Iraqi insurgency is no monolith, By Ahmed Hashim

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Iraqi insurgency is no monolith

By Ahmed Hashim

The Daily Star, 7/28/03

The insurgency in Iraq that is killing American soldiers daily has been incorrectly and simplistically characterized by US President George W. Bush’ administration as acts of violence against American troops by supporters of toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime. While some ex-supporters of the Baath regime are involved, the opposition is not a monolith. At least a dozen groups are carrying out attacks for a complex variety of reasons.
The attacks constitute a situation that is anomalous for the American military. The engagement presently lies somewhere between a gut-level resistance to the occupation and a classic guerrila war. Since it is a situation in flux, the US must become politically and logistically prepared for the prospect of Iraq sliding into a full-fledged Vietnam-like guerrila conflict. Fighting this type of war is messy – as T.E. Lawrence put it: “It is like trying to eat soup with a fork.”
Those attacking the US troops can be roughly divided into three groups. Even within each grouping, the organizations have different motives and goals.
l Regime loyalists who believe they have no option but to continue fighting, convinced that the US will tire long before them. They are trying to apply the experiences of other guerrila/terrorist organizations – such as the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas – to their operations. These include the General Command of the Armed Forces, Resistance and Liberation in Iraq, Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq, patriotic front Al-Awdah (The Return), and Jihaz al-Iilam al-Siasi lil hizb al-Baath (Political Media Apparatus for the Baath Party).
l Nationalist and patriotic individuals and insurgent groups who resent the US presence and are angered by the US failure to restore law, order and security, and by US methods of operation, which are seen as deliberately humiliating to the Iraqis and their honor. These individuals or groups are relying heavily on kinship and tribal ties to provide them with shelter and succor as they plan for and execute their operations. These include Thuwwar al-Iraq, Kataeib al-Anbar al-Musallahah (Iraq’s Revolutionaries, Al-Anbar Armed Brigades) and the Munazzamat al-Aalam al-Aswad (Black Banner Organization) – Islamists who have come out of the woodwork, so to speak, after decades of suppression by the Baathist regime.
l Brave though they may be – and there was considerable evidence of this during the war itself – many are amateurs. Others have proven to have considerable military experience. However, they learn quickly and they have the experiences of other Islamist organizations to help them along in their learning curve. These groups include the Al-Farouk Brigades, the military arm of Islamic resistance organization Al-Harakah al-Islamiyyah fi al-Iraq (the Islamic Movement in Iraq), Mujahideen al-Taifa al-Mansoura (Mujahideen of the Victorious Sect), Kataeb al-Mujahideen fi al-Jamaah al-Salafiyah fi al-Iraq (Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq) and the Jihad Brigades/Cells. With so many motives and goals, there cannot be a single strategy to stabilize this situation, and a military solution alone will never work.
Political and social strategies must be coordinated with military operations if Iraq is to achieve social order. For example, measures that deal effectively with the ex-Baathists will not work with the religious oppositionists.
Even among the religious opposition, philosophies and actions differ. Many Sunni Arabs are convinced that the US is there to obliterate Iraq’s identity and turn it into an economic colony. Some have chosen to confront alleged US machinations politically. Others, as we have shown above, have chosen the route of insurgency.
The Shiite populace and clerics have shown a more subtle approach. At the national level, Shiite clerics have expressed joy that the oppressive Baath regime is gone but are ambivalent about the US presence in Iraq. Most Shiite political groups are happy that Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown, but they are not happy that it was the Americans who overthrew it. The statements of senior Shiite clerics can essentially be summed up as: “Thank you for getting rid of Saddam Hussein, now please go.”
In order to develop an effective counter to the complex Iraqi situation, the American administration must rid itself of pervasive cultural ignorance and arrogance. These two factors promote the tendency to simplistic approaches, such as the single-explanation theory for the attacks against the US. Such limited theories are prone to failure operationally, but are successful in perpetuating mutual incomprehension and institutionalization of violence and demonization. Military and diplomatic personnel must be willing to seek out and engage actively with the whole spectrum of interest groups in Iraq today.
America’s unflinching goal must be to ensure the emergence of a politically stable, democratic and reconstructed Iraq. We must restore law and order and basic services, and give the Iraqis the substance, not the appearance, of greater political freedom and sovereignty. In this context, the military part of the counter-insurgency or counter-guerrila war must always be subordinated to this political and social. We cannot destroy the country in order to save it.

Ahmed S. Hashim is professor of strategic studies at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He specializes on Middle East strategic issues. The views expressed here are those of the author and not of the institution with which he is affiliated. hashima@nwc.navy.mil

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).