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Analysis: Marriage of convenience in Iraq


Published: March 19, 2008 at 1:24 PM
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By DANIEL GRAEBER
UPI Correspondent
The U.S. military's use of organic forces in Iraq gives a sense of Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems, but may also be a sign of a partnership of convenience.

U.S. military leaders in Iraq credit the Sunni-led security forces known as Sons of Iraq with contributing to the recent calm there. This security force, roughly 80 percent Sunni and 20 percent Shiite, came out of the Sunni-led Anbar Awakening, or Sawha, last summer in which local tribal chiefs rose up to drive al-Qaida forces out of Iraq. These groups formed volunteer militias to take charge of security in their own areas. This corresponded roughly with the U.S. military's five-brigade troop surge. U.S. strategists in Iraq sensed an opportunity to embrace the Sawha groups as a way to compensate for the lack of national security forces and a way to target a common enemy.

A spokesman for the U.S. military, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, noted that the strategic planners in Iraq intend to place about 25 percent of the 80,000 members of the Sawha groups into official security details, mostly in various local police forces. The other 75 percent, government officials hope, will attend vocational training classes in order to land jobs rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure. Smith said members of the security force will not serve in ministerial positions. The only reason, Smith said, for the Sons of Iraq to exist is to make up for the lack of national security forces. As the Iraqi forces stand up, the Sons of Iraq will be phased out. At least that's the plan.

But as the Sons of Iraq increasingly shed blood for the country, they are growing increasingly disenfranchised with the political rewards. Iraqis, including the Awakening Councils, want peace and stability, but as in any form of participatory government, they also want power. In Diyala province recently, members of the Sons of Iraq abandoned their checkpoints in protest of the Iraqi central government's choice for police chief, who happened to be Shiite. That's just one minor example of the swelling tide of political discontent emerging from the Awakening Councils, as many simply see no purpose in continuing the fight as the Awakening came with few rewards. Adding to the complexity is the tenuous cease-fire by the fighters loyal to the Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who many of the Sawha forces fear.

The United States in past conflicts tended to avoid the task of nation-building, opting instead to reserve its forces for maintaining regional power symmetry. The strategic policy of the United States in Afghanistan echoed this sentiment. A Defense Department official noted during the initial conflict in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that superpowers "don't do windows," stating: "It's our job to destroy the enemy and then move on."

During the Cold War, the United States threw its support behind the Afghan mujahedin in an effort to stem Soviet expansion. The outcome was that the mujahedin elements merged with jihadists who came to Pakistan and Afghanistan for paramilitary training and ultimately formed, in part, the basis of al-Qaida forces.

The U.S. policy regarding the Sons of Iraq may not be that far removed from the status quo policy of friends of convenience employed by U.S. strategists in past conflicts. This time, however, as the counterinsurgency strategy evolves, the U.S. government may be creating the next Hezbollah, not al-Qaida, in Iraq with its support for the Awakening movement. The Lebanese central government operates historically in a weakened form. The confessional political system in Lebanon allows for the continuance of the Lebanese state so long as communal elements, including Hezbollah, remain strong. The Sons of Iraq may emerge as just such a political force in the post-surge Iraq.

Anthony Cordesman with the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington notes in a recent policy paper that "working out some non-violent resolution" of the inevitable power struggle in Iraq "will be difficult." Cordesman warns that when, and if, the Sadr militias pick up their weapons again, the clash between the Shiites in the Mahdi Army and the Sunnis in the Awakening Councils may explode once again, with the U.S. military stuck in the middle. What happens then? That likely scenario would push Iraq back to the brink of civil war.

Gary Schroen, the CIA officer who led the first clandestine operations in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks, noted in his account of operations there that you can't buy loyalty, but you can certainly rent it. A weak central government, as in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq, cannot support a strong national security force by its very definition. While the new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq has Iraq in part to thank for the recent calm, throwing support behind groups with a common enemy may be less beneficial in the long run than throwing support behind the most politically capable. In regard to the Sons of Iraq, this marriage of convenience may end in a nasty and bitter divorce.

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