Sons of Iraq Unraveling?
Back during the high tide of the “is the surge working?” debate, I was among those who kept worrying that the policy of funding Sunni “Sons of Iraq” militias who hadn’t by any means reconciled themselves (or vice-versa) to the idea of a Shiite-led Iraqi state seemed like something likely to blow up at the end of the day. Then it kept not happening, and attention sort of shifted to other grounds. But now as DDay observes, we’re seeing some blowups as Sunnis are not getting paid money they were promised, the government arrested a Sons of Iraq leader, and now some SOI folks have staged an armed uprising.
Perhaps this will boil over, more likely some way will be found to put a lid on things. But either way, fundamental questions about the nature of the Iraqi state continue to be unresolved. Part of the issue over “residual forces” is whether or not we think it’s smart to have the US military perpetually playing referee in these kind of disputes. Doing so will give us continued “influence” in the country and the region, but the costs will be high and the concrete benefits to American citizens are hard to see.
22 Responses to “Sons of Iraq Unraveling?”
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March 29th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
The problem with paying people to like us is that we have to keep paying them. You’d think this would be an obvious concept, but apparently it isn’t.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
You can’t buy an Arab, you can only rent one, may have an admirable element of truth to it.
March 29th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
BUT YOU WILL ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING! YOU MUST ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING!!!
March 29th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Yes, that is true. One is not permitted to question The Great And Powerful Surge.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Hmm, I believe that new embassy has several helipads.
See? It’s totally not like Vietnam, because in Saigon we had to use roofs.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
the concrete benefits to American citizens are hard to see
This seems like a pretty amorphous objection. Influence is often expensive, and its benefits are rarely concrete beforehand. I would guess that it’s rare that various interests give cash to a politician while saying, “We expect you to vote ‘Yes’ on Issue X.” I don’t think you can make this sort of cost-benefit comparison without much more detail. It may be that both the costs and the benefits are so amorphous that it’s best to give the whole thing a miss, but we’ve been futzing around in the Middle East for 50 years for some reason, which would seem to suggest we think that there’s some benefit to influence there.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Anyone who’s not completely stupid saw this coming.
Gentlemen, move to your appropriate group.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
The Mouse That Roared: Peter Seller, Jean Seberg
The All Powerful Surge helped matters, no doubt. It put out one of several bonfires. The real question has always been, why was the Almighty Surge necessary?
The people responsible for the surge thought we could take over a proud and well armed people of 27 million with a few divisions and free market ideas.
Next time we take over a country of this size, lets do with 1 million people. 200,000 troops and 800,000 civilians culled from non-profit organizations.
Countries would be begging us to take them over.
March 29th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
This is what drove me batshit crazy about all the media discussion of the surge; it focused almost exclusively on the increase in troops and neglected to discuss the ramifications of temporarily paying off while leaving extant hostile armed groups.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Just keep paying them or renting them. It’s got to be cheaper and more effective than to build tanks and planes and then destroy the tanks and planes. Paying the fee to “Rent an Iraqi” is cheaper, too, than to train and equip American men and women and destroying them.
Pay them, and buy their oil. Everything will work fine until the oil runs out. Then quit paying.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
…we’ve been futzing around in the Middle East for 50 years for some reason, which would seem to suggest we think that there’s some benefit to influence there.
What ever happened to those Mujahideen in Afghanistan we armed and funded?
Was there a downside to that influence, too?
March 30th, 2009 at 12:28 am
цитаты за сегодня…
Back during the high tide of the “is the surge working?” debate, I was among those who kept worrying that the policy of[...]…
March 30th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Im in Baghdad now, and there is a lot of worrying about this same subject. The CG left immediately after the gunfire in Fadil, which took place at 8pm at night – not exactly the hours you want to be driving around.
I agree with Matt’s analysis: the tension between SOI and the government will probably be re-sealed, but it will certainly not be resolved. A decent civil war requires some popular support, and thankfully there is not much enthusiasm for it among the public at large. But these things can always be “re-awakened” (sorry) under conditions of economic despair.
Matt is also right about the dangers of “influence”. Imagine you are a member of the SOI, upset with the central government. What do you do? I know what I would do: I would start attacking American soldiers, as it would pressure the US to in turn pressure the central government to accomadate my demands. That’s always been the problem with being the middle-man.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:57 am
очень интересно…
Back during the high tide of the “is the surge working?” debate, I was among those who kept worrying that the policy of funding Sunni[...]…
March 30th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Oh, that’s just pathetic.
That wad of gum held the table together while I was sitting at it.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Since “The Surge working” would mean the creation of a political reconciliation between the Iraqi government and the forces opposed to them, these developments prove that the surge was clearly not working under Bush, and no such political developments occurred.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Obviously, they were not.
As soon as we stopped paying the Sons of Iraq, they turned against the government again. As soon as Malaki thought he could get away with going after them, he did. There was absolutely zero progress towards political reconciliation achieved. As this episode demonstrates, they remain at each others’ throats, were staying their hands only because of us, and no solution to the conflicts within Iraqi society and politics were achieved.
If you glue something together, and hold it in place with clamps while the glue dried, and it falls apart as soon as you take the clamps off, your glue job wasn’t working while the clamps were on, and only failed when you took them off. The glue didn’t work at all; it was only the clamps holding the wood together.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Ah, I see that foreign policy is the same as the economy.
Everything bad that happened during Bush’s first term is Clinton’s fault.
Everything bad that happened during Bush’s second term is the fault of Bush’s critics.
Everything bad that has happened during the first two months of Obama’s administration is Obama’s fault.
March 30th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Exactly Chris D
The boys on the Right keep their message tight.
That’s why I fear I will have to suffer the vision of jackbooted goosesteppers marching past a podium, draped in the Stars and Bars, before my life is through.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I can tell that this is not the first time you write about this topic. Why have you decided to write about it again?