Civil War Iraq?

pat kenny

Dont usually post on politics but heres my worried view on the middle east.

Civil war in Iraq seems to be just around the corner, Id say the Americans will have great difficulty calming the wave of attacks and reprisals after that mosque was destroyed. I think the Shiites have reached breaking point after months and months of attacks and it may spiral into civil war.

Wibbs

Well religious tensions between the two sides have gone on for a long time. See here for a better explanation http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054888943

The political landscape of the Saddam years only added to this(in a big way). I sincerely hope it doesn't go the way of civil war, but I like you, fear it may. I doubt the US will be able to hold it together if it does. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad from their point of view, though. It may clear the decks and reset the status quo. It might make it easier for a new Iraq to appear. It's a hell of a price to pay even if it did.

w66w66

Artificial nations like Iraq are inherently flawed, so maybe a civil war resulting in three new organic nations could work to the long term benefit of the peoples of Iraq.

ivan087

its a mess really. i personally think there will be a civil war in iraq before long. the problem is i dont see any nation that can come in and act as a broker between the two sides. northern ireland had the usa which both sides, to some degree, excepted as a nuetral player. i dont see anyone that can do the same for iraq. there also dosnt seem to be any one figure that iraqis can follow. the americans are supporting the president and because of that the iraqis wont unite behind him.
i think all you can hope is that the civil war will be quick and sharp and not let it drag on like the balkins. but with the americans on board it will probably be a bloodbath.
i dont want to sound anti-american, but really this administration has fcuked this up big time. and the british too. they have remained so silent on americas handling of this war, you really have to wonder about blair.

Zebra3

pat kenny wrote:

Civil war in Iraq seems to be just around the corner.

I think we're there already.

Orizio

In truth there already is a civil war,when we consider the predominately Shia army and police against the Sunni terrorists.The worry rather is if it will escalate,the ways I see that happening is if attacks on Shia mosques continue or if the US leaves.

Tha Gopher

This talk of "impending civil war" always makes me laugh.


Its a country where there are towns and cities in rebel hands and secterain bombings that claim a death toll at least as big as Omagh occur thrice weekly. Impending my arse, its been in civil war for nearly 3 years now.

DadaKopf

It was always going to happen. Civil war had been predicted by experts before the war happened.

What's crazy about the situation is there's a so-called 'government' whose only practical function is to process US and UK purchases/annexes of Iraq's resources, but while they's squabbling over receipts, the real source of political power is laying siege to this fake country and duking it out with the invaders and themselves.

An utterly, profoundly absurd and gut-wrenching situation.

Wibbs

On this shrine issue it's really starting to kick off. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4742188.stm

Some of these muppets don't even know who their enemy is. They can't go all Islamic on this on as an excuse either. Killing unarmed women is seriously frowned upon by even the fundis. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4743050.stm

Sand

On this shrine issue it's really starting to kick off. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4742188.stm

Some of these muppets don't even know who their enemy is. They can't go all Islamic on this on as an excuse either. Killing unarmed women is seriously frowned upon by even the fundis. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4743050.stm

Fundamentalists have killed many unarmed women so Im sure theyll find a justification for it somewhere.

Its clear theres sectarian warfare going on in Iraq, but thats hard to avoid when the insurgency was from the start Sunni dominated - either Baathist die hards or fundamentalists waging jihad - and the government and security forces are Shia dominated by virtue of numbers alone. The insurgency was never a broad Iraqi national front. The Sunnis were Saddams powerbase in his Iraq and they obviously feared and resented Shia dominance in the new Iraq. It hasnt helped either that the Shia powerbrokers (Sistani and Sadr), the most powerful figures in Iraq, have been in the main Shia religious scholars - not figures Sunnis or Kurds for that matter can gather round. And the quality of the general Iraqi politician has been very dissapointing. Perhaps it shouldnt come as a complete surprise that the political landscape Saddam bequethed to his successors wasnt overflowing with statesmen, but the Iraqis have generally followed the example of the warsaw pact nations - emerging from tyranny to endorse sectarian nationalism. They have consistently wasted an iniative or momentum delivered by successful elections. They simply are not ready to run a democracy, though if the situation in Iraq continues to deterioate they may be given a crash course in why liberal democracy> plain old democracy, and why sectarian politics is not good in a democracy. Either way, Sistani may regret his fatwa demanding elections straight away instead of the US plans for phased elections and institution building. I dont think Sistani wanted the situation to become as bad as it has, but quick elections and a rapid handover of power only strenthened the fears of the Sunnis and the insurgencys power base.

Its worth comparing Iraq to Kosovo which has similar sectarian strife but there the UN/NATO can overrule and dismiss Kosovar leaders and their right to rule themselves is severely curtailed because they simply arent ready to do so. Political pressures from the Shia in Iraq and critics abroad have forced the rapid deployment of elections that Iraq isnt ready for.

Iraqs an artificial creation and it may be impossible to hold it together without tyranny, much as it was impossible to hold together Yugoslavia with a dictatorship. 9 weeks after the elections, a national unity government is still far from a reality. By the time it is announced, it may be close to irrelevant. The fundamentalist faction of the insurgents have a stated aim to spark a Sunni war against Shias they view as herectics. The bombing of the shrine and its fallout is only of benefit to them. It harms the more nationalist Sunni factions. Theyre outnumbered in Iraq at least 3 to 1. Theyll lose a sectarian war. Zarqawi may get his wish for all out sectarian war, but for all those laughing that people dont think theres a sectarian civil war already; if things kick off to a worst case scenario (i.e. a regional series of tit for tat sectarian atrocties inspired by Shia all out ethnic cleansing of Sunnis in Iraq) then the current state of affairs will barely be a prologue.

pete

DadaKopf wrote:

It was always going to happen. Civil war had been predicted by experts before the war happened.

What's crazy about the situation is there's a so-called 'government' whose only practical function is to process US and UK purchases/annexes of Iraq's resources, but while they's squabbling over receipts, the real source of political power is laying siege to this fake country and duking it out with the invaders and themselves.

An utterly, profoundly absurd and gut-wrenching situation.

Maybe what Iraq needs is a strong leader, not afraid to crack down & keep things in order. Secular preferably, but with an Islamic background he can call upon when necessary. Someone the US can do business with.

Sand

Maybe what Iraq needs is a strong leader, not afraid to crack down & keep things in order. Secular preferably, but with an Islamic background he can call upon when necessary. Someone the US can do business with.

Well, theres one guy who might be available. Hes got some legal issues to clear up first, but hes got a proven track record in stability...

Manic Moran

pete wrote:

Maybe what Iraq needs is a strong leader, not afraid to crack down & keep things in order. Secular preferably, but with an Islamic background he can call upon when necessary. Someone the US can do business with.

Unfortunately, 'cracking down' will imply using techniques which will be soundly disapproved of in the West. Thus, the US/UK will probably not allow such to happen, even though it's quite probably the best way of dealing with it.

The curfews are a good idea, hopefully it will allow people to de-steam. The various imams are also fairly united against the violence, so there's a bit of hope there as well.

A good point brought up on another board I frequent is that the attack very much was an all-or-nothing roll of the dice by the insurgents. It will either devolve the country into a full-on civil war, or it will polarise the citizenry against the insurgents. (Shia for obvious reasons, and Sunni because they're afraid of what happens if rampant Shias get going a la Bosnia). If it was such a good idea to blow up the mosque, they'd have done it years ago.

NTM

DadaKopf

pete wrote:

Maybe what Iraq needs is a strong leader, not afraid to crack down & keep things in order. Secular preferably, but with an Islamic background he can call upon when necessary. Someone the US can do business with.

Hehehehe. America's Iraq policy is completely incoherent. That'd make sense, if it wasn't for all this democracy stuff they have to pretend they're delivering.

Maybe what the invaders *should* have done to contain all this is put the Iraqi military in charge, under the command of their good selves, the invaders - I mean saviours. Opt for a gradual transition, not the Weimar Republic.

bonkey

Sand wrote:

Well, theres one guy who might be available. Hes got some legal issues to clear up first, but hes got a proven track record in stability...

Nah. Apparently they still think he's got a hard-on for invading other nations when they don't want him to. So he's still unsuitable.

jc

Frederico

Don't the Sunni's enjoy more wealth than the Shiites?
I think they are much better armed and are basically more desperate because they know they'll be shafted in the new Democratic Iraq.. i.e. not get their cake and eat it like under Saddam..

I would really love to know how the Sunni's (Insurgents, gunmen, etc) are able to perform so many attacks, consistantly and take the level of losses that they do against the Americans and other targets..

Cronus333

because of Iraqs sizable population silly. even at 20% thats a lot of sunnis.

Victor

Frederico wrote:

I would really love to know how the Sunni's (Insurgents, gunmen, etc) are able to perform so many attacks, consistantly and take the level of losses that they do against the Americans and other targets..

Asymmetic warfare. The insurgents don't need to run airbases and a navy.

25 million Iraqis, 5 million Sunni Arab (note many Kurds are also Sunni), 1 million plus men in the age group 18-49, perhaps 10,000-40,000 insurgents killed. There is still a lot of man power there.

Also, they are doing things cheaply. There are something like 8 million guns in private hands in Iraq, a disturbing number of them assault rifles. In the run up to the 2003 invasion, much of the military arsenal was dispersed, especially small arms and explosives. The attacks that are going on are being carried out with "free" weapons and people that are being motivated by things other than money.

Separate of course you have all sorts of activities from armed robbery to smuggling to kidnapping.

It takes one guy to detonate a daisy-chain of artillery shells on the side of a road with his buddy two miles down the road to tell him there is a convoy coming. You might need dozens of soldiers and other to protect that convoy and the other 10 convoys that don't get attacked.

pork99

Today I am mainly posting links to the Sunday Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2058597,00.html

interesting article by Abdel Bari Atwan (one of the few jouranlists to interview Bin Laden lately) on al Qaeda's strategy in Iraq. Not pleasant reading.

Also interesting

Pentagon promotes 'long war' strategy as violence threatens withdrawal

(subscription)

Victor

What would "civil war Iraq" look like?