Iraq Journal, Part Four

[The third dispatch from my father about his experiences living and teaching in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimani is up on City Journal. You can read the first one here about his arrival in and first impressions of Suli; his second dispatch about the economic and political situation is here; one from my mother about a visit to Halabja can be found here.]

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part Three
A visit to Saddam’s chamber of horrors
14 May 2009

Editors’ note: This is the third in a series of dispatches from Kurdistan, where the author is spending four months consulting for the American University in Iraq–Sulaimani. The first and second installments are here and here.

The “Red Museum” in the city of Sulaimani, or Suli, isn’t red or much of a museum. It’s three hideous concrete buildings, erected in 1979 to house Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus as part of his campaign to subdue the Kurds after their quixotic 1975 uprising—quixotic because they trusted Iranian and American promises of support. Two of the buildings had windows, but they were shot out by Suli’s enraged citizens in a spontaneous uprising after the Gulf War in 1991. The third had no windows, because it was a place where no one should be able to see in or out. Sunlight wasn’t welcome in a chamber of torture and death.

Saddam’s campaign began as a giant feat of social engineering and ethnic gerrymandering. By 1979, the regime razed over 1,000 villages along the borders with Turkey and Iran and moved their inhabitants to grim resettlement camps. Arabs were moved into, and Kurds expelled from, strategic and disputed towns in the region, especially Kirkuk. But Saddam also spent lots of money on economic development to dampen Kurdish nationalist zeal.

Things changed dramatically with the revival of the Kurdish rebel forces, the advent of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, and the formation of the Kurdistan National Front in Tehran in 1987. With Saddam now viewing the Kurds as an Iranian-backed fifth column, ethnic gerrymandering gave way to lethal repression, culminating in the genocidal chemical murder of the Anfal campaigns, which began with attacks around Suli in February 1988. When Iranian and Kurdish forces took the city of Halabja in March and threatened to take the nearby Darbandikan dam as well, Saddam’s regime shelled and gassed that city and its surrounding villages. By the end of the Anfal campaigns in August 1988, according to historian David McDowall, Saddam’s vast apparatus of murder had killed perhaps as many as 200,000 men, women, and children, produced hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees in Turkey and Iran, and left Kurdistan bereft of rural village life.

All of this is cold historical fact. There is nothing cold about the faces one sees on the walls of the Red Museum, where from 1979 until the uprising in 1991, Saddam tortured and killed in pursuit of the Kurdish rebels. Though Saddam usually buried his victims in mass graves as far as possible from where they lived, he had no scruples about compiling a photographic record of the killing. The first photo one sees freezes the blood. It looks like a picture in a college yearbook: a class of 13 young men, perhaps a debating or a Latin club, except for the anxiety evident in their eyes. The legend informs that it was taken in the prison in 1986 and that all but one of these young men were tortured and executed. Then photo after photo shows a bloody body crumpled at the foot of the stake to which the victim was tied to be shot. In one photo, two Baathist security men, grinning widely beneath their mustaches, hold up a headless corpse, their free hands raised in the victory salute. Next comes a picture of three women—child, mother, and grandmother—with faces frozen in fear just before their execution for suspected connection with rebels in the mountains. Numerous images record the last minutes in the lives of such women and children.

Then we see photos of the villages: buses being loaded with dispirited inhabitants headed toward industrial-style execution; smoldering ruins; piles of the dead killed by artillery and bombs. And throughout, Saddam’s soldiers filled with jubilant pride at their murder of the innocent and unarmed. The walls of the last room are covered with photos taken by Suli citizens during the Kurds’ short-lived 1991 uprising against Saddam. We see Baathist tanks on fire, a person shot out of a wheelchair lying dead in the street, wounded Baathists getting first aid from the Kurds, and a heartbreaking picture of a young boy holding a sign asking, WHERE IS MY SISTER?

From the photo rooms, the museum’s guide, Khalil Ali Mustafa, takes visitors to the rooms where the real business of the prison went on. They’re surprisingly small: two 20-by-12-foot cells, on either side of a short hall leading to two toilets, together housed up to 120 prisoners on an average day. From the cells, the prisoners could see, down another short hall, the “relaxation post,” where prisoners fresh from torture were tied to a wall and kicked, pummeled, and insulted by the guards who walked by.

There are also two torture rooms, each about 10 by 15 feet, and each with a beam, suspended from the ceiling, to which are attached several meat hooks. From these hooks, prisoners were hung by their wrists tied behind the back: the effect was to dislocate the shoulders and cause slow and agonizing suffocation while the rest of the body was beaten with wire whips and shocked by a generator attached to the nipples and genitals. The shock machine and the whips are on display. Between the two torture rooms is a smaller “listening room,” where the next victim would be held for hours to listen to the screams and contemplate what he would soon endure. Many cracked and talked just from that pressure. And children were among the tortured, to extort information from their horrified mothers. Down another hall is a long line of isolation cells, roughly four by five feet, where particularly important prisoners were kept for up to six months of repeated torture sessions. Wires once attached to small microphones run outside the cells.

The cells’ walls are scratched with the names of prisoners who tried to leave some vestige of their existence. In one is a small statue of a teacher, Ma Masta Ahmad, who after six months of confinement and torture was subjected to 24 hours of hanging by his wrists. To end this torment he told everything he knew—and then was shot. On the wall is etched his pathetic little calendar, which he kept to keep some contact with an outside world that he never saw again. Of the thousands of men, women, and children who came through the doors of the Red Museum, almost none came out alive. Those who did not perish were sent to Abu Ghraib in Baghdad to be hanged.

In the basement of the Red Museum, a dark and dank and stinking place, is a small room with pictures of the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja. Many in the West are familiar with the photo of a man lying prone on the threshold of a house, on top of a small child whom he tried to shield from the gas. It’s heartbreaking, to be sure, but it’s almost abstract and thus suitable for newspaper display. I doubt that many of the photos in the Red Museum have been seen in the West, because they’re so gruesome as to turn the stomach of anyone who sees them. The one I found most disturbing was a close-up of a little girl, maybe six or seven years old. Her ashen white face is surrounded by brownish hair and her mouth is frozen in a ghoulish grin. Her eyes are open, but are so crossed as to make her look like a little fiend from hell. The gas not only killed her; it turned her corpse into what looked like a monster.

A few weeks later, I went to Halabja with a young woman and her husband. Both were seven when the city was gassed. We first stopped at the memorial building on the edge of the city. The memorial was ransacked in 2006 and is still a mess. Angry Halabja citizens attacked it in protest against government indifference. They had a point: Halabja is drab and sad and has few paved streets. It’s a monument to government neglect as well as to the misery of the Anfal campaign.

In the city center is an old graveyard surrounded by a fence, on which a sign reads: BAATH NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER. Amid the old single graves are three new mass graves in which about 3,000 victims of the attack are interred. Beyond them is an expanse of small headstones, each representing an entire family. The young woman accompanying me said that she was lucky that her father, a peshmerga—a rebel fighter, one of “those who confront death”—had told her and her mother to leave the city because an attack was sure to come. They fled to one of the vast, squalid refugee camps in Iran and after six months made their way back to Suli. Her father was gassed and eventually died of the effects. Her brother was arrested, tortured, and executed. Her husband, too, remembers clinging to his mother’s dress as they fled into the mountains to escape the gas. At one point they had to choose between paths to two separate villages. Both villages were bombed by gas, but the bomb hitting the village they chose turned out to be a dud. It’s sheer luck that he’s alive. The young woman’s brother did not live to see this horror. In 1981, she told me, at the age of 14, he was murdered by his best friend, also 14 but even at that age a Baathist agent.

The mountains above Halabja are dotted with empty villages, monuments, and mass graves, some barely large enough for a few families, one the size of a football field. Many small mass graves lie near two natural springs whose water was poisoned by the gas, instantly killing those who drank it. On the day I visited, throngs of picnickers were enjoying their Friday in the country, barbecuing, playing music, and dancing. It was hard to believe that in these now serene mountains, old men, women, and children were once mowed down by helicopter gunships and chemical bombs.

In politics, the legacy of suffering has made the Kurds hard. They trust no one, look out for themselves, and engage in double-dealing, often to the chagrin of their friends in America and elsewhere. But apart from politics, Kurdish civil society is healing, and the Kurds are getting over the experience of being victims. In fact, one problem in Suli, notes Judith Bass, a Johns Hopkins professor of public health working here with the Heartland Alliance’s Victims of Torture Project (which provides mental health services), is that the victims, especially disabled and shell-shocked peshmerga, feel that they’re being forgotten as the Kurds get on with making the most of their freedom. Few citizens of Suli visit the Red Museum. When they go to the silent graves of their murdered beloved, they go to picnic and dance—to celebrate life and freedom.

Jerry Weinberger is a professor of political science at Michigan State University, director of the LeFrak Forum at Michigan State, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought. He thanks Kamal Osman Kaķi, who served as translator at the Red Museum.

Iraq Journal, Part Three

[City Journal has published the second dispatch from my father on living and teaching in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimani. You can read his first dispatch here, and one from my mother on visiting Halabja here.]

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part Two
Socialism on top, Milton Friedman on the bottom
22 April 2009

Editors’ note: This is the second in a series of dispatches from Kurdistan, where the author is spending four months consulting for the American University in Iraq–Sulaimani. Read the first installment here.

I was born with the olfactory powers of a bloodhound, which is a blessing at fine restaurants but not in the city of Sulaimani, or Suli, in Iraqi Kurdistan. On first entering my apartment here, I knew that my palate, tongue, and nose were under assault from petroleum molecules—but I didn’t know why, since there’s no oil drilling nearby. It turns out that every house, business, and hotel has an ample, and often leaky, supply of diesel fuel in the basement. That’s because there’s hardly a house or business in Suli that doesn’t have a diesel-powered generator just outside the door. And that’s because electricity is available from the main grid only six or eight hours per day.

Water, too, is intermittent, which explains why for every private generator, there’s also a private water tank. The water is used for plants and for washing cars, clothes, and people, but not much for human consumption. Few people drink it, and it’s not wise to open your mouth in the shower or brush your teeth with water from the tap. A visit to the humblest and cheapest restaurant begins with a sealed, square plastic container of water plopped down in front of you, usually free of charge. In the bazaar are pyramids of sheep’s heads; outside the bazaar, you can’t walk a block without encountering giant pyramids of 20-liter bottles of potable water.

The reason for the city’s strange amalgam of official grids and unofficial networks is that Sulaimani Province is governed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a proud member of the Socialist International. The PUK owns half of the city and employs half of its people. American readers won’t be surprised that a sprawling, one-party socialist government is not a paragon of efficiency, transparency, and responsiveness to public needs—especially in a place like Kurdistan. After Saddam’s genocidal Anfal Campaign against Kurdish rebels in 1988, and the establishment of the no-fly zone after the Gulf War in 1991, the two Iraqi Kurdish political parties—the PUK, led by Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdish Democratic Party, led by Masoud Barzani—fought a nasty civil war. Adding to the cost of this internal chaos, which lasted from 1994 to 1998, were the sanctions that strangled Iraq, and particularly Suli, until the fall of Saddam in 2003. So the Kurds couldn’t buckle down to rebuilding their ravaged land until just six years ago.

Fortunately, the two parties have patched up their differences. The KDP (whose stronghold is in the northern province of Erbil) and the PUK in Suli have brought Kurdistan to a vague but real enough status as a quasi-independent region within a federal Iraq. They’ve even become somewhat embarrassed about their weakness on civil liberties, especially in more free-thinking and liberal Suli—where independent women’s groups have taken on the hot-button issue of violence against women, and where a high school student recently organized a seminar on child abuse. The two parties have, in short, provided a level of personal security, freedom, and religious toleration unknown in the rest of post-Baathist Iraq. True, it’s under the socialist PUK that the electricity runs only six hours per day and the water intermittently. Yet this administrative inefficiency hasn’t resulted in economic paralysis, because while a socialist government rules from above in Suli, the principles of Milton Friedman flourish underneath.

The Kurds have used their share of Iraq’s oil money to lure massive foreign investments. But at least in Suli, they haven’t succumbed to the Middle East’s stultifying economic and psychological dependence on that money. I think that’s because with so much inefficiency at the top, the regular citizens of Suli fend for themselves. Hence the spontaneous and private systems that electrify and water the city. Hence the private garbage collectors who walk the city collecting trash (though a lot of it gets deposited in the vacant lot next to my building) and the private propane sellers who crisscross the city to help people cook.

The city also hums with small-scale building, both residential and commercial, and shopping malls and start-up businesses—for instance, the Melody Café, a sleek espresso and gelato establishment in my building. Recently, two musicians, a Kurdish violinist and a Russian pianist, played classical music at the Melody to the beaming delight of the packed Kurdish house. The central street running to the sprawling bazaar is a free-enterprise zone—established by the enlightened free-market liberal Barham Salih, deputy secretary-general of the PUK and deputy prime minister of Iraq—with few public buildings and no elaborate rules governing how new businesses may start. Few rules, in fact, govern the building of anything in the city. Half the dust in Suli gets blown in from the south, but the other half is produced by all the digging and grinding and sanding of ubiquitous construction.

The result of all this vigorous private enterprise is that Kurdistan, the poorest part of Iraq before the war, now enjoys the highest standard of living in the country. If the government here worked better, in fact, I think the citizens of Suli would be slower to develop their nascent individualism, capitalism, and vibrant civic culture. Few of them probably realize that they are slowly acquiring the habits of entrepreneurial capitalism: do for oneself; take risks and strive to get richer; don’t dwell on the past; and when things go badly—and do they ever know what “badly” can mean—pick yourself up, don’t worry about honor, and get on with life.

The Milton Friedman bottom of Suli is causing problems for the socialist top. Recent polls show that almost half of the electorate is tired of government inefficiency and the slow pace of infrastructure construction, and the Kurdistan Islamic Union is licking its lips in anticipation of the next elections. It’s a joke when the disgruntled citizens of Bologna, Italy, vote in protest for Communists. It won’t be a joke if the Kurds turn in protest to the KIU and other Islamic parties.

The PUK knows this, and some of its members also know that it can’t rest on its laurels for having fought Saddam. There are rumblings in the party’s liberal and reformist elements. It’s my hope that in the long run, liberal, free-market reformers will come out on top. And they had better, because Kurdistan is caught between a Turkish rock and a Baghdadi hard place. It’ll take cool heads—who understand that Kurdish independence is fragile and that Iraqi oil is too valuable a resource to be lost pursuing nationalist dreams—to navigate the shoals of a workable Iraqi federalism.

Jerry Weinberger is a professor of political science at Michigan State University, director of the LeFrak Forum at Michigan State, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought.

Iraq Journal, Part Two

[This is the second in a series of posts about goings-on in Iraq. In the first, my father who is teaching at the American University in Iraq - Sulaimani wrote about getting to the Kurdish north. In this post, my mother, who is visiting my father in Iraq for a few weeks, writes about a trip to Halabja.]

Another fascinating and very stimulating weekend. (And did I mention that the weekends are Friday (the holy day) and Saturday.) Both Friday and Saturday we were taken in to the mountains surrounding Suli, first in the east and then in the west. The Kurds are fond of saying that "the mountains are our only friends" and that "Saddam had tanks but we had the mountains." The mountains surrounding Suli are different than any I've seen but Jerry compares them to the Grand Tetons. They rise sharply up from the valley without the surrounding foothills that are more typical in the US. And they vary dramatically in type from bare and rocky, to sandy with desert type plants, to covered with lush green

On Friday, a staff member at AUIS and her husband took us to Halabja, the town in the eastern mountains very close to the Iranian border where they were born and raised. Mention Halabja to any Kurd and they immediately know what it means and what you are going to see. Halabja is to the Kurds what the Holocaust is to Jews. It's the town that Saddam destroyed by chemical bombs, killing 5,000 men, women, and children. Visiting Halabja with Kurds, who are now in their 20s but were children of around 7 at the time of the attack, was a moving experience. Both had lost many friends and family members as well as having their homes destroyed; both had parents blinded for several weeks by the chemicals. Sham had never before visited the memorial because she feared the photos of those burned or killed would be too upsetting. Her husband recounted fleeing in fear, clinging to his mother's skirt. He took us to the path in the mountains on which, if they had chosen it, they would have died along with countless others who are now buried in mass graves that dot the hillside. He showed us the path they took instead to a village which though also hit by a chemical bomb, luckily, did not explode. Standing in the mountains, surrounded by wildflowers, and seeing families picnic at the cemeteries and mass graves it's difficult to imagine the horror which happened only 20 years ago.

Saturday, Dildar, a woman I was introduced to, took me to visit the Women's Commission, an organization which collects statistics, educates, and advocates on behalf of women. Although the women of Suli are relatively modern, women in the small villages still live lives of second class citizens. Honor killings still occur. Female circumcision is common. And few women are allowed to own property, receive their husband's pensions if they are widowed, or to withdraw money from bank accounts. Even in Suli, girls do not have the same freedoms as boys. The girls at the high school where I have been volunteering complain they are not allowed to go out with friends, they certainly can not have boys visit their homes, and many families prize boy children more than girls.

After an elaborate Kurdish lunch at the home of a Kurdish Member of Parliament with enough food to feed 30 people, Dildar also took Jerry and me for a drive in to the mountains (with a driver and uniformed guard carrying an M16 rifle!) She showed us the village and huts where she and her husband had been in hiding with other members of the pesh murga during the fighting with Saddam. She related stories of horror: bombing of the villages, climbing the mountains under sniper fire, having 3 miscarriages from effects of chemical weapons.

Again this weekend, Jerry and I were in awe of the stories of loss, heroism, and personal bravery that we heard. When we become frustrated with the construction debris, the dirtiness, and the inefficiencies of basic services, we try to remember how far Kurdistan has come in the brief time they have been at peace. We also once again were impressed by the warmth and hospitality of the Kurdish people. Sham's family in Halabja prepared a huge feast for us, family members from all over the city came to meet us and show us their children, and then they sent us home with a big bag of home-made bread. Shopkeepers, cab drivers, and others tell us over and over how much they love America. They are anxious that their stories are heard in the West.

Iraq Journal, Part One

My father, Jerry Weinberger, a professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University, is currently in Iraq. He is spending the spring teaching politics at the American University of Iraq, which is located in Sulaimani in the Kurdish north. Recently, he has been writing for City Journal, and will be chronicling his time in Iraq in a series of articles. The first has just been published...

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part One
My arrival in Sulaimani, Kurdistan
2 April 2009

Editors’ note: This is the first of several dispatches from Kurdistan, where the author is spending four months consulting for the American University in Iraq-Sulaimani.

My electronic plane ticket directed me to the “Azmar Air” counter at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. From there I’d fly to Sulaimani (the Kurdish spelling of Sulaimaniya), the city in Sulaimani Province of the Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region. The problem: I couldn’t find the Azmar counter. The gentleman at the information booth informed me that I should go to the Atlasjet Office on the other side of the airport—a big disappointment since my two suitcases weighed a ton, and I was also lugging my computer bag and fumbling with my cane. There, though, the Atlasjet man told me that if I wanted to talk to someone from Azmar, a Kurdish airline, I should go back to the other side. Again, I walked crab-like across the airport, still finding no Azmar. Eventually, Atlasjet (a Turkish airline) took my Azmar e-ticket—Azmar, in fact, doesn’t exist at Ataturk Airport, which somebody should have told me at some point. I boarded and was on my way.

The Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, “founded” in 1991 when the Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein and were protected by a U.S. enforced no-fly zone, is the nation-state equivalent of Azmar Air: it’s an independent state that officially isn’t one. The Turks have been warming to their own Kurds of late—Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, for instance, wooed their votes in the recent election—and to the Kurdish Autonomous Region, too. Turkey’s National Security Council, the nation’s main political conduit of military influence, has recommended improving economic relations with “Northern Iraq.” The Kurds have reciprocated by claiming that they don’t support the murderous Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and would rather like a Turkish consulate in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil.

But in Turkey and in Washington, D.C., “Kurdistan” dare not speak its name. Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the region’s official ruling body, has complained that the Kurds love America but get no respect from Washington. In response, State Department spokesman Robert Wood in February wouldn’t even use the word “Kurds,” referring to them instead as “one of Iraq’s ethnic components.”

The Kurds are the largest ethnic group on earth that doesn’t have a state of its own. And they’re not just in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq. There are more Kurds in Eastern Turkey than in Iraq, and lots in bordering Iran and Syria as well. That’s why almost no one but the Kurds of Iraq refers to their region as Kurdistan, and why Kurdistan looks like a state and walks like a state, but no one will call it a state. And in my view, it’s likely that it can’t become a real state without the unraveling of Iraq and a consequent civil and regional war.

I got into Sulaimani, or Suli, at 3 a.m., in a jet-lagged daze. When the sun came up, I discovered that I’d landed in a totally different world. Suli is a far cry from Istanbul. My heart sank as I stepped outside to discover that my apartment building sat next to a garbage dump: piles of building debris and other trash and detritus covered the vacant lot next door, though gallant chickens pecked away at the rubble. Across the “street,” a building under construction looked like a concrete Erector Set joke: no way that the multi-storied pile of cinder blocks would not collapse. Down the rain-slick street ran muddy rivulets of water. I was glad I didn’t have to walk anywhere before my contact, driving a big SUV, picked me up. (Climbing into the vehicle, though, I did get a gob of yellow mud deposited on my pants.)

We drove through a warren of similar streets until we came to the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS): a single, large building surrounded by a high concrete wall. The SUV backed into a narrow gate and stopped while a soldier, AK-47 on his back, stuck a big mirror under the car and walked around. Just to make sure that I wasn’t riding in a bomb. I made my way to the office of my old friend, the provost, Josh Mitchell, who took over the job from another old friend, John Agresto, former president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe. Soon Josh had to rush off to speak with Barham Salih, Deputy Premier of Iraq, intellectual big-shot of the Progressive Union of Kurdistan party, and the driving force behind the new university. There was a personnel crisis in the PUK and, I assumed, it must have had implications for the university.

So I decided to stroll around the neighborhood and take some further measure of the city where I’d live for the next four months. My impression was again of a ramshackle mess. The streets are littered and smelly and crowded, with madly bustling traffic threatening to mow down walkers who mostly have to dart across streets without the aid of crosswalks or lights. The tiny, tumbled-down shops stand cheek-by-jowl, sidewalks start and stop, and you have to walk carefully because in Suli, most steps are irregular and uneven.

And then there are the guns. The AK-47 is as common as the ant in Iraq, and so, too, in Kurdistan. An armed soldier stands next to my apartment building 24/7. At lunch with some students I held my cane, which has a handle that could be taken for a butt, between my legs. One student asked why I had my gun with me, since they’re forbidden to bring theirs into the building. The demand for Western pistols is so great that the black-market price of a Glock 19 has tripled.

But it didn’t take me long to see that Suli is safe. It’s a lot like Israel, where it’s not unusual to see the man in front of you in line with a pistol stuck in his pants. The guns don’t denote internal tension or fear, but national pride and common vigilance against terror. The guard standing post outside my building is a young guy with a six-inch sword-tattoo on his arm, a nasty scar on his chin, and four missing teeth. He greets me: “Hello teesh,” and runs to shake my hand. The Kurds have learned, as New Yorkers did in the nineties, that security is the bedrock of a functioning (well, sort of functioning here) civil society.

Suli is a law-abiding town. Lose your wallet? Someone will call to return it with all the money. Washington, D.C. has more homeless beggars than I’ve seen in Suli, even in the bazaar, with its meandering streets and swarms of people walking and hawking and buying. I thought some boys were begging until I realized that they were selling plastic bags for shoppers. As I walked back, two drivers bumped into each other in the crazy-quilt traffic. Both stopped, inspected the small damage (one had to pull a bit at a bumper), and went their separate ways: no arguments, no shouting, and certainly no exchanges of lawyer information.

Sunday, March 8 was the Prophet’s birthday, so the university was closed on what would have been a normal business day. The holiday was quiet, though most business seemed to go on pretty much as usual. Little food markets and restaurants were open, and the propane-cooking-gas-canister guy passed down the street, a young boy perched atop the truck making the rhythmical banging that, when I first heard it, made me think that Suli has Hare Krishnas.

AUIS was closed the day before, too, which by contrast was filled with raucous festivities commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Kurdish uprising against Saddam—the Kurdish Fourth of July: beautiful girls decked out in colorful Kurdish garb, loudspeakers blaring, big crowds in social halls. As I walked in the swirl, I couldn’t go far without young men coming up to ask where I was from and shake my hand. “U.S./Washington D.C.” elicited replies such as: “America and Kurdistan good friends,” or “White House.” One young man even said: “Jack Bauer.” But invariably, they would ask: “How you like Suli?” while simply bursting with pride in their freedom and their city.

One doesn’t hear the words Insha’Allah (God willing) much here, at least as regards things that need doing. That’s not because Islam is unimportant to the Kurds; it is. But in Suli, people don’t much count on God to get things done. They do for themselves, which is why, for all its drabness and chaos, the city (or rather half of the city—more on this next time) works. I think that’s why its citizens love it so, and why it’s growing on me, too.

Jerry Weinberger is a professor of political science at Michigan State University, director of the LeFrak Forum at Michigan State, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought.

Bush's Last Success

Say what you will about the presidency of George W. Bush, the war on terror, the invasion of Iraq, or anything else...

This is truly amazing. The fact that Iraq, a country that suffered under one of history's most brutal dictators, just voted in (what seem to be) free, fair, and safe democratic elections is a legacy of which President Bush should be most proud. And for which he deserves far more credit than he has been given.

February 1, 2009

Under Tight Security, Elections Are Calm in Iraq

By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD — Iraqis voted on Saturday for local representatives, on an almost violence-free election day aimed at creating provincial councils that more closely represent Iraq’s ethnic, sectarian and tribal balance. By nightfall, there were no confirmed deaths, and children played soccer on closed-off streets in a generally joyous atmosphere.

Security was extraordinary. Driving was banned in most of the country to prevent suicide bombers from attacking any of the more than 6,000 polling centers and security checkpoints, often spaced just yards apart. The tight security, coupled with confusion over where voters should cast their ballots, appeared to have reduced turnout in many districts across the country. Senior members of several political parties were complaining publicly even before the polls closed.

Nationwide turnout varied: some provinces hovered around 60 percent, with Basra, a Shiite-dominated region in the south, still lower at about 50 percent. Others, including the northern province of Nineveh, which is strained by political tensions and violence between Arabs and Kurds, had 75 percent participation, according to local election officials. Contentious feelings from the campaign spilled over into election day, when opposing party leaders made many complaints about their rivals to American and international observers who visited polling sites.

Turnout was also high in Anbar Province, an overwhelmingly Sunni area where residents largely boycotted the 2005 national elections because of threats by insurgents and opposition to the American-led invasion. Sunnis’ participation now is considered critical to restoring balance to regional politics and perhaps undercutting a reason for violence.

“I just voted and I’m very happy,” Mukhalad Waleed, 35, said in the city of Ramadi, in Anbar. “We could not do the same thing the last time because of the insurgency.”

Part way through the day, the government lifted the vehicle ban in some areas to allow voters to travel to polling stations farther afield. It also extended the voting period by an hour, until 6 p.m.

Results are not expected for several days, with politicians anxiously waiting to find out how many councils will change hands, and if widespread dissatisfaction voiced at religious parties will translate into fewer seats for them.

More than 14,000 candidates are competing for 440 seats in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The seats are for provincial councils that control municipal budgets and have the power to hire and fire people, giving successful candidates a great deal of power and influence in a nation with high unemployment. There was no voting in the semiautonomous Kurdish region, or in the divided city of Kirkuk.

In Qahtaniya, a village southwest of Sinjar in Nineveh Province that was the site in 2007 of the single worst truck bombing during the war, with as many as 500 people killed, the voting was orderly and even cheerful. Khodar Khudaida Rashu, the administrator of the Qahtaniya subdistrict, predicted that turnout would exceed 90 percent in most places.

The voting was the largest electoral exercise to be held since the wave of violence peaked in 2006 to 2007, and conditions were considerably more peaceful this time.

As Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki voted in Baghdad’s Green Zone, now under Iraqi control but still heavily fortified, he said: “I am very happy today because all the indications and information indicate a big turnout in the voting centers. This is a victory for all Iraqis.”

In one of the few reported episodes of violence, two people in Baghdad’s Sadr City were shot and wounded by Iraqi security forces as they tried to enter a polling center carrying cameras and recorders, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

One witness said the two men quarreled with soldiers guarding the voting station, demanding to be allowed to go in through the rear entrance while the soldiers insisted that they go through the front door.

There was some violence in the period leading up to election day, with at least five candidates and three campaign workers killed during the campaign.

And in an episode apparently unrelated to the election, American forces searching for an Islamic extremist shot two Iraqi national policemen in Mosul in the early hours of Saturday. There were conflicting reports about the circumstances: the Americans said they were returning fire from a nearby building and found the two dead men there afterward. However, the Nineveh Provincial operations center said that the policemen were at a checkpoint when the Americans suddenly opened fire.

Over all, there seemed much eagerness to vote, but also confusion. Some voters showed up at the polling station closest to their home instead of the one they were assigned to because of the ban on driving. Others were turned away because their names did not appear on voter rolls.

Voter registration is organized around a national system for delivering food rations, a holdover from the Hussein era. Voters have to consult two lists to find out if they are registered at a given polling station. First, each person has to find the name of his or her food ration distributor. Then the voter must consult a much larger list of all of the families served by that distributor. If the voter’s name is missing, he or she cannot vote at that station.

Some frustrated Iraqis gave up, while others reported going from center to center before finding the one associated with their distributor.

Nasreen Yousif, a 54-year-old Christian, visited three polling stations in the New Baghdad district of the capital but could not find her name at any of them.

“Now I am going home,” she said. “Maybe there is a fourth school, but it is too far and I can’t walk any more.”

She added: “It is obviously a mess. If it is not a mess, where is my name?”

The Iraqi government and election officials blamed voters for the confusion.

Qassim al-Aboudi, the chief officer of the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission, said, “We repeated many times before the election that some of the voters might have to vote at remote polling stations because they didn’t update their voter registrations when they changed their addresses.” He said election officials had given people 45 days to update their information.

Even when people could vote, the ballots were often confusing. Some Iraqis stuck to voting for relatives or powerful politicians. One Basra police officer, Haidar Khalaf, 27, said he had chosen the local candidate on the slate of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. “I just voted for Abdul Hussein,” Mr. Khalaf said. “I only know his first names. I was just told to vote for him.”

The vote on Saturday, in addition to deciding how local governments are run, is also seen as an important indicator for national elections that are to be held within a year and decide the shape of the central government.

One of the most powerful Shiite blocs nationally, the Sadrist movement led by the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, is not contesting these provincial polls. It is, however, backing two other parties.

The Sunni parties are expected to make a better showing, especially in the west and north, where they boycotted the last round of polls at the height of sectarian violence in 2005.

In the mostly Shiite south, the main rivalry will be between two Islamist parties: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose Iranian-trained militia is now a mainstay of the Iraqi security forces, and Mr. Maliki’s Dawa Party.

Secular parties are hoping that they will be able to capitalize on a protest vote against religious parties amid widespread criticism of their failure to provide jobs, services and utilities since 2005.

In addition to the widespread confusion, many complaints were lodged about the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In at least two instances, supporters were accused of handing out slips bearing the party’s ballot number inside the polling station, a violation of election rules; observers complained the practice was widespread.

In Nineveh, carefully negotiated agreements dictated where the Kurdish militias, or pesh merga, would be stationed around the polls, along with the local and national Iraqi police and the army. And still officers and soldiers entered the polling sites with weapons seemingly at will, another violation of the rules.

“It’s not fair,” said Wahid Mundu Hamu, a member of the Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress. “We had hoped for the best, but that’s what I feel.” He then expressed fear that his people, a small Kurdish minority with its own religion and culture, would be overwhelmed by the larger Sunni and Kurdish parties vying for control in the region. “The Yazidis have been oppressed for so long,” he said. “And you’ll see that more and more.”

Reporting was contributed by Sam Dagher from Basra; Timothy Williams and Ian Fisher from Baghdad; Steven Lee Myers from Qahtaniya; and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi, Baquba and Mosul.

Grading the Bush Doctrine, Pt. 2

Continuing from my last post, let us keep analyzing Tom Engelhardt's analysis of the outcomes of the application of the Bush Doctrine.

3. Pakistan: At the time of the invasion of Afghanistan, the Bush administration threw its support behind General Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator of relatively stable, nuclear-armed Pakistan. In the ensuing years, the US transferred at least $10 billion, mainly to the general's military associates, to fight the "war on terror". (Most of the money went elsewhere.) Seven years later, Musharraf has fallen ingloriously, while the country has reportedly turned strongly anti-American - only 19% of Pakistanis in a recent BBC poll had a negative view of al-Qaeda - is on the verge of a financial meltdown, and has been strikingly destabilized, with its tribal regions at least partially in the hands of a Pakistani version of the Taliban as well as al-Qaeda and foreign jihadis. That region is also now a relatively safe haven for the Afghan Taliban. American planes and drones attack in these areas ever more regularly, causing civilian casualties and more anti-Americanism, as the US edges toward its third real war in the region.
Result: Extremism promoted, destabilization in progress. Grade: F

The situation in Pakistan is exceedingly complicated, and Engelhardt's analysis is far too simplistic. Only 19% of Pakistanis have a negative view of al Qaeda...but so what? What makes that a relevant metric of anything? Is the other 81% supporting al Qaeda in any way? It's true that al Qaeda and the Taliban have been regrouping the mountainous regions along the Afghan border and that US airstrikes have provoked anti-Americanism. But those airstrikes have also forced Pakistan to act more forefully against al Qaeda. More specifically, Pakistan has begun adopting an Iraq-style strategy of bringing local tribesmen into the fight, using them against the guerrilla elements. Musharraf has been removed from power, and while Pakistan is far from a liberal democracy, there are signs that the government is establishing stronger civilian control over the military. I'd say a grade of C- is much more appropriate here.

4. Iraq: In March 2003, with a shock-and-awe air campaign and 130,000 troops, the Bush administration launched its long-desired invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, officially in search of (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad fell to American troops in April and Bush declared "major combat operations ... ended" from the deck of a US aircraft carrier against a "Mission Accomplished" banner on May 1. Within four months, according to administration projections, there were to be only 30,000 to 40,000 American troops left in the country, stationed at bases outside Iraq's cities, in a peaceful (occupied) land with a "democratic," non-sectarian, pro-American government in formation. In the intervening five-plus years, perhaps one million Iraqis died, up to five million went into internal or external exile, a fierce insurgency blew up, an even fiercer sectarian war took place, more than 4,000 Americans died, hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars were spent on a war that led to chaos and on "reconstruction" that reconstructed nothing.

There are still close to 150,000 American troops in the country and American military leaders are cautioning against withdrawing many more of them any time soon. Filled with killing fields and barely hanging together, Iraq is - despite recently lowered levels of violence - still among the more dangerous environments on the planet, while a largely Shi'ite government in Baghdad has grown ever closer to Shi'ite Iran. Thanks to the president's "surge strategy" of 2007, this state of affairs is often described here as a "success".
Result: Mission unaccomplished. Grade: F

Absolutely absurd and blinkered. As the Iraq Study Group made clear in its final report, while Iraq may not have had any actual WMD at the time of the invasion, Iraq was maintaining the capability to start its WMD program up once sanctions ended. And at the time of the invasion there was every indiciation that those sanctions were crumbling. At a minimum, the US invasion removed the inevitablility of an eventual Iraqi CBW capability. Of course, the administration did a terrible job of planning for the occupation-phase of the war. But, the US stuck to its guns, implementing the surge which was brought improved levels of stability to the country. Al Qaeda has suffered mightily in Iraq, and as a result has been forced to reconstitute its centralized organizational structure in Pakistan (which is a good thing for counter-terror efforts). The political process is proceeding and the longer it advances that more it will coalesce. Engelhardt's failure to recognize this in any way totally undermines his argument. At the moment, I would give a C- (again, I know) grade.

5. Iran: In his January 2002 State of the Union address, Bush dubbed Iran part of an "axis of evil" (along with Iraq and North Korea), attaching a shock-and-awe bull's-eye to that nation ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. (A neo-con quip of that time was: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.") In later years, Bush warned repeatedly that the US would not allow Iran to move toward the possession of a nuclear weapons program and his administration would indeed take numerous steps, ranging from sanctions to the funding of covert actions, to destabilize the country's ruling regime. More than six years after his "axis of evil" speech, and endless administration threats and bluster later, Iran is regionally resurgent, the most powerful foreign influence in Shi'ite Iraq, and continuing on a path toward that nuclear power program which, it claims, is purely peaceful, but could, of course, prove otherwise.
Result: Strengthened Iran. Grade: F

Here, Engelhardt is more or less right. The toppling of Hussein has had two direct effects on Iran: By removing Iraq as a balancing counterweight, Iran has been freed up to act and Iran has become more intent on developing nuclear weapons. Nothing that has been tried -- the EU-3, sanctions, pressure -- has worked. Perhaps President-elect Obama's bent towards negotiations will alter the current stalemate, but Iran seems determined to develop NW. For once, I agree with Engelhardt's grade: F.

That's it for today. Next time, I'll consider Lebanon, Gaza, Somalia, and Georgia.

Grading the Bush Doctrine, Pt. 1

In a very interesting and provocative article in the Asia Times, Tom Engelhardt argues that the Bush Doctrine has been an abject failure. Engelhardt writes that:

The Bush Doctrine, of course, no longer exists. Within a year, it had run aground on the shoals of reality on its very first whistle stop in Iraq. More than six years later, looking back on the foreign policy that emerged from Bush's self-declared "war on terror", it's clear that no president has ever failed on his own terms on such a scale or quite so comprehensively

He then proceeds to grade different applications and outcomes of the Bush Doctrine, from dealing with al Qaeda to Pakistan, from Iraq to Iran, from Somalia to Lebanon. Security Dilemmas will, over the next days consider and analyze Engelhardt's grades, going in order.

1. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: The "war on terror" started here. Osama bin Laden was to be brought in "dead or alive" - until, in December 2001, he escaped from a partial US encirclement in the mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan (and many of the US troops chasing him were soon enough dispatched Iraqwards). Seven years later, bin Laden remains free, as does his second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, probably in the mountainous Pakistani tribal areas near the Afghan border. Al-Qaeda has been reconstituted there and is believed to be stronger than ever. An allied organization that didn't exist in 2001, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was later declared by Bush to be the "central front in the war on terror", while al-Qaeda branches and wannabe groups have proliferated elsewhere.
Result: Terror promoted. Grade: F

Engelhardt's analysis breaks down in his very first example. Clearly, it is problematic that the US has failed to catch bin Laden. But to assert that the only outcome of the US efforts against al Qaeda is "terror promoted" is simplistic at best. Al Qaeda has been seriously degraded as a result of the global campaign against it, to the point where, for the last seven years, the organization has only been capable of conducting traditional bombing attacks, as in Great Britain or Spain. While it may be true that al Qaeda is reforming in Pakistan, that very act highlights the damage that has been done to the organization. The war on terror has forced al Qaeda to decentralize and disperse away from its former state stronghold in Afghanistan, which undermined its ability to function as a global terror organization. The effort of reforming its centralized structure in Pakistan -- which in turn increases al Qaeda's vulnerability -- demonstrates al Qaeda's own frustration with what has happened to its organizational structure. The fact that bin Laden and Zawahiri are still at large, and that al Qaeda is reforming itself are serious problems, but the war against al Qaeda has not been a failure. A grade of C+ or so is more appropriate.

2. The Taliban and Afghanistan: The Taliban was officially defeated in November 2001 with an "invasion" that combined native troops, US special operations forces, CIA agents, and US air power. The Afghan capital, Kabul, was "liberated" and, not long after, a "democratic" government installed (filled, in part, with a familiar cast of warlords, human rights violators, drug lords, and the like). Seven years later, according to an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate, Afghanistan is on a "downward spiral"; the drug trade flourishes as never before; the government of President Hamid Karzai is notoriously corrupt, deeply despised, and incapable of exercising control much beyond the capital; American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops, thanks largely to a reliance upon air power and soaring civilian deaths, are increasingly unpopular; the Taliban is resurgent and has established a shadow government across much of the south, while its guerrillas are embedded at the gates of Kabul. American and NATO forces promoted a "surge" strategy in 2007 that failed and are now calling for more of the same. Reconstruction never happened.
Result: Losing war. Grade: F

In the case of Afghanistan, Engelhardt's hyperbole and anti-Bush rhetoric undermines his mostly trenchant analysis. Afghanistan has clearly not gone well. The country is on a downward spiral, the drug trade is booming, NATO operations have resulted in large losses of civilian life and have alienated the population, and Karzai's government is corrupt and largely ineffective. Also, serious weaknesses and flaws in NATO's military capabilities have been exposed, as the US's allies have proven themselves to be incapable of and unwilling to engage in serious military operations.

But, the Taliban is not in power. And that's a big plus. Furthermore, al Qaeda was driven out of its sponsor state, an arrangement which greatly multiplied al Qaeda's capabilities. On those two grounds alone, the US invasion cannot be deemed a failure. The situation isn't good, by any stretch of the imagination, but a grade of D is much more appropriate.

That's it for now. Over the next few days, we'll run through the rest of Engelhardt's grades, which for those interested are: Pakistan (F), Iraq (F), Iran (F), Lebanon (F), Gaza (F), Somalia (F), Georgia (F), North Korea (F), Global Public Opinion (F), the American taxpayer (F).

Is the War in Iraq Over?

If you're not familiar with the work of Michael Yon, you should be. He is an independent reporter who has spent more time in Iraq than any other journalist, and most of that time he has been embedded with various military units. According to Yon:

barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.

Yon also provides statistics to back up his claim (they can be found here in a PowerPoint file). The statistics are amazing to look at, as are the trends. Michael Totten summarizes them over at Commentary:

Security incidents, or attacks, are at their lowest level in four years. Civilian deaths are down by almost 90 percent since General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency “surge” strategy went into effect. High profile attacks, or explosions, are down by 80 percent in the same time period. American and Iraqi soldiers suffer far fewer casualties than they have for years. Ethno-sectarian deaths from Iraq’s civil war plunged all the way down to zero in May and June 2008.

Reports from all over Iraq indicate that al Qaeda is all but defeated, and the US Embassy in Iraq recently reported that Iraq has met 15 of the 18 benchmarks established by Congress. According to the report:

the only remaining shortfalls were the Baghdad government's failure to enact and implement laws governing the oil industry and the disarmament of militia and insurgent groups, and continuing problems with the professionalism of the Iraqi police. All other goals -- including preparations for upcoming elections, reform of de-Baathification and disarmament laws, progress on enacting and spending Iraq's budget, and the capabilities of the Iraqi army -- were rated "satisfactory."

The GAO has disagreed with this report, stating that there has been "little improvement in the political and economic spheres and noted continuing military problems despite a significant decline in overall violence." Still, the significant decline in violence is astounding. The embassy report stated that:

the Iraqi parliament has passed significant legislation on de-Baathification reform, the division of powers between the central and provincial governments, and amnesty for former insurgents. It grades progress in all of those areas as newly "satisfactory" even as it acknowledges that the laws in most cases have been implemented slowly, if at all. Congress mandated that Iraq both "enact and implement" the benchmark laws.

The embassy cited progress toward increasing the number of Iraqi security force units capable of independent operations. Although it says that the overall number of units that can operate independently has increased "marginally," it concludes that "70% of all formed units can now conduct [counter-insurgency] operations with or without Coalition support."

This is not to say that there won't be more deaths, either of US soldiers or Iraqis. But if al Qaeda has in fact been defeated, and the Iraqi government is stabilizing, there may in fact be a light at the end of the tunnel.

A Little-Recognized Danger of Iraq

There is much, if not constant, talk about the dangers the US faces in Iraq. The constant stream of body bags home, the damage done to US soft power and reputation, the creation of a breeding ground for terrorists, the likelihood of ethnic cleansing and genocide if the US withdraws, the prospect of US troops staying in Iraq for 5 years or more. The list goes on. But there's another danger, one that rarely gets mentioned or discussed. That danger is that, as a result of Iraq, the US adopts a more realist foreign policy that calculates US foreign policy on narrowly-based grounds of power and ignores the proud and noble liberal mission that has always guided America in the world.

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune nicely summarized this danger in an op-ed column he wrote on Sunday, in which he wrote:

...it's worth remembering what helped to get us into Iraq: a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that favors U.S. military intervention abroad whenever we may be able to accomplish something that looks appealing.

...

Attitudes like that got us involved in the Balkans, where we had no national interest at stake; in Somalia, where we found ourselves fighting a war we didn't anticipate; and in Haiti, where our good intentions accomplished very little. Iraq, where conservatives turned idealistic liberal ideas to their own ends, was the ruinous culmination of that approach.

If there has been a flaw in U.S. foreign policy in recent years, it has not been an excess of disengagement, but the opposite: an irrepressible urge to use force for purposes that do not enhance our security but expose us to needless risk. The result has been that we find ourselves with more enemies, weakened influence, higher costs, greater strains on our military and less safety.

After the Iraq debacle, you would think our leaders would be willing to undertake a fundamental examination of the long-established and broad-based folly that made it possible. Not a chance.

And if you think that this problem is solely one of the neo-conservatives who get so much of the blame for the invasion of Iraq, think again. As Chapman points out, all three presidential candidates have expressed sentiments and foreign policy suggestions guided more by morals, values, and ideals than by realpolitik considerations.

During the early 1990s, McCain was wary of the use of American military power. But he supported sending American peacekeeping forces to Bosnia in 1995. When a civil war erupted in Kosovo in 1999, he became a fervent voice for using American bombers and even ground troops against Yugoslavia -- this when House Republicans were voting against giving President Clinton authority to go to war.

Soon after, McCain was urging a "rogue state rollback" policy. "We must be prepared," he said, to apply "military force when the continued existence of such rogue states threatens America's interests and values." Hmm. Whatever happened to that idea?

McCain's positions bear an eerie resemblance to those of Hillary Clinton, who vigorously favored her husband's decision to act in the Balkans. "I urged him to bomb," she said later. "You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time."

Her impulse to improve the world at the point of a gun was also on display in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Besides supporting the war resolution, Clinton often sounded like a crusading neoconservative, envisioning that Iraq would be a "model for other Middle Eastern countries" that would "shake the foundations of autocracy."

If Barack Obama is averse to fighting wars to spread democracy or to advance other noble purposes, he hasn't let on. He claims the United States has a "moral obligation" to act against "genocide" in Darfur, and he supports sending NATO forces to stop the bloodshed. One of his chief foreign policy advisers -- until she resigned over calling Clinton a "monster" -- was Samantha Power, a self-described "humanitarian hawk," who excoriated Bill Clinton for ruling out U.S. military action in Rwanda in 1994.

In a recent speech, Obama rejected the idea of cutting back our expansive role in the world. "We can choose the path of disengagment," he scoffed, "and cede our leadership."

Chapman's vision, and that of realists more broadly, is one where US foreign policy determinations are made along narrow lines of power, rather than any sense of "moral obligation," liberalism, or any other value.

To be sure, moralistic foreign policies have led the US into dangerous situations which have backfired. Somalia is the prime example of this, where the US intervened in a humanitarian disaster which escalated into a nation-building operation. But because the US didn't have the will to match its goals, the mission ended disastrously. But the common wisdom about Somalia isn't quite right. As Duke University professor Peter Feaver (full disclosure: Feaver was on my dissertation committee at Duke and I worked closely with him as a TA as well) writes:

The White House, having lost its stomach for the mission [in Somalia], cultivated a myth that it was the public, enraged by the death of U.S. troops, that demanded an exit from that country. The public was really only defeat-phobic -- not casualty-phobic -- but President Bill Clinton allowed defeat to be measured chiefly in terms of U.S. losses.

Chapman fears that a foreign policy based on ideals and values will get the US embroiled into conflicts where "national interest" is not at stake. But as Feaver demonstrates, national interest is largely defined by political leadership. When the leaders do a good job of defining a foreign policy endeavor as commensurate with national interest, the public will support it. And Somalia is an excellent example of what happens when the public is not convinced.

It may be more difficult to make the case that a humanitarian intervention or the prevention of genocide is truly in the American national interest. And that is as it should be. The president should have to demonstrate to the American people that the use of US military power is in the national interest. But national interest cannot and should not be drawn solely along narrow, power-based lines. National interest is not, as realists argue, an objective phenomenon determined by external calculations like the balance of relative power. Power matters, but so does the national will, ideals, and values. As Robert Kagan points out in his excellent book Dangerous Nation, US foreign policy has always been guided by a moral compass.

As I wrote when I blogged about this problem 18 months ago:

If we learn anything from Iraq, it's that the US must be exceedingly careful if it ever thinks about attempting large-scale coercive nation-building. But that lesson must not force the US to retreat from its liberal mission. The US does not always act in accordance with its principles nor should it. But it is unthinkable that the US would NEVER do so. It was the US that rebuilt the shattered European and Japanese states after World War II, it is the US that presses Zimbabwe and Burma to improve their human rights records, it is the US that is standing firm in its refusal to negotiate with North Korea, it is the US that is keeping attention focused on Darfur. And without the security umbrella provided by US military hegemony, issues of human security such as the ICC would be nowhere near the international agenda.

Let's hope things stay that way.

Iraq's Ties to International Terrorism

Last week, with very little fanfare, the Institute for Defense Analyses (an independent, non-profit think tank that provides the US government, and particularly the Department of Defense, with analysis and reporting) released its exceedingly comprehensive study of 600,000 captured documents laying out Iraq's connections, interactions, and activities connected to international terrorist groups (the redacted report, in five volumes, is available on the webpage of the Federation of American Scientists). According to the Executive Summary:

The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States. At times these organizations worked together, trading access for capability. In the period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements.

...

This study found no "smoking gun" (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.
Saddam's interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks. A review of available Iraqi documents indicated the following:

• The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist operations prior to OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq.

• On occasion, the Iraqi intelligence services directly targeted the regime's perceived enemies, including non-Iraqis. Non-Iraqi casualties often resulted from Iraqi sponsorship of non-governmental terrorist groups.

• Saddam's regime often cooperated directly, albeit cautiously, with terrorist groups when they believed such groups could help advance Iraq's long-term goals. The regime carefully recorded its connections to Palestinian terror organizations in numerous government memos. One such example documents Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.

• State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training, and resourcing of terrorists. Examples include the regime's development, construction,
certification, and training for car bombs and suicide vests in 1999 and 2000.

From the beginning of his rise to power, one of Saddam's major objectives was to shift the regional balance of power favorably towards Iraq. After the 1991 Gulf War, pursuing this objective motivated Saddam and his regime to increase their cooperation with-and attempts to manipulate-Islamic fundamentalists and related terrorist organizations. Documents indicate that the regime's use of terrorism was standard practice, although not always successful. From 1991
through 2003, the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power.

And from the abstract on the FAS webpage:

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

So, while there is no evidence of any direct links between Iraq and al Qaeda, the report makes two things abundantly clear: One, that Iraq had extensive ties to numerous terror organizations and was willing and able to use terror as a tool of state politics, and; Two, that the religious nature of radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda would not prevent the secular, pan-Arab Iraq from working with them. As today's Wall Street Journal makes clear:

A pan-Arab nationalist, Saddam viewed radical Islamists as potential allies, and they likewise. According to a 1993 memo, Saddam decided to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia," where al Qaeda was then working with warlords against U.S. humanitarian forces. Saddam also trained Sudanese fighters in Iraq.

The Pentagon report cites this as "a tactical example" of their cooperation. When Saddam "was ordering action in Somalia aimed at the American presence, Osama bin Laden was doing the same thing." Saddam took an interest in "far-flung terrorist groups . . . to locate any organization whose services he might use in the future." The Harmony documents "reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda -- as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term version."

For 20 years, such "support" included using Fedayeen Saddam training camps to school terrorists, especially Palestinians but also non-Iraqis "directly associated" with al Qaeda, continuing up to the fall of Baghdad. Saddam also provided financial support and weapons, amounting to "a state-directed program of significant scale." In July 2001, the regime began patronizing a terror cartel in Bahrain calling itself the Army of Muhammad, which, according to an Iraqi memo, "is under the wings of bin Laden."

It's true that the Pentagon report found no "smoking gun," i.e., a direct connection on a joint Iraq-al Qaeda operation. Supposedly this vindicates the view that Iraq's liberation was launched on false premises. But the Administration was always cautious, with Colin Powell alleging merely a "sinister nexus" in his 2003 U.N. speech. If anything, sinister is an understatement. The main Iraq intelligence failure was over WMD, but the report indicates that the CIA also underestimated Saddam's ties to global terror cartels.

The Administration has always maintained that Iraq is just one front in the war on terror; and the report offers "evidence of logistical preparation for terrorist operations in other nations, including those in the West." In 2002, an IIS memo explained to Saddam that Iraqi embassies were stockpiling weapons, while many of the terrorists trained in Fedayeen camps were dispatched to London with counterfeit documents, where they circulated throughout Europe.

Around the same time, the IIS began to manufacture better improvised explosive devices "designed to be used in civilian areas," and the regime bureaucratized suicide operations, with local Baath Party leaders competing to provide recruits for Saddam as part of a "Martyrdom Project."

Reading over (or to be more accurate, looking over...volume 1 of the report alone is 94 pages while the volumes containing the documents are over 500) the report certainly paints a disturbing picture of a regime looking to export terror wherever and whenever possible. The documents show connections to nearly every major Islamic and Arab terror group, the operations of training camps, attempts to undermine Western and Arab states, the use of Iraqi embassies in countries like Greece, Austria, India, Turkey, and the Czech Republic to hide and distribute weapons such as missile launches and plastic explosives, as well as documentation of major operations. The report certainly gives credence that, as the WSJ put it "all of these are inconvenient facts for those who want to assert that somehow Saddam could have been easily contained and presented no threat to the U.S."

Five Years of War

After five long, hard years of war in Iraq, where do things stand? ABC News has produced what seems to me to be the most comprehensive poll of Iraqi public opinion (the article-length summary is here, the pdf with the complete questionnaire and charts is here). The results? "Improved security and economic conditions have reversed Iraqis' spiral of despair, sharply improving hopes for the country's future. Yet deep problems remain in terms of security, living conditions, reconciliation and political progress alike."

According to the survey:

Fifty-five percent of Iraqis say things in their own lives are going well, well up from 39 percent as recently as August. More, 62 percent, rate local security positively, up 19 points. And the number who expect conditions nationally to improve in the year ahead has doubled, to 46 percent in this new national poll by ABC News, the BBC, ARD German TV and the Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Without directly crediting the surge in U.S. forces, fewer report security as the main problem in their own lives  25 percent, nearly half its peak last spring. Forty-six percent say local security has improved in the past six months, nearly double last summer's level.

The number of Iraqis who feel entirely unsafe in their own area has dropped by two-thirds, to 10 percent. And with Sunni Arab buy-in, U.S.-funded Awakening Councils, created to provide local security, are more popular than the Iraqi government itself.

Even more striking is the halt in worsening views. In August, Iraqis by 61-11 percent said security in the country had gotten worse, not better, in the previous six months. Today, by 36-26 percent, more say security has improved. The new positive margin is not large. But the 35-point drop in views that security is worsening is the single largest change in this poll.

In almost all cases, however, the improvement since August and March still has not brought Iraqi sentiment back to its pre-2007 levels. While 46 percent now expect improvements for the country in the next year, that's still far below its level in November 2005, 69 percent. While 55 percent say their own lives are going well, that's down from 71 percent in late 2005.

Similarly, while there's been a big drop in the number who cite security as their own main problem, 50 percent still volunteer it as the nation's main problem overall  little changed from 56 percent in August. One in four Iraqis still report suicide attacks, sectarian fighting and other violence in their own area in just the past six months. And the provision of basic services has barely budged; 88 percent lack adequate electricity.

Much of the improvement since August is driven by Baghdad and Anbar provinces, focal points of the surge. Seventy-one percent in Anbar, and fewer in Baghdad but still 43 percent, now rate local security positively  up from zero in both locales last year. While a dramatic gain, most in Baghdad, home to a quarter of Iraqis, still say security is bad  a reflection of continued, albeit reduced, violence there.

Economic improvement complements the security gains. Fifty-seven percent rate their household finances positively, a 20-point jump, again steepest in Baghdad (especially its Sadr City area) and Anbar. The availability of basic consumer goods has soared even more sharply; 65 percent rate it positively, up by 26 points since August to its highest in polls dating to early 2004. And family incomes are up by 26 percent, about $80 a month.

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Challenges remain broad and deep. Beyond their own lives, most Iraqis, 55 percent, still say things are going badly for the country, even if that's down from a record 78 percent in August. Violence remains common, particularly in the cities; local car bombs or suicide attacks, just within the past six months, are reported by 45 percent in Baghdad, 51 percent in Kirkuk and 39 percent in Mosul.

Living conditions for many remain dire, with sizable majorities reporting a lack of electricity, fuel, clean water, medical care and sufficient jobs. Improvement in all these has been modest at best. Six in 10 say they can't live where they choose without facing persecution, although this, too, is well down from its peak.

Sectarian differences remain vast. While more than six in 10 Shiites and seven in 10 Kurds say their own lives are going well, that drops to a third in the Sunni Arab minority. Eighty-three percent of Sunnis rate national conditions negatively. And while half of Shiites and six in 10 Kurds expect their children's lives to be better than their own, a mere 12 percent of Sunnis share that most basic hope.

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Views of the United States, while still broadly negative, have moderated in some respects. Just shy of half, 49 percent, now say it was right for the U.S.-led coalition to have invaded, up by 12 points from August; the previous high was 48 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004.

Similarly, the number of Iraqis who call it "acceptable" to attack U.S. forces has declined for the first time in these polls, down to 42 percent after peaking at 57 percent in August. Even with a 15-point drop, however, that's still a lot of Iraqis to endorse such violence. (Just 4 percent, by contrast, call it acceptable to attack Iraqi government forces.)

Sunni Arabs, dispossessed by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, are a good example. In August 93 percent of Sunnis called it acceptable to attack U.S. forces. Today, that's down to 62 percent  a dramatic decline, but one that still leaves six in 10 Sunnis on the side of anti-U.S. attacks.

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An integral part of the surge strategy  the creation of U.S.-funded and -equipped "Awakening Councils" to provide local security  is generally popular. The councils are better-rated than the United States, local leaders, local militias and even the Iraqi government.

Fifty-six percent of Iraqis express confidence in the councils, compared with 49 percent in the national government of Iraq, 47 percent in local leaders, 22 percent in local militias and 20 percent in U.S. forces. The councils attract confidence from 73 percent of Sunni Arabs  generally the most alienated Iraqis  as well as from 60 percent of Shiites.

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On a structural level, 66 percent of Iraqis say the country should continue as a unified nation with its central government in Baghdad, as opposed to a confederation of regional states or outright partition. While Sunnis have been and almost unanimously remain behind a single state, there's been an advance in this view among Shiites, from 41 percent last March to 56 percent in August and 67 percent now. The holdouts are Kurds, nearly all of whom want autonomy or semi-autonomy (details below).

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ne thing on which Iraqis tend to agree is the difficult state of their living conditions. In the single worst item, 88 percent say their supply of electricity is bad. (In another measure, just two in 10 report receiving electricity from power lines for more than 12 hours a day, although that is up from just 12 percent last March.)

It's not just about power. Eight in 10 lack adequate fuel for cooking or driving. Sixty-eight percent rate their supply of clean water negatively. Sixty-two percent say they lack adequate medical care, a number that's grown sharply from 36 percent in November 2005  likely relating to the flight of doctors, among other professionals, who've had the wherewithal to leave the country.

As noted, ratings of local security and family finances are sharply better; so is protection from crime  closely related to security and now rated positively by 54 percent, up from 35 percent in August (but still below its peak, 66 percent in November 2005).

The biggest improvement, also as noted, is in the availability of basic household goods, up 26 points to 65 percent positive. Laggards, though, include some essentials: electricity, medical care, clean water, fuel, enough jobs to go around and freedom of movement.

That's certainly a better picture than I believe many of us in the US would have described.

So, what do we learn from these results? First, the surge must not be undone. In the wake of the successes stemming from the increase in US troop presence has come the inevitable, short-sighted response that it's time for troops to come home. Doing that could be disastrous. US forces must remain in Iraq until the security gains have had more time to coalesce into political and societal improvements. Yes, that could take a while. But the alternative is so disastrous as to be unthinkable.

Second, the US and the Iraqi government need to work at improving basic living conditions. It is inexcusable that, five years in, barely 20% of Iraqis have reliable electricity, 80% lack adequate fuel for heating and cooking, and that around 2/3rds of Iraqis lack clean water or adequate medical care. The improved security from the surge has made political reconciliation possible, but if people lack the essentials of day-to-day life, political gains rapidly become meaningless.

The picture in Iraq certainly doesn't seem to be as bleak as many here in the US describe. But it is, at best, extremely fragile. Keeping high levels of US troops in place may be necessary, but so is improving the lives of Iraqis. If these things can be done, the situation will likely continue to improve.

Another Sign of Progress in Iraq

Following on the heels of last month's passage of a de-Baathification bill, Iraq has taken another small step forward towards stability. Yesterday, the Iraqi parliament passed three vital measures: the 2008 budget, a law defining the scope of the powers of the Iraqi provinces, and an amnesty for thousands of jailed Iraqis, which also happens to be one of the benchmarks identified by the Bush Administration. The wrangling over these issues had been extremely acrimonious, and at times threatened to bring down the fragile and divided government.

While each of the measures is important in its own right, what is perhaps even more important is the way in which they were passed. Each law appealed to one of Iraq's primary ethnic groups. The budget was mainly supported by the Kurds who wanted to protect the 17% share of Iraqi national revenue that they had been receiving, the Shiites supported the definition of provincial powers to ensure that the central government will not be given too much power, and the Sunnis backed the amnesty, as the vast majority of the 26,000 prisoners in Iraqi jails are Sunnis. No side could get its preferred law passed against the opposition of the other two, and individually it appeared as if all the measures would fail. However, by working together and bundling the measures into one package deal, each party could receive its preferred measure in exchange for supporting the measures desired by the other party.

The importance of such a development can not be understated. The only chance Iraq has for stability and reconciliation is if the major political, religious, and ethnic groups believe that their futures can be protected and advanced through political participation and compromise. A cooperative deal such as this goes a long way to demonstrating that Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites can work together to achieve mutual interests, and that political power need not be a zero-sum game.

Again, as with the de-Baathification deal this is but a small success, and it no way indicates that Iraq has been "won". But again, the accumulation of small steps in the right direction can eventually produce the political climate necessary for success. It is certainly a positive sign that there are more and more examples of positive moves.

Progress (And Caution) In Iraq

Bill Kristol, in his role as the newest op-ed columnist for the New York Times, has a piece in today's Times blasting the Democrats for their failure to admit progress in Iraq or to retract their past predictions of failure for the surge. A sample:

When President Bush announced the surge of troops in support of a new counterinsurgency strategy a year ago, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Democratic Congressional leaders predicted failure. Obama, for example, told Larry King that he didn’t believe additional U.S. troops would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.” Then in April, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, asserted that “this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything.” In September, Clinton told Gen. David Petraeus that his claims of progress in Iraq required a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

The Democrats were wrong in their assessments of the surge. Attacks per week on American troops are now down about 60 percent from June. Civilian deaths are down approximately 75 percent from a year ago. December 2007 saw the second-lowest number of U.S. troops killed in action since March 2003. And according to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, last month’s overall number of deaths, which includes Iraqi security forces and civilian casualties as well as U.S. and coalition losses, may well have been the lowest since the war began.

Do Obama and Clinton and Reid now acknowledge that they were wrong? Are they willing to say the surge worked?

No. It’s apparently impermissible for leading Democrats to acknowledge — let alone celebrate — progress in Iraq. When asked recently whether she stood behind her “willing suspension of disbelief” insult to General Petraeus, Clinton said, “That’s right.”

Kristol's confidence comes from two places: First, the Sunni "Awakening" that has gone a long way to reducing civilian and military casualties and marginalizing al Qaeda, and second, the de-Baathification law finally passed by the Iraqi Parliament. As I, and every other analyst, has been saying, the surge was only one part of the strategy in Iraq; the surge would only matter if it was accompanied by political change. The de-Baathification law was a long- and much-desired step in the right direction, needed to provide Sunnis with a sense that they can be part of the new government and that their futures would be best secured by participation rather than joining the insurgency. The de-Baathification policy implemented following the fall of Saddam Hussein threw countless Sunnis out of work and made them doubt their futures in the new democratic Iraq. According to Kristol:

And now Iraq’s Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law — one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground by harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation. They are being deprived of even that talking point.

And yet, the de-Baathification policy is only one step on the road to political reconciliation. And while it is a particularly important step, there are others that will need to be taken as well if the surge is to bear fruit. The exceedingly important oil revenue law, which is necessary to provide Sunnis with a stake in the future by ensuring them a share of oil revenues, is languishing in the parliament and doesn't look to be passed any time soon. Nor does a handful of constitutional amendments desired by Sunni political parties or laws setting rules for local elections. Furthermore, even the small step of the de-Baathification law has taken a very long time to pass. The Iraq Study Group set late 2006/early 2007 as the time frame for passing the de-Baathification law, as well as the oil revenue law, March 2007 for a referendum on the constitutional amendments, and provincial elections by June 2007. So far, the de-Baathification law is the only benchmark to be acheived, and nearly a year late at that.

Delays and fits and starts are to be expected in a project as comprehensive as the democratization of Iraq. But while the time to proclaim defeat may have passed, it is still too early to proclaim victory in Iraq. The surge is working, and the political reconciliation is moving in the right direction but the job is not yet done.

The real danger now is in complacency. Just because casualties are down does not mean that the surge should be undone. US troop levels must remain at a high level long enough for the political situation to catch up to the improved security. President Bush must continue to press the Iraqi government to continue on the path of political reconciliation. Only that, and not US military might, can ensure a stable, democratic Iraq. Pessimism is no longer warranted, but neither are over-optimistic assessments.

UPDATE: Kristol's own Weekly Standard reinforces the point I want to make about the need for caution. In this post on the Worldwide Standard blog, Brian Faughnan excoriates the editors of the New York Times for editorializing about the lack of progress towards political reconciliation on the same day as the paper reports the passage of the de-Baathification law. While the Times editorial could and should have mentioned the new law, its passage does not by itself represent sufficient progress.

UPDATE 2: The New York Times is reporting that the effect of the new de-Baathification law may not be as hoped:

...the legislation is at once confusing and controversial, a document riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in, particularly in the crucial security ministries.

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The most extreme interpretations of the measure’s effects actually came from Shiite officials. Some of them hailed it because it would ban members of even the lowest party levels from the most important ministries: justice, interior, defense, finance and foreign.

That would seem to preclude the government from keeping its promise to offer military and police jobs to the thousands of Sunni Arabs who have joined the Awakening groups.

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Under that interpretation, the law would be directly at odds with the American campaign to draft Sunni Arabs into so-called Awakening militias with the aim of integrating them into the police and military forces.

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But interpretations of the measure’s actual effects varied widely among Iraqi officials. In general, Shiite politicians hailed it as an olive branch to Sunni Arabs. But some Sunnis say it is at best an incremental improvement over the old system, and at worst even harsher.

“This law includes some good articles, and it’s better than the last de-Baathification law because it gives pensions to third-level Baathists,” said Khalaf Aulian, a Sunni politician who opposed the legislation. “But I don’t like the law as a whole, because it will remain as a sword on the neck of the people.

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One particular improvement, he said, was that de-Baathification cases would now be subject to judicial review, whereas the old de-Baathification committee’s decisions were final. And the Council of Ministers would have the right to make exceptions to the law in order to serve the public interest. “Before, we dealt with Baath Party members as a group,” he said. “Now, being a Baath Party member is not a crime by itself. If someone has committed a crime in the old regime, that accusation should be made in court. And all of the members can get a pension.”

On other fronts, "Iraqi legislators said Sunday that they were making progress on two more key benchmarks urged by the Bush administration: the approval of an oil revenue sharing law and the settlement of competing claims to the contested northern city of Kirkuk."

Again, as I said originally, it's far too early to call the surge a success.