Lighting a Stick of Dynamite In Iraq

As we end the year of the surge in Iraq, the dynamic is one of tense calm. The US military armed and sustained these Sunni awakening groups, which is akin to wiring an IED that could go off at any moment. The Awakening groups, numbering around 80,000, appear distrustful of each other, in addition to being distrustful of the Shiite majority government.

Despite the successes of the movement, including the members’ ability to provide valuable intelligence and give rebuilding efforts a new chance in war-shattered communities, the American military acknowledges that it is also a high-risk proposition. It is an experiment in counterinsurgency warfare that could contain the seeds of a civil war — in which, if the worst fears come true, the United States would have helped organize some of the Sunni forces arrayed against the central government on which so many American lives and dollars have been spent.

In interviews with Awakening groups in 10 locations — four interviewed during a week in Anbar, and six groups in and around Baghdad interviewed over several days — it was evident that the groups were improving security in their areas. But it is also clear that there is little loyalty, in either direction, between the Sunni groups and the Shiites who run the government.

The Americans are haunted by the possibility that Iraq could go the way of Afghanistan, where Americans initially bought the loyalty of tribal leaders only to have some of them gravitate back to the Taliban when the money stopped.

The biggest concern about this strategy has always been that the Administration is risking long-term security in the region in exchange for a short-term political victory. This is almost always the scenario that winds up blowing back in the face of America and our interests. It's not sustainable to pay for Sunni loyalty in Anbar for the rest of all of our lives, so some political accommodation between the factions has to be reached. And that's just not happening on either side. The Sunnis think that the government is led by Iranian front groups and working on behalf of sectarian interests. And the Shiites think the Sunnis are massing for a coup attempt and will not allow that to happen:

Iraq's Shiite-led government declared Saturday that after restive areas are calmed it will disband Sunni groups battling Islamic extremists because it does not want them to become a separate military force [...]

The statement from Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi was the government's most explicit declaration yet of its intent to eventually dismantle the groups backed and funded by the United States as a vital tool for reducing violence.

The militias, more than 70,000 strong and often made up of former insurgents, are known as Awakening Councils, or Concerned Local Citizens.

"We completely, absolutely reject the Awakening becoming a third military organization,'' al-Obaidi said at a news conference.

I tend to think that the Sunnis and Shiites will differ on what amounts to "calm" in those areas, and the Shiites will come in to take away the guns at a time the Sunnis think is too early, and both sides will turn their guns on one another, with our troops in the crossfire. This will accelerate as disaffected renegade Shi'a take the law into their own hands, fed up with a government and a clerical leadership that they feel is not providing basic services. So the Shiites will battle the Shiites, the Sunnis will battle the Sunnis, the Turks will punish the Kurds with bombings and ground troops, and all of these elements will press toward civil war.

This is not an out-of-thin-air scenario, it's the inevitable conclusion of a strategy that arms opponents and strengthens tribal militias. Right now Iraq is breaking apart into sects jockeying for power, and no country in world history has managed to avoid conflict in such an almost feudal splintering.

A calmer and safer Iraq right now is preferable to the chaos that has marked much of the conflict, but that's a snapshot in time. And the means by which we've bought that safety and calm are the same means by which a much bigger spasm of violence is set to explode.