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Today's Must Read
"There are four wars going on in Iraq right now," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said. Turns out he underestimated it by about twenty.
From The Boston Globe:
The messianic Soldiers of Heaven militia that fought US and Iraqi troops in one of the fiercest battles of the war Sunday is among the more than two dozen extremist militias operating across Iraq that are fast becoming a powerful, and hidden, new enemy.US officials this week expressed concern about the explosion of splinter groups in Iraq, noting that their sheer number makes a political resolution to the ongoing violence in Iraq increasingly difficult. One Defense Department official said in an interview yesterday that the military is tracking at least 28 militias, many of them Shi'ite splinter groups, but knows little about their leadership or command structure.
From Shi'ite factions in southern Iraq to Sunni groups in Anbar Province to extremist Islamic militias operating in Kurdistan, it's a dizzying array. Take just the Shi'ite splinter groups, for example:
...more than a dozen Shi'ite factions command their own armed followings in southern Iraq, including two competing groups that both call themselves "Hezbollah," a family-run private army of the Garamsha tribe and armed fighters loyal to the Prince of the Marshes, an autocratic leader of Iraq's marsh Arabs, said Juan Cole , a Shi'ite specialist and University of Michigan professor.
Certainly, the proliferation of militias "makes a political resolution to the ongoing violence in Iraq increasingly difficult," as the Globe notes. In fact, "the Iraqi Constitution prohibits the formation of militias," and, well, that doesn't seem to have done much good.
Note: Don't miss another must read from today: Reuters on the plight of Iraqis trying (and failing) to get safe harbor in the U.S.
Comments (20)
Legion wrote on February 1, 2007 9:27 AM:Visions of Gulliver tied to the ground with hundreds of tiny ropes...
Legion wrote on February 1, 2007 9:33 AM:Or Whack-A-Mole! 'Cept these moles carries guns and shoot back.
Peter Oui wrote on February 1, 2007 9:46 AM:Ah, "Shi'ite splinter groups" that all just happened to be funded by Iran, perhaps?
markg8 wrote on February 1, 2007 9:53 AM:There are estimates of up to a million metric tons of munitions in caches Saddam left all over Iraq Peter. And that doesn't include weaponry we've paid for and supplied that doesn;t make it into the hands of the Iraqi Army or police forces. No militia will need outside help to arm itself for decades Peter.
marty wrote on February 1, 2007 10:04 AM:And yet....if you criticize this fool's errand...if you question any of this insane policy...you are considered unpatriotic in some circles.
Are you happy, Bush supporters?
Are these "surge" troops nothing more than meat into a meat grinder? Sure looks like it.
Mitch wrote on February 1, 2007 10:18 AM:Ahhh. Sounds like the "misunderestimator" at his best.
Kolya wrote on February 1, 2007 10:24 AM:I'm by no means a defender of the way this war has been conducted, but the fact that there are so many splinter groups is not necessarily a bad thing for the US and Iraq's central government. If there is effective unity of command (that's the big "if", I know), splinter groups can be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion. The Bolsheviks were surrounded by enemies, but they won the Russian Civil War precisely because they had unity of command while the various factions that fought the Reds were divided and were often openly hostile to each other.
Peter Oui wrote on February 1, 2007 10:40 AM:markg8, I know that the Iraqi ammo dumps were unsecured immediately after the war, although the oil fields were. Your condescension is unappreciated.
I can see this story, true as it is, being used by the Bush administration as "evidence" that the Iranians are the ones supposedly responsible for these splinter groups. While the Globe article is yet more evidence that the civil war in Iraq is spinning out of control - into outright anarchy - due to Bush’s incompetence, the Bush administration will twist it for its own ends. It seems safe to say that anything said by any member of the Bush administration has been vetted for maximum political opportunism.
Who are the sources for this story? Current and former members of this administration. Forgive me if I see this story as the Bush administration plowing the field before sowing the seeds for the invasion of Iran. The seed, in my unprofessional opinion, will probably be a report with some “evidence” as to who is supporting these splinter groups.
jimBOB wrote on February 1, 2007 10:53 AM:Kolya
The Bolsheviks:
• Were in their own country
• Spoke the local language
• Were competently led
• Had unity of command over an effective, loyal force, as opposed to one shot through with informants and deadwood
• Were willing to commit any atrocity
We ain't gonna win this one. We need to get out.
nckoalagal wrote on February 1, 2007 11:16 AM:You ARE aware, I trust, that the whole "Soldiers of Heaven" story may be bogus? If this link doesn't work, Truthout, Common Dreams & Tom Paine linked to this story yesterday (1/31) - "US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre' "
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2201103.ece
Sean wrote on February 1, 2007 11:21 AM:"There are four wars going on in Iraq right now," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said. Turns out he underestimated it by about twenty.
So, that would be World Wars 5 through 29, right?
pj in jesusland wrote on February 1, 2007 11:23 AM:This is what Saddam was keeping a lid on all those years.
This doesn't excuse atrocities, but it's quite a challenge to govern when two dozen different militias want to kill each other and several outside countries are fanning the flames.
What on earth was President Bush thinking in 2003? That he could shoot a few insurgents, grease some palms and then they would all join hands, sing Kumbaya and recite the Bill of Rights?
What a blunderer.
Nell wrote on February 1, 2007 11:23 AM:If the US were invaded, and the enemy succeeded in destroying our existing government... ruining the physical and social infrastructures in the process...I doubt it'd be much different here.
Kolya wrote on February 1, 2007 11:57 AM:How likely would it be that we'd accept the government the enemy set up.
jimBOB, I agree with what you wrote about the Bolsheviks. My point, though, was fairly narrow and it had a big "if" attached to it. Once again, I wrote:
"the fact that there are so many splinter groups is not necessarily a bad thing for the US and Iraq's central government. If there is effective unity of command (that's the big "if", I know), splinter groups can be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion."
If there is no effective unity of command then the US will lose--whether the enemy is united or divided. However, if there is effective unity of command, then it would be easier to defeat an enemy that is in itself divided into rival groups than to defeat a united enemy.
You are saying there is no effective unity of command. You may well be right.
Will Parker wrote on February 1, 2007 1:34 PM:Kolya:
"However, if there is effective unity of command, then it would be easier to defeat an enemy that is in itself divided into rival groups than to defeat a united enemy."
Presumably, all the Iraqi "splinter groups" have enemies and allies among the other groups, but it's probable that *any* of them would miss the chance to attack a US force near their territory.
There is a useful idea from primate ethology for this situation. It's a social model called a 'noyau'. The key feature of a noyau society as far as this discussion goes is that the small independent bands in the noyau are constantly squabbling over territory within the larger range in which the bands operate.
However, when some foreign intruder (say, US troops) enters the range, all the noyau bands independently stop squabbling with their neighbors and attack the intruder as the greater threat.
Their usual rivals, while still rivals, are seen as being of the same group, while the intruder (clearly recognizable from a distance in this case due to their distinctive equipment and battle dress) is completely alien. Same situation as Somalia in the '90s.
It doesn't matter if we can reliably identify and suppress one or three or ten of these independent militias. Every potential combatant group has immediate access to weapons, and the survivors of any former group will form the nuclei of the next set of challengers.
As former General Shinseki (peace be upon him and his wisdom) said, the US would need "several hundred thousand troops" in the country to suppress this distributed insurgency.
It would also have helped if the US Viceroy of Iraq hadn't fired the entire Iraqi army and bureaucracy -- that was perhaps the chief reason Iraqi society splintered into hundreds of neighborhood-based social groups sustained by nothing but anger and plentiful free time to indulge that anger.
Kolya wrote on February 1, 2007 2:55 PM:Great comment, Will Parker.
Yes, too bad that General Shinseki's words were ridiculed and that he was unceremoniously retired before his time. And the disbanding of the Iraqi army was indeed a stupid.
Very interesting stuff about noyau societies. Afghanistan under Soviet occupation is probably a good example of that. Tribes under various war lords fight off the invaders and then fall back to fighting each other once the Soviets are out. But then it does not always happen like that. It depends on how much those tribes (or splinter groups) hate each other. Do they hate each other more than the total stranger? One of the reasons the Russians conquered the Caucasus in the XIX Century is that many of those Muslim mountain tribes could not stop from fighting each other and some of them became allies with the Russians in order to settle scores with their neighbors. Something similar happened during many of the so-called Indian Wars in the US. As history shows, the "narcissism of minor differences" can be a powerful and deadly motivator--and an outsider can often exploit this to its advantage.
In any event, I don't know what will happen in Iraq. My point was that an abundance of splinter groups is not *necessarily* a bad thing for the US military--there are many other factors to consider.
MedallionOfFerret wrote on February 1, 2007 11:25 PM:Kolya, did the Russians eventually control the Caucasus the same way the Indian Wars were won--by eliminating much of the indigenous population and overrunning the rest with settlements of Russians?
If so, I have a Bold New Plan For Iraq! Y'know them illegal immigrants everyone's worried about? Well...no, no. Maybe druggies from our prisons? ...no. Where are the Okies when we need them? Hey! Maybe christian refugees from Darfur? I just know I'm on to somethin' here!
Jon H wrote on February 2, 2007 12:23 AM:
freq flag wrote on February 3, 2007 12:13 AM:Whew, for a moment I thought I read that one of the splinter groups was Juan Cole.
PJ in Jesusland: What on earth was President Bush thinking in 2003? That he could shoot a few insurgents, grease some palms and then they would all join hands, sing Kumbaya and recite the Bill of Rights?
Oh, don't be ridiculous!
epenisa wrote on January 11, 2008 12:01 AM:He thought they would all sing "Let The Eagle Soar."
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Bye