Small Wars Journal

What We Left Behind in Iraq

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 5:46am

What We Left Behind in Iraq by Dexter Filkens, The New Yorker

… Crocker saw in Iraq one final unintended consequence of America’s long war: the state that we created doesn’t work without us. The Americans bequeathed the Iraqis a constitution, regular elections, and a two-hundred-and-seventy-five-member parliament, with a quarter of the seats occupied by women. Jeffrey, the former Ambassador, told me optimistically, “Maliki is worried about his reelection. How many countries in the Arab world can you say that about?” And yet, in an accurate reflection of the country itself, the parliament is locked in a seemingly permanent stalemate.

After nine years of brokering agreements, the Americans had made themselves indispensable. “We were hardwired into the Iraqi political system,” Crocker told me. “From the very first days, they were all deeply suspicious of each other. Concession and compromise meant betrayal and death. What we could do is make them listen to us. It required constant engagement: we’d go to Maliki and explain our views, and ask him if he’d consider something. Maybe we would finally get him to say that he would, provided the Sunni leadership would do a series of things first. So we’d go back to the Sunnis. That’s the way it had to work…

Read on.

Comments

Ned McDonnell III

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 8:22pm

In reply to by Ned McDonnell III

P.S. (or B.S.) on the rest of my feeling for this article.

The Iraqi Constitution was all wrong for Iraq. It was crafted largely by young State Department lawyers who decided that the U.S. brand of federalism would be the best model. The structure overlooked one big element: the tribes.

Iraq might have been better served by bringing in something like the House of Lords in the U.K. to include the sixty largest tribes and give the sheikhs a stake in the new democracy. A powerful executive should have been put in place, one similar to the structure of the fifth French Republic.

These two structural dimensions would have conformed more to Iraqi culture and political practice under various types of governments in the past.

By far the biggest flaw, however, lay in not undoing AMB Bremer's give away of the Northern portions of Ninewa and Dayala governorates (including Mosul) as well as Kirkuk to the Kurdistan National Region region, since they had been protected by the no-fly zone.

The Sunni populations and Arab governments have never recognized this cession and today, the three governorates of Arbil, Dohuk and Salayminayah function as the Kurdish region; but memories are long. Amid the sectarian fighting starting up again in Western Iraq, this ambiguity could easily become the flash-point of an ethnic conflict waiting to happen.

To his credit, General Odierno tried to address this issue in 2009, without support from President Obama to exert pressure on P.M. al-Maliki to redploy U.S. troops to act as advisors / peace-keepers in Kirkuk. Frankly, I suspect that other Generals and senior diplomats lobbied for similar measures at other times.

The Iraqi government has avoided the referendums required under the Constitution to settle this question. That avoidance would likely occur under an Arab government of any stripe.

Ultimately, the contest to come will hinge on the following language from the botched temporary transitional administrative law promulgated by AMB Bremer ten years ago and grand-fathered into the Iraqi Constitution:

"The Kurdistan Regional Government is recognized as the official government of the territories that were administered by the that government on 19 March 2003 in the governorates of Dohuk, Arbil, Sulaimaniya, Kirkuk, Diyala and Neneveh. The term “Kurdistan Regional Government” shall refer to the Kurdistan National Assembly, the Kurdistan Council of Ministers, and the regional judicial authority in the Kurdistan region."

Ned McDonnell III

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 7:55pm

In reply to by Move Forward

MoveForward,

Insightful analysis.

Normally, I would make an independent comment since the thrust of my feelings about this article are largely irrelevant to the analysis you make. Nevertheless, I am making this note response since you talk about the key linkage here in recent discussions.

In the past few weeks, I have cited "Iraq in 2010" as one of the events of appeasement by President Obama in the run-up to the recent Russian aggression in Ukraine. From what I can tell, the U.S. still had 50-75,000 troops left in Iraq when Prime Minister al-Maliki subverted the elections in the Spring of 2010.

The United States continued to look the other way by continuing to draw down troop levels in Iraq and de-activate those that remained behind. One prime example, not mentioned in the article, was Prime Minister al-Maliki's reneging on integrating the Sons of Iraq into the security forces.

Doing so would have integrated Sunnis into those forces. There were simple ways for the Iraqi government to weed out death squads and the like. The Obama Administration did nothing to push this process along. President Putin saw a counterpart unwilling to use power readily available to him.

My sense is that President Putin views President Obama with the same contempt that (the atheist) Friedrich Nietzsche reserved for Christians: as tigers who tore out their claws and then gloried in their defenselessness. This is regrettable, to say the least.

Ned.

Move Forward

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 6:06pm

I learned a lot from this article about Maliki and the whole process of him coming to power. If you read the full, long article you saw them mention that when the choice came down to an incompetent and an Iranian, a CIA agent mentioned Maliki's name as a third choice. That's how it started. When you see the difficulties in finding effective talent, it cast light on the notion that when we drone strike al Qaeda leaders, that similarly good ones will replace them. Finding good leaders is tough. Finding leaders who can be effective without communicating or moving around is that much more difficult.

Maliki's story is one of survival and manipulation, changing his responses dependent on the situation and personality with whom he was dealing. Karzai appears to be nearly the same way. Opportunists all. Politicians all; they will lie to your face for a temporary advantage and to get you off their back. Do we see something similar after the Geneva meeting where supposedly all parties would back off in Ukraine, yet Putin's masked guys did not leave their buildings...just as Putin had planned. He bought time. Assad similarly delayed adverse action by agreeing to give up part of his WMD chemical weapons. Kerry thought he could change the Palestinian situation where decades of attempts had failed. See the trend? U.S. diplomacy is a far larger failure than our military actions.

Diplomats believe in words and sanctions. But words delivered without effective sanctions, deterring forces, or decisive action to back it up are nearly meaningless. Despots, politicians, and manipulating opportunists will listen to your words, promise the world, but will not act unless we act. At the end we read that the Kurds may secede if they ever can generate sufficient fuel revenues without the percentage currently gained from southern Iraq. What will Maliki do then?

What would have happened if we had split the three factions when our military had total control? We could have enforced fuel splitting and divided security forces and cities ala Berlin as required to keep the peace. We truly were trying to do the right thing by all parties but we mistakenly thought diplomacy alone could fix Iraq. Democratically elected leaders only will represent their own voters...as we unfortunately see in the U.S. as well. Why do we think democracy abroad without redrawn borders will work? Why do we let our troops get blown up by IEDs trying to maintain a status quo failed nation-state that cannot function with so much ethnic and religious divisiveness?

Ned McDonnell III

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 10:08pm

In reply to by TheCurmudgeon

Curmudgeon,

Good point. The reason I defend AMB Crocker so ardently is that he is one of the 20%ers. About one in five of the civilian society builders in Iraq were worth a damn. We let the military and President Bush down.

By the way, love the moniker. For many years, I said I was a curmudgeon before my time. Well time has caught up with me...dammit!

Ned.

TheCurmudgeon

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 8:39pm

In reply to by Ned McDonnell III

... and yet they managed for thousands of years without us.

Don't get me wrong, AMB Croker is not the target of my comment. We have got to stop thinking that we can fix everything by trying to recreate the American political structure in places it cannot survive.

Ned McDonnell III

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 8:29pm

In reply to by TheCurmudgeon

Curmudgeon,

Wholly disagree with you on your read of hubris, at least on the part of AMB Crocker. Acquaintances of mine in the intelligence community during my first tour frequently fretted that the Coalition and U.S. aid monies would turn Iraq into an unsustainable 'beggar economy'.

AMB Crocker's political concerns were analogous to those articulated about the Iraqi economy. That is to say: neither the economy nor the polity would be sustainable in view of their dependence unto artificiality upon U.S. funds, guns and guidance.

Ned.

TheCurmudgeon

Wed, 04/23/2014 - 4:45pm

What Hubris!

"After nine years of brokering agreements, the Americans had made themselves indispensable. “We were hardwired into the Iraqi political system,” Crocker told me. “From the very first days, they were all deeply suspicious of each other. Concession and compromise meant betrayal and death. What we could do is make them listen to us. It required constant engagement: we’d go to Maliki and explain our views, and ask him if he’d consider something. Maybe we would finally get him to say that he would, provided the Sunni leadership would do a series of things first. So we’d go back to the Sunnis. That’s the way it had to work."

So the Iraqis can't get along without us! They are mere squabbling children and we are the benevolent elders who keep the peace. Unbelievable!

Once upon a time, Rome would need to bring a client regent such as Mithradates or Herod back into line.

In my view it was much the same pre-2001 with Saddam Hussein, who by-in-large served U.S. interests as a defacto client regent in keeping Iran's regional ambitions in check. And so it was in 1991 after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, realpolitick demanded he be punished but left in power.

Obviously the foregoing is a bit too simplistic, but there were reasons for not going onto Baghdad in 1991, that then SecDef Cheney outlined.

Many of those reasons that have now come full circle and one might wonder why we ever thought any endeavor in democratizing Iraq would work?