Why We're Winning in Iraq ...

This is from The Intellectual Activist Daily newsletter. Great analysis of the situation here in Iraq:

"Part of the success achieved by the "surge" in Iraq has been the suppression of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia run by Muqtada al-Sadr. The Mahdi Army has laid low and not challenged the surge. Why?

Maybe it's because Muqtada al-Sadr has been too busy studying. The Los Angeles Times reports that Sadr is feverishly trying to complete a course of seminary study that will allow him to claim the title of "ayatollah." Ominously, "the main focus of al-Sadr's studies has been the Shiite doctrine known in Arabic as 'wilayet al-faqeeh,' which supports the right of clerical rule. The concept was adopted Iran's Khomeini, but carries little support among Iraq's Shiite religious hierarchy."

The Christian Science Monitor claims that the Mahdi Army is just lying low so that it can rebuild and reform itself, coming back even stronger once US troops begin to leave. I'm not entirely buying this. Regrouping and coming back stronger is certainly the Mahdi Army's intention—but I doubt they can manage it.

The Washington Post has a long but fascinating article about the role of the Mahdi Army militia in Iraqi society. This article probably deserves its own link, which I may give it tomorrow, but it shows that the Mahdi Army, having lost men in battles with US and Iraqi troops, is having to recruit younger and younger teenage thugs as its enforcers, and this Mahdi Army mafia is alienating the population and fueling local interest in an Anbar-style "awakening"—a rebellion by local tribes against terrorist groups.

Another really good link, an interview with Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, also notes that "a significant number of Shiite combatant groups are also in active negotiation [with the coalition] and a significant number of them have left the fighting field." Interestingly, Biddle describes America's success in large measure as a reward for the virtue of persistence:


A third major factor is an apparent change in Iraqis' perception of how long we're going to be there. I've heard a number of people in Iraq suggest that, partially as a result of General [David] Petraeus' testimony before congressional committees last September, but also as a result of the changing tenor of the discussion in the United States, many Iraqi factions have gone from an expectation that we're short timers and we're leaving soon, and hence they need to prepare the battlefield for the big version of the civil war to come when we leave, to a view that the United States is apparently going to be sticking around for years.

That perception changes their ability to take risks. Previously, the last thing they were interested in doing was anything that might have strengthened their internal opponents, even slightly. Now, on the other hand, they seem to be willing to try it out. For example the Shiite national government is much more willing to tolerate the idea of its former semi-enemies being set up as local territorial police, because they're more confident that the United States is going to be around to keep these people honest.

Last but not least is the effect of the "surge." That works together with this change in Iraqi perception of how long we're sticking around. It's substantially safer for both the government and Sunni insurgents to experience some reconciliation if they think that there's somebody around to provide a safety net.



A lot of people have raised concerns about the strategy of forging alliances with local tribal leaders, but I think this is precisely what we need, for three reasons. First, tribal leaders are inherently local, tied to a town or district in which they are well-known and enjoy support—and therefore they are less likely to act as agents of Iranian influence.

Second, they are secular—not in the sense of being non-religious personally, but in the sense that the source of their power and legitimacy is secular. They are a form of existing social organization and authority that is grounded not in religion but in traditional family ties, which often cross over sectarian divisions. This makes them a good counterweight to Islamists like al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army.

This potential virtue of the tribal-led "awakening" is indicated in the report below, which discusses the plans of one of the movement's leaders to turn it into a non-sectarian political party that could change the direction of Iraqi politics.



"A Powerful Awakening Shakes Iraqi Politics," Trudy Rubin, source RealClearPolitics.com, December 13

Six months ago Sheikh Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman al-Dulaimi predicted that tribal leaders would defeat al-Qaeda in Anbar province, the Sunni tribal heartland. Now the young prince of the Dulaim, one of Iraq's largest tribes, exults that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been driven out of Anbar by tribal fighters aided by American troops….
[T]ribal sheikhs all over Iraq are constantly calling him for information about the movement in Anbar, sometimes called the Awakening (sahwa in Arabic). "People I've never heard of before want relations with the sahwa," says Ali Hatem. "The sahwa is not just an awakening of force but an awakening of heart and spirit, an awakening from sectarian hatred."…

He would like to see it spread to the north, where there are still AQI elements hiding out in cities like Mosul. More dramatic, he says fed-up Shiite sheikhs from the south of Iraq, where existing Shiite religious parties are squabbling viciously over power, want information on how to form sahwa movements of their own….

Ali Hatem—and other sheikhs with whom I spoke—are looking at an awakening that goes beyond groups of fighters. They talk of forming a new political party—nonsectarian—built on a tribal base that includes Sunnis, Shiites and others….

Such a development may have to wait until Iraq holds provincial elections. But the ferment aroused by the sahwa movement is already shaking up Iraq's political scene."

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