Skeptics of the democratic viability and national integrity of the Iraqi state have much to confirm their dark suspicions and fears of fragmentation lately. Toby Dodge’s Inventing Iraq: The Failure Of Nationbuilding And A History Denied contains a blurb on the backcover comparing Iraq to a fragile piece of china, on which the bottom is stamped: Made in Whitehall, 1920. It is a colonial drawing made for the benefit of Empire and not the soveriegnty of the various peoples within. As Doghead’s fellow editor, Stefany Golberg , has written in her The Task of Memory, new forms of Iraqi solidarity and citizenship might be needed to replace that lost during the past two decades of Baathist horrors.

Peter Galbraith’s How to Get Out of Iraq proceeds from the same skeptical concern and raises some very incisive points:
1. As to the “interim constitution”, in which Bremer browbeat reluctant Shi’as into signing a document no one abides by: “Earlier this month, the Bush administration praised itself generously for the signing of an interim constitution for Iraq—a constitution with human rights provisions it described as unprecedented for the Middle East. Three weeks later, as I write, the interim constitution is already falling apart.”
2. As to just what sort of state we’re building upon: “The Bush administration's strategies in Iraq are failing for many reasons. First, they are being made up as the administration goes along, without benefit of planning, adequate knowledge of the country, or the experience of comparable situations. Second, the administration has been unwilling to sustain a commitment to a particular strategy. But third, the strategies are all based on an idea of an Iraq that does not exist.”
3. As to the regional aspirations of the Sunnis: “Connections with other Sunni populations may eventually become even more important among the Sunni Arabs than pan-Arabism. As elsewhere in Arab Iraq, the Sunni religious parties appear to be gain-ing ground in the country's Sunni center at the expense of the secular parties.”
4. Joining the club of skeptics like Leslie Gelb, Galbraith writes: “In my view, Iraq is not salvageable as a unitary state.
5. If the state does fragment, what are we to do with the Sunni Triangle? “It is much more difficult to devise a strategy for the Sunni Triangle—until recently the location of most violent resistance to the American occupation—because there is no Sunni Arab leadership with discernible political support.”
6. It is a hard choice, a grim resolution and not a prized solution but at least, “Nevertheless the three-state approach could limit US military engagement to a finite area.”

- posted by Editor @ 1:05 PM

 
Christopher Hitchens made a decent point on an otherwise routinely banal Dennis Miller show a few weeks back in arguing for a more accurate language than the “War on Terror” provides. The inadequacies of present terminology obscure the parameters of the conflict (Thwarted nationalism? Regional movements? Totalitarianism? Colombia’s FARC?) in which we fight and Hitchens suggested a more precise “war on jihad”. We’re not fighting Quebcois separatists after all. A related debate, started within the eristic circle of the Oldtownreview editorial board, asks whether Jihad International is the last gasp of a failed political movements with global claims (a la Gilles Kepel) or the latest face of totalitarian movements bent of Terror that have been with us since German Romantacism (a la Paul Berman). The New York Times article detailing some degree of Saudi acceptance for supplying jihadis to fight in Iraq, while professing widespread horror at anti-statist jihadi terrorism at home, seems to support Kepel thesis. Jihad in this context appears as a desperate result of political failure, a regional answer to perceived imperialism next door but not a source for reform at home.
On the other hand is the creepy, enraging Terror on the Dole, in which the nihilistic jihadi youth of Luton, England preen and dream of apocalyptic glory. Alter a word or phrase here or there and these wanna-be thugs could be 19th century Russian nihilist building planning attentat or Norwegian Black Metalheads preparing to burn down a church. Their trite language of rebellion and sophomoric lack of political imagination is so perfectly adopted from Berman’s thesis on the ideologic roots of Terror that its almost boilerplate. The New York Times version of this story contains many of the same characters (Sayful Islam, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed) but doesn’t capture as many in-depth interviews.
Lastly we have Foreign Policy’s take on bin-Laden’s peace overture to Europe. James Forsyth argues that bin-Laden’s latest truce offer was tactically savvy . . . not indicative that he’s abandoning claims of global Jihadist dominion. All of which begs the question of how long and how far a political movement can sustain itself on sheer negation, without an example, a state form, to show what goods it can deliver. In contrast to fascism and communism, which at least provided warped societal counterexamples to liberal democracy, Jihad International can only be millenarian now that the Taliban regime is gone.
- posted by Editor @ 7:04 PM

 
The battle for the Coalition to regain control of Najaf seems to have begun and al-Sadr has a whole new concern with Shiite opposition within his city walls! "American commanders were also closely monitoring reports from inside Najaf said that growing anger of residents there against Mr. Sadr and his militiamen, who have sown a pattern of lawlessness since launching an uprising in the city earlier this month, had taken a startling new turn with a shadowy group of assassins killing at least five Sadr militiamen in attacks on Sunday and Monday.
Those reports, from residents of the city who reached relatives in Baghdad by telephone, said the killings had been carried out by a group calling itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a two-bladed sword that Shiite tradition says was used by Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, the patron saint of Shiism. Accounts of the killings said the new group had distributed leaflets in Najaf threatening to assassinate members of Mr. Sadr's militia, known as the Mahdi Army, unless they left Najaf immediately. " (4/26/04 NYT)
Doghead has speculated as to the reasons and forms of Shiite opposition to Sadr and we've our answer in the Thulfiqar Army. While this certainly aids in marginalizing and defeating Sadr's Mahdi army it could also portend more inter-Shi'a conflict down the road, another schism that the already fissaporous nation can ill afford. If it is indeed a country and not three.
- posted by Editor @ 5:52 PM