Barnett Blog - Iraqis: it takes one to control one
“Iraq’s Rebellion Develops Signs Of Internal Rift: Tactics and Goals Split Iraqis and Foreigners,” by Ian Fisher and Edward Wong, New York Times, 11 July, p. A1.
“A Tough Guy Tries to Tame Iraq,” by Dexter Filkins, NYT, 11 July, p. WK1.
The front-page article is a longer bit of analysis on the notion that Iraqi insurgents are starting to turn on the foreign fighters with whom up to now they’ve enjoyed common cause, but not common methods (the large-scale killing of civilians by Zarqawi and company being the crucial tipping point—it seems). The big question, as one U of Baghdad professor points out [Whoa! Isn’t it amazing to even see a Baghdad prof being quoted on the front page of the Times!], is whether the split is real or just a period of—as he believes—“reconstruction and reevaluation in order to push the operations out of the cities” so as “not to have innocent people killed.”
Allawi is openly pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy:
“To that end, Mr. Allawi and other government officials say, he has been meeting with former Baath Party members in the resistance and tribal leaders to convince them that their interests and those of foreign fighters are not the same.
‘We’re negotiating with what I call the noncriminals, those who never really were the hard core like Zarqawi and his aides and the Al-Qaeda-style people,’ Mr. Allawi said in an interview. ‘And on the other hand, be very firm with the criminals and the assassins and the killers and the terrorists.”
Will the Sunnis ultimately channel their resistance into political action in a state where—speaking of voting blocs—they ’ll be a smallish minority? Prime Minister Allawi, the former tough-guy Baathist, will win some over, but the Sunni president Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, according to U.S. military officials, may play an even more important role. In the end, the Sunnis’ position in a democratic Iraq seems as vulnerable as that of the Kurds, which of course makes Shiite Iran to the East look like a looming kingpin . . ..
Probably a good thing that Allawi is shaping up to be the truly tough guy (from the second article):
“Mr. Allawi is known for his decade of work in trying to topple Mr. Hussein, but he is a former Baathist himself, with suggestion among those who regard him with suspicion that he once engaged in thuggish work on the party’s behalf. That tough-guy past, even his former association with the Central Intelligence Agency, seems to warm the hearts of many Iraqis who miss Mr. Hussein’s iron-fisted ways.
‘That Allawi worked for the C.I.A. may be a problem for Americans,’ an Iraqi journalist said in conversation recently, ‘but it is not a problem for Iraqis.’”
What does that tell you about what the C.I.A. is really good for? Not the analysis but the rough stuff, which is why the analysts should be liberated from Langley and returned to the land of the living.
Allawi doesn’t just know how to walk the walk, he knows how to talk the talk. Listen to him describe his meetings with insurgent leaders:
“’I spoke to some of them myself,’ Mr. Allawi continued. ‘I told them: What are you trying to achieve? Let us know. Do you want to bring Saddam back to rule Iraq? Do you want to bring bin Laden to rule Iraq? We will fight you. You can’t do this.’
‘You want to be part of the political process?’ he said, posing the crucial question. ‘You are welcome to be part of the political process, provided that you sever your relations to the hard-core criminals and the terrorists.’”
Anyone miss Paul Bremer right now?
Better yet, anyone want to see the U.S. State Department trying to run anything in Iraq right now?
We are lucky we ended up with Allawi. Count your stars.
thomaspmbarnett.com |
