Austin Bay Blog

Three democratic elections, an improving Iraqi Army, a climbing GDP — Iraqis have accomplished a great deal. Don’t expect the critics to admit it, but in ten years we’ll be swamped with books with titles like “Slow Victory” which reveal how Iraq “triumphed below the radar” over terrorists and tyrants. One literary wrinkle to anticipate: Many of the revelatory tomes will argue the Iraqis triumphed despite the Bush Administration. These books will imitate the books written in the immediate post-Cold War which portrayed President Reagan as an evil if amiable dunce who just happened to be in the White House when the Soviet Union finally collapsed. The Reagan Doctrine? Pshaw. Gorbachev won the Cold War. (Of course these tomes either ignored or underplayed the 1983 “Euromissile” crisis where Reagan defeated a Soviet military-political gambit designed to break NATO. BUt that’s another post.)

Iraq’s successes noted, defanging sectarian and tribal militias is a very tough trick. UN peacekeepers in the eastern Congo understand that. Iraq the Model has the details. As the post notes, the militias argue they provide security where the government cannot.

Most people agree that one of the most critical and complicated challenges our new government will have to deal with is the issue of the militias that are affecting the life of Iraqis on daily basis and are arguably representing the main security breach, and I also believe that these militias have become a burden even on their political affiliates who are becoming less and less in control of the militias especially on crisis times.

Everyone is calling for disbanding these militias and to integrate them into government security forces, but the facts on the ground are decided by a number of factors that makes this proposed dismantling and integration process more complex than it may appear for the first time.

The first factor is the status of the government security forces which are not ready yet to handle the security demands and this fact makes some trends in Iraq consider the presence of these militias necessary for passing this stage and this factor was recognized by the new PM himself when wondered how would he ask people to disarm when the government is not yet able to provide security; this may seem reasonable for the people who are part of-or close to-these militias but I as a citizen who doesn’t carry a weapon disagree with this take because in fact what I see here is that security is breached mostly by those armed groups whose arms do not seem defensive to me at all.

Read the whole post.