that guy!
Send more troops to IZ? Stay out of the way?
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
than sufficient forces to do that now. I don't see where we have a vested interest in sitting that fight out.
In the American Civil War we took 50,000 casualties in one battle. The total war dead was over 620,000.
In Africa, civil wars are raging at this minute. Some have killed off all the young, military age males and now they have drafted nine-year-old kids as soldiers.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo claimed over 4 million lives.
The conflict in the Darfur region of Western Sudan between the Janjaweed, a government-supported Arab militia, and non-Arabs has killed an estimated 200,000.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
But I find it very hard to believe that Iran would directly attack US troops with their army. While it may be one of the best in the mid-East, it would get obiliterated by the US. Our military is at its best when fighting a defined, national army. Iran would never stand a chance, and I don't think they would be stupid enough to risk a massive US attack to try to save one rebel group, a battle which they would lose anyway.
Unless they get nukes first, then all bets are off.
One would have said that Hesbollah would not provoke a direct confrontation with Israel for the same reasons.
I think that from an Iranian perspective a direct conflict is useful.
If I am correct, Iran has written off the possibility of a pliant Iraqi client state in favor of creating an Iraqi equivalent of the Beka'a Valley in Basra province. They can't believe that this will go unchallenged by Maliki given the vital nature of Basra and Umm Qasr to Iraq's economy. Therefore they must be prepared to defend their gains militarily.
Militarily I think Iran believes they can win this. First, virtually all of the supplies to US forces in Iraq come through Basra province except the trickle that comes through Turkey. If we have to fight for everyone of those convoys we will end up bleeding off most of our combat strength to operations devoted to bringing in water, food, and ammunition.
Iran has every reason to believe that the American public will not want to fight a ground war with Iran, and who could blame them for believing that, and that the presence of large numbers of Pasdaran will be the catalyst to force an American withdrawal, not the beginning of a larger war. And if we bomb some of their stuff, so what? If they win what they want the price would be worth it.
Maybe not right now, right now it suits them to play proxy, but I think I agree that at some point Iran would love nothing more than to all out engage fully in fighting.
I also think you are right that Iran believes, and probably rightfully so, that the US public won't go for a war with Iran.
"First, virtually all of the supplies to US forces in Iraq come through Basra province except the trickle that comes through Turkey. If we have to fight for everyone of those convoys we will end up bleeding off most of our combat strength to operations devoted to bringing in water, food, and ammunition."
In this situation, our navy would get a chance to earn its keep. Under their guns, the Marines could establish and maintain a nearly impervious beachhead that controlls the vast majority of that cloastline. Said position would also allow heavy artillery and naval bombardment of any troop movements by the Iranians near the border.
So long as our boys could keep Sadr from escaping into Iran, his follwers would be pinched into the "The Room Is Getting Smaller" problem.
"Always be honest with yourself even if you are honest with no one else...
...It helps you keep track of your lies..."
--Myself
the facts that to supply US units north of Basra province would require the diversion of lots and lots of troops.
Controlling the port does nothing to enable the convoys making that 400+ mile run north do so unimpeded.
that Iran made such a show of its new naval weapons in that big exercise a few weeks ago.
If you think pictures of a burning Merkava tank caused rejoicing in the "Arab Street" think what a picture of a burning or sinking American ship would do. They have lots of Silkworm missiles and similar weapons and the Navy/Marines would have to run a gautlet of missiles and mines to bring any support to shore forces or to convoy men and supplies into Iraq.
Their calculus would be that we really don't have the stomach to risk our big, beautiful ships, and I don't know that they're wrong. That would be about as close as you get to a Cold War style confrontation with the Soviets, the distinction being the limited geographic area. We'd win, but we'd take some losses; our missile defenses are good, but at some point it simply becomes a matter of mathmatics: throw enough out there and you'll hit something. If that something is an amphib assault ship, a cruiser, or a carrier, that is a huge propaganda victory for the Iranians. Just imagine al-Jazeera runing pictures of a burning or sinking American ship or worst of all pictures of American bodies bobbing in the surf.
I don't know how much courage is left in DC these days and the "Jutland Syndrome" is a real possibility. Those ships are so valuable both as military assets and as propaganda assets that I'm not at all sure we'd be willing to use them so aggressively as to risk losing any of them.
In Vino Veritas
I don't think Iran thinks they can win militarily, but I do think they think they can win politically. Whether or not they agree with the communist philosophy, they've studied Vietnam, and by this stage of the game, I believe most non-partisan observers agree that we lost there politically, while never losing militarily. I think they plan to use the same tactics. So far, without direct intervention on the part of Iraq, the Bush Lied, People Died! crowd have done a very good job of undercutting what the administration is trying to accomplish in Iraq. The recent "cease fire agreement" adopted between Israel and Lebanon probably emboldens Iran on this path. They may be thinking that if they make it look like a civil war, there will be insufficient support in the U.S. for Bush to do what needs to be done, and therefore, like the Israeli acceptance of a "cease fire", we will accept a fig leaf agreement and leave.
Alternately, they may just be waiting until they develop the bomb before taking direct military action against us. But at least until then, I think they plan to win politically while not being decimated militarily.
can mean a lot of things. It can mean that you are the last guy standing.
If they burn some tens of thousands of troops to politically convince us we can't prevail, I think that's a military win, much like Vietnam, even if they don't win a single battle.
You may be right. I think a direct attack by a foreign military upon our soldiers would be plenty provocation for war. In any case, Iran would have no chance of winning if we were to decide to fight back. Alas, we may not choose to really fight back, and in that case Iran would win a significant moral victory for standing up to us and surviving, even if their attack is utterly destroyed.
Somehow though, I still hold out hope that an attack would be met with an overwhelming response. Unfortunately, I may be wrong.
what we think we would do. I, personally, think that if we ended up fighting Iranian troops that there are enough people still browned off by the Iranian Hostage Crisis that we would go to war.
The question is what the Iranians believe we would do.
Take 9/11 as a case in point of strategic miscalculation. Their perception of what we would do versus our actions.
One is who runs Iran? No-one in Iran seems to know. Who actually (ie de facto, not de jure, insofar as 'jure' has any meaning in Iran) can order an attack in the first place?
Another is what do the people running Iran actually want? There are plenty of people involved in the governance of Iran who believe the end times are coming. The hidden Imam will return. A nuclear holocaust will merely hasten the sending of the infidels to Hell and the taking of the righteous to the bevy of virgins.
That scares me, because nuclear deterrence only works against people who think that dying is a bad thing, not the gateway to eternal bliss.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
I think there is a great deal of uncertainty as to who is calling the shots in Iran and the extent to which anyone actually controls all the power centers there.
And you are right, those people who advocate containment seem to be missing the singular difference between dealing with a nuclear Iran and the Soviet Union. The Soviets wanted to rule a non-irradiated world. I'm not sure I feel that way about the Iranians.
predicting US opinion isn't always easy.
I think how whether or how quickly/easily the US supported a war with Iran would depend a lot on just what the provocation was and who is seen as mostly to blame for the spark that got things going.
US troop fatalities in Iraq:
2003 worst month was November (82)
2004 worst months were April(135) and November (137)
2005 worst month was November (96)
2006 worst month so far April (73) last month was 44.
Iraqi military & police killed Jan 2005 to date:
Peak month was July 2005 (304) followed by the two months either side. Last month was 126.
Iraqi civilians killed by acts of war since May 2003:
2003 worst month was August (350)
2004 worst months were April (1414)and November (1867)
2005 worst month was August (2489)
2006 worst month so far June (1848)
While 2006 has seen a generally worsening trend on one measure (civilian fatalities) and generally improving trends on all others, this still does not compare to the figures of last year. The situation is certainly no worse (and by most measure much better) than 2004 when John Kerry was still calling for more troops to be sent there. Yet last autumn, when the peak levels of violence had passed on all measures, Kerry decided we were on the brink of a civil war and that troops must be brought home. Despite the clear evidence that he was wrong, the MSM decided to report his views as though they were facts.
We don't have to fall into that trap.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
Your definition of "civil war" is contentious -
"The dictionary definition says a civil war involves war between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation," Aamer Madhani wrote (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0604140103apr14,1,120... ) April 14, 2006. "An estimated 30,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. There are no accurate figures of how many were killed by U.S. troops, but slayings of Iraqis by fellow Iraqis have increased dramatically as the war has progressed.
"Many U.S. and Iraqi officials insist that the violence engulfing the country does not constitute civil war. But by any reasonable standard, 'the conflict in Iraq is a civil war,' said James Fearon, a Stanford University political scientist who specializes in the study of civil conflict. 'The rate [of killings] is comparable to Sri Lanka, the Lebanese war and Bosnia,' all of which were widely regarded as civil wars," Madhani wrote (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0604140103apr14,1,120... ).
"Larry Diamond, a former adviser to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, said the question is only one of semantics. 'You can use whatever language you want to describe it, but the violence is increasing and it is becoming more vengeful and polarized,' Diamond said." [5]
And I have to ask: What is so bad about a civil war? No self-respecting state ever has been formed without one. All the European countries had at least one (some of them called religious wars). America has had two. The Middle East and Africa have them all the time.
Michael is right - and he is certainly not alone is his understanding of what constitutes a civil war.
There is an elected gov't in place and there exists a very clearly defined war between very clearly defined political factions within Iraq. The Iraqi press is calling this a civil war - Iraqi's by and large are calling the sectarian violence a civil war.
Denial is a river in Egypt.
are contentious but for definitions to mean something they must describe something.
My point was, and is, that unless you place a political context on the war, something which until about three years ago was a pretty standard prerequisite then civil wars include pogroms. In fact, using the standard you and others accept you would have to conclude that parts of the US were involved in a civil war during the labor unrest of the late 19th to early 20th centuries. In fact, you'd have to include the Watts Riots, the MLK assassination riots, and maybe even the Rodney King riots. Certainly parts of the South during the Civil Rights era would fall into that description. You may want to call those civil wars, I find it very unhelpful to do so.
What people are calling it is pretty irrelevant for the purposes of discussion. What is relevant is defining what your are talking about in something that approaches meaningful terms.
I know you think your "denial" crap is funny and insightful, it isn't and betrays a very shallow understanding of the issue. There is no denial here but rather an attempt to define the scope of the problem we face, if you'd read the story and the links you'd have seen that.
A rate of 10,000 murders per year in a country of 27,000,000 does not look like a civil war. It is comparable to that in Columbia and much lower than that in South Africa. In fact, many American cities have homicide rates similar to those in Iraq.
If Iraq is having a civil war it is a very mild and peacable one.
My name is Spc. Patrick Ziegler with U.S. Central Command Public Affairs. I found your blog today and spent sometime reading. From what I read it seems both you and your readers are truly concerned and passionate about the day to day events in Iraq and in the War on Terror in general.
As a member of the U.S. Military we support open discussions of what is happening in the world. No mater from what point of view it comes.
I would like to invite your readers to Visit the CENTCOM Website at www.centcom.mil Please make use of the CENTCOM site as another resource for gaining information regarding Iraq and other locations with the Central Command Area of Responsibility.
Thanks you for your time.
De Opresso Liber
Without question, far and away the best appreciation I have seen of Iraq's current situation.
Streiff: Once again. If you haven't done so - do consider offering this piece for publication.
Also. This needs to be read at the Army War College and the Army Special Operations Command. Seriously!
- GB
If Sadr decides to flee, will he melt in to the mullocracy in Iran?
If he decides to fight will our boys do everything they can to cut him off from Iran and if so, what do you believe to be the results of that?