The Iraq Protocols posted by Richard Seymour

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, kurdish leadership, maliki, occupation, sadrists, siic, US imperialism

A foreign policy for Obama posted by Richard Seymour

I know that all would-be potentates at all levels read my blog devotedly, if not religiously. Naturally, I ignore the noisome little grunts most of the time. But this is one occasion on which I shall have to disclose the secret to America's future foreign policy comportment for the most likely President-elect come November, BHO. I have to because, as is so often the case, this upstart doesn't even understand what is in America's interests (I would not expect any other concern to enter into the discussion). Here are three policies that Obama should pursue:

1) Stop trying to expand NATO. Shut it down if possible. It is a danger to the Euro-American Alliance - every expansion riles the Caucasian bear and draws in potentially volatile units. It introduces discord where American hegemony requires harmony. If even Silvio Berlusconi, the most pro-American political leader in Europe, sides with the Russkies, you have problems.

2) Make nice to Chavez. Venezuela may have a social revolution, or it may not. But at the moment, it is still open to US capital on revised terms, and you had better take those terms because Latin America is no longer just a plantation outback. And even the Bolsheviks were open to American business, so even social revolution need not be a disaster. Better kiss up to Raul Castro too - he has big oilfields now, and you know that your 'clean coal'/nuclear energy ruse isn't going to last a day once you're elected.

3) Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. The US has already admitted it can't hold Iraq without the acquiescence of significant (in both senses) layers of the population. That is why the occupation forces had to cut deals with the Sunni resistance fighters and then the Mahdi Army. And it's still no better than it was in 2004/5. That was hardly a sterling moment as I recall. So give up trying to impose a humiliating Status of Forces Agreement, and negotiate an expeditious withdrawal. Secondly, talk tough on Afghanistan and Pakistan if you must, but you and Brzezinski know that you can't afford to have Central Asia go up in flames. And there is sufficient economic and social 'dislocation' there to bring about a mass revolt should you try to expand the war into Pakistan, as the prevailing imperial logic dictates. You can weather the shrill chorus of 'surrender', especially if - as is anticipated - the Senate enters 'filibuster-proof' territory. Just cut a deal with the current vicious warlords and the Taliban, tell Dyncorps where to get off, and allow the Afghan people to regroup and resist on their own terms, without American bombs falling all around them.

Obama can listen to the silver-haired bagpipe that he has chosen for a VP if he likes, but I'm trying to help the guy. Be a wise imperialist, I warn him, or we - the royal we, the editorial we, and the collective we - will be obliged to do something unconscionable.

Labels: afghanistan, barack obama, chavez, foreign policy, Georgia, iraq, iraqi resistance, NATO, russia, US imperialism

Another assault on Fallujah? posted by Richard Seymour

U.S. and Iraqi forces are preparing another siege of Fallujah under the pretext of combating "terror", residents and officials say.

Located 69 km west of Baghdad, the city that suffered two devastating U.S. attacks in 2004 has watched security degrade over recent months.

"Ruling powers in the city fighting to gain full control seem willing to use the security collapse to accuse each other of either conspiracy (in lawlessness) or incapability of control," Sufian Ahmed, a lawyer and human rights activist in Fallujah told IPS.

"They suddenly changed their tone from saying that the city was the safest in Iraq to claiming that al-Qaeda is a serious threat. Fallujah residents know their so-called leaders are using security threats to terrify them for their own political interests."

Labels: 'surge', fallujah, iraq, iraqi resistance, US imperialism

Fallujah's legacy posted by Richard Seymour

The media chorus is unmistakeable, and obscene. Iraq now looks more hopeful than ever, they crow. Iraq is back on its feet, and terrorists are finally being driven to the margins. One could go on at nauseating length. The vilest extreme of this tendency is the extollment of Fallujah as the supreme example of such victory: once crawling with evildoers, this new haven of civility and neighbourly conduct shows what can be accomplished with gravel in the guts. In fact, this sort of depraved propaganda began in 2006, at the height of the US-incited sectarian warfare in Iraq, when American military officials began to laud Fallujah as a safe haven for the embattled Sunni population (on whom the Badr Organisation had just been sicced).

Let me just recount the salient details of what was done to Fallujah. Prior to April 2004, there had been a growing military conflict between Fallujans and the occupation forces, particularly after a massacre of peaceful demonstrators outside occupation headquarters. That conflict culminated in the capture and public defilement of four mercenaries, all of whom were carrying out the functions of the army in a privatised form. These modern day imperial adventurers were rapidly defined as innocent civilians, when in fact they were defending US trucks and outposts. Mercenary operators are not well-behaved mothers' boys when they're in Iraq: we've seen enough footage of them to know that, and infer a great deal more. It is a telling sign of how hated the mercenaries are that a recent malarial infection that spread throughout Fallujah was named 'Blackwater' by residents. At any rate, the US subsequently planned a siege of the city, but - despite killing hundreds in a few days and committing serious war crimes, including the bombing of a hospital - they were unable to keep control, and eventually had to cut an ad hoc withdrawal deal, leaving effective authority in the hands of local notables. (We now know for that Bush and his cabinet were fully planning a complete blitz in April 2004. Bush's pep talk to his cabinet on 6 April is reported by Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez: "Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!'") They continued to carry out raids and bomb attacks, but it wasn't until after the November 2004 election victory that their blitzkrieg resumed. They decided to order out the civilian population and relentlessly bombed the city in order to 'encourage' the evacuation. They shut off the water and electricity and started to pound the place, with weapons including white phosphorus, until thousands were dead. With over 150,000 refugees living in tents outside the city, US troops overran the territory and shot at anything that moved. They considered any boy older than ten to be a potential insurgent. They destroyed half of the homes, at least.

Having blasted, fried or shredded thousands to death and thousands more to injury, having destroyed tends of thousands of homes and mosques and schools, they put the city under a strict curfew, with a biometric lockdown and forced labour. They set up Camp Mercury on the outskirts of the city and used it as a base for torturing prisoners - which procedure the Marines referred to as 'fucking' them. There is more to say on this, but for the moment, let's consider the strategy employed here. I summarised the findings of one extensive report on America's urban warfare strategy in Iraq here. To condense, the strategy appears to involve seven key points: encircle and close off the city; forcefully evacuate those who remain; cut off food, water and electricity; confine reporters and block media coverage; massive bombardment; conduct an urban assault, using sniper fire, and put survivors through violent searches; attack hospitals, ambulances and other medical facilities.

This kind of intense urban warfare was planned and meditated on for years in advance. In a piece for the journal Environment and Planning in November 2005, the geographer Stephen Graham recounts a glitzy event he was asked to attend in Haifa in 2001. It turned out to be stuffed full of IDF and Marine Corps figures, senior US military planners, RAND corporation clerks and such. He recalls:

We were sickened by the euphemistic and obfuscatory language where every discursive trick was employed not to call a killing `a killing'. We were amazed to discover that US, Israeli, and British `experts' in this emerging field of urban warfare were such close friends that they seemed to constitute a transnational social body, orchestrating the intense exchange of technology, experience, training, and experience between the three nations. We were nauseated at the bellicose technophiliac masculinities, where systematic repression and state killing were portrayed in glossy PowerPoint slides with a palpable sense of fascination, even excitement.

He goes on:

Strikingly, the tricks of the trade of such warfare have, since 2001, quickly morphed to once again become central platforms of state geopolitical power. Fueled by a paranoid sense that global urbanisation is somehow working to undermine the technoscientific, disciplinary, and killing abilities of imperial nation-states, military urban specialists, such as those who attended the Haifa event, are helping to rethink radically how the United States, the other Western powers, and Israel wage war. The symptoms and results of such a transformation are now all too clear. In fact, they are difficult to escape. There are the demonisation and the calls to annihilate cities that symbolise resistance to colonial power; the masking of atrocities through an all-encompassing `terrorist' discourse; and the Orientalist `Othering' of Arab urban places and their inhabitants. Then there are the assaults on dense cities with helicopter gunships, cluster bombs, and artillery; the `psychological operations' that involve the bombing and targeting of journalists who have the temerity to show the resulting carnage on the ground; and the voyeuristic consumption of city-killing for pleasure and entertainment in news, films, novels, and video games (some produced by the militaries themselves). Finally, there are the political calls to destroy, `cleanse', or `pacify' aberrant, dehumanised `terrorist nest' cities, the inhabitants of which, it is endlessly implied, might easily project unimaginable terror onto Western cities if not annihilated.

These combined techniques of repression and representation were unmistakeably deployed in Fallujah (as Graham goes on to show in his article), so what the media pundits are in fact celebrating is a masterpiece of grand urban terror and repression, the pre-meditated destruction of a city in which up to 100,000 civilians were still living.

The results of the attack are still emerging, incidentally. One side-effect has been a surge in birth deformities, probably resulting from the chemical weapons, including depleted uranium and white phosphorus, used by the US in the area. But the main effect of the seige was the intended one: the complete subordination of Fallujah's population to martial law. What is currently lauded as 'stability' is in fact a harsh despotism run by former Republican Guards who round up suspects arbitrarily, then beat and torture them. It is a city riddled with blast walls and checkpoints, and any imam who preaches against the occupation is ordered to shut down. It is a place where the mere suspicion of insurgency can result in your fingernails being pulled out as you are beaten up. A city in tatters, a "big jail" still under biometric lockdown, still without regular electricity or clean water (which one reason is why malaria is spreading). And you can do all this to a city and call it progress because of the success of the preparatory propaganda. Not only was the whole terrain suffused with evil (a 'terrorist nest'), but it was home to the supreme evil-doer himself, 'Satan', according to Colonel Gareth Brandl. It is telling that in the WaPo piece linked above, US military propaganda, which held that the city was under the control of 'Al Qaeda', is recited by the Awakening Council cretin in charge of the place. He knows perfectly well that it's nonsense, but also knows that American newspapers will believe anything unless its officially denied. Because that is what it takes for what is sure to be recorded as one of the crimes of the century, giving expression to a brutal doctrine of urban warfare, to become a success story.

Labels: fallujah, iraq, iraqi resistance, war crimes

The Mahdi Army Survives Undisarmed posted by Yoshie

A new truce between the "Iraqi government" and the Mahdi Army. Citing AFP and Al-Hayat, Juan Cole sums up the key points of the agreement between them:

The al-Maliki government and the Sadrists pulled back from the brink in Sadr City on Saturday. PM Nuri al-Maliki had demanded that the Mahdi Army militia that serves as the Sadrist paramilitary give up its arms and dissolve itself. The compromise simply states that the Iraqi security forces would be allowed in to Sadr City to search for suspected medium and heavy weapons. The implication is that the Mahdi Army may continue to exist and may keep its light weapons (e.g. AK-47s), though it has to pledge not to walk with them in public.

The siege of Sadr City is to be lifted and the major roads in and out of it are to be unblocked, according to the agreement.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the agreement stipulates that the government should have a court order to come into Sadr City. Arrests of rogue commanders had to to be based on warrants and not just 'indiscriminate.' There is nothing in the agreement about the Mahdi Army disarming altogether, as Nuri Al-Maliki initially demanded. ("Maliki-Sadr Agreement on Sadr City; Al-Maliki Heads to Mosul," Informed Comment, 11 May 2008)

The truce is said to have been brokered by Tehran -- again.

While Washington has two enemies -- not just Sunni insurgents but also Shi'i Sadrists -- whom it can neither conquer nor coopt, Tehran has no determined enemy among the Iraqi Shia and has influence over all major factions of them. Ironically, it's Washington's desire to create "an anti-Iranian Iraq," as well as a front of Arab client states against the so-called Shia crescent stretching from Iran to large swathes of Iraq, Lebanon, and even the Gulf states,¹ that has augmented Tehran's influence:

It was the U.S. attempt to create an anti-Iranian Iraq that was to play into Iranian hands and produce the very situation that Washington was trying to avoid.

The more Washington threatened air strikes on Iran because of its nuclear program, the more the Iranians sought to make sure that it had the potential to strike back at American forces in Iraq. Before he was executed, Sadr I believed that he had been let down by Iran; Sadr II had bad relations with Tehran; and at first Muqtada denounced his Shia opponents in SCIRI and the Marji'iyyah as being Iranian stooges. But American pressure meant that the Sadrists had to look to Iran for help, and in a military confrontation the Mehdi Army saw Iran as an essential source of weapons and military expertise. (Patrick Cockburn, "Riding the Tiger: Muqtada al-Sadr and the American Dilemma in Iraq," Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq, Scribner, 2008)

Thus Tehran alone can help bring stability to at least the areas of Iraq predominantly inhabited by the Shia; and, together with Damascus, which has a certain level of influence over some factions of Sunni insurgents, it may eventually -- in sha' allah -- be able to help broker a government of national unity of sorts in Iraq² if and when Washington ends its occupation of the ruined nation. That's the point that Western leftists should emphasize to counter Washington's propaganda against Iran and Syria. It's the empire, not Iran and Syria, that is the force that perpetuates chaos in Iraq and ends up spreading it everywhere it goes.

1 Washington has, however, failed to move the hearts and minds of Arabs against Iran in particular or the Shia in general. The most admired world leaders among Arabs are Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar Al-Assad, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (in that order), according to Shibley Telhami's "2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll."

2 In any such post-occupation government of national unity in Iraq, Sadrists will play a central role. The Iranian people, a majority of whom prefer Sadr to Maliki, correctly understand it:

A plurality [of Iranians] sees the government in Iraq as legitimate -- down from a modest majority in 2006. Asked whether "the current government is . . . the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people," 45 percent said that it is, while 33 percent said that it is not. This is down from December 2006, when 54 percent thought it was legitimate (31% thought it was not).

Similarly, 45 percent have a favorable view of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki while 22 percent have an unfavorable view. This too has drifted down slightly from 2006, when 48 percent had a favorable view.

More popular is Shi'a opposition figure Muqtada al-Sadr, who was viewed favorably by 56 percent and unfavorably by just 12 percent. Similarly, in 2006 58 percent had a favorable view and 12 percent were unfavorable. (WorldPublicOpinion.org, "Public Opinion in Iran: With Comparisons to American Public Opinion," 7 April 2008, p. 29)

Labels: iran, iraq, iraqi resistance, syria, US imperialism

Latest Iraqi Resistance Stats posted by Richard Seymour

The Brookings Institution provides regular updates on all statistics from Iraq in its 'Iraq Index'. It collates a range of different sources, and it isn't necessarily as authoritative as the official Department of Defense reports. However, it is more consistent in what data it presents and generally omits the Bush administration editorials. The latest report, dated 5 May 2008, is here. Here are some of the key results pertaining to resistance attacks (click to enlarge):








I already addressed the reported the issue of the 'surge' and its effects here and here. I noted that the main causes of a reduction in all kinds of attacks were: a) a brief cessation of the war between Sadr and Badr fighters; the near exhaustion of the sectarian war; b) Sadr's ceasefire; c) the co-opting of Sunni fighters in huge numbers. I also pointed out that the Bush administration had only succeeded in reducing the rate of anti-occupation violence by the precise amount that it had increased during the escalations in 2006-7. The statistics above more or less confirm this picture. (Gilbert Achcar, in an interesting discussion of the political background to the 'surge', also reinforces some of these points). They also suggest that US troop deaths fell to a very low rate in December 2007, and have been rising ever since (don't be misled by the drop at the end of the third chart, as that is the figure for the first four days in May). It is currently at a seven-month high. They confirm that the 'foreign fighter' contingent remains puny, about 2,000 at most - in a total insurgency that was estimated to be about 200,000 strong as early as January 2005, that is at most 1% of the total. As the US has been putting 'Iraqi security forces' in the frontline over the past couple of years - the strategy of 'Iraqification' - they are bearing the greater brunt of deaths. Those same 'Iraqi security forces' are, according to this report, carrying out a large number of the patrols - over half at some points, apparently. The pattern of 'Iraqification' has been maintained in Basra and Sadr City recently. The US is backing up said 'security forces' with air strikes that have contributed to the hundreds of deaths (this may actually be more bloody in the end than Fallujah). Partly because of this, the main cause of deaths among US troops is IEDs, rather than gun battles. Even with that in mind, the main gain of the 'surge' - a reduction in attacks on occupation troops - has been reversing for several months now. If the Sadrist militias have held out well enough to cause the government to want another truce, then the other expected gain - using a window of opportunity to smash the main anti-occupation forces - is unlikely to materialise.

Labels: 'surge', iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, US imperialism

The Sadr City crackdown. posted by Richard Seymour

Muqtada al-Sadr's scheduled protest for 9 April (yesterday) was, of course, called off in a hurry, as refugees were fleeing the city under bombardment. The air attacks continue to mount up, the latest reported attack killing ten Iraqis - in a "militia stronghold", of course. Loud explosions are being heard all over Sadr City as violence across Baghdad 'spirals'. It isn't hard to see why this is happening. Sadr City is, as I mentioned, a vast, populous area, larger than Basra or Najaf. It is the key area of Sadrist resistance, the base from which the movement's strengths emanate. But why now? Previously, when Sadr has humiliated the occupiers and their local chumps, there has been a period of backing off and a brief, negotiated peace. This time, having watched Maliki fail, the US is upping the ante.

Well, although Maliki was indeed humiliated, and had to run to Iran for a settlement before begging for fifty of his armoured cars back from the insurgents, he seems to have been told by the US to get back down to it. Gen. Petraeus expects the Basra crackdown to last for another few months. So, as America bombs from a great height, "Iraqi forces" are sent in to do the ground work. Presumably, the reasoning is that if the Sunni north holds, there is no reason to hold back in Baghdad and the south. Of course, there were still hundreds of attacks even in the relatively peaceful months since September 2007, mainly in Baghdad and the northern provinces of Ninewah, Diyala, and Salah-ah-Din. And in fact the number of attacks in Ninewah increased by 17% between November 2007 and March 2008. So, we shouldn't too carried away by the claims for the 'pacification' of Sunni Iraq. Nevertheless, the obvious and quite dramatic decline in the overall reported attacks since the co-optation of 'Awakening Councils' and the Sadrist ceasefire at the end of August 2007 has probably given the US army leadership a shot of confidence. So now they're giving Sadr City a taste of what Fallujah, Tal Afar, al-Qaim, Haditha, Samarra and Ramadi have each got in different measures over the past three or four years. In riposte, the resistance is raising the rate of its assault, as seventeen troops have been killed since Sunday.

With the oil laws still not signed into law, with social forces embroiled in a politico-military struggle for the future control of Iraq, and with intransigent unions resisting US designs, they have no plans of getting out of Iraq any time soon. Indeed, as Seumas Milne revealed, they plan an open-ended military presence in the country. It has to be open-ended, of course. Even McCain's Hundred Year Reich is too limiting. Even the current supine political leadership in Iraq isn't going to completely go along with that, for fear of being swallowed up by an angry revolt. Suppose the Sadrists were to 'arrive' in the next elections, with control of much of southern Iraq and Baghdad? Suppose, then, the 'Awakening Councils' were to start plugging their American overlords again? They clearly intend to take the initiative while they have a window: as the troops selected to speak to embedded NYT reporters insist, this "has got to be done". And the US has lost faith in the capacity of its political allies in Iraq to do the job.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, sadr city, sadrists, US imperialism

The Sadrist Revolt posted by Richard Seymour

A lengthy article by yours truly at MRZine.

Labels: iraqi resistance, mahdi army, muqtada al-sadr, sadrists

Sadr's strange victory. posted by Richard Seymour

What did he have to do to win? Well, once again, he didn't start or provoke the fight. In fact, he had recently renewed his organisation's ceasefire, so anything short of his being decisively defeated is by default a victory for him. Maliki's stated goal was to disarm the Mahdi Army, and that clearly isn't going to happen. Maliki tried to use the 'Iraqi forces' in order to defeat the Mahdi, but found he couldn't. Some Iraqi police refused to fight, while others took their guns and went to fight for the other side. Basra was decisively in Mahdi control. In short order, Baghdad, Kut, Karbala, Nasiriyah, Hilla and several southern cities and towns were in revolt. Hassan Jumaa of Iraq's main oil union reported that there was a widespread popular revolt, and there is evidence that both the US and Maliki feared the development of a combined national revolt. While Maliki had pleaded with the occupiers to stay out of fighting, lest it be seen as a war of occupation versus resistance (and the Dawa Party will not look good in the upcoming elections if he is seen as the occupiers' puppet), it wasn't long before he had to call them in. Now, it looks like they're having to settle for an Iranian-brokered ceasefire that leaves Sadr's organisation intact and his political standing immensely enhanced. What's more, it seems the negotiations were instigated by Maliki's government: "We asked Iranian officials to help us convince him that we were not cracking down on the Sadr group", said an Iraqi official. From "worse than Al Qaeda" to "pwease lets be fwends" is a big shift. Sadr's order for his militias to get off the streets is a test of his control over the organisation, but it is hardly a white flag.

Consider the position of the occupiers in all this. There is now a story going round that US officials didn't know that the attack on Basra was coming. As Marc Lynch points out, this is hardly credible. It is highly unlikely that Cheney's recent visit to Iraq didn't involve some discussion of the Sadrists. Assuming what appears to be obvious, namely that this attack was ordered by the US, then what is the upshot? If the US is obliged to accept an Iranian-backed peace deal, it isn't because they were militarily defeated. The US was bombing from a great height, and could easily have destroyed Basra and its inhabitants and the Mahdi fighters. The fact that this is not Fallujah is not because of the superior rifle power or military training of Sadr's supporters. It is because of Sadr's currently unmatched political power.

All of this is evidence that the Sadrists are improving their act. Have a look at these snippets from Moqtada al-Sadr's recent interview on Al Jazeera:



Here, he positions himself as a leader of the resistance struggle and calls upon Arab states to lend the struggle political support. In reports of his wider remarks, he is said to have described the liberation of Iraq as the central strategic goal of the Mahdi, and predicted that the US will fall in Iraq as they did in Vietnam. Well, there's no doubt that this could happen, but for all that the similarities with Vietnam are rightly highlighted, there remains one staggering difference: there is no equivalent to the Viet Minh. There is not an organisation with the authoritative legitimacy, discipline, centralised power and political nous to even come close. The Mahdi cannot be that organisation, and of course Sadr is probably well aware of this, which is why he has been reaching out to Sunni resistance groups. Who could launch a Tet Offensive in Iraq today? That attack, a turning point which guaranteed the shortening of the American war, required a mass peasant army with fearsome self-control and a leadership with a sophisticated analysis of the domestic politics of the US and how the operation would impact on it. The army would not have been there for the fight had the Viet Minh not been able to offer a coherent strategy for national liberation and unite that with the declared goal of emancipating the peasantry. Any end to the American war in Iraq will result from the consolidation of a national federation of resistance groups with a singular political vision that offers something to the dispossessed Iraqi working class. Yet, for all the limits of Sadr's movement, he continues to rack up successes, to take his would-be terminators by surprise, and to consolidate his standing every time someone tries to take him down a peg or two.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, mahdi army, maliki, occupation, sadr, US imperialism

Sadr's revolt, and the myths of the 'surge'. posted by Richard Seymour

American bombers have struck the central city of Hilla, killing sixty people, aside from their bombing raids in Basra and Sadr City. It's worth considering two things in light of this. The first is the ascendancy of the Sadrist movement, described by Patrick Cockburn in his recent book on Sadr, (and with surprising foresight by Juan Cole in 2003), and its likely future direction. Much of Cockburn's book is given over to a discussion of the Sadr family and its prominence in pre-occupation Iraq in resisting Saddam. I've discussed some of this background here, but Cockburn has compiled the best and most accessible account I have yet seen, see I will draw on it. The second is the so-called 'surge', which is actually a collection of separate politico-military strategies, ranging from bribery to suppression, and its supposed 'success'. In connection with the latter, the latest edition of the quarterly US government report Measuring Stability and Security in the New Iraq was published this month. Unsurprisingly, it is cautiously optimistic because the rate of attacks on US troops has remained fairly steady since September 2007, having fallen back to the rates that persisted in 2004. I might mention that no one thought the 2004 rates were ideal, and it was in just that year that people started to realise that the US could lose the whole thing. The declining rate of attacks is an artefact of a lull in the war - they didn't decline while the US was aggressively attacking in the previous period of the 'surge' and in like operations in 2006-7. However, there's quite a bit of spin deployed to heighten the sense of success. While attacks have reduced to their 2004 level, civilian deaths are shown only from early 2006 to February 2008. So, reported civilian deaths have fallen from their extraordinary peaks during the worst of the 'surge', but they remain at roughly the level they were at in January 2006 - which was already stupendously high. The same deal with US military and 'Iraqi forces' deaths - they've declined to slightly below their early 2006 level, which was very high. Similarly, sectarian deaths have fallen back to their January 2006 level, which was already high. The recent US actions have finally reduced the carnage by the exact amount that the surge increased them. As a matter of fact, then, it would seem that the 'surge' operations dramatically increased the level of deaths, and naturally raised the rate of resistance attacks, and only a separate set of political developments taking real effect since mid-2007 has brought the rate of carnage down.

But it is not that simple. One of the main factors responsible for the slow-down in the carnage since mid-2007 was the ceasefire by Sadr's forces, which was announced on 31 August 2007. Previously, Sadr's movement had been responsible for a great number of attacks in Baghdad and southern cities. As Cockburn points out, the fact that the ceasefire was maintained indicated that, for the first time, Sadr was getting some measure of control over his organisation. The ceasefire was declared because, under pressure from the US, Maliki informed Sadr that he was 'obliged' to fight him even though he relied on Sadr's movement in the Council of Representatives. Hundreds were arrested in a night's work, and forces loyal to the US started rampaging through Shia neighbourhoods, shooting up households with the backing of US helicopters. Bush had announced his 'surge' by warning of "Shia extremists" just as hostile to the US as 'Al Qaeda', while foreign policy intellectuals referred to a "Shia crescent" uniting Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, and potentially destabilising Saudi Arabia. With 'Iraqi forces', US army, Kurdish peshmerga and Badr Organisation fighters surrounding the potential kingmaker on all sides, Sadr decided that he would not resist. The story, of course, is that there was going to be a general clampdown on armed militias - but both peshmerga and Badr corps were incorporated into the security services and so didn't have to dissolve themselves. Another part of the story was that Sadr was an Iranian stooge and went into hiding in Iran when 20,000 extra American supermen showed up. Cockburn is very informative on this point. You would be hard-pressed to find any Iraqi nationalist who is not contemptuous of the 'Iranians' (ie, any Iraqi who might be supported by Iran's government), and the Sadrists are explicitly hostile to Iran's influence. Iran has actually been supportive of Sadr's rivals, particularly the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) people. As for weaponry - well, you figure it out. Have anti-colonial movements never used IEDs before? Does it take an Iranian to know what to do with weedkiller to make an explosive? The argument was nonsensical.

The reason for Sadr's influence in the 'New Iraq' is not to be found in Iranian influence. It is in his background, and that of his family in resistance to Saddam. Its survival in the face of the dictatorship's onslaught against communist and secular opponents, as well as Shi'ite ones, was remarkable. Against more quietist strains in Shia politics, the Sadr family emphasised activism, and that approach has characterised Sadr's response to the occupation and the formation of the grassroots Mahdi Army. This apparently came as quite a surprise to the US government. After Ahmed Chalabi and the INC were unable to account for half of $4m given to them in 2002, the CIA and State Department started to mistrust them and look for allies in the Shi'ite religious movements. You may remember that it was around that time that naifs started to wonder why the wonderful and humane democrats of the INC were being frozen out of war preparations. They negotiated with the Dawa Party and with the SCIRI, and only the former had any real base in Iraq. The Sadr current, which better off Shia saw as a kind of Islamic Bolshevism, had been completely overlooked. Sadr was immediately hostile to the SCIRI current, which he saw as representing Iranian interests rather than those of Iraqis, and which he argued had not helped Iraqis in the 1991 intifada despite al-Bakir calling for an uprising. He opposed the occupation, noting that "The smaller devil has gone but the bigger devil has come". How prescient. The Mahdi Army was being created while the Badr corps already had up to 8,000 armed fighters. It was a volunteer army, made up of amateur enthusiasts from the poorest parts of Iraq, and it graduated its first battalion in Basra on 6 October 2003. This army displayed its strength during the siege of Najaf in 2004, which made the US army wary of taking the Mahdi on in direct combat ever after. Even now, they rely on Iraqi confederates to do the fighting for them. Paul Bremer had been foolish enough to think that by arresting the 'rabble rouser' he so hated and shutting down the Sadrist newspaper, he would end that part of the emerging resistance. No such luck evidently.

Aside from fighting the occupation, part of the allure of Sadr's movement was its puritan zeal. In areas controlled by the Sadrists, prostitution was targeted, dress codes imposed, 'Islamic mores' enforced, and so on. However, it is not clear how much the leadership actually controlled the organisation. Cockburn says that Sadr has been 'riding a tiger', with several areas totally out of control. Though the Mahdi Army was responsible for some of the soaring sectarian violence that was reported in the years 2005-7, it was often indicated in reporting that Sadr himself did not condone this. This is confirmed in Cockburn's account, which shows that Sadr thought of his movement as being penetrated by spies and criminal networks. In fact, Sadr had stressed the nationalist aspect of his programme and took the opportunity supplied by the Sunni resistance split with the small but deadly 'Al Qaeda' auxiliary to re-emphasise this. Opposition to 'outsiders' was congruent with hostility to the occupiers. But it was not until the clashes with SIIC militias were brought to an end with the ceasefire in late August 2007 that deaths from sectarian clashes declined - suggesting that a great deal of the sectarian warfare was intra-Shiite as well as intra-Sunni.

Sadr's movement is currently able to handle the 'Iraqi forces', evidently. That is why the occupiers are probably going to have to 'surge' again, and probably bring the British troops into the fight. But the US army shows no sign of being willing to take on the Mahdi Army in direct combat at the moment. Only the strategy of Blitzkrieg avails itself. But at the same time, the Sadrists have not been able to form alliances with Sunni movements. Only if the Sunnis currently working alongside the occupiers to take out 'Al Qaeda' do go on the general strike that they are threatening is there a possibility of this. In addition, the sectarian actions often participated in by Mahdi fighters are hard to reverse, especially the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from homes in Shi'ite areas. The burdens of surival as Iraqi society collapses, as professionals in health and education and vital infrastructural areas flee, as key services degenerate and vital social safety nets disappear, tends towards increasing viciousness, clientelism, patrimonialism and sectarian competition as much as it does toward nationalism and liberation. Sadr's revolt is crucial, and its outcome will tell us a great deal about Iraq's future.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, mahdi army, nationalism, sadr, shia

Basra seige unleashes storm of protest. posted by Richard Seymour

As the seige of Basra creates a humanitarian crisis, with 51 killed in the fighting, thousands of protestors have protested the seige in Baghdad. The Sadrists are now, according to Patrick Cockburn, the biggest political movement in Iraq. Missing Links cites Kuwaiti news agency reports that Iraqi soldiers are refusing to fight, suggesting there's no enthusiasm among the 'Iraqi forces' for this battle, and the Times confirms that there are widespread reports of defections from the police to the militias and ... clear signs that the operation could backfire badly. But then, I suspect the 'Iraqi forces' know the whole system is a farce and most of them are trying to get something out of it for their families. Agence-France Press says the revolt is spreading. All of which suggests that Maliki and his backers have drastically miscalculated.

Labels: basra, iraq, iraqi resistance, sadr

The Battle of Basra posted by Richard Seymour

The BBC and The Guardian report gun battles in the streets of Basra. There is a template for reporting on this is already fairly well developed: the 'Iraqi forces' are cracking down on intra-sectarian warfare, trying to bring peace to the streets of Iraq's southernmost region, the Basra Governate. This warfare is between three players - the Al-Fadhila party (an offshoot of Sadrism), the Mahdi Army, and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). The latter, of course, currently occupies the Interior Ministry on behalf of the invading armies, so the implication that the 'Iraqi forces' are taking a neutral role in this struggle is palpably absurd. It is also the main party to the coalition government with the Dawa Party, which also hopes to co-dominate the southern regions. Reporters know perfectly well that this is not a neutral crackdown on some sectarian rivalry that is simply getting out of hand, and perhaps by the time you read this that pretense will have been given up.

So what is this apparently 'regional' struggle about? A few things, I think. Sadr's movement has recently broken its ceasefire and launched a series of attacks against the occupying forces, including - so it is believed - rocket attacks into the Green Zone. (General Petraeus is saying that Iran is behind these attacks, but then he would). They have been organising cross-sectarian meetings demanding the end of the occupation. The occupiers will probably be encouraging its most avid collaborators to crack down on this tendency, especially given that the Mahdi ceasefire has been one of the most important bases for the recently declared success. If the 'Iraqi forces' can't do the job, look out for a redeployment of British troops, over 4,000 of whom are currently bunkered down in Basra airport. Secondly, in the past few days Sadrists have accused the Dawa Party and its government allies of waging a war of liquidation against the Sadrist movement in the central and southern regions, in anticipation of the implementation of the federalism laws written by the US and pushed through in 2006, and the upcoming provincial elections which the Sadrists could very well win. The SIIC has recently made a bid to consolidate its control of the Basra Governate by getting a motion of no confidence passed against Mohammed al-Waili, the governor of the province and a prominent Al-Fadhila member, which explains why the latter are fighting their corner. Thirdly, the Sadrists are threatening a no-confidence vote in Maliki's government and a campaign of civil disobedience against the occupation forces. Maliki doesn't have to put up with a vote of no-confidence so long as the confidence of the occupiers, and the occupiers don't put up with anything so long as they still rule.

Finally, and most importantly, the new provincial powers will help overcome long-running obstacles to a new oil law [pdf draft], just as Chevron are getting in on the act (any access to new oil fields "would require passage of the long-stalled oil law"). Essentially, the oil benchmark they seek would allow two thirds of Iraq's oil fields to be owned by US corporations. It would place executive decision-making power in a body, the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council, which could include foreign oil companies. Iraqis overwhelmingly oppose these plans, and the Council of Representatives has consistently obstructed them on the grounds that they are too extreme. The US has used every manner of bribery and threat to try and get the law passed [pdf]. They need it to be passed now, and for Production Sharing Agreements to be developed across the board in order for the US to have long-term leverage over the oil. Even if the US permitted the oil to be developed and sold by non-US firms, their access would be dependent on the political authority of the US, and its ability to wield effective violence. The trouble is, even the occupiers' Iraqi allies can't be trusted with strong central power, as they demonstrated by inviting Ahmadinejad. Breaking up the power structure along sectarian lines while maintaing a nominal central government with weak legitimacy, depending on US troops for its self-defence and encased in a Xanadu-like unreality next to a mammoth US embassy is the best remedy for that. Now there is a Provincial Powers Law in preparation, which will define the relationship between the central government and the provinces. It has to be supported by the Council of Representatives and backed by the Presidency Committee (led by US ally Jalal Talabani) and so far it has not been. As Missing Links points out, these powers are the subject of extensive horse trading and are seen by the US authorities as a key means of gaining acquiescence among key allies for the oil law.

Now, here's the trouble. If the anti-federalist forces win the elections, succeed in generating a national civil disobedience campaign against the occupation, and form alliances to break down the sectarian partition including its geographical expressions - those walls that have cut through Baghdad regions against the will of the local populations - then the US will be facing a crisis just at the time when a domestic election could decisively shape the future direction of the war. The regional-sectarian war is thus a struggle over how the most important property forms in the 'New Iraq' will be elaborated and under whose political control. Bear in mind that oil has historically been the number one source of revenue in Iraq, reaching 90% of total revenues at one point, and will the basis upon which necessary imports are purchased and the regeneration and development of Iraq after two especially miserable decades is carried out.

Sadr is calling for 'civil revolt'. Although his forces have been opportunistic at times, brutal at others, the Sadrist movement is perhaps the only major Shi'ite political formation capable of overcoming the sectarian drift of Iraqi politics. Sadr has been one of the few Shi'ite leaders to try and make alliances with Sunni resistance groups and one of the few to oppose the sectarian partition of Iraq. But now the US wants British troops to launch a 'surge' across the south to destroy its enemies. Since Sadr can mobilise a serious revolt, and since the Iraqi army and police are probably not well placed to crush it, even with the Badr corps auxiliaries and the Special Police Commandos working away, British troops might well end up doing as the US is asking. However, bear in mind also that these 'Awakening Councils' are threatening to fall apart - they are threatening a 'strike' if the US doesn't pay up its debts, and the whole thing has always been based on money and convenience. That being the case, the US might not really need a major conflagration might now.

Labels: basra, iraq, iraqi resistance, kurds, oil, sadr

The other Cairo Conference posted by Richard Seymour

Western television viewers and newspaper readers would be hard-pressed to know too much about the Cairo process. Have you even heard of it? Well, for a while now, US negotiators, the Iraqi puppet government, and representatives of the Iraqi resistance, have been meeting in Cairo for talks. The blog missing links, which usefully translates stories in Arabic for English-speakers, has been covering this for a while.

Although many resistance groups are opposed to the process, and many of the same Baathists whom the US has been courting are not engaging, it does look like a serious diplomatic 'surge' (odd, is it not, how addictive these propaganda cliches are). Several groups are involved, including the Sadrists (whose strategy has always been somewhat opportunistic, a syncopated enterprise of resistance and collaboration, of nationalism and occasional sectarianism). Ibrahim Jafaari is now talking to the resistance. Jafaari, of course, was deposed as leader of the Dawa Party and as Prime Minister of Iraq last year when Bush pulled the plug on the old geezer, despite the fact that he was approved by the Assembly. There are rumours that this is because he admits to being partial to Noam Chomsky. That can get you into a lot of trouble. Anyway, he is now the front man for a US-led negotiation process.

Now, it seems to me that one obvious conclusion is that for all the talk of success in the last few months of 2007, there is absolutely no confidence on the US side that this is likely to be enduring. In fact, a recent increase in attacks suggests that the temporary lull in attacks on US troops, won through a combination of bribery in some areas, escalation in others, and decisively redirecting Sunni fire onto 'Al Qaeda' (which is the name any gang of petty ultra-sectarian thugs gives itself these days in order to look well-hard), is coming to an end.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, us troops

Confirmed: over 1 million violent deaths in Iraq posted by Richard Seymour

ORB has produced more research on deaths in Iraq:

Following responses to ORB’s earlier work, which was based on survey work undertaken in primarily urban locations, we have conducted almost 600 additional interviews in rural communities. By and large the results are in line with the ‘urban results’ and we now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000.

This is only an imprecise register of overall deaths, in no way as rigorous as the two Johns Hopkins studies (Lancet 1 & Lancet 2 for short). Until a further epidemiological survey is carried out, it's probably the best figure available. I would point out that the data provided [pdf] breaks down the sources of death in a fashion approximately similar to Lancet 2 [pdf]. Intriguingly, it has a separate category for "sectarian violence" to which it attributes only 4% of violent deaths. Perhaps this reflects the fact that much of what is reported as 'sectarian' violence is in fact the body count from paramilitary probes into communities by coalition appendages such as the police commandos. On the other hand, how is a 'sectarian' death by gunshot separable from an 'ordinary' death by gunshot? To put it a different way, gun-fire is a means of killing and sectarian violence is a mode of killing. The category doesn't belong in the same list and would probably invite confusion.

Aside from gunfire (40%), the biggest category of deaths is attributed to car bombings (21%). As I understand it, the more you break these figures down, the less accurate they become. If the overall figure is accurate to a 95% confidence level, that doesn't mean the figure for car bombings is accurate to the same level. However, all surveys register a high proportion of deaths from car bombings. If the trends in this survey hold, you are talking about 200,000 deaths from this tactic alone. If the trend in Lancet 2 holds, it would be closer to 130,000. Either way, it is spectacularly large and points to an intense war on various fronts that - even though car bombs draw more attention than other forms of death - is still airbrushed from general view. Both a weapon of state terror and the poor man's airforce, the weapon is effective, but also deadly. As Mike Davis put it, the car bomb is a weapon whose use is "guaranteed to leave its perpetrators awash in the blood of innocents", a "categorical censure" that applies "even more forcefully to the mass terror against civilian populations routinely inflicted by the air forces and armies of so-called 'democracies'". Not least because those air forces and armies are the instigators, originators and pioneers of the destruction of Iraq.

Labels: car bombs, death squads, iraq, iraqi resistance, lancet study, occupation

Latest Iraqi Resistance Stats posted by Richard Seymour

The December 2007 report to Congress is here [pdf]. I keep wondering when we'll see the same for Afghanistan, because the information is - however biased by selection and interpretation - a useful antidote to the corporate media. The emphasis is, unsurprisingly, on the (temporary) success of the vicious counterinsurgency strategy over the last year. I daresay the strategy will have produced even bloodier results than in previous years, particularly given the dramatic escalation in the air war over the last year that I discuss below. There has, according to these figures, been a dramatic reduction in all kinds of attack, whether sectarian or resistance, against civilians or troops.

This is the culmination of a number of factors, and these should be a cause for some pain and some triumph. The first is clearly the successful strategy of coopting tribal elements in the 'Sunni triangle', which would once have been the main source of resistance attacks - they are attacking 'Al Qaeda' more and the troops less. The second is the successful strategy of bombing the place to smithereens - it is a weakness of the antiwar movement that we couldn't see this coming and stop it, and we bear some responsibility for it. The defiling of Iraqi cities has undoubtedly destroyed the base and core of several resistance outfits. The geographical mastery of the US, emphasised in news reports during the early months of the occupation, has borne fruit. They have regained a certain intelligence footing and a measure of the enemy that has enabled them to hit hard against the resistance. There should be no euphemism about this: while it isn't a story of long-term defeat, it is a set-back for the resistance. However. The third factor, and very important, is the culmination of success on the part of the southern resistance: it is widely acknowledged that the withdrawal of the British troops dramatically reduced violence in the areas it controlled. Recent surveys from the south of Iraq show that its residents deeply regret the occupation, despite it having been one of the less violent areas of the occupation, and one of the areas least likely to have benefited in any sense by the rule of the Ba'ath party. The occupation could be, and proved to be, much worse than Saddam (how about that, by the way?). The final factor is the success of the strategy of disintegrating Iraq along ethnic lines. People feel far more secure in their own neighbourhood than in anywhere else in the country - what would once have been their own country, from top to bottom. Balkanisation is a disgusting strategy, but isn't always an unsuccessful one. I'm afraid that the reduction in 'ethno-sectarian' violence is actually a result of succesful ethnic cleansig (although, who knows, perhaps the occupiers' death squads have been asked to tone it down a bit). At any rate, here are the relevant tables (click to enlarge as always):








Some reports refer to the resistance holding back and bunkering down during America's recent infliction of airborne death on Iraqi cities, and so one would expect an upturn shortly. But never forget that, as with Vietnam, they can always win if we don't tie one hand behind their backs. They can always inflict genocide, destroy the country, turn Iraqi communities to pink mist and brick dust, disperse chemicals that burn their flesh and lungs and sizzle their bones, send death squads in to drill holes in bodies, shred working class housing blocks with bullets and shrapnel - oh wait... well, let's say they can do much, much more of that.

Labels: bring da ruckus, iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, US imperialism

Mutiny posted by Richard Seymour

Democracy Now has the remarkable story of how a group of US troops in Iraq, having ust emerged from a powerful IED attack, rebelled agaist their military commanders and refused to go out on patrols on the grounds that their rage might end up producing a massacre. The unit in question is apparently that which has been hardest hit by the Iraqi resistance. The Army Times reporter interviewed by DN is full of sanctimonious crap about this sort of mutiny being encouraged by mental health professionals and the new ethical disposition of the US army, but it seems far more likely that these guys are sick to death of being put in dangerous and morally repugnant positions. It's happening with increasing frequency. There are two main factors bringing this about: the antiwar movement, and the Iraqi resistance. A stronger antiwar movement would weaken troop morale further, and strengthen the resistance. So there are no excuses: you know where to be.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, US imperialism

Collaborators posted by Richard Seymour

Or, harbingers of permanent civil war.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, US imperialism

All Sweetness and Light posted by Richard Seymour

You'd think that after killing over 1.2 million people, driving 4 million of them out of their country, and destroying said country in every respect, it would take a little bit more before they started bragging again. Yet, here we are. The worst year of a disastrous occupation, every sordid criminal aspect of a sordid epic crime peaking in the first half of the year - and they're bragging. 20,000 refugees are said (by the puppet government) to have retured, doubtless a staggering success. (Actually, it turns out even these figures are massively exaggerated). US deaths have decreased in the latter half of the year (in part due to a horrendous increase in the use of aerial attacks - who knows with what effect on the civilian population), and so we are once again in happyland, with happy shining Iraqis holding hands and bold US troops smoking out the remaining lurkers and riff-raff. Watching some of the news reports is like being exposed to the Laughing Policeman for half an hour. The laughing gas is pumped into every sitting room in the land, not to reverse the polls (can't do that), nor to get the GOP in again (have to rig the elections for that), nor even to get the flags waving again (who's got the energy after a day of overwork?). No, it's to soften the blow when the airstrikes hit Iran - well, we pulled Iraq back together, despite the ingratitude and intransigence of its population, why not Iran? In this light, it's worth considering the laboratory of repression that is Iraq: collective punishment, mass imprisonment, sniper terrorism, the usual. To which, Iraqis respond with increasing opposition to the occupation. All sweetness and light, a joy soon to be seen in Tehran and then - ooh, Damascus, Beirut, Pyongyang, wherever the liberation train takes a stop.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, US imperialism

"I'll send you to Paradise with your fourteen virgins ... you son of a bitch" posted by Richard Seymour

"Human hunt" - sweary US soldiers baiting Iraqis with detonation cords and mortar decoy. Lots of "fuckstain", "cocklicker" and "come on you little n*ggers":

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, occupation, us troops

The secret air war continues posted by Richard Seymour

Air strikes on Iraq increase 400% in the last year, while air strikes on Afghanistan have almost doubled.

Labels: iraq, iraqi resistance, secret air war