Say Anything Blog

Excellent post Carrick.  I agree with everything, but would only stress that just because our leaving would “suck the oxygen” from the insurgency does not mean we should cut and run.  Iraqi security forces are not yet at full strength, and there are still other objectives that need to be achieved before we can leave.

You said this, but I think it needs to be stressed.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

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Rob:

You said this, but I think it needs to be stressed.

I absolutely agree, If we leave prematurely, the outcome from our exit will likely be chaos, and see the rise of the foreign terrorists to power in the Sunni regions (think Fallujah 2004 x 100).  Such a result would render as meaningless the sacrifice of our soldiers. By adopting such a hair-brained strategy with a high likelihood of failure, the Democrats are attempting the “Vietnamization” of Iraq.  When you are antiwar, you don’t learn from your mistakes, you embrace them.  They’re going to prove that war is “bad” even if it involves sabotaging our national interests.

Reconciliation between the Shia and the Sunni Arabs and a competent Iraqi security forces are the real enemy of the insurgency. When these are achieved, our troops can leave, and the insurgents have lost.

I hate to be the American Thanksgiving party pooper by objecting to part of a very fine post but my concern is the assumption that reconciliation betwwen the three main groups will occur. The modern trend is against such conciliation and favours the breakdown of nations comprised of competing religious or ethnicity based groups. I’m thinking of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and a host of African nations as examples. Countries with a tradition of liberal democracy have fared better than countries without although events in Europe highlight the difficulty of the task. Countries without the tradition don’t often enjoy successful democracy transplants although I recognise that every journey requires a first step.

I’m not saying that Iraq can’t or won’t make it work but I am saying that the odds are against it and the assumption that it will work in time is unrealistic. Good post though Carrick with many astute points.

MikeAdamson:

The modern trend is against such conciliation and favours the breakdown of nations comprised of competing religious or ethnicity based groups.

I agree that this is the trend.  It is no accident that there are three ethnic groups in most of these countries (including many African nations).  I think it is pretty well accepted in historian circles that when the European nations (and the USSR) set the national boundaries, this “tripartate system” was set deliberately in place to prevent the Europeans & Soviets from ever having to worry about competition from these other countries.  In the UUSRs case it even went farther and immigration between countries was forced precisely to increase their ethnic diversity and decrease their national identity and stability.

Thus, I would argue, it isn’t the absence of a tradition of democracy that is causing the breakdown in countries like Yugoslavia.  These countries are unnatural weddings of ethnic groups that have little historical precedence for living under the same roof.

I am in a wait and see mode with Iraq, which is fairly unique among these countries.  In spite of the Ba’athist domination, Iraq does have a history of coexistence of the difference ethnic groups, leading to the possibility that reconciliation is possible here, where other places it failed.

Sunni Arab participation in the democratic process is crucial to its success.  So far, it appears clear that the Sunnis have learned from the January elections that not participating generates a loss of representation.  Their participation in the September referendum is a huge step as is their participation in the December elections.

Short version: Be careful not to over-generalize from trends, especially in the absence of a model to explain the trend line.

These countries are unnatural weddings of ethnic groups that have little historical precedence for living under the same roof.

What a testament that is to America’s society.  Over the last century or so we have integrated wave after wave of ethnic immigrants with next to no ill effects to our country.  A few growing pains, perhaps, but overall it has made us stronger.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

[...] Forget the demoralizing effects such defeatism has on our troops. Forget that a cut-and-run from Iraq would likely result in a purging of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq and the country’s fall back into totalitarianism. None of that matters to the Democrats. [...]