SURGING FUTILITY

The surge may be working, or not. As Dick
Cheney might say, "So?" The surge is irrelevant.
As an op-ed in The Oregonian (4/1/08) put it:
"The tactical successes connected to the troop
'surge' provided a brief lift in mood, but no
lasting change for the better." It's like beating
a dead horse, or trying to get blood from a
turnip, or whatever other metaphor you may
prefer for expressing futility.

Our fundamental error, the 900 lb. gorilla that
we continue to ignore, is that the nation we are
trying to save simply doesn't exist. Let me put
it simply, and then give you some history in
which to fit it: Iraq is not now, and never
has been a nation, in any meaningful sense
of that term. A nation is, by definition, a com-
munity that shares a common identity, culture,
and values, by general and recognized consensus.

Iraq didn't even exist as a nation of any kind before
1920. The region, known for centuries as
"Mesopotamia" was an ancient battle zone for
rival regional empires and tribal alliances, just as
it is today. Under the Ottoman Empire (1533-
1918), the area was administered as three sepa-
rate (and often antagonistic) provinces: Basra
in the South (Shia), Bahgdad in the center and
West (Sunni Arab), and Mosul in the North
(Kurds).

In the 1920s the Brits tried to force together
these incompatible provinces into one make-
believe nation, to which they gave the bogus
name "the State of Iraq." They did this without
regard for the bitter ethnic and religious
divisions between these groups, and the strong
opposition from all of them against this forced
union. It didn't take. It won't take now. Iraq
is not a nation. It never was.

It was and is entirely a fabrication existing once
in the imagination of the British Foreign Office
and, much later, in the daydreams of Tony Blair
and George Bush. There is simply no basis in
reality for this purely mental construct, and
insurmountable obstacles against it.

Saddam succeeded in holding together this false
and forced union where the British failed, for
two reasons:
a. he wasn't a foreign (read Western) occupier,
so didn't face the kind of fierce insurgency that we
inspired.
b. he understood the levers of power (violence)
in that culture, and how to manipulate the fac-
tions against each other.

So Saddam became the violence controller, the
baddest S. O. B. in the land. When we removed
him, we pulled the stopper on the violence, and
it was soon out of control. It still is, basically.
The Shia majority's leaders were always religious
clerics (as they are now). When they emerged
as men of influence in the bad old days, Saddam
had them shot. This happened to both the dads
of the current leaders of the two main Shia
militias. Their fathers had been famous Aya-
tollas. The Sunnis murdered at least 300,000
Shia (and probably a lot more) under Saddam,
which is why these Shia leaders won't reconcile
now, and won't trust Sunnis in the military or
police.

The Kurds, who are not Arabs, and don't speak
Arabic, have, for centuries, been fighting Sunni
Arabs encroaching on their territory. They have
thus tended to side with the Shia against a com-
mon enemy. They were in constant rebellion
against Saddam, which is why he gassed them.
They were never "his own people," as the Bushies
ignorantly claimed. They have their own well-
trained army (the Persh Marga) of about 140,000
troops, the approximate number of our forces
post-surge. They don't want to be part of Iraq.
There are no Iraqi flags seen in Kurdistan, and
they will fight to maintain their independence.

So the idea of a united, stable, democratic Iraq is,
and always has been, a pipedream. It has simply
never, ever, existed in any Arab country. There
is no Arab word for "democracy." In Viet Nam
we thought we would succeed where the French
had failed. We were wrong. Now we think we
can succeed where the Brits failed. Wrong again!
Hubris knows no limits, it seems.

Iraq is rare among Arab countries, in that it has a
Shia majority (60%). That majority is determined
to finally rule after bloody oppression and humili-
ation for many years by the 20% of the population
who are Sunni. The Sunnis, on the other hand,
are in denial about being the minority, and also
deny most of the brutality done by Saddam to the
Shia. So they are basically unrepentant and
defiant. They regard Shia as inferior, and not even
real Muslims. They are absolutely determined
that the Shia will not rule over them. They are
backed by many of the 85% of the Muslim
world that are fellow Sunnis. So there you have it.

Fred Kaplan, who has written a great new book on
Iraq called Daydream Believers, said on Charlie
Rose: "wars are about politics. They aren't won
until their political objectives are reached. The
road we're on in Iraq won't get us there. A large
number of Iraqis will keep fighting whether we
go or stay." The surge won't change that. That's
why it is irrelevant.