Right Wing Nut House

Still unable to come to grips with differences over who should run the security establishment, the Iraqi government has failed again to reach an agreement on ministers for interior, security and defense thus prolonging a government crisis that has gone on too long and only serves to add to the chaos in the streets:

Although a new Iraqi cabinet under the secular Shia Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki took office last month after months of negotiation and deal making, three critical ministries have not yet been filled, Interior, Security, and Defense. On June 1st, al-Maliki announced that he would name candidates for the three posts this coming Sunday, June 4th. Naturally, that didn’t happen, and rumors have been flying for some time as to who will get what, as well as the religious and ethnic profiles of the possible candidates.
For minister of defense, currently held ad interim by Salam al-Zouba’i, the rumor mills have focused on several possible candidates:

@ Maj. Gen. Nabil Khalil al-Said, a native of Mosul, who currently runs a bureau in the Ministry of Defense.

@ Nuri al-Dulemi, a former general currently living in the UAE

@ Baraa Najeeb al-Rubaie, a former brigadier general who had been a critic of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and suffered the consequences of being right. In 1991 he fled Iraq and joined Iyad Allawi’s anti-Saddam organization.

@ General Abdul Qader, currently commander of Iraq’s ground forces..

@ Thamer Sultan al-Tikriti, a retired general who was imprisoned under the old regime and whose brother was executed by Saddam Hussein.

All of the candidates have apparently had interviews with President Jalal Talabani, the Prime Minister, and other senior officials, including, apparently, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Most of their military careers were spent serving in Saddam Hussein’s army, but all appear to have been sufficiently professional and apolitical enough to satisfy the demands of deBaathification. In keeping with the need to provide religious and ethnic balance, all of them are secular Sunni Moslems, and al-Tikriti has the added advantage of coming from Saddam Hussein’s home province.

For Minister of the Interior, the rumors have been focused on Nasser Daham Fahad Al Amri, a retired Shi’ite Army officer, apparently regarded in American circles as the best bet, as well as Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who had been national security adviser, and Tawfeeq al-Yassir, a former brigadier general during the Saddam Hussein era who served in the transitional government’s security.

It is apparent that the basic concept of democratic give and take is requiring a learning curve that the Iraqi government can’t afford at this point. By failing to agree on these vital ministry appointments, militias continue to work outside the police and army while rag-tag gangs of thugs carry out atrocities on a daily basis:

GUNMEN have dragged 24 people, mostly teenage students, from their vehicles and shot them dead in the latest wave of violence in Iraq.

As Iraqi leaders appeared deadlocked overnight on naming new interior and defence ministers seen as critical to restoring stability, the relentless killings continued.
Police said gunmen manning a makeshift checkpoint near Udhaim, 120km north of Baghdad, stopped cars approaching the small town and killed the passengers.

The victims included youths of around 15 and 16 years old, who were on their way to the bigger regional town of Baquba for end of term exams, and also elderly men, they said.

“(The attackers) dragged them one by one from their cars and executed them,” said a police official

No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than I do. But for some of us to continue saying “All is Well” while atrocities like this take place all over the Sunni triangle, while Kurds in the north are being pressed by Shias to give up control of oil rich areas, and while Shia’s in the south are carving out their own areas of influence independent of Baghdad, it’s time to start applying the screws to the Iraqi government regardless of any backlash that might arise as a result of our meddling and start knocking some heads together.

We have 130,000 troops in Iraq. If the government of Iraq is not serious about resolving its problems - and taking their time naming vital ministers is a pretty good indication that they are not serious enough - then we should make it clear to Prime Minister al Maliki that one of our options is to wave goodbye and not let the door hit us in the behind when we leave. Despite their overheated rhetoric, neither the Shias or the Sunnis can afford to have the United States leave at this point. They know it. We know it. And al Maliki knows his chances of surviving a month after the Americans leave are pretty close to zero.

The result would be the “Lebanonization” of Iraq:

Iraqis, appalled at the continuing violence by Sunni Arabs, often invoke the memory of Lebanon, which fell into civil war in 1975, and did not emerge from that conflict until 1990. The parallels are striking, and depressing. Like Iraq, Lebanon was cobbled together by a colonial power, in this case France, after the Ottoman Turk empire fell in 1918. France wanted to establish an Arab nation where Arab Christians would be a majority. That was not possible, but Lebanon was about half Christian (the rest being Sunni, Shia, Druze and a few smaller Islamic sects). Alas, the Christians also came in many sects (some Orthodox, some recognized the power of the pope in Rome), some of whom did get along with other Christians. There was also antagonism between the Sunnis, Shia and Druze. However, the Lebanese were a very entrepreneurial and commercial community, and there were many new opportunities with the Turks gone. It all sort of worked, until the appearance of a Palestinian refugee community in the 1950s and 60s. This became a major source of trouble after 1971, when Jordan expelled its radical Palestinians, and drove most of them into Lebanon. Now some Moslem Lebanese insisted that they were the majority (which they probably were) and that the traditional power sharing agreement with Christians should be revised. The Palestinians, who, according to all Lebanese, were a bunch of foreign refugees, wanted to use Lebanon as a base for launching attacks on Israel, took sides, several actually, during the ensuring civil war.

The catalyst for violence are the numerous militias. Some of these militias are clan based. Others owe their loyalty to one religious figure or another like Muqtada al Sadr’s Mehdi Army. Some Sunni militias are little better than criminal gangs, kidnapping middle class Iraqis and holding them for modest ransoms in order to fund their activities. These activities include the wanton slaughter of innocent Shias. And along with similar gangs of Shia thugs, the two sides have been murdering up to 70 civilians a day and caused more than 100,000 people to flee their traditional homes in mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhoods and either leave the country or move to “safe” areas where their co-religionists are in the majority.

This is what the people of Iraq are fearing - a militia dominated society where the government is helpless in the face of so many guns in the hands of irresponsible elements. It would be Lebanon without Syrian and Israeli interference which could make things even bloodier. If the US could play upon this fear by threatening to leave them all to their own devices, the situation could be turned around, especially if the new government could reign in the activities of the major militias like al Sadr’s group and the larger, more aggressive Badr Brigades in the south.

As for the gangs with guns, this is mainly a law enforcement problem and, with some help from the US and the Iraqi Army, the criminal element could be neutralized fairly quickly.

The violence is killing hope in Iraq. And until people feel safe enough to live fairly normal lives, they are not going to plan for the future nor will they have much confidence in the democratic process. It all starts with the Iraqi government. Until they can organize their own house, they are not going to be able to control the country as a whole.