[Dialogue] From Scott Ritter: A Cogent Analysis of "Iraq"

Wed Jan 2 10:38:26 EST 2008

Colleagues:  Personally, I trust Scott Ritter more than any other “Iraq
expert.”  Here are excerpts from his most recent analysis:   The full story
is at:  HYPERLINK
"http://www.alternet.org/election08/72214/"http://www.alternet.org/election0
8/72214/

Jim Rippey in bitter cold Bellevue, NE

----------------------------

Presidential Hopefuls Need a Reality Check on Iraq

By Scott Ritter, Truthdig
Posted on January 2, 2008, Printed on January 2, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72214/

This column was originally published on HYPERLINK
"http://www.truthdig.com"Truthdig.com.

It has become a mantra of sorts among the faltering Republican candidates:
Victory is at hand in Iraq. Mitt Romney, in particular, has taken to so
openly embracing the "success" of the U.S. troop "surge" that it has become
the centerpiece of his litany of attacks on the Democratic front-runner,
Hillary Clinton . . . . 

Clinton, for her part, has stood her ground. Addressing a crowd of voters in
Iowa, HYPERLINK
"http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/on-foreign-policy-clinton-aim
s-at-rivals/"she took a swipe back at Romney:  "We all know the Republican
candidates are just plain wrong when they declare mission accomplished about
the troop surge . . . .U.S. casualty figures in Iraq for 2007 were at an
all-time high, and that for all of the positive reports concerning the
surge, Iraq remains a nation on the verge of a civil war, no closer today to
a political solution than it was before the escalation. She promised that,
if nominated, "I will not hesitate to go toe to toe with Republicans in the
debates to end the war as quickly and responsibly as possible."

Therein lies the catch. How does Clinton explain her commitment to quick and
responsible withdrawal in the context of the short-term reduction of
violence in Iraq achieved by the surge? How does she propose to rectify the
admitted internal shortcomings inside Iraq, which she likens to near-civil
war conditions, with her pledge for a "responsible" withdrawal? If one takes
at face value the alleged successes of the surge, it is difficult to justify
the embrace of an alternative policy option. Likewise, if one chooses to
criticize the surge as all smoke and mirrors, as Clinton has, and yet argues
for a quick and responsible end to the war in Iraq . . . "Quickly and
responsibly"? The problem with Clinton is that when it comes to Iraq, she is
as shallow as the next candidate, and once one gets past her flowery
rhetoric and protestations of expertise, it becomes crystal clear that she,
like almost everyone else in the presidential race from either party, hasn't
a clue about what is really happening on the ground in Iraq . . . .

There are, in fact, five Iraqs that must be dealt with by a singular
American policy. The first is the Iraq of the Green Zone, and by that I mean
the Iraqi government brought about by the HYPERLINK
"http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/31/opinion/edbull.php""purple finger
revolution" of January 2005. Those sham elections produced a sham democracy
which lacks any viability outside of the never-never land of the
U.S.-controlled Green Zone . . . .

The second Iraq is the one being managed from Tehran. This Iraq, stretching
from Basra in the south up into Baghdad, exists outside of the reach of the
compromised disaster that is the current government of Iraq, and is instead
dominated by SCIRI (the HYPERLINK
"http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/sciri.htm"Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and its military wing, the Badr Brigade.
Here one finds the unvarnished reality of the dream of the pro-Iranian Iraqi
Shiites, those who reached political maturity festering in the anti-Saddam
ideology cooked up in the theocracy of Iran.

Given the roots of this political movement, bred and paid for by the
reactionary mullahs of Iran, the politics of revenge that it embraces should
come as no surprise . . . .  Revenge is not a policy that breeds stability,
and yet it is the politics of revenge that dominates the mind-set of SCIRI.

Serving as a major domestic counterweight to SCIRI is the indigenous
grass-roots Iraqi Shiite movement controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr, the third
Iraq. Possessing similar geographic reach as SCIRI, the Iraq of the "Mahdi
Army" is one which rejects the SCIRI proxy government operating out of the
Green Zone as but a tool of the American occupation, and the SCIRI movement
itself as a tool of Iran . . . .

The movement headed by al-Sadr bases its credibility on its pure Iraqi
roots, derived as it is from the Shiites of Iraq who actually lived under
the rule of Saddam Hussein. Surprisingly, these Shiites are more inclined to
find common cause with their fellow Iraqis, including Sunnis who are
disaffected with the current government, than with their SCIRI
co-religionists. While much has been made of the Sunni-Shiite divide, the
fact is that one of the most serious threats to stability in Iraq is the
emerging Shiite-versus-Shiite conflict between al-Sadr and SCIRI.

The fourth Iraq is the Iraq of the Sunni. The first three years of the
American occupation were dominated by violence emanating from the Sunni
heartland as those elements loyal to Saddam, and those opposed to Shiite
domination, worked together to make the American occupation, and any
affiliated post-Saddam government derived from the occupation, a failure. To
this extent, elements of the Sunni of Iraq, drawn primarily from the
intelligence services of the Hussein regime, facilitated the creation and
operation of al-Qaida in Iraq. The work of this Iraqi al-Qaida has been
successful in destabilizing the country to the point that the United States
has been compelled to fund, equip and train Sunni militias in an effort to
confront al-Qaida, as well as to make up for the real shortfalls of the
central Iraqi government when it comes to security and stability in the
Sunni areas. The newfound relationship between the Sunni and the United
States, especially in Anbar province, is cited as a major factor in the
success of the surge.

The fifth Iraq is that of the Kurds. Long hailed as a poster child of
stability and prosperity, the fundamental problems inherent in post-Saddam
Kurdistan are coming to a head. The inherent incompatibility between the
"sanctuary" created by the United States through the northern "no-fly zone"
and post-Saddam Iraq is more evident today than ever. The Kurds, pleased
with their status as a "special case" in the eyes of the Bush
administration, have made no honest effort to assimilate into a centralized
system of government. Furthermore, the false dream of an independent Kurdish
homeland has not only poisoned relations with the U.S.-backed government in
Baghdad (witness the conflict over oil deals in Kurdistan and the Iraqi
national oil law), but also between the U.S. and its NATO ally, Turkey . . .
.

Five Iraqs, and one Iraq policy ill-suited to the reality of any single
situation, yet alone the whole. The success of the surge is pure fantasy . .
. .The surge addresses events in Iraq based upon short-term objectives
(i.e., reducing the immediate level of violence) without resolving any of
the deep-seated, long-term issues that promote the violence to begin with.
It is like placing a Band-Aid on a gaping chest wound . . . .. This is the
reality of Iraq today. Thanks to the surge, we do not see the horrific wound
that is Iraq for what it truly is . . . . 

History will show that this period of relative "calm" we attribute to the
surge is but the pause before the storm. Hillary Clinton is correct to label
the surge a failed strategy. But her motivation for doing so rests more with
her desire to position herself politically on the domestic front than it is
a reflection of a thoughtful Iraq policy. So long as American politicians,
regardless of political affiliation, seek to solve the problem of Iraq from
a domestic political perspective, then the problem that is Iraq will never
be resolved, either "quickly" or "responsibly." Iraq is an unpopular war.
There are, therefore, no "popular" solutions, only realistic ones.

The five-dimensional problem embodied in post-Saddam Iraq cannot be bundled
up into a neat package. America, and its leaders, must do the right thing in
Iraq, not for Iraq, but for America, even when doing so requires making some
tough decisions. Narrow the problem set from five dimensions to two, and the
problem becomes more manageable. For my money, I choose working with the
Sunnis and al-Sadr to create a viable coalition, and then cutting a deal
with Iran that trades off better relations in exchange for encouraging the
current failed Iraqi government to step aside in favor of new elections. And
the Kurds? Autonomy or nothing.

My loyalty is first and foremost to the United States, and when we look at
the situation in Iraq from a genuine national security perspective, there is
no threat worthy of the continued sacrifice being asked of our soldiers,
sailors, airmen and Marines. As such, the only policy option worthy of
consideration is that which brings our troops home as expeditiously as
possible. Politicians who embrace a different policy are simply using the
sacrifice of our service members as a shield behind which to hide their
ignorance of Iraqi issues, and their personal cowardice, which manifests
itself any time brave young men and women are allowed to die in order to
preserve someone's political viability . . . .

Scott Ritter served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until
his resignation in 1998. He is the author of, most recently, HYPERLINK
"http://alternet.bookswelike.net/isbn/1560258527"Iraq Confidential: The
Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the U.N. and
Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Nation Books, 2005). 

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