Note From Baghdad
I started this blog two months ago as a simple way to share with my friends my thoughts on the politics and culture of this very interesting time we are living in. One of those friends was Cory Doctorow, who taught at the USC/Annenberg School (where I teach) last year. Now of course Cory is also the quarterback of Boing Boing, which sits at the center of the blogosphere. Without prodding, he gave me a nice plug about a month ago and of course we kind of “blew up” (in the vernacular). But for some reason we have attracted the most intelligent contributors to the comments section and it has never gotten nasty like a lot of blogs I read. The dialogues just keep getting deeper like this one about Oil and Iraq and we have writers from all politcal spectrums, respectfully expressing strongly held opinions, backed by facts. This morning I got a comment from a reader on my review of Fred Kaplan’s new book. It’s comments like this that make it all so cool.
Oh Mr. Kaplan, how right you are!
I’m an American working in Baghdad right now. It is a staggering scene of waste and stupidity all based on fictions propagated by fools. After eight months here, I realized Catch 22 was a non-fiction novel! A bittersweet revelation indeed.
Enjoying your blog Jon, keep up the good work.
its all very sad—but having said that how exactly do we get out of Iraq?–is it like Vietnam where we knid of leave like a thief in the night?–do we try to leave some troops and if so how many and where?-is there any face saving that we are going to try to put forward?– what becomes of our very large and expensive new Embassy?–what does it mean that we are going to leave?–doug
I am one that found your blog thanks to Cory Doctorow and I immediately put it in my google reader.
This is the main reason I keep reading, not only are the commenters cival, but you the blogger is as well. Nobody is spitting out glittering generalities and “They say…” one liners when stating their case. It’s refreshing… keep it up!
Doug- Maybe we sell the Embassy to the Foreign Oil Companies.
As I understand it it will be quite a structure–and will be a real deal for someone–unfortunately the whole sorry affair is not so funny–what a waste–doug
We get out by winning. And while it’s certainly an unpleasant business, all things considered we seem to be doing quite well.
Boing Boing is a casual read for me, while your blog Jon, is a daily read by now.
Maybe it’s my distant impression, but you write as if you have nothing to lose by sharing your views, yet the earnest reader only stands to gain a healthier perspective from your valuable insights. I know I have.
Well, so much for attracting only intelligent comments…
re:above statement about “winning” and “we seem to be doing quite well”.
(and I guess my own comment doesn’t get any points either for civil debate but I really don’t know what passes for polite conversation in the alternate universe where the Iraq debacle is “an unpleasant business”)
Mark, How will we know when we’ve “won”?
And how does “winning in Iraq” differ from say: “ending gang warfare in American cities”, or “ending illegal immigration”? I don’t expect to live to see either of those goals achieved either — and not because I think they lack merit. It’s just that they are inherently at the edge of what centralized power (military/police/taxation,etc) can get a handle on. People fight or cross borders or struggle for power (as in Iraq) for a host of individual reasons which no army can change.
And given our fiscal disarray — what additional taxes would you be willing to pay to keep our troops waiting to “win” in Iraq?
I would disagree that things are going well for us in Iraq given everything I’ve read lately. What are you basing this judgment on? I’d love to know as I’d really appreciate an opportunity to have a rosier outlook (rosier, as in charcoal is rosier than pitch black).
-c
We already won. Don’t you remember “Mission Accomplished”? So now we can leave.
Iraq probably needs to be partitioned into Sunni, Shia, and Kurd regions/countries, and then the minorities can all go to their own corners in this virtually triangular fight to the death arena. Ethnic cleansing is already a way of life in Iraq. We need to wake up and realize that we cannot convince them that our concept of democracy is viable for such tribally and religiously intolerant people. So separate them like the emotional children they are (yeah, that’s really how I think of this stuff), or let them separate themselves.
Unfortunately we’ve seen for too many years that the religious crackpot leaders of the world have a tremendous ability to instill murderous hate in their congregations. You can’t mix those populations up among one another unless there is an even stronger force…a Tito or Saddam Hussein…squashing down any signs of unrest.
Then there’s that possibility that our own Rapture believing Christian nut cases who are trying to pull the puppet strings of the marionettes in Washington are perfectly fine with a Middle East melting down this way…the End of Days is supposed to look rather like this…
Rick Turner: Iraq probably needs to be partitioned into Sunni, Shia, and Kurd regions/countries, and then the minorities can all go to their own corners in this virtually triangular fight to the death arena. Ethnic cleansing is already a way of life in Iraq. We need to wake up and realize that we cannot convince them that our concept of democracy is viable for such tribally and religiously intolerant people. So separate them like the emotional children they are (yeah, that’s really how I think of this stuff), or let them separate themselves.
While I have a great respect for Joe Biden and his plan for separation (as you seem to espouse), I personally don’t think the sectarian split is the real issue here; certainly a factor in how the pieces are falling together these days, but it isn’t the impetus for all the violence now. It’s not like our invasion suddenly gave Sunnis and Shias the opportunity to get back to killing each other; Sunnis and Shiites have been living together somewhat peacefully for years and years.
IMHO, what the conflict is mostly about now is power. We destabilized the region and control over Iraq and its oil and control over this new Iraq is really still up for grabs. Certainly it is a lot easier to split along Sunni/Shia lines when trying to coalesce factions grappling for control, and such splits exacerbate bad feelings between the two, but there is certainly plenty of in-fighting between Sunni groups and Shiite groups (I’m not 100% positive about Shiite infighting….I’ll have to do some research into that).
All that makes me wonder how peaceful dividing Iraq into 3 regions would really be. First, you’d have to find a way to split the oil revenues so that all 3 groups would accept the division, but my guess would be that even if you could pull that miracle off, there would be pretty violent power struggles within each group, kinda like 3 mini versions of the mess we have now in Iraq.
So while I mostly agree with your perspective, I remain doubtful that a peaceful solution is really going to be found that way. It seems to me that we either need to fully occupy and control the region (this invasion was all about control of oil, the whole world knows it, so why not admit it) or pull out, let the mess boil and seethe until the blood stops flowing and someone takes over power. Granted, given the history of the region (Iran in particular) I doubt we’ll like the results, and the intervening bloody wars will be a humanitarian nightmare.
There was no easy exit when we went into Iraq. We keep looking for a good solution, but I’m afraid the damage has already been done and the consequences of our actions are at this point, are largely unavoidable.
Just my $.02.
-c
Can’t say that I disagree with anything you say there, Chad. George W screwed the pooch for all of us and got us in with no clear way to get out and certainly no way at all, even unclear, to make things better for most Iraqis. Also, if Iraq were to be divided, there remains the issue of “Kurdistan” which the Kurds would insist includes a nice chunk of Turkey, our ally in NATO.
What is the geographic distribution of known oil reserves across what we call Iraq? Who would control the wells and have to give up revenue to those who don’t? And wouldn’t you just love to be the financial analyst who gets to monitor that one?
Ahh, here’s a rundown, but by province, not ethnic majority. http://www.iraqrevenuewatch.org/reports/052706.pdf
More research to do…
Maybe someone could explain to me what, precisely, we’re going to ‘win’ in Iraq? Funny how nobody can come up with specifics…
Winning = last week in Iraq
“the Iraqi parliament approved three very significant pieces of legislation.
First, a provincial powers law that turned Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.
Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenues — about 85 percent of which are from oil — to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/democrats_unwavering_in_the_fa.html
There is more progress coming, but we have now moved past the “surge won’t work” and past the “the Iraqis aren’t doing their share”
Deaths are down. And the oil is ours! Please take the time to read the MANY fabulous points in the past couple weeks before you just say ‘Iraq is bad, bad, baddie!”
We’re past that. We’re onto a new vision/truth/reality. Onward.
It is no mistake that Iraqi elections are going to happen directly before our elections…
We aren’t just coming home. I’ve yet to hear anyone explain, HOW Obama is going to be able to bring troops home if it leads to greater 50x greater Iraqi instability.
It is ok to be FOR Obama and admit the troops aren’t coming home.
I have started a new thread that combines this line of thought with the discussion going on about liberal fascism.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/fascism-and-democracy/
Hi STS. My own sense is that we’ll have “won” when the Iraqis no longer need a substantial US presence over there and casualties are statistically at or near zero. We are irrefutably trending in the right direction.
I do not expect that our presence in Iraq will be zero for decades: consider Europe and the Korean Peninsula. And I certainly do not advocate for a decades-long presence of 100K+ personnel over there. But by the same token, I do not think this will be necessary. Certainly, Iraq always will have problems: all states do. Good examples with gang warfare (or just “violent crime” to put it a bit bigger) and illegal immigration. I think the key difference is that Iraq currently is unable to handle the tasks their police would ideally be able to handle on their own (issues with everything from equipment to training). I do not doubt that it’s within the shared abilities of the US and Iraq to get that force properly up to snuff so that they can take over their duties will little or no further assistance from us.
I would be willing to pay no additional taxes – I know one is on dangerous turf when one cherrypicks what government programs and expenditures to support, but I would much rather see reductions in other areas of spending than additional taxes.
Cheers!
M
Chad, the numbers for violence, bombings, killings, etc. etc. etc. have trended down quite remarkably, across the board (and they are pretty easy to find). Some analysts have said it would not be unreasonable to declare victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq. We currently are in better shape than the most pessimistic observers would have guessed. Certainly a little violence is too much, but to realize substantials reductions is to move in the right direction.