WOULD YOU MERELY SEEK TO STABILIZE A MORTALLY ILL PATIENT?:

Occupation enters critical phase (Erich Marquardt, 11/14/03, Asia Times)

The policy of "Iraqification" involves training Iraqi military and security forces in order to have them replace US forces; the intent is that Iraqis will eventually fight Iraqis for the interests of the US government. Yet there is no reason to believe that this policy will be any more successful than it was in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, the type of individual who is willing to fight his own population in the interests of a foreign power is often corrupt and fails to make an effective fighter. The success of this policy relies on whether the Bush administration can marginalize Iraqi guerrilla forces and prevent them from gaining support among the civilian population. [...]

But the US cannot leave Iraq unless Washington is willing to face a loss of influence in the region and the world. If the US were to pull out of Iraq without establishing a strong authority there, the country would likely fall into civil war that could result in territorial fragmentation. The Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shi'ites in the south could easily plunge into internecine conflict; this perhaps explains why, since Iraq's creation, the country has been largely run by authoritarian leaders who have repressed political dissent, thus securing the stability of the state. Furthermore, outside powers would inevitably become involved in any Iraqi civil war, creating the possibility of Iraq's Shi'ite south becoming enveloped in the affairs of Iran - a bordering Shi'ite Islamic republic - or the Kurds of the north attempting to create a greater Kurdistan. These outcomes would be considered setbacks to US interests.

It's not at all apparent why a Shi'ite/Sunni civil war in Arabia does not serve our interests, particularly if we intervene when necessary to aid the Shi'ites, whose version of Islam seems more amenable to liberal democracy in the long term.

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A palpable sense of panic (Jim Lobe, 11/14/03, Asia Times)

While the administration wants to accelerate the process to put an "Iraqi face" on the government, Bremer appears to have lost confidence in the 24 members of the IGC, including Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi. The IGC, which has until December 15 to submit to the United Nations Security Council a plan to draft a new constitution, has so far failed to tackle the issue seriously, and the administration is worried that any delay will derail its own timetable, including plans to have an elected government in place before the November 2004 US presidential elections.

As a result, the White House is considering abandoning its previous plans and moving instead to create a provisional government similar to the one installed by coalition forces in Afghanistan after the Taliban's ouster, which could oversee the drafting of a constitution. One problem is that it has no obvious candidate to head such a government, as it did in Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.

Or the administration could go along with the position of the Shi'ite authorities in Najaf, who have called for elections to a constitutional convention. But that, too, could create new problems or further alienate the Sunni population, due to the fact that Shi'ites would almost certainly dominate such a process.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 13, 2003 8:45 AM