Sunnis and Shi'a and Kurds, O My!

There has been a lot of talk lately about Iraq splitting into three states, so, just for the record, I'd like to remind everyone that this has been my prediction for a nearly inevitable outcome from the beginning.

Iraq is not, and has never been, a cohesive nation-state. It was created arbitrarily at the end of WWI by the European colonial powers, and lumped together three ethnic/religious groups with thousands of years of bloody conflict and mutual antagonism behind them. Saddam "kept the peace" by enforcing a Tito-style totalitarian, secular "national unity" government.

But we have seen what happens when such a ridgid totalitarian structure is abruptly removed. Peaceful self-government is a tricky business - it requires a set of strong social institutions that various interest groups can and do trust to produce fair and reasonable compromises. But there are no viable social or governmental institutions in Iraq, and there has been no form of real civic involvement for over a generation. The Iraqi people simply have no means to peacefully interact and govern themselves, and the only social structures that exist are the aforementioned, mutually antagonistic religious/ethnic/clan structures. Those who were not fools (Thomas Friedman), knaves (Dick Cheney), or the ideologically blinded (Paul Wolfowitz) could (and did) predict that, in such an environment, sectarian and ethnic violence was inevitable.

The second stage - civil war - is certainly less inevitable than the first. If the initial throes of violence were well managed, so that organic civic structures could emerge in a context free of violence and antagonism, it could be possible for a unified federal government to emerge. This always was a difficult proposition, however, as the natural tendency of such interest groups is toward mutual distrust and violence. Only careful and competent management of the situation could yield any different result. My own prediction that civil war would, in the end, occur was based on my understanding that those managing the reconstruction effort were not competent - indeed that they were (and are) incompetent, corrupt ideologues, more concerned with imposing a flat tax than maintaining social order. The flow of reports from Iraq regarding the tenure of Paul Bremer, the lack of effective management plans and troops on the ground, and the widespread scamming of billions of dollars by reconstruction contractors has more than borne out this understanding. [There is certainly much more to say about the difficulties such a group was bound to have in successfully managing such a project - which inherently involves a belief in and understanding of government (i.e. what it can do and why it is so vital that it does that) - but I will leave that for another post]

So here we are, on the cusp of civil war. There is still some chance this can be avoided, but this chance is small, and would take extraordinarily effective management of the diplomatic situation - something of which the present administration is simply incapable.

The real questions at this point are whether this situation can be managed so as to avoid a longer, drawn out period of sectarian violence in Iraq, and, more importantly, whether we can avoid a larger, regional conflagration involving Iran and Turkey.

My prediction regarding the first question is that a long period of violent civil war is the most likely outcome, for the same reason as the breakup of Iraq was likely: the Bush Administration is simply incompetent to deal with the matter properly. Beyond this, the necessary enforcement of civil order by foreign troops (as was required in Yugoslavia) is not practicable at this point. There is tremendous war fatigue in the US, and nobody else trusts the US enough to pledge the necessary amount of troops. Throw in the fact that control of tremendous oil wealth is part of the game, and it's clear that nobody will give up easily.

The possibility of a larger regional conflagration presents a different question. Clearly the Kurds are doing what they can to prepare for managing their own independent state, which they want to include the oil-rich region around Kirkuk. The Turks, however, loathe the notion of an independent Kurdistan, especially one empowered by oil money. Nor does Iran have any desire to allow Iraq's oil to be controlled by any group other than its Shi'ite puppets in Iraq. The Saudis are too weak to get actively involved in any regional military action, but would certainly support and fund guerrilla actions by the Sunni/Baathist minority against both of the other groups. This does not necessarily pit Iran against Turkey, by any means - they would both be allied, in a sense, against an empowered Kurdish state. It does raise two possibilities for more widespread regional conflict, however. The first is that a potential Sunni/Kurd guerrilla alliance might engage in guerrilla activities in Iran and Turkey, sparking increased militarism in those countries. The second is that an extended period of civil war would create tremendous opportunities for "failed state" terrorist groups to take hold and export violence.

So remember, you read it here first.

And, heckuva job, Georgie!

So much contradiction in the news today.

So the Dems managed to defeat the ANWR drilling provision that Sen. Hulk (R. Anger Management) tacked onto the defense appropriations bill [and whatever you think about drilling in ANWR, this was a grossly inappropriate way to try to cram it down everyone's throat]. And a conservative Republican district court judge in PA accepted reality, deciding that "intelligent design" was nothing more than a subterfuge for inserting the judeo-christian version of creation into public school science curricula [and whatever you think about natural selection, this Q&A and article clearly show that the judge's conclusions in this case were simply inescapable], and thus unconstitutional. So, small amounts of responsible behavior and sanity ...

and then there was the rest of the paper ...

Dick Cheney (R. Hell's Half-acre) growling that warrantless spying on citizens within the US was perfectly acceptable, and indeed necessary, because even thinking about going to the Court that granted 99.98% of warrant applications was too great a burden ("we had to destroy the democracy in order to save it").

And our local dumbassembly members determining that the last thing we want is an aesthetically pleasing city, or one where people are in any way encouraged to get out of their cars ...

simply put, the nutjobs are in charge

Is this a rebound??

I have always had faith in the steadfast ability of the Democratic Establishment to screw up just about anything, and it seems, as we head into 2006, that its just about time for them to start screwing up the mid-term elections. What gives rise to excited anticipation on my part, though, is the question of just how they're going to do it. I mean, I still can't really answer that as to the '04 election ... just how did they manage to screw that up? It's really quite an amazing feat ...

It brings to mind an old "Hogan's Heroes" episode, where Hogan has to defuse a bomb. It comes down to a choice of which wire to cut, so Hogan asks Col. Klink. Klink definitively picks one, and Hogan proceeds to cut the other one, successfully defusing the bomb. "Why did you ask me to pick if you already knew which wire to cut?" asks Klink. "Well," says Hogan, "I wasn't sure which wire was the right one, but I was sure that you would pick the wrong one."

So, I betting that Frank is going to win another term, that control of the house and senate will remain firmly in Wakjoblican control ... (sigh)

This James Wolcott post has an interesting view behind the veil of the Right Wing Power Elite's angry expressions of piety, appearing on schedule right about the Christmas season.

Wolcott quotes with approval from John Derbyshire of the National Review, who skewers the hypocrisy moving many conservative intellectuals to support "Intelligent Design."

Saith Derbyshire (of neo-con Irving Kristol):

"Here we have a guy who plainly doesn't believe in God, but who thinks that well-padded intellectual elitists like himself ought to evade the issue in public for fear of demoralizing the proles and perhaps jeopardizing some padding thereby. I can't think of anything nice to say about that; and in fact, the only things I CAN think of to say would not be suitable for a family website...
"These are the people who are pushing 'intelligent design' in the conservative movement. Not only am I glad and proud to have spoken out against this preposterous hoax, I wish I had done so more forthrightly. These are people filled up to their meritocratic nose-holes with contempt for ordinary people. That's conservatism? Ptui, I spit."

Yes, John, spit long and hard.

Walcott sees the same hypocrisy in the "War on Christmas" meme pushed by various Fox News blowhards, and he too is correct. But it goes further and deeper than that - this theme of the "noble lie" is the essence of the modern "conservative" political movement.

It ties back into a theme raised in some discussions at TPM Cafe regarding a new book, "Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy." It is truly the age of politics-as-marketing - and it's marketing with no rules. It's all about perception, not truth, and you can say what you want about the other guy. That is what all of this "culture war" crap is all about. Feed people disinformation about what your policies do, then distract them by pounding on divisive, negative, and irrelevant themes. "Yeah, more tax cuts will be great for the economy ... AND THOSE LIBERALS HATE CHRISTMAS!!!!! ... AND GOD!!! ... IN FACT, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS JUST A COVEN OF LESBIAN ATHEIST TRAITORS!!!!!!!!! AND WE HAVE PICTURES!!!"

Spit long and hard, John.

Panderrific!

So our very own Sen. Hulk (R. Anger Management) holds hearings where the "stakeholders" for tv smut get to hash it out. And who's invited? Industry execs and two right wing religious astroturf groups whose sole interest appears to be censorship.

You know, I'm somewhat disturbed by the easy availability of smut on tv, but that's not the real scandal. The real, and huge, scandal is twofold: 1) the FCC has, over the course of 25 years, absolutely gutted its enforcement of regulations requiring educational programming for children, and 2) over the same period of time, PBS has been forced through funding cuts to commercialize its own children's programming to attract sponsors. The problem is not that there is a lot of inappropriate tv out there - the problem is that there is not a lot of appropriate tv as an alternative. Remember, SchoolHouse Rock and the Cosby Kids were on commercial tv - now there's nothing but crappy animation based on Hasbro action figures (they're NOT dolls, ok!)

But, of course, the real problem involves a market failure, which Republicans are, through a unique mental defect, unable to discern. So, better to pander to the christian fascists, who, as usual, present a bad answer to a non-problem ...