Thanks for the article Sam!!
I've found it difficult to ascertain what Juan Cole's real agenda is. I kind of view him as the Paul Krugman of Mid-East politics (for those familar with the political-economist). Cole seems to politicize his analysis, as do people on the right, such as Kristol. And he does his credibility little benefit by denigrating O'Reilly as "Jurassic". O'Reilly has some valid points about why Iraq is not in a civil war.
The fact that he cites such scientifically flawed data as the 600,000 war deaths in Iraq is an example of this. Even Les Roberts, the author of the study admitted in an email that there was a "rush to publish" this study.
en.wikipedia.org
On this topic, Les Roberts stated "I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election. My motive in doing that was not to skew the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq. I was opposed to the war and I still think that the war was a bad idea, but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives."
Now why he had to rush to publish this prior to the US election is something that can legitimately questioned. After all, he did it before, prior to the 2004 election. So questioning his political motives should be part of the consumer's analysis of his "research".
The first survey [2] published on 29 October 2004, estimated the risk of death following the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq to be 50% higher than that prior to the invasion. This led to an estimate of 98,000 excess deaths (with a range of 8,000 to 194,000, using a 95% CI confidence interval). The authors called this a conservative estimate, because it excluded the "extreme statistical outlier" data from Falluja. If Fallujah were included, the estimated increased risk of death was 2.5 fold (95% CI: 1.6 to 4.2). The Falluja cluster "indicates a point estimate of about 200,000 excess deaths in the 3% of Iraq represented by this cluster", while no confidence interval is given for this point estimate.
Additionally, Cole's very subjective view that 1,000 battle deaths defines a war means that many, relatively stable countries with functioning governments, are currently in a state of civil war. Colombia has had a long-standing insurgency, yet few refer to it as an actual civil war. Venezuela has over 10,000 violent deaths per year, yet no one states its in a civil war. And who's to decide what's "battle related" versus gangland violence?
A civil war, objectively speaking in the case of Iraq, must include the relative possibility that the rebel forces stand a chance of accomplishing their goal of resuming control over the country. And this is clearly beyond the power of the Sunnis to accomplish. The alternative would be to fight a war of secession, seeking to form a independent, Sunni dominated, country. Yet, we don't see Sunnis calling for independence from the rest of Iraq. In fact, we see Sunnis fleeing Iraq to Jordan and Syria, placing tremendous burdens on both of those countries. And why certainly the Sunnis can act as "spoilers", they simply do not currently have the resources to restore their previous dominance over the country.
But I do concur with his view that the current government is arrayed against one another and this is something that has to be changed. Their has to be a national agenda of reconciliation and economic power sharing (oil revenues). But this reconciliation has to be mutually agreed upon, and enforced by all parties. Negotiations are useless if Sunni tribal leaders are not willing to pledge fealty to the government (and Iraqi national identity as predominantly Arab) and confront militants in their midst. We've seen some Sunnis recognizing that they have little chance of restoring their previous domination of Iraq and some are now taking up arms against the militants in hopes of cutting a deal with the Iraqi government.
The bottom line is that the Sunnis will eventually recognize that, without the ability to utterly defeat and dominate the Shi'a, the next best recourse is reconciliation. The Shi'a dominated government has two obligations. One is to rein in Muqtada Al-Sadr's attempt to create an Iraqi "Hizbullah" state within a state in Iraq, and secondly, to arrange satisfactory economic wealth sharing with the Sunnis and Kurds. The Kurds, having dominance over the oil fields in Kirkuk, have less of an issue with this. But the Sunnis, lacking any oil resources under their control, will need to be "bought off".
And this brings up another point. No where in Cole's analysis does he mention the oil issue, and certainly he fails to discuss the implicit wealth distribution question. Iraq has tremendous untapped oil wealth that all sides wish to control. At the same time, permitting a corrupt government to be the sole allocator of this wealth is a recipe for disaster. I've often stated that for the Iraqi government to develop a national unity and support for its existence, MUST distribute some of the oil revenues to each and every Iraqi. I believe this should be a direct distribution, payable on an annual basis to each Iraqi adult male and female. However, I can also see such distributions being made to tribal leaders, who would then face the pressure from their tribesmen to allocate this money properly.
Btw, if you want a better figure of war-related deaths, then Cole should probably focus on finding out how many "reparations" have been paid to Iraqis. When a non-combatant Iraqi is killed, and can prove the circumstances of the death, the US government has made "reparation" payments to the family. These normally total $2,500 per death, as I recall. So if there were 600,000 war-related deaths, then we should see 600,000 families holding out their hands for reparations. Now, of course, deaths of combatants do not warrant reparations, so if we've killed 600,000 Iraqi combatants, all the better since they made the decision to take up arms against the elected government.
"Iraq is the central front in the war on terror."
This is only true on the basis that Islamo-Facist groups are seeking to control Iraq (both Sunni and Shi'a). Militants on each side perceive Iraq's oil wealth as a tremendous "milk cow" to finance their goals of Jihadism in other parts of the world. But on the other side of the coin, we have to ask ourselves if we're just at war with Bin Ladin, or are we at war with every group of Islamic militants who seek to create militant Islamic Republics? I would suggest the latter. We're at war with militant Islam (not moderate Islam) and will be for at least the next 10-20 years. The demographics of the region, embodied in the huge numbers of muslims coming into adulthood (Saudi Arabia's population alone consists of 50% under the age of 21), as well as declining economic prospects due to diminishing oil reserves, and political and economic corruption, suggest that the Islamo-Facists perceive an opportunity to change the political order in the region. And it would be presumtuous of us to think that any dominance of the region by Islamo-Facists would remain centered on regional consolidation of power. The very nature of Jihad holds the militants to the obligation of violently spreading their militant Islamic faith against all infidels. Thus, permitting militants to gain control over the population of this region, not to mention its oil wealth, practically guarantees future aggression against the west. At the very least, it means economic extortion which would have tremendous negative economic impact on developing countries who require access to relatively inexpensive energy.
But most of all, Cole foolishly accepts that a coalition withdrawal from Iraq would merely result in internal power struggles in the country. He ignores the warnings of other neighboring Sunni/Wahabbi countries who are stating they are considering actively supporting the Sunni Iraqis in order to prevent the establishment of a Shi'a Islamic Republic in Iraq. Were they to do this, then the war in Iraq would become a regional war between Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with the Iraqi people caught in the middle.
That's not just a internal power struggle, Mr. Cole.. That's a regional power struggle. A power struggle that would be unleashed by following your advice.
Hawk |
