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Posted by Oscar_Lives on February 10, 2007, 11:30 am
http://www.slate.com/id/2159460/
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Posted by Oscar_Lives on February 10, 2007, 6:53 pm
> http://www.slate.com/id/2159460/
>
There Are Four Iraq WarsHow many of them can we win?
By Phillip Carter
Posted Friday, Feb. 9, 2007, at 11:51 AM ET
I came home from Iraq in September 2006 with a paradox ($) on my mind: How
was it that we were making tangible progress in developing Iraq's security
forces, government, and economy, yet the overall security situation was
worsening?
Thanks to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, I now have an answer: Our
strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars,
not one. According to Gates: "One is Shi'a on Shi'a, principally in the
south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not
solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is
attacking, at times, all of those targets." The multifaceted nature of these
four wars has frustrated American strategy since 2003. Successes in one area
produce setbacks in the others, with al-Qaida hovering above the fray to
spoil progress whenever it threatens to bring stability to Iraq, as they did
by bombing the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 after the
successful Iraqi elections. Consequently, any strategies implementing the
"counterinsurgency playbook," smart as those plans may be, will necessarily
prove insufficient because we aren't just fighting an insurgency anymore.
Gates' first war in the south is a classic internecine political struggle
between Shiite factions seeking dominance over the south's oil-rich land and
its religiously significant cities such as Najaf and Karbala. American
politicians and generals have struggled mightily to control these tensions
since 2003; Coalition Provisional Authority proconsul Paul Bremer spent
enormous amounts of time juggling the interests and intrigues of Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, rebel cleric Muqtada Sadr, and secular Shiite
aspirants to power like Ayad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi. Today, the problem is
that Iraq is governed by a fragile Shiite coalition, led by Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, which relies on all kinds of Shiite groups for its power.
Any efforts to stamp out the Shiite-on-Shiite conflict will inflame Maliki's
base and possibly destroy his government. The same is true of efforts to
neutralize Sadr and his Jaish al-Mahdi militia. Thus, stopping the first war
would undermine the goal of building a legitimate and stable government for
Iraq.
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