To be sure, little foreign tribal friends do not often have MBA's, and their civil-social arrangements amount only to "petty management," so to call it. But are not the sons of the desert basically sound, almost as sound as Richard Bruce Cheney, about Executive privilege and Executive unaccountability, even though they have been tutored by Nature rather than at the Harvard Victory School?
Isn't the whole point of the Crawfordites makin' deals with Shaykh Bakhíl b. Qabíh that what he says goes, that what he promises the Ál Bú Qabíh as a whole infallibly perform? Probably the Executive execution doesn't work out that way 100.0% in practice, but what mortal plans ever do? The theory of the matter is clear enough, or anyway, the received stereotype. As you'll recall, the Party stumblebums have long since abandoned their short-lived attempt to make "democracy" an export product, and presumably if the late Saddam had not concealed his nukes and nerve gas with such astounding ingenuity, they'd never have embarked on that antecedently dubious marketin' campaign in the first place. Sheikhly petty management is far more their cup of tea.
It would not be surprising if some of the Party tank-thinkers are looking into the tribal situation at neo-Gaza on a crash basis. I believe they won't find much, Non-Zionist Palestine having been a peasant society for several millennia. They are, however, perhaps feeelin' a bit desperate as regards the NZP occupation. Although the Fatáh will have become a bit more GOP-congenial, perhaps, after it was outvoted, it still deplorably resembles a real political party. For that matter, so does the Hamás, although it is easier to present that bunch as mere faith-crazies. Some sort of Third Way starrin' a Silent Majority would suit Big Management's requirements in occupied Palestine admirably, and shaykhly petty management would be ideal, since custom (or anyway, the received stereotype) would require the majority to keep silent once Shaykh Bakhíl has spoken. However this excellent notion is probably only a snark hunt, considering that if such a scheme were viable, the Telavivistanis would have implemented it long since. (I believe they had a certain amount of success in the Sinai before they gave it back.)
Back in the Crawford-blessed land of Peace and Freedom, tribe and shaykh still count for something, obviously, although it is far from obvious exactly how much that comes to. Despite exactly opposite original intentions, the Ba‘th were compelled at last to make serious concessions to tribalism as well as religionism. Compromising with endarkenment did them no good in the end, but how could it have, when the Bani Kennebunkport descended upon them hyperpowerfully out of the blue? Even though the Big Management Party and its violence professionals want to hang around in the former Iraq forever, analysis should probably proceed by attempting to gauge the correlation of strictly indigenous forces before worrying about what our own stumblebums will do next.
Religious endarkenment flourishes everywhere except amongst the Free Kurds. Tribal endarkenment is far more problematical. The "Iraq is a fishbowl" angle is, I presume, quite important here: al-Jazeera and its wannabe, broadcasts from the evil Qommies, those dreadful partisan fishwraps at New Baghdad, the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, all these media influences can be used to bolster religious endarkenment(s), but if they can be used to prop up Shaykh Bakhíl b. Qabíh, I can't figure out how, and apparently neither can he. (Cellular telephones might be helpful to him, though, though not preferentially as against other civil-social elites.)
Former quasiminster ‘Alí al-‘Alláwí is probably right to consider that the former Iraq suffers from positive religious NEO-endarkenment, that faith baseness is not only strong, but growing stronger, and has been since circa 1980. Tribal endarkenment, however, looks to be weaker today than it was yesterday, and tomorrow it will be weaker still. If the Big Managers expect investin' in the Ál Bú Qabíh is the way to go, they would do well to move promptly.
The object of the investment, as expounded by Karl Rove Associates, is to smash al-Qá‘ida. Boy-'n'-Party loyalists tend to put it that way, and not specify al-Qá‘ida in Mesopotamia, meaning either the organization(s) so called, or all violent Sunni neo-Islam in the former Iraq. Part of their latest stumble is to identify everybody who shoots at Republican Party troops as belongin' to ’Usáma's gang, a ploy that makes obvious sense in Heimatland politics but is decidedly unreality-based out in the boondocks. Bakhíl b. Qabíh clearly cannot do anything worth mentioning for the Big Party as regards smashin' al-Qá‘ida outside Mesopotamia. The GOP geniuses seem to think it will suffice for him to help them smash al-Qá‘ida in the governate of al-’Anbár. Even granting most of their dubious premises, I should think the prospects for their investment depend on whether al-Qá‘ida in al-’Anbár is recruited locally, or imported from afar. At this point, Mr. Rove becomes a serious obstacle to Big Management, because for agitprop reasons it is desirable that as many as possible of the insurgents / guerillas / terrorists be illegal aliens, but in that case buyin' up the local shaykhs is unlikely to get at the root of the problem. If the Party stumblebums clearly understand which parts of their propaganda are flat-out lies, propositions that they themselves consider to be false, and if "al-Qá‘ida" (their expanded hobgoblin) considered as a band of outside agitators is one of their noble lies, then the scheme may have some merit to it. Otherwise not.
As usual, Crawfordology comes first. Mr. Bones and I take the view that the extremist cowpokers are very likely indeed to be suckered into believing their own nonsenses --which nonsenses are accordingly never to be harshly called "lies." Therefore we speculate that investin' in Bakhíl b. Qabíh is unlikely to be profitable for them. In addition to the inveterate and invasionite GOP nonsenses, there are the shaykh's nonsenses to be taken account of. We are talking about the good folks that Dr. Chalabí conned, after all. M. Bin Qabíh will doubtless assure them that tribalism is the wave of the future, and that the very best sort of neotribalism is that of the Ál Bú Qabíh. The hormone-basers are likely enough to take his word for it, for their hormones dearly wish it to be so. If he picks their pocket, that will serve them right. Perhaps even from Uncle Sam's point of view, there would be no need for too many tears about it, since bribes for the tribes can amount to but a pittance compared to all those taxpayer bucks that the Big Management Party has thrown at its Peaceful Freedumbia in other ways.
But let's hear from an outside agitator: Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service's correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, IPS's US-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region.
| This year US military authorities worked to firm up a tribal coalition that they said would oppose al-Qaeda terror groups. Unnamed officials in the administration of US President George W Bush have made claims to reporters that the move has reduced violence in Anbar, but residents in the area think otherwise. "It started with the so-called campaign 'Awakening of al-Anbar', then it developed into forming 'The Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation'," said Hamid Alwani, a prominent tribal leader in Ramadi. "This was supposed to be a local fight between al-Qaeda and the local people of al-Anbar, but in fact we all realized the Americans meant us to fight our brothers of the Iraqi resistance." |
Gosh, they sure can't fool him!
| Alwani said "most tribal sheikhs opposed the idea" and made it clear to US military commanders that they would never be part of the US plan. "It seems that the Americans have started to realize their mistake now." Few tribal groups are backing US forces anymore. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, leader of the Dulaim Confederation, a tribal organization in Anbar, told reporters recently in his Baghdad office that the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation would be dissolved because of increasing internal dissatisfaction. Opposition has grown against one of the council leaders, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, whom Suleiman called a "traitor" who "sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money". Any Iraqi working with the US military is now opposed by most people in the province. "Sattar is well known as a former criminal," a tribal leader in Anbar who asked to be referred to as Hatam said. "The Americans are now spoiling him like a favorite child." |
Aggression supporters might point out with cause that anybody's claims about what "most people in the province" think or "know" can only be guesswork, and almost certainly not disinterested guesswork either. Our own guess is that there is nothing at all except (1) Sunní Islám and (2) the need for a Sunní Ascendancy if there's ever to be any "Iraq" outside shudder-quotes would command a majority. But God knows best.
| A well-respected leader in Fallujah said on condition of anonymity, "Shi'ite leaders had their doubts about him from the beginning, but the desperate Americans thought he was the best solution to their failure in Anbar." Abu Risha has been living in Amman, Jordan, for several months. And there is growing doubt how much influence he has. "The Suleiman family, who were called the princes of al-Dulaim tribes, have no power in Iraq," Mohammad al-Dulaimy, a historian from al-Anbar, said in Ramadi. "They were assigned leaders by the British occupation [during the 1920s], and everyone in Iraq knows that." Dulaimy added, "As soon as the British left Iraq, those guys lost power and went abroad. They then found a chance to return under the American flag." |
Brit neotribalisation is an interesting topic, but rather a remote one. And it's not as if the shaykhs who stayed home didn't lose a great deal of power between 1958 and 1992. Caveat lector.
| Others see the promotion of Abu Risha as a failed attempt by occupation forces to apply divide-and-rule tactics in the province. "I do not see this working amidst the obvious division amongst tribal leaders looking for power," said a professor at the University of Anbar in Ramadi, speaking on condition of anonymity. "People here know each other, and they knew from the beginning that those warlords would fight over power and money one day." |
"[W]arlords would fight over power and money" is a very elementary point, but it does no harm to repeat it. However, "divide and rule" is repeated far too often in dubious passages, of which this is one. Tribalism pretty well means that the natives are divided already, it is not something that aggressors and occupiers need to impose in order to rule.
| But such co-opting has not in any case lessened violence. "All the new militia did was increase tensions among the local community," local cameraman Fowaz Abdulla said. "Americans are getting killed by the day, and these militias are just executing people just like Shi'ite militias in Baghdad and the southern parts of Iraq." Police loyal to tribal leaders in the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation have told reporters that the US military provided them weapons, funding and other items such as uniforms, body armor, pickup trucks and helmets, and paid tribal fighters US$900 a month. |
Probably M. al-Fadhily means well, but anecdotal evidence is trumped by actual statistics all the same. We learn at Slogger City that 356 GOP troops were killed in al-’Anbár in 2006, whereas 116 GOP troops have been killed there in 2007 so far. That comes to 0.974 deaths per day versus 0.663, or roughly one third fewer. Whether the Bribes for Tribes program has had anything to do with it, who knows? It's at least as likely that the ever-glorious Surge of '07™ has shifted the aggressor casualties to other governates: Diyálá, Níníwá, Saláh al-Dín, and "other" have already seen more deaths in 175 days of 2007 than in 365 of 2006. BGKB.
The voice of Soc. Sci. has a word or two on this question as well:
| Anbar Salvation Council head skips town? This story from al-Malaf is currently the talk of the forums: Sitar Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, has allegedly fled Iraq with $75 million that the Americans had given him to fight al-Qaeda. The story links his flight to the near-collapse of the Anbar Salvation Council over infighting among its leadership (which jibes with recent reporting in the Washington Post). It claims that he simply never distributed the American cash to the fighters, who are now threatening to go on strike if they don't get paid. Seeing as how the Anbar Salvation Council has for months now been portrayed as the great American hope in the battle against al-Qaeda, if this story turns out to be true - a big if, given the shaky sourcing to this point - then it would be a rather embarrassing fiasco. "The Anbar model", indeed. I haven't seen this officially reported anywhere, and right now I have no way of checking its accuracy - but thought it worth passing on a juicy rumour just in case it turns out to be true. |
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