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U.S. Reconciliation Chief Says Sunnis Could Return to Insurgency
The U.S. military official in charge of supporting reconciliation efforts in Iraq says that unless the Shiite-led Iraqi government takes concrete steps to embrace the Sunnis, the new, mostly-Sunni ex-insurgent militias supported by the U.S. could return to insurgency.
Shiite officials are like an "enormous lion very, very afraid of a tiny mouse," Army Colonel Martin Stanton told a blogger conference call this afternoon. That mouse, however, isn't so tiny: over the past several months, hundreds if not thousands of irregular groups of (mostly) Sunni militiamen -- called "Concerned Local Citizens" by the U.S. military -- have been formed with U.S. support. Stanton, like other military officials, estimated their number at 67,000 men under arms, with 39,000 of them operating under "security contracts" with U.S. and allied forces. Ever since the U.S. began cooperating with Sunni tribal figures who agreed to turn against al-Qaeda, the Shiites have feared that U.S.-supported Sunni gunmen represent a threat to their political dominance.
Stanton believes Shiite reluctance to bring the so-called Concerned Local Citizens into the formal security forces and to hold provincial elections -- expected to benefit the Sunnis, who boycotted the last round of provincial voting in 2005 -- might guarantee precisely the result that the Shiites fear. "How long before all of these people trying to reconcile get discouraged at the continuous rebuff and come up with their own Plan B?" he asked. Plan B, Stanton assessed, might be either formal secession or to "pick up insurgency again." When I asked what the timetable might be for the Sunni Concerned Local Citizens to go to Plan B, he replied, "God, man, if I knew that, I'd be so much happier with my job than I am right now."
For months, the Bush administration has suggested that the Sunni split from al-Qaeda in Iraq augurs the end of sectarian warfare. Ambassador Ryan Crocker contended in his September testimony to Congress that the entrance of the Sunnis into anti-al-Qaeda security partnerships with the U.S. amounts to what he calls "bottom-up reconciliation" by creating a way station into a partnership with the Shiite-led central government, who will hire them into the formal security forces and demonstrate "the readiness of the central government to provide resources" to the Sunnis. President Bush has portrayed the process as all but inexorable. "When you have bottom-up reconciliation like you're seeing here in Anbar, it'll begin to translate into central government action," he said in a September trip to an airbase in Anbar Province.
Stanton's comments place doubt on both elements of the bottom-up-reconciliation approach. First, the Iraqi government isn't, despite promises, "providing resources" to the Sunnis. "I'd be lying to you if I said, 'Yup, they've got a national-level plan for reconciliation and they're all working toward it assiduously with big smiles on their faces," he said. And second, the ex-Sunni insurgents haven't made "a fundamental break" with armed struggle against the Shiites. While they're "less likely to go back to insurgency if the government does anything at all to meet them close to halfway," Stanton said, "nobody here is gonna take any option off the table for themselves." The Sunnis haven't "crossed the Rubicon" away from insurgency.
It's hard to say how fast the clock is ticking. Stanton qualified his statement by saying that the Iraqi government hasn't fundamentally "rebuffed" the Sunnis. But he'd be "nervous" if the same level of half-hearted outreach continues through the summer. And ultimately, actual reconciliation operates on a much slower timetable than many in the U.S. have patience for.
"In terms of true reconciliation, as in absolute peace and acceptance of everything my enemy has done, that's a generational thing," Stanton said. "To get these guys where they instinctively don't distrust and hate each other is gonna be generational."
Josh
Zachary
Arming the former insurgents is such an awesome plan, what could possibly go wrong?
November 2, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now they admit to war crimes? Finally admitting to the bribing of citizens in Iraq to kill others. The american way.
what the hell have we become, belgium?
November 2, 2007 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Concerned Local Citizens"
Try saying that with a straight face.
Who believes this sort of nonsense ?
November 2, 2007 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
nobody could've ever predicted... nevermind.
November 2, 2007 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
How soon until Stanton is looking for a new job? Doesn't he know everything is good just peachy in Iraq? The surge worked. Didn't he hear Petraeus and Crocker?
U
November 2, 2007 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's time liberal democrats look for a Plan B, as well. Always being marginalized by party bosses who cowtow to the king only goes so far.
Will they call us insurgents or patriots struggling to resurrect a lost constitutiion?
November 2, 2007 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
'President Bush has portrayed the process as all but inexorable. "When you have bottom-up reconciliation like you're seeing here in Anbar, it'll begin to translate into central government action," he said in a September trip to an airbase in Anbar Province.'
See? The Decider has Decided. Everybody relax.
November 2, 2007 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Empiricism is soooo 20th century. Never let the facts stand in the way of a great Decision.
November 2, 2007 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow....the sunni mouse...a mouse that ran Iraq since 1968. The Saddam sunni government killed a tortured shia and kruds for how many years????
November 2, 2007 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think "Plan B" has been Plan A all along. When the Shiite militias backed off earlier this year, hoping the Americans would wipe out the Sunnis, the Sunnis were smart enough to cut some cushy deals. Now we are paying them to raise an army which is obviously intended to fight a civil war. But at least they aren't shooting at US soldiers...
November 2, 2007 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe they are afraid of the little sunni mouse because that mouse acted as a brutal dictator for decades, resulting in the deaths of countless thousands of shiites.
I wish the american public would wake up.
November 2, 2007 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
To coverup the scuttlebut that did in Mr. Buttle-nothing of short temperment, but do it on the double! Find the funds to get the guns to arm the huns and don't be very subtle! Twice betrayed,the Shia and thrice, the Saddamites-is it any wonder, they all keep us in their sights? We've Kurdified the Turks and Turkified the Kurds until no one but dim nitwits will believe our words! We no longer have any friends left to betray or even solid enemies with which to cuddle trust. But like a wounded snake,writhing in agony, we sink our oily fangs into the soft flesh of our own proud past folly!
November 2, 2007 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see - if the Sunnis don't have enough guns to threaten the Shiites ... then how long do you think the Shittes would go without demanding that US troops leave their country? 6 months? A year?
The Brits are turning over Basra at the Iraqi Government's request. The only way for us to keep the Government asking for the rest of their country back is to keep them afraid.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
November 2, 2007 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is o/t, but so much of human history can be reduced to a variation of, "Believe as I believe, or I will oppress and kill you". For one, I'm utterly sick of it.
It's even worse when we manipulate that concept as a the basis of a Three-Card-Monte game that will work just long enough to allow Lil' Boots to creep out of the Bunker in 2009, claiming his 'strategy' for Iraq was successful all along.
Of course, when Lil' Boots fires up his CVAs in the Gulf, screams YAAAAAH-hoo! and attacks Iran, all bets are off.
November 2, 2007 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish I could keep track of whose side we're on in this war. Or is it just a matter of who we put on our payroll?
November 2, 2007 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is classic divide and conquer tactics. The objective is to keep each ethnicity at each other's throats, and reliant on the US to provide the balance of power. This has long been proven to be quite effective. It is not a strategy for the US withdrawing at any point in the near future.
So far it seems to have had the positive outcome of decimating the foreign jihadis, who relied on shelter from other Sunnies.
What it is doing, is bringing the local Sunnies together, strengthening clan and tribal ties, and establishing a unified power base in their territories. When they are strong enough and properly positioned, they can be expected to attack Shia. Joining wholeheartedly with the 'national government' is wishful thinking.
I'm sure that many of the Sunni are recalling their glory days of completely dominating the Shia and taking the wealth of the country for themselves, and look to recapture that. The Baath and the military are still out there - formally disbanded, but forming the backbone of the resistance, providing guidance, structure, communications, weapons, money and training. Bit by bit a formal structure will emerge. I'm sure they are confident that their superior arms, financing and political and military structure can recapture the entire country.
The Shia have not forgotten what live lived under a boot heel feels like and have no interest in sharing power with their former oppressors. It's going to be a while before a Mandela emerges and a Truth and Reconciliation process can take hold and make any headway. The Shia have the numbers, the strategic territory, most of the oil, and th backing of Iran. I'm sure they are confident that they can either prevail, or go it alone.
The Kurds would like to go their own way, and eventually piece together a Greater Kurdistan, including the Kirkuk oil fields. They will become the allies or the prize of the struggle between Shia and Sunni in the remainder of Iraq.
Anyone who thinks there is a grand kumbaya moment glimmering on the horizon, just another Friedman away is just fooling themselves, or trying to fool you.
November 2, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The long-term plan is to install a Sunni controlled government.
The current Shiite controlled government is too cozy with Iran, is disliked by our putative 'friends' around the gulf, and is going to be despised forever by the Sunni minority.
Watch as we develop Sunni 'friends' in Iraq, get into more beefs with the Shiite government, then decide that Maliki is a bad apple.
This scheme will 1.) take forever, 2.) fail miserably.
November 2, 2007 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Free arms & training from your occupier, to continue your fight for liberation. What a great deal!
November 3, 2007 5:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
FINALLY, the Sunni see the Duplicity in the US the Shia have always seen! Iraq is not America's 51st. state. Iraqi OIL & GAS belongs to IRAQIS. Iran has not been shuttling roadside bombs to Iraq. Now has it been killing US troops. Yet the US has been & IS arming & financing the PKK against Turkey - along with ISRAEL, of course. In addition, the US has been arming, training & financing Kurdish incursions & conducting Black Ops against & in Iran for since 2000-01.
The real culprits in the Middle East in general & in Iraq, Iran and Pakistan in particular? The US & ISRAEL! So what else is new, Herman?!
November 4, 2007 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
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but my credit rating is poor.
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December 21, 2007 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink