| [R]emarks by the American delegation to other participants in these meetings indicated that the "bottom-up reconciliation" process modeled on Anbar, appears to be the centerpiece of a new American policy, in replacement of the earlier policy-efforts for reconciliation on the national level. Which as it happens is exactly the nub of what Colin Kahl preaches in his widely-read recent essay where this switch to local-level "stability" provides him with the rationale for keeping American forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future (meaning under a hypothetical Democratic administration). (...) In the American case Kahl, and no doubt others who will soon be emerging from the woodwork, are using the same positive atmosphere to roll out a rationale for keeping American troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future even under a Democratic administration. Which will sound just as comfortable for the Washington people as for their counterparts in the Green Zone. |
Political entymologists who can detect exactly what bug's larva lurks curled up in the woodwork even before it actually gnaws its way out and spreads its splendiferous wings to take flight are always welcome, are they not? And this Colin Kahl is a comparatively exotic and unheard of species of bug, is he not, Mr. Bones, an up-and-coming youngster just out of the pupa, as it were? Cartoonoclastes must be well ahead of the mob, to single out this particular social scientizer for great villainies to come [1] and to do so on a very thin evidential basis, for it appears that his "widely-read recent essay" is only that off-hand e-mail to his Faculty Club buddy Abu Aardvark the other day.[2] Cartoonoclastes plainly thinks he's discovered a major indicium, howvever, possibly even a dalíl. In addition to what I just borrowed, from a Conspiracy Junction scribble called "The new rationale for keeping American troops in Iraq indefinitely (with an update)" , the insect in question gets a dissection all to himself called About the Kohl Plan . General Marshall's plan got somewhat more attention in 1947, to be sure, but Cartoonoclastes is trying hard to narrow the gap. In the highly improbable event that Princess Posterity and her court historians account C. Kahl a major figure in Quagmire Design and Implementation, Cartoonoclastes will deserve to be recalled as his John the Baptist.
Now of course we have already read the monstrous outrage ourselves without seeing anything very exciting in it, Mr. Bones, so perhaps we should let Cartoonoclastes take the first whack before re-examining his piñata? Here is Point One, plus a sort of Introductory Essay on Yank Altruism:
| The overall assumption behind the Kahl essay is that the US has at least four specific aims in Iraq, and that they are all altruistic. They are: (1) Helping create and maintain a "stable equilibrium" in the sectarian and regional sense (the recent centerpiece of that being the arming of Sunni tribes in Anbar); |
Finding out what the accused actually said that turned into that ought to indicate the prosecution's modus operandi. Lemme see, here is a paragraph numbered (1) in the piñata, but it seems not altogether congruous:
| 1. Fair oil revenue distribution may make Sunni areas economically viable, reducing incentives for them to seize the central government (and, because of this, hopefully reducing Shia fears that they will try). |
That's an interesting notion, and as I consider, an interestingly mistaken one. Unless I misgauge Mu’ámara Junction altogether, the notion that the TwentyPercenters of the former Iraq might be interested in seizing the government will not recommend itself. (That analysis cuts a bit too close to the bone, I suspect.)
What pleases myself not so well, however, is the idea that anything as crass as petroleum matters much to those who labour spiritually (and at times militarily) towards restoration of a Sunní Ascendancy. Dr. Kahl of Georgetown errs in company with Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and West Point, it looks like, thinking that restless natives can easily be bought and put to sleep. To be sure, Kahl proposes to go at it wholesale, with "fair oil revenue distribution" from the Centre rather than a patchwork quilt of petty Bribe-a-Tribe™ schemes.
Perhaps "fair" gives some countenance to Cartoonoclastes' nattering about "altruism"?
As regards the substance, the prosecution's count (3) seems a better match:
| The creation of viable local security forces with defensive capabilities (as opposed to heavy weapons that provide them with the offensive capacity to topple the government) may reduce the fear Sunnis have of being exterminated (thereby reducing their incentives to engage in violence) while deterring Shia offensive actions. In other words, if the system is defense-dominant, it helps alleviate the sectarian security dilemma. |
Dr. Kohl does seem worried about government-toppling: it's a wonder that Cartoonoclastes does not make ensuring the survival of poor M. al-Málikí's neorégime one of the key poiints. Certainly I would.
Perhaps that rather exaggerated "exterminated" will appeal at Mu’ámara Junction? The idea as a whole will not, for it is axiomatic in cartoonoclastic circles that the Centre must rule any revival of "Iraq" with a firm hand (once the Centre itself is again restored to the right hands, of course). The notion of a "stable equilibrium" between Baghdád and Podunk will not do at all -- one might as well say "federalism"
Onward! The other three prosecutorial counts are as follows:
| (2) Degrading Al-Qaeda in Iraq; (3) preventing genocide; and (4) deterring any further extension of Iranian influence, so as to "prevent any wider conflict". |
Dr. Kohl has nothing to say against any of that, oddly enough, although none of it would appear to be particularly central to an impartial student of what he wrote. But then it's no particularly central for Cartoonoclastes either, who revolves around a rather unexpected and eccentric point:
| [T]he first and most important point to notice is that no one in the Arab world thinks those are American objectives. On the contrary, on point (4), states of the Gulf think it highly likely there will be a US and/or Israeli strike against Iran, contrary to Kahl's point about preventing any wider conflict. Palestinians and Israelis are convinced there will be an American supported military attack on Gaza once the Annapolis conference is over, [and so on, and so forth]. |
That judgment looks so omphaloscopic and selfocentric as to be absurd, yet perhaps there is some redeeming social value to be extracted from it even so. Practitioners of sociology and other black arts do raise the question of whether the "truth" about how human events work can be entirely divorced from what goes on in the minds of those whom the events befall. Cartoonoclastes allows not an inch of leeway here: if the oppressed and conspired against don't see a particular "factor," then it does not exist. Others are less narrow-minded, some to the point of believing with a straight face that the Wars of the Roses were a simple matter of demography or the like, the inevitable working out of a variety of factors that nobody at the time would have dreamed of mentioning. When we have no fixed position on this controversy ourselves, Mr. Bones, it would be rash as well as rude to write off even the parochial and partisan extravagances of a Cartoonoclastes without a second thought.
Having attempted a little secondary cogitation, though, it still seems to me very likely that what the militant GOP thinks it is doin' in the former Iraq counts for a little something too. Possibly even what a mere fellow traveler with Big Party extremism like Dr. Colin Kahl thinks may count a little.[4] Cartoonoclastes himself thought it important to warn us about this Soc. Sci. insect coming out of the woodwork, although he did not specifically say that Dr. Kahl's opinions are to be attended to. It may be enough that the man looks to be a Democrat and that Cartoonoclastes looks for Democrats saying rather GOP-like things about the former Iraq if and when we regain the Executive.
| What then to make of the Kahl essay? If you look at some of the sensible remarks in his Mother Jones interview of last month it seems hard to take him as a regime propagandist, for the current regime, that is. On the contrary, the idea suggests itself that he is an ideologue for the coming Democratic administration. Because if you assume that a Democratic administration is going to abandon the warlike ambitions with respect to Gaza, South Lebanon, Syria and Iran, then his altruistic package of Iraq aims and objectives might arguably make sense. But how likely is that? Democrats are just as AIPAC-compliant as Republicans; and the remarks of the "mainstream" Democratic candidates for president indicate they intend to outflank the Republicans on Iran and other defence issues to the right, not to the left. So what sense does it make to try to shape Democratic party opinion with respect to Iraq on the basis of assumptions about regional policy that will seem just as ludicrous under a Democratic administration as they do now under the Republicans? |
Setting aside Cartoonoclast's gratuitous Nostradamus impersonation, the implication of that tirade is that it would be a waste of time to worry about whether Dr. Kahl believes what he says, let alone whether there is any truth to his sayings. I daresay at Mu’ámara Junction that attitude must be de rigeur, for who can be so naïve as to suppose that conspirators will be frank about what "warlike ambitions" they are up to? Possibly at times the knaves feel so confident of success that they are frank, but only the most skilled of conspiratorialists can be quite sure which times those are. Better safe than sorry, then, treat them all as you would treat Dr. Goebbels and do so on every occasion!
Meanwhile, as regards the former Real World, it would be a good deal more useful to learn about the "key points" on which Abú Aardvaark disagrees with that "guest post." I'd guess that AA, too, does not care for that rule-or-ruin attitude that Dr. Kahl realistically attributes to the TwentyPercenters. Talking about the smithereens of the Sunní Ascendancy in so disrespectful a tone of voice seems inconsistent with winning them over to being good with gobs and gobs of Affirmative Action™. Though it hardly qualifies him as Chief Architect of the Quagmire, either today or tomorrow, it does Dr. Colin Kahl credit not to believe in that particular baloney, and especially when almost everybody else does.
Their fair share of the oil loot but not one penny more, plus as many Kalashnikovs as it may take to ward off extermination -- that's about as affirmative as he is prepared to be, Sunniwise. His may not be the ideal occupation policy for Peaceful Freedumbia, but compared to most of the other paleface planmongers, he's brilliant.[5]
____
[1] What I presume is the accused's account of himself may be found at http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/chk34/?PageTemplateID=39 .
[2] Seven hundred and eighty words it comes to, fully clothed and with the wind behind it. Might do for an Executive Summary. Not quite Kennan Minor's Long Telegram.
[3] Should anyone have the supreme bad taste to like "federalism," she might think Dr. Kohl rather a smart cookie on account of that paragraph. The other schizomaniacs hardly ever indicate any mechanism to make their paper contraptions actually work. On the other hand, the idea of a firepower balance between Centre and peripheries is pretty crude, as is the bribery by petroleum scheme. Dr. Kohl may well be capable of something much more suave and Machiavellian than he sent off hastily in this casual e-mail. It would be a grand credit to the perspecacity of Cartoonoclastes if Kohl ever draws up a really thorough scheme to frustrate all the knavish tricks of the TwentyPercenters: anyone can see that he's quite clever, but to discern that he is fiendishly clever is not given to us all. Time will tell.
[4] This social scientizer fellow-travels pretty extensively with Big Management: "He is a regular consultant for the Department of Defense on stability operations, counterinsurgency, and strategy, and he has been a consultant for the U.S. Government's Political Instability Task Force (formerly the State Failure Task Force) since 1999." (Cf. URL in [1].)
Cartoonoclastes may even be mistaken to think him a registered donkey, though I daresay "President Clinton" might well hire him even so.
[5] "But he's an invasionite all the same?" Well, yes, Mr. Bones, so he is. This is still the sewer of Romulus, sir, not the Republic of Plato.
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