Ran into Mike, a former Army chaplain learning Spanish in San Miguel de Allende. Mike served two one-year tours in Iraq. I asked him what he thought the country’s long-term prospects were. “Democracy is a foreign concept to them, as is capitalism. Whether we get out in six months or ten years, our definition of success is not going to be a nation like our own. You have to remember that Iraq is fundamentally tribal. Democracy is fine as long as my tribe wins.” The main obstacles to peace, in Mike’s view, were (1) the fact that the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis all hated each other, and (2) the fact that Saddam let 100,000 criminals out of his jails as we were invading. “What will bring stability to Iraq will be a civil war, just as we had in 1861. The Shiites will win.”
Mike was a fan of my old idea (proposed here in this Weblog 2.5 years ago) of splitting Iraq up into three new countries, one for the Kurds, one for the Shiites, and one for the Sunnis. Mike was not a fan of the U.S. military staying there indefinitely. He estimated that 50 percent of the troops were getting unbalanced mentally toward the end of their one-year tours. “The divorce rate in the Army has gone up 50 percent. Captains are leaving in order to keep their families together, which means that the Army is losing its future leaders.”
There will never be an independent Kurdistan as long as the Turks have a say in it. They are very fearful of an independent Kurdistan attempting to encroach upon Turkey. The Kurds claim some of Turkey should be theirs and that area is oil rich. With regard to soldiers going bonkers at the end of a year, I would question whether many who are enlisting in the Army with the certainty of being sent to Iraq are all that sane to begin with.
Tribalism is evil when it is active in world affairs. Evil to the point of being intollerable.
Here is where we are in history, simply because weapons technology has become so advanced:
Enter the age of the enlightment and the individual, or suffer and lose your culture.
That choice needs to be enforced, and that’s what we’re doing. Anything less would be suicide.
-t
Sounds enlightened Tom, too bad every country is a tribe. One of the problems in Iraq is that – as Philip pointed out – it is one country with three tribes.
When you “enforce a choice”, it stops being a choice.
Also sounds like you still believe in that “Iraq has WMDs!”, “Iraq trains terrorist!” and “Iraq is going to come after us!” bullshit.
The civil war thing sounds like a good idea right now. When was the last time something like this was done to a country that brought lasting stability? A good fight to get it out of their systems would probably do it.
The divorce rate among US Army soldiers is worse than he said. From 2002 to 2004, it has tripled. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4075270.stm for the details
I believe the divorce statistics – the worst of them. The divorce rate in the military is further evidence of the weak constitution of the American public. “The Greatest Generation” we are not. Suffering much less for a shorter period of time, we are squeamish and we beg for a way out…..only our discomfort is not amputations or post-traumatic stress…..our discomfort is $3.00 a gallon at the pump. Our souls are bought and sold for our creature comforts. Either pay the price of preeminence or abolish your thirst for crudities. Good men are dying on the field. The least we can do is love them – ’til death do us part.
Let’s see.
We declared war on Yugoslavia (OK, maybe we didn’t declare, but fight we did) to stop a bloody civil war.
Many of the very same people who supported our getting involved in the Yugo civil war, want to withdraw from Iraq.
Logically, shouldn’t those who supported our getting involved in the Yugo civil war also be in favor of a second military intervention in Iraq, after a bloody civil war starts?
I think Mike puts his finger on one of the main points here: the only people who want Iraq to continue to exist are the Sunnis, Turkey, Syria, and the US. This means that an easy two thirds of the population, plus some of its most significant neighbours, are actively opposed to the continued existence of the country.
This is the real quandary for the US, since it seems pretty unlikely that the US (and its Iraqi allies) will win. In fact, informed observers (like John Murtha) even question if the US can even hang on for very long. At the same time, withdrawal is likely to entail not just a loss of face, but also the destabilization of the region as a whole.
This could do with some more emphasis, probably. Turkey is the key US ally in the region (more important in terms of realpolitik than Israel or any of the others), but a divided Iraq is unacceptable for Turkey, which has spent decades trying to suppress its Kurd separatists. If Iraq splits apart, the Turkish Kurds would have an ally in a free Kurdistan just across the border. Turkey has already made it clear more than once that it would invade Iraq rather than allow this to happen.
Another consideration is that parts of a divided Iraq would be likely to join up with Iran, which would be anathema to the US.
I was very disappointed when Bush sr. did not invade and liberate Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait. Today it seems pretty clear that this was the only right decision.
(To finish my comment.) In other words: dividing Iraq into three is not acceptable to the US, even if right now it seems the most likely outcome of the invasion.
As for tribalism, the distinctions between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias are as real as those between US Americans and Mexicans.
Lars, in an interesting documentary made in the late ’90s that had interviews with all the major 1991 players (Bush, Major, Stormin’ Norman, Powell), they all said the same: “Had we gone to Baghdad, we’d still be there now”.
Tony and Bush Jr. have proven them right.
They have been fighting for 4000 years. We are not going to change them. I’ve been there twice, a 100% disabled vet from 3 wars.
The last Iraq is the one that got me. In ways I am lucky. Probably not so much as the ones coming back in pine boxes. I suffer miserably 24-7-365; probably due to my Purple Heart, Bronze Star and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Bush should be FIRED. He is pulling a stunt for his daddy who didn’t have the balls to finish the job the 1st time.
Bring them back. GET THE HELL OUT OF IRAQ!!!
Doug, I’m sorry to hear about your devestating injuries. Your honorable service is appreciated by all; especially those who complain, but do not serve. I would, however, like to clarify: you won the CMH? Because a CMH winner criticizing the war in Iraq is a significant piece of news. Also, I was under the impression that only one CMH had been awarded in Iraq and it was a posthumous award. But I could be wrong, I don’t really follow these things very closely.
Hey Doug, there’s a saying – on the internet no one knows you’re a dog. Until you claim to be an Iraqi war veteran awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor – there are none !
Doug – let’s have some references to back up your claim of having a CMOH.
Otherwise, you are a fake.
There are no Doug or Douglas listed in the full CMOH listing on http://www.cmohs.org, for any war; thought it is possible that there are those with a middle name of Douglas.
I think it is far more likely though that you are a fake, just like the many “Vietnam Vets Against the War” who had never actually enlisted or served.
The burden of proof is on you, “Doug”… put up or shut up.
Philip made a far-out comment way back when proposing that putting Saddam back in power would be a good way to get Iraq under control. Guess what, this morning on NPR, retired Gen. William Odom said the same thing — if you want stability, put a tirant in control. He also said that civil war in Iraq is inevitable, whether the US pulls our tomorrow or in 10 yrs. They will have to fight it out for themselves before the situation will settle down.
Polls show that a majority of Iraqis want us to leave. Half of them approve of violence against US Troops. It is not hard to imagine Iraqis view us as foreign occupiers. No matter how bad a tyrant leads you, if he is one of you, he will never be as bad as foreign rulers. And as long as there are large #s of our troops there, we are looked upon as foreign rulers.
As several have said, there will be a civil war when we pull out, regardless if we leave now or in 10 years.
What progress do any of you see that we are accomplishing? We have been there 2.5 years. Today another 10 or so soldiers died. There is no progress being made.
If you truly support the troops, you will pull them from the line of fire, you will allow them to come home to see their families, their wives, their children.
As John Kerry testified in 1971, how do you ask a soldier to be the last one to die for a lie?
I like the idea of splitting “Iraq” into three countires. weare the new Rome and might as well see if we can do as wel las the Brits and Frencgh did whe nthey designed the country we know as Iraq. I propose that the three countries be named “Kurdistan”, “Irate” and and Irek (pronounced “a-wreck”. The first is self explanitory, and the next two refer to the Sunni and Shiite dominated regions respectively.