rssHow Not To Write About How To Export An Awakening
Monday, February 02, 2009 at 11:03 am
- 4 Comments
Over at the Weekly Standard, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Joshua D. Goodman have a piece purporting to give advice about how to export the Anbar Awakening — that is, the 2006-7 Sunni tribal break from Al Qaeda in Iraq — to Afghanistan. I guess the point of the piece is to push back against the contention that what happened in Anbar isn’t likely to happen in Afghanistan’s eastern Pashtun areas. The piece is pretty interesting, but along the way it forgets to, you know, tell you how to export the Anbar Awakening to Afghanistan.
Basically, Gartenstein-Ross and Goodman report on and summarize a memorandum written by Sheikh Abu Risha, the brother of the slain leader of the Awakening. It’s an overview of an Awakening leader’s perspective on what made the Awakening click, but it doesn’t really add anything new: Al Qaeda overplayed its hand brutally; it helps to have a charismatic figure; it doesn’t help to offend Muslim sensibilities. Readers of Dave Kilcullen’s “Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt” essay from 2007 will be nodding their heads.
But what Abu Risha, Gartenstein-Ross and Goodman don’t deal with is whether the factors that led to the Awakening are in evidence in Afghanistan’s Pashtun areas. And that’s really the game: either the conditions are there, seen in the same way by the Pashtun tribes, or they’re not. Here’s the closest they come to addressing the point:
Abu Risha argues, nevertheless, that there are parallels between Afghanistan today and Iraq’s Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007. Most important, al Qaeda and affiliated groups in Afghanistan have created a “climate of terror” similar to what they created in Anbar, where “they murdered anyone who opposed or criticized their actions and behavior.” As in Anbar, he believes, an Awakening could help Afghanistan reverse its present deadly course.
But the trouble is this isn’t anything new for Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other affiliated groups have existed and operated in these fashions for, in some cases, 30 years (10 years in Al Qaeda’s case). By contrast, Al Qaeda was a foreign import to Anbar Province, arriving in 2003 and taking about four years to alienate the populace. But this is nothing new for the Afghan tribes. So why believe that the tribes are ready to flip now? If there’s evidence, the authors don’t present it. This boils down to saying it would be nice to have an Awakening in Afghanistan. And it would be!
Instead, what’s perhaps the most interesting part of the piece is that Abu Risha evidently doesn’t favor a plus-up of U.S. troops in Afghanistan:
“Keep U.S. forces’ and NATO forces’ movement in Afghan cities limited,” Abu Risha writes, “to only fight when needed, and control the Taliban insurgency and their expanded activities.” He suggests that scaling back U.S. and NATO activity will diminish public hostility to their mission.
A shame that the authors didn’t explore that further.
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4 Comments
Comment posted February 2, 2009 @ 11:26 am
Honorable President Obama: The US Government
Honorable Staffan de Mistura: The UN Representative in Iraq
Honorable International Community: The People and the Countries in the World
From: The “Jaff Sassani Organizations” in Iraq and Iran
We are the “Jaff People organizations” representing one forth of the Kurdish populations’ in Northern Iraq in the KRG area. We are appealing to the President of the USA, UN and international communities to rescue us form the internal wars of Iraq.
Since the creations of Iraq as an independent country we Kurds are facing unjust rule by the Arab rulers from Baghdad Government. That unjust practiced produced the Arab-Kurds conflicts until now. After the suppressions of the Kurdish revolt from 1921-1958 we lived in Iraq without any laws protecting our right. The Iraqi King family used Kurdish tribal leaders and Kurdish mercenaries’ to control our people. The Kurds was part of the Iraqi revolt against the borrowed King from Saudi Arabia and the establishment of the Republic of Iraq. In 1958 Iraqi constitutions’ we are recognized as the equal partner of Iraqi Arabs to run the Government of Iraq by laws.
The Arab rulers of Iraq start denying our right after 1958 revaluations which lead to our people’s revolt against the Republic of Iraq in 1961. Since 1961 we have been in state of the war with the Arab’s ruler in Iraq.
The unjust practice by the Arab rulers in Baghdad produced Barzani and Talabani family for our poor people; they are ruling us much brutal than the Arab ruler of Baghdad.
Barzani and Talabani always will find excuses to start the wars with the Arabs or each other to keep our people in state of war so they can rule us by the iron fist.
In the article by the UN representative in Iraq Mr. Staffan de Mistura are very clear and hopeful news for our people to have free elections and rule of law finally.
“The second challenge relates to the growing tensions between Arabs and Kurds. These tensions, based on historical, Baathist and more recent injustices in the swath of “disputed territories” to the south of Iraqi Kurdistan, especially the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, have infected almost every aspect of the political scene. They have impeded progress on the vital oil law, revenue-sharing and constitutional review; they brought the armed forces of the central government and the Kurdish region to the brink of conflict a few months ago; and they provoke the mutual distrust and unhelpful rhetoric that appears to paralyze governance at many levels.
Iraq's friends in the international community must encourage the national (and largely Arab) Iraqi and regional (Kurdish) leaderships to ratchet down tensions and explore new solutions for some of the most pressing issues: the oil law, Kirkuk, local security forces and the constitution. On a positive note, there is a growing desire among the various Kirkuki ethnic groups to reach a compromise that would be acceptable to the other communities living in Kirkuk, not just to their own. When I visited Kirkuk last month, this was the message I picked up from almost everyone I met.
The third challenge is the need for a greater willingness to seek national reconciliation at all levels and among all major groups: Sunni-Shiite, Shiite-Shiite, Sunni-Sunni, Arab-Kurd and Kurd-Kurd. As the United Nations works to promote the spirit of dialogue and reconciliation here, our staff has noted that “compromise” in Iraqi Arabic is often mistakenly translated as “tanazul,” which has the connotation of “giving up on your principles.” Given this mind-set, it's hardly surprising that identifying outcomes acceptable to all can be difficult.
Fortunately, during the past few months, there have been several issues, including the elections law and matters in the disputed areas, where tense political standoffs were ended when an impartial outsider presented a proposal that all sides could agree on as a face-saving win. A growing Iraqi willingness to forego the perfect solution for any one party is a positive sign. We must build on this recognition that compromise is the only way to proceed in a nascent democratic system, especially one with such profound wounds.”
We are calling on the Iraqi Government, the US Government and the UN to do this for our people so we can have chance to live like human being:
1- We want security in KRG regions to run free in elections against the unjust ruler of Barzani and Talabani mafia type Government. One note they are the people who did steal billions of dollars from our budget money. They are building private secret services, armies and police forces to kill any one challenging them peacefully. We do need Iraqi Army to protect us first from the mafia rulers otherwise we do not have chance to run in the elections against them most likely we will be killed before the elections.
2- The true representatives of our people are not looking for wars with the Arab ruler of Baghdad. We like to live in peace in our regions without the supervisions of the Arab rulers of Baghdad. We want to stop the Barzani and Talabani family wars against the Baghdad Government for good and establish lawful relationship with the central Government based on the UN judgments.
3- We are calling on the UN and the US Government to use historical document for establishing the boundaries between us the Kurds and Arabs. We used to be living in south Baghdad before Islamic Arab Imperialists conquered our Sassanid Empire. Since then we are getting pushed farther north and father north every time the Arab imperialist has power to do so. We are divided nations like cow. We do need protections by the international communities otherwise we are 40 million people will end up in Europe as refugee.
4- The Kurdish problem are indeed are very similar to the Jewish problem in the Middle East. We believe that the Kurdish people will go back to Kurdistan in the future; even if they are pushed out by the Arabs and Turkish Imperialists now to form much stronger nations than Israel. We are survivor. We survived many Empires and we will survive unjust rulers like Barzani, Talabani, Arab rulers of Iraq and Syria and Turkish Imperialists of Turkey.
5- In conclusions we are for peace and justice by law for people.
Comment posted February 2, 2009 @ 11:26 am
Dude. Right on. Ignoring the many other reasons an Awakening won't happen there :-)
Comment posted February 2, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
Honorable President Obama: The US Government
Honorable Staffan de Mistura: The UN Representative in Iraq
Honorable International Community: The People and the Countries in the World
From: The “Jaff Sassani Organizations” in Iraq and Iran
We are the “Jaff People organizations” representing one forth of the Kurdish populations’ in Northern Iraq in the KRG area. We are appealing to the President of the USA, UN and international communities to rescue us form the internal wars of Iraq.
Since the creations of Iraq as an independent country we Kurds are facing unjust rule by the Arab rulers from Baghdad Government. That unjust practiced produced the Arab-Kurds conflicts until now. After the suppressions of the Kurdish revolt from 1921-1958 we lived in Iraq without any laws protecting our right. The Iraqi King family used Kurdish tribal leaders and Kurdish mercenaries’ to control our people. The Kurds was part of the Iraqi revolt against the borrowed King from Saudi Arabia and the establishment of the Republic of Iraq. In 1958 Iraqi constitutions’ we are recognized as the equal partner of Iraqi Arabs to run the Government of Iraq by laws.
The Arab rulers of Iraq start denying our right after 1958 revaluations which lead to our people’s revolt against the Republic of Iraq in 1961. Since 1961 we have been in state of the war with the Arab’s ruler in Iraq.
The unjust practice by the Arab rulers in Baghdad produced Barzani and Talabani family for our poor people; they are ruling us much brutal than the Arab ruler of Baghdad.
Barzani and Talabani always will find excuses to start the wars with the Arabs or each other to keep our people in state of war so they can rule us by the iron fist.
In the article by the UN representative in Iraq Mr. Staffan de Mistura are very clear and hopeful news for our people to have free elections and rule of law finally.
“The second challenge relates to the growing tensions between Arabs and Kurds. These tensions, based on historical, Baathist and more recent injustices in the swath of “disputed territories” to the south of Iraqi Kurdistan, especially the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, have infected almost every aspect of the political scene. They have impeded progress on the vital oil law, revenue-sharing and constitutional review; they brought the armed forces of the central government and the Kurdish region to the brink of conflict a few months ago; and they provoke the mutual distrust and unhelpful rhetoric that appears to paralyze governance at many levels.
Iraq's friends in the international community must encourage the national (and largely Arab) Iraqi and regional (Kurdish) leaderships to ratchet down tensions and explore new solutions for some of the most pressing issues: the oil law, Kirkuk, local security forces and the constitution. On a positive note, there is a growing desire among the various Kirkuki ethnic groups to reach a compromise that would be acceptable to the other communities living in Kirkuk, not just to their own. When I visited Kirkuk last month, this was the message I picked up from almost everyone I met.
The third challenge is the need for a greater willingness to seek national reconciliation at all levels and among all major groups: Sunni-Shiite, Shiite-Shiite, Sunni-Sunni, Arab-Kurd and Kurd-Kurd. As the United Nations works to promote the spirit of dialogue and reconciliation here, our staff has noted that “compromise” in Iraqi Arabic is often mistakenly translated as “tanazul,” which has the connotation of “giving up on your principles.” Given this mind-set, it's hardly surprising that identifying outcomes acceptable to all can be difficult.
Fortunately, during the past few months, there have been several issues, including the elections law and matters in the disputed areas, where tense political standoffs were ended when an impartial outsider presented a proposal that all sides could agree on as a face-saving win. A growing Iraqi willingness to forego the perfect solution for any one party is a positive sign. We must build on this recognition that compromise is the only way to proceed in a nascent democratic system, especially one with such profound wounds.”
We are calling on the Iraqi Government, the US Government and the UN to do this for our people so we can have chance to live like human being:
1- We want security in KRG regions to run free in elections against the unjust ruler of Barzani and Talabani mafia type Government. One note they are the people who did steal billions of dollars from our budget money. They are building private secret services, armies and police forces to kill any one challenging them peacefully. We do need Iraqi Army to protect us first from the mafia rulers otherwise we do not have chance to run in the elections against them most likely we will be killed before the elections.
2- The true representatives of our people are not looking for wars with the Arab ruler of Baghdad. We like to live in peace in our regions without the supervisions of the Arab rulers of Baghdad. We want to stop the Barzani and Talabani family wars against the Baghdad Government for good and establish lawful relationship with the central Government based on the UN judgments.
3- We are calling on the UN and the US Government to use historical document for establishing the boundaries between us the Kurds and Arabs. We used to be living in south Baghdad before Islamic Arab Imperialists conquered our Sassanid Empire. Since then we are getting pushed farther north and father north every time the Arab imperialist has power to do so. We are divided nations like cow. We do need protections by the international communities otherwise we are 40 million people will end up in Europe as refugee.
4- The Kurdish problem are indeed are very similar to the Jewish problem in the Middle East. We believe that the Kurdish people will go back to Kurdistan in the future; even if they are pushed out by the Arabs and Turkish Imperialists now to form much stronger nations than Israel. We are survivor. We survived many Empires and we will survive unjust rulers like Barzani, Talabani, Arab rulers of Iraq and Syria and Turkish Imperialists of Turkey.
5- In conclusions we are for peace and justice by law for people.
Comment posted February 2, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
Dude. Right on. Ignoring the many other reasons an Awakening won't happen there :-)
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