| piece on how the U.S. was able to court the Anbar sheikhs into turning against al Qaeda. How? Money, and lots of it. American largess has managed a turnaround that has been remarkable, with Marines able to sit on front porches now without body army and not worry about snipers. Ramadi's devastated streets are being repaired. Schools are being renovated, thanks to a paid-off sheikh being the lead contractor. But Jaffe notes with unease that it isn't clear how broad or lasting the gains made will be. Without the common enemy of al Qaeda looming, the provinces tribal sheikhs are competing for money and power and talking now of a new enemy: the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad. The Marines, to their credit, recognize the difficulty of convincing the Sunni sheikhs that they have a place in the national government, and they're trying to spread economic, political and security power around evenly. Whether the tribal leaders' loyalties can be transferred to Baghdad instead of the American paymaster is the big question. Jaffe does a great job digging into the tribal structures, their relations with other tribes and the leaders' relations with the government. He also goes into how the sheikhs' more moderate Islam -- some like the[ir] whiskey -- clashed with the dogmatic Islam of al Qaeda after the 2003 invasion, leading smaller tribes to ally with the Americans in order to gain power and influence. (America has become another tribe in Iraq, albeit the richest and most heavily armed.) Jaffe also works hard to show the tensions between the tribal leadership in Anbar and the central government -- the Sunni-Shi'ite divide is a deep one. As Jaffe concludes, "the sheiks' biggest fear is that the Americans will leave them to the devices of a failing, sectarian government in Baghdad." At a dinner with (probably) Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, one sheikh proudly said of the U.S. military, "This is my government." The Marine general who was there sighed and said that was the problem. The one weakness of this story is that it focuses on Anbar and doesn't look at whether the U.S. strategy is applicable to any of the rest of the country. In Diyala and Babil provinces, a similar strategy is yielding mixed results. |
It will be fun to compare that twist and spin and view imposition with what the slave of Murdoch actually wrote.
(1) Can Mr. Jaffe really have said in his own voice, or Massa Rupert's, that the myrmidons of the extremist GOP are only "another tribe" in the former Iraq? It's not impossible, but surely such an insight is more likely to come from the S.C. summatorializer, one Chris Albritten.
(2) Then there's "without the common enemy of al Qaeda looming, the [province's] tribal sheikhs are competing for money and power" and so forth, which is a bit of a puzzle from anybody's point of view, I should think. Are we being advised that the alien faith-crazies loom no longer? Something of the sort must appear in the WSJ Urtext, though, unless those naked front-porch sitters were invented from scratch by the Slogger Tendency. That the invasionites should continue to hand out money and power in order to KEEP their bought sheiks bought, even when no fiends of al-Qá‘ida are anywhere in sight, is plausible enough, yet why should there be a competition about it? Mightn't the losers take to shooting at Republican Party operatives once again after being treated shabbily?
(3) "[M]ore moderate Islam clashed with the dogmatic Islam of al Qaeda after the 2003 invasion ... leading smaller tribes to ally with the Americans in order to gain power and influence." All sorts of subquestions in that one! (3a) What did the large and influential bedouin factions do immediately after the aggression? (3b) What has the rigor or dogmatism of Shaykh Ibn Fulán's religionizing to do with the number of his followers and the clout of his influence, whether in May 2003 or August 2007 or at any other known period? Were the big tribes bigger because they were (formerly?) more God-fearing and less whiskeyated? (3c) Is discouragin' Islám and encouragin' whiskey part of the bribery offensive, on a par with the repair of devastated streets and the renovation of schools? [1] Or do the bribers merely assume that devotees of Bacchus are unlikely to be devotees of M. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí also? [2]
There's also a question about whether the whole shebang is not rather too much like so-called nation-buildin' for Boy and Party to stomach it for long, but that matter is inseparable from the matter summatorialized as "Whether the tribal leaders' loyalties can be transferred to Baghdad instead of the American paymaster is the big question." It's an interesting question, certainly, no matter who raised it. The primâ facie answer would seem to be "Why not, as long as Rancho Crawford keeps forwardin' the bribe money to New Baghdád and the native middlemen there don't rustle so much of it for themselves that the noble sons of the desert get restless?" Poor M. al-Málikí is not only pitiable, after all, he's solvency-challenged as well, at least until somebody gets the Big Oil and Money Machine working again. He and the UIA certainly can't take over this, ahem, "pension list," immediately out of the unsupplemented resources of the former Iraq.
The aggression faction is reportedly tryin' to get the United Nations to pick up part of its tab, but this particular item is rather delicate and perhaps not suitable for transfer so far out of Big Management Party control. [3]
One of the few direct quotations that Slogger City rations out to us is from Ibn Fulán the Lax himself, who appears, not without reason, to like the current set-up exactly as is:
| At a dinner with (probably) Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, one sheikh proudly said of the U.S. military, "This is my government." |
That's about as touchin' as a display of cupboard love can ever be, yet the militant GOP do not exactly reciprocate their client's sentiments, and may even be a bit embarrased by them. I believe we may take it as given that Greater Texan statehood for al-’Anbár is not on the agenda of Boy and Party and never will be. [4]
Finally, there is the other direct quotation vouchsafed:
| As Jaffe concludes, "the sheiks' biggest fear is that the Americans will leave them to the devices of a failing, sectarian government in Baghdad." |
Mr. Jaffe seems to be a dab hand at lumping together, but let's take his lump apart and wonder how happy Ibn Fulán would be with the devices of a victorious and successful sectarian Fedguv -- one brilliantly run by the other sect, that is. [5] Not very happy, I expect. But God knows best.
_____
[1] I daresay Ibn Fulán the Lax might want to get at least the alcohol supply subcontract!
[2] Students of the September Saga will recall that this shibboleth is not infallible.
[3] Messrs. les altesses royales du Ryad could doubtless afford to take over these unfunded pension liabilities from the Big Party. But since they would almost certainly want to call the tune as well as be graciously permitted to pay the piper, perhaps it might be better for everybdoy else if alternative fundin' source could be arranged?
[4] If "(probably) Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack" were edified by this little human event, then they need a stern talkin' to from the Big Management Party's own ideologue Neocomrade C. Murray. Dr. Chuck would warn them against ever, ever encouragin' wicked Dependency. Ibn Fulán the Lax obviously needs a stiff dose of GOP-brand Tuff Luv™: let him provide his own governance (in the long run) or else go without!
I spoof merrily, yet the inability of the TwentyPercenter theocommunity of the former Iraq to pull itself together really is Problem of Success Number One for the invasionites. And since Boy and Party will never consent to actually administer their semiconquered provinces, it becomes an additional minor problem of success in itself that Ibn Fulán the Lax should wish them to do so.
Yet perhaps the second is not an insoluble problem. Once the Big Party perps have finally withdraw inside the perimeters of their five (or fifteen, or fifty) eternal big bases in the happy Land of Peace and Freedom, let the Baní Fulán saddle up their camels (or pick-up trucks) and emigrate thither, setting up their tents (or palaces) just outside the barbed wire, where they can reliably collect their pensions as usual without any need for complicated financial rearrangements. This plan would not exactly amount to their receiving "government" from the extremist GOP invaders, admittedly, but quite possibly government is not exactly the product that the noble sons of the desert are really shopping for. Pretty well all the stereotypes known state or imply that bedouin do not much esteem the government product and never have. In a pinch, I daresay, the armed palefaces could deliver the Baní Fulán from the worst excesses of a heretical, or heretical-plus-hillbilly, néoregime at brave New Baghdád, without gettin' bogged down in repugnant nation-buildin' or genuine colonial administration. It would only be a matter of makin' quite sure that poor M. al-Málikí's successors don't do anything to the pensioneers in the constructive or administrative line either.
Establishin' anarcholibertarianism is a trick that the Party's Big Managers have already demonstrated that they can perform superbly. All that needs to be done is to cut back their current efforts in that direction to a scale that can be indefinitely sustained. Instead of aspirin' to bring Peaceful Freedumbia as a whole into compliance with the dictates of Miss Rand and Mr. Nozick, let them but create "Galt zones," so to call them, around all of their major perpetual fortresses in Mesopotamia, safe havens inside which the values of Planet Dilbert can flourish safe from all meddlesome interferences.
[5] We'll need to examine the original to decide whether or not this lumping together was performed in the path of Boy and Party or not, i.e., intended to imply that the GOP geniuses and their Ever-Glorious Surge of '07™ must at least erect a nonfailin' and nonsectarian neorégime at New Baghdád before some eventual withdrawal into their 5/15/50 perpetual fortresses at a date to be postponed as long as possible.
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