Glenn Reynolds links to the following:
IraqPundit: “Sunni extremism is now in retreat.”
Former CIA case Officer Reuel Marc Gerecht argues today that, barring a precipitous U.S. abandonment of the country, “Iraq could well become America’s decisive victory over Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and all those Muslims who believe that God has sanctified violence against the United States.”
This is the sort of thing that much, if not most, of the right blogosphere has been peddling as good news. But it isn’t, really, nor are any of the reports that we are “surging” towards “victory” in Iran (victory being defined, apparently, as being able to skedaddle out of there with our tattered “honor” intact).
None of these claims make any attempt to deal with the following, including claims of progress from the Bush administration itself. Why? Because they cannot deal with it, without revealing just how disastrous the Bush “war on terror” has actually been, and continues to be, right to this very day.
Read on (and read the whole thing, please).
Iran’s influence in Iraq is a significant issue not only because of the U.S. need to stabilize Iraq but also because of tensions between the United States and Iran over Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. With the conventional military and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat from Saddam Hussein removed, the thrust of Iran’s strategy in Iraq has been to acquire “strategic depth” in Iraq by perpetuating domination of Iraq’s government by pro-Iranian Shiite Islamist leaders, and thereby obtaining leverage against the United States to forestall a potential confrontation.
At the same time, Iran’s aid to Iraqi Shiite parties and their militias is contributing to sectarian violence that the United States says is hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. For the first two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iran’s leaders and diplomats sought to persuade all Iraqi Shiite Islamist factions in Iraq to work together through a U.S.-led election process, because the number of Shiites in Iraq (about 60% of the population) virtually ensures Shiite dominance of an elected government.
To this extent, Iran’s goals in Iraq differed little from the main emphasis of U.S. policy in Iraq, which was to set up a democratic process. Iran’s strategy bore fruit with victory by a Shiite Islamist bloc (“United Iraqi Alliance”) in the two parliamentary elections in 2005. The bloc, which includes the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (SICI),1 the most pro-Iranian in Iraq of the groups, and the Da’wa (Islamic Call) party, won 128 of the 275 seats in the December 15, 2005, election for parliament.
Most SICI leaders spent their years of exile in Iran. Like his predecessor as Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jafari, Nuri al-Maliki is from the Da’wa Party, although Maliki spent most of his exile in Syria, not Iran. Also in the UIA is the faction of the 32-year-old Moqtada Al Sadr, whose ties to Iran are still developing because his family remained in Iraq during Saddam’s rule.
However, the Sadr clan has had ideological ties to Iran; Moqtada’s great uncle, Mohammad Baqr Al Sadr, was a contemporary and political ally of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was hung by Saddam Hussein in 1980. Iran also sees Sadr’s faction — which has 32 seats in parliament and a large and dedicated following, particularly among lower-class Iraqi Shiites — as a growing force in Iraqi politics.
In a nutshell, anybody who takes an honest, clear-eyed, rational view of Bush’s efforts in Iraq must come to the conclusion that his strategy has caused the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime only to see Iraq fall under the near-total influence of a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran.
The only -and quite weak - response to this has been to mutter that, well, Iraq is different than Iran, and Iraqi nationalism will keep Iran from asserting this sort of dominance. This theory, to put no gloss on it, is bullhooey. It completely misunderstands Islam, as well as Iran’s regional assets and goals.
First, Islam: Islam recognizes no national boundaries per se, beyond the nation of Islam itself, otherwise known as the Caliphate. Neither Sunni nor Shia have any disagreement on this: their quarrel is over who is the legitimate inheritor of the Caliphate. So from a Shia Islamist point of view, the Shia of both Iraq and Iran are already of the same nation. The only task remaining is to formally unite them.
This is, as regards Iran and Iraq, Iran’s only goal: to dissolve what it views as artificially imposed “borders” in favor of a proper reunification of the two Shia groups that have been kept apart by western imperialism and Saddamite tyranny.
Iran’s assets in pursuit of that goal are near overwhelming, not least of which has been that the United States, in its ill-conceived Iraqi invasion, has provided Iran with an enormous amount of help in achieving its goals as well.
Prior to the invasion:
1. Saddam Hussein sat at the head of a Sunni tyranny that effectively prevented Iran from obtaining any real influence within Iraq’s borders.
After the invasion:
2. After the invasion, Saddam and his tyranny were gone, and a rudimentary democracy was imposed on Iraq by the Americans. The result of this was to empower the 60-plus percent of Shia inhabitants of Iraq, and make inevitable that Iraq would be politically dominated by Shia believers.
3. The US has further aided Iranian goals by wasting blood and treasure in wiping out any Sunni resistance, leaving a clear field for Shia dominance.
4. The US has done nothing to reduce or block Iranian political influence over the Iraqi Shia majority and, in fact, has done almost equally little to reduce the military power of Iranian surrogates like Moqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Militias, which will, immediately upon the departure of the Americans, become the most powerful military force inside Iraq.
5. Re-read the above article for a more detailed explanation of just how much influence Iran has on the Shia political movements, structures, and religious alliances within Iraq.
Once you have understood all this, I fail to see how you can arrive at any conclusion different from my own: the Iraqi adventure has been so botched, so mis-handled, and so badly conceived and carried out that the end result will be only to empower and enlarge the sphere of influence of one of our two most dangerous opponents in the Islamic world today: the Islamofascist regime of mullahs currently in control of Iran.
So, if you’ll pardon me, I think I’ll avoid the ignorant or knowingly ersatz triumphalism about Iraq currently on so wide a display in the blogosphere and among spokesmen for the Bush administration today. Especially since I don’t see any promise of a reversal towards any strategy that might head off an Iranian takeover from any of the likely inheritors of the Bush White House, especially including John McCain’s and his “more of the same” strategy.
UPDATE: Heh. “Mr. Sunshine” himself would like to welcome all you Instapundit readers, and ask that you at least not reject out of hand my thesis without reading the cites and giving it a bit of thought. Thanks for dropping by!
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You are asking if the government of Iraq is wise from our point of view.
Wrong question.
Right question: does it represent the views of the electorate?
I disagree. The right question is: Does our Iraq expenditure advance the interests of the USA?
If not, then don’t ask our service members to sacrifice their lives. It’s not their responsibility to enforce the views of Iraq.
M., with all due respect, if I understand your comment correctly, it betrays a profound lack of understanding about how “democracy” actually functions in Iraq.
There are a couple of significant problems with your analysis.
One, Iraqi and Iranian Shi’a are not the same. They don’t share a common language. They don’t share a common ethnicity. During the Iran-Iraq War some of the bloodiest fighting occurred in the al-Faw Peninsula where Shi’ite Iraqis fought Shi’ite Iranians in some of the bloodiest battles in modern military history. They don’t share the same religious outlook, especially on the “wilayat i-faqih” or the power of clerics to declare law. Ayatollah Sistani believes that clerics should only speak on religious matters, and has generally stayed out of politics. He disagreed with Ayatollah Khomeini even though they studied together at Qom.
Secondly, we’re actively supporting Sunni involvement in Iraqi politics. Groups like the 1920 Revolution Brigades have come over from being outlaws to helping defend Iraq against foreign aggression. The Sunnis are strong enough that the Shi’ites know that it would be futile to try. If Iran were to try to unduly influence Iraq, that would inevitably force the Sunni to either call the US for help, or call in al-Qaeda for help. Either would mean that the Iranians would end up fighting yet another pointless and bloody battle. The result could easily push Iran into revolt.
You’re right that Iran wants to influence Iraqi politics, but you understate Iraqi nationalism as a force and how many differences there are between Iraqis and Iranians.
We don’t really care if Iraq is cozy to Iran, so long as they’re not too cozy to Iran. The Iranians and the Iraqis fought a terrible war of attrition just a generation ago. I’d be more worried about the Iranians overplaying their hand and starting another than I’d worry about Iraq becoming an Iranian client state.
Yes, yes, Jay, Persians and Arabs. It’s still weak.
First, Sistani himself was given shelter by the Mullahs. Second, there is nothing to indicate that Sistani will be able to maintain his standing as the Grand Leader of the Iranian Shia - Moqtada al Sadr springs from an even more glorious heritage - that of his Grand Ayatollah father - and, in fact, there are many who think Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s place is deservedly al Sadr’s by right of inheritance. Once Sistani is no longer protected by US forces, his hold on power may become extremely precarious - I say it will become precarious - in the face of a push from al Sadr and his militias to take over.
Jay, don’t come here assuming that you are the only person who knows anything about the Shia in Iraq and Iran, or the history and demography of the region. As I said originally, you argument is lame in the face of the resources and assets the Mullahs can bring to bear. Lame, and, dare I say it, also the argument of a pollyanna who has left much out of his own considerations. Deliberately, perhaps?
The “rudimentary democracy imposed on Iraq” shows signs of maturing, which one could think is a good thing from our perspective and a good thing from the perspective of a certain percentage of the Iranian populace which is none too enamoured right now of the Islamic revolution. No doubt there is, and will be, a struggle between the forces of freedom (of thought, action, aspiration, et al) and the counter forces of Islamic fundamentalism, but it is slightly blinkered to think the effects of this struggle apply in one direction only. And much as the Sunni population in Anbar became disenchanted with the overbearing and over-reaching ideology and tactics of al Qaeda, who can say the same will not occur in reaction to al Sadr and his minions? He and they seem less savvy than grasping and perhaps, given time and opportunity, the broader Shiite population in Iraq will react against the impulse to enslave and not liberate as the Sunnis already have done (and, with our help, seem committed to contue doing.) The relevent question from our perspective is what to do from here on in, not what we should have done better in the past. It seems we can stay and help foster a new democracy in Iraq or we can decide the effort isn’t worth it and leave. A decision on our part to abandon Iraq would do little to discourage the mullahs in Iran. On the other hand, a commitment to stay might not only preserve gains already made in Iraq but lead to new ones in the entire region.
B. Fancher, we have been in Iraq for almost half a decade, and look at what you are writing. Look at the terms you use: “Might…shows signs…could…who can say…”
Everything you write is couched in possibilities. Why? Because you offer nothing concrete to counter my concrete examples except what appears to be mostly wishful thinking.
As for the disenchanted Iranians, I’ve been reading about them for five years. Even their biggest champion, Mike Ledeen, has given up on that trope:
Faster, Please!: The Straits of Hormuz
We are going to end Bush’s watch with Iraq under siege to the Iranian regime, which will soon become a nuclear regime, with Syria still run by a family tyranny, with Hizb’Allah and Hamas running wild in Lebanon and Palestine, with nuclear Pakistan under siege, with al Qaeda building a new redoubt in Waziristan, with a “democracy” only somewhat less loathsome than the Taliban tyranny it replaced nevertheless still threatened by that same Taliban, and with Saudi Arabia and its royal family still under the sway of the state religion of Wahabbism, the creator, protector, financier, and supplier of al Qaeda.
Some might call this success. I would not be one of them.
That’s hardly a reasoned counterargument. The Iraqi Shi’a are not unified. Moqtada al-Sadr is a problem, and we should have gotten rid of him a long time ago, but he doesn’t command the entire Iraqi Shi’ite community. In fact, other than his small band of thugs, he’s not particularly popular. In 2004, when his Mahdi Army took over Najaf, Iraqi Shi’ites got so sick of him that they started shooting Mahdi Army members. Right now, it’s doubtful that he even has control over what’s left of the Mahdi Army–after his cease-fire order the group splintered.
Iraq isn’t going to become an Iranian client state any time soon. You can’t just ignore the deep differences between the two states and stubbornly insist that it’s inevitable that Iran benefits from Iraqi democracy. The last thing that the mullahs in Iran want is to have their neighbors picking their own leaders and living lifestyles that the Iranian regime can’t match–which is why the Iranians were trying to foster civil war in Iraq.
The Iraqi Shi’a are not monolithic. The Iraqi Sunnis have not been “wiped out” but are in fact getting US help and working with the US. The Mahdi Army is not nearly as strong as you claim it to be, and Moqtada al-Sadr has been blustering for years with very little to show for it. His movement is splintered, his influence kept in check by the Badr Organization and the Sunnis and his ability to command his own forces weakened.
I would expect the drumbeat of defeat from the radical left, but the idea that since we haven’t remade the entire Middle East in 5 years we’ve failed is a silly argument. Five years into this war al-Qaeda is fractured, on the run, and unable to launch major attacks. The Saudis have finally started cracking down on terrorism. The standing of the radicals in the Muslim world has taken a nosedive. Libya has given up their nuclear program. The Taliban still exists, but they can’t hold territory even against a token force.
I’d love it if we could bomb Iran into submission, get rid of al-Assad and his cronies, smash Hezbollah into bits, kill what remains of al-Qaeda and send the corrupt Saudi regime into uncomfortable exile. But we would also then have to deal with the mess all of that would leave behind.
War is as much about patience as force, and if we declare the whole affair a fiasco because we’re not moving as fast as some would like, then we’ll only embolden an enemy that’s perfectly willing to wait us out.
Small band of thugs? Jay, you really don’t know what you are talking about, do you?
Mahdi militia gains strength by infiltrating Iraqi forces | The San Diego Union-Tribune
Can you offer any cites that indicate this analysis has been disproven in the year since it was written? As for this…
Let’s see some cites. You’re just blathering now.