Like all of you, I have been trying to make sense of the various reports emerging from Iraq about the escalating violence there. There’s no point in attempting to ignore this or spin it away. It’s a critical moment in the struggle for a new Middle East, which is inextricable from a safe West. The war to depose Saddam, it now seems, has unfolded slowly. The sudden quick victory was followed by a low-intensity war against the remnants of the Saddam regime and elements among the displaced Sunni miniority. Then there was something of a lull – months when the U.S. casualty rate declined and progress seemed to be made. Then the Shiites began resisting the terms of the handover, some Sunnis in Fallujah tried a Mogadishu, and the most radical Shiites, under al Sadr, made their move. I don’t know what to make of al Sadr’s declaration of an alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah or of Debka’s claims that Iran and Syria are implicated in the latest violence. But what I do know is what I learned from Hobbes. The entire enterprise of attempting to bring some kind of normalcy to Iraq can only be accomplished if the coalition forces have a monopoly of violence. Right now, we don’t. At this point, establishing that monopoly is far more important than in any way showing reluctance to take the battle to the enemy. The Sadrists must be confronted and as effectively as possible. If that means more troops, send them. If that means more firepower, get it. In some ways, it seems clear to me that the Sunni hold-outs and the Sadrists were always going to be trouble. Better that they play their card now than after the handover of sovereignty.
THE RISK: The enormous risk, of course, is that such a strategy could actually alienate the mainstream Shiites and make a rational transition to democracy essentially impossible. This is what Sadr is banking on: that the pathologies of the Middle East can be inflamed sufficiently to destroy any semblance of what might be thought of as modern or representative government. (I’m waiting for the first moron to start calling this violence an Iraqi intifada.) The anti-war movement in the West, which has long believed that the Arabs are incapable of representative self-government, will say this proves the entire enterprise is misguided. So will anti-war types on the Tory right. Here’s the argument, put subtly and strongly by Charlie Crain, a Baghdad blogger who deserves more attention:
I don’t think Moqtadr Sadr is what we have to worry about. He’s a nuisance whose movement will probably not survive him, and it seems likely he’ll be dead or in prison by this time next week. The problem is what he represents: a conspiratorial worldview that, without evidence, holds America responsible for every ill that befalls Iraqis, and refuses – not rhetorically, but emotionally and intellectually – to acknowledge the difference between the American occupation and life under Saddam Hussein. The people who follow that line seem to be better organized and more willing to fight than anyone else in the country. Significantly, the same mindset that causes al Hawsa to blame the US for bombing Ashura comes into play when Shi’ites deal with Sunnis, when Sunnis deal with Kurds, and when Kurds deal with Shi’ites. The ethnic divide has been papered over so far, but may be impossible to overcome.
Again, it would be comforting to believe that we blew it – that if we’d done something different everything would have worked out for the best. But it may be that what we’ve got is pretty close to the best we could have expected. I don’t think the invasion was a bad idea, necessarily, but we probably need to lower our expectations of what a free and independent Iraq might look like. This may be an overreaction based on being too close to events. But even though it looks like Sadr has made his play and lost, things have been very tense in Baghdad lately. My friend Howard said an Iraqi crossed the sidewalk to bump into him with his shoulder the other day, and a British journalist here said that, for the first time, he’s considering “tooling up.” You can get a very reliable pistol in Baghdad for about $500.
But the response to this cannot be withdrawal. Military power still matters; and the coalition has the overwhelming advantage. In some ways, perhaps, the war has now entered the most critical phase – more critical than Afghanistan or the war against Saddam. This war is for the future against the past, for representative government against a vicious theocratic dictatorship from the Leninist vanguards of the Sadrists. The president needs to tell the people this. His failure to communicate what is actually going on, why we’re there, what we’re doing, and what the stakes are is the prime current fault of the administration. We need a real speech and a thorough explanation of what is going on. We need an honest, candid, clear war-president. Where is he?
The Dish 