Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Nation On Iraqi Nationalism

UPDATE: James Robbins at NRO talks about partition as well.

I've decided that I need to set my sights a little higher, as there's little to no potential for progress or enlightenment in reading and dismantling posts from total moonbats. Today in The Nation, Robert Dreyfuss discusses the new rise of Iraqi nationalism, where it came from, and where it may go politically.

I'm going to start off by saying that Dreyfuss gets one thing absolutely, completely, and in all ways backwards when he says this:

"It may be too much to hope for, but just as the United States finally decided to join the Sunni tribal resistance forces rather than fight them, it's possible that farsighted US officials would be willing to work with Sadr rather than confront him, too."


Hold up a minute there, Chief. The US didn't join the Sunni forces, the Sunnis co-opted the Americans. We've been fighting to maintain or achieve security the whole time; it wasn't until recently that they joined us, finally realizing that we're not the demons their Imams said we were. This is an important clarification because policy needs to be based on facts like this. This is not a potato/potatoe situation here, for two reasons; first, "potatoe" is just plain wrong, dammit; and second, the tribes approaching us and asking for help is not the same as us approaching them. It is diplomatically and strategically different. We've been trying to bring them to the table for years; it wasn't until AQI got too aggressive that they decided to come to us.

More to the point, Dreyfuss pins the surge in Iraqi nationalism on a few key events: the "misguided" (his word; I say "idiotic") attempt by the US Senate to officially recommend that Iraq be partitioned, the currently unresolved controversial incident at Nisour Square, and a Kurdish extralegal oil deal. My response to his argument is, "what the hell are you talking about?"

It defies logic to suggest that a nation would attempt to build its national identity around a massacre, a swindle, and the politicking of the idiot fringe of another nation. These all may be unifying events, but unity itself is not nationalism. Try to remember that they were united in abject fear under Saddam; it would be daft to suggest that particular unity was indicative of nationalism. Unity is only part of the picture. To be effective, unity has to be met with narrative to foster a solid, positive identity. And I believe the Iraqis are doing exactly that, but not around the events that Dreyfuss mentions.

The Anbar Awakening - and now, the Diyala and Salah ad Din Awakening, as well - are home-grown movements led by extremely charismatic individuals against an enemy that is as close to an Orc that anyone will ever see outside Middle Earth. They are unequivocally, abjectly evil. And those individuals who lead common people into battle against them are known as heroes. Those people give a nation a narrative, and an example to follow.

Iraqis are uniting behind heroes like the late Sheikh Abdul Sattar abu Risha, who founded the Anbar Awakening. Or soldiers like Lieutenant Hamid of the Iraqi Army, who tells AQI to come to Sadr City and look for him. And only the world's worst Europhobe would be able to deny the unifying qualities of a soccer team that can win. This may all seem like a sugar glaze on a bad situation to you. In that case, so were Lexington and Concord. The same could be said about Audie Murphy. The same could then be said about the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers. See where I'm going with this?


The jury is still out on what particular aspect of the change in grand strategy has led to the progress on the ground. Frankly, warfare mixed with politics is more confusing than the most advanced science, because there are no rules. That said, some things should be obvious: the Iraqis are not building an identity based on what happened at Nisour Square any more than Americans were defined by 9/11. Unity and a sense of identity are very different things, and both are part of the Iraqi reconstruction efforts.

Concluding on a totally contradictory point, Dreyfuss asserts that this rising nationalism is actually bad for the administration's intentions for Iraq:

"...nationalists would be the least willing to accommodate the preferred American goal of an Iraq that is at once docile, neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict, tolerant of a long-term US presence, willing to serve as a base for US military operations in the region and ready to hand over their oil wealth to Western investors."


Suggesting that a partitioned Iraq is the goal of the administration because it will be stable and pro-American is like saying you want a see-saw because it doesn't wobble around. A partitioned Iraq would not be strong enough to withstand forces from external actors like Iran and Saudi Arabia, or internal actors like the power-hungry opportunist Al Sadr. The US hasn't been siding with "separatists" because it desires a partitioned and inherently unstable nation in control of our foreign oil supply. The US has been siding with minorities because we're dealing with third-world politics, where the minorities are massacred when politicians fail.

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