Ralph Peters: No Iraqi Civil War
From Palph Peters in the NY Post:
THE reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.
Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?
Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business — and everyday life in abundance.
Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won’t give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They’ll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn’t London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.
It’s more like a city suffering a minor, but deadly epidemic…
Compare Ralph’s insight to this column.
Key graf:
Collect relatively isolated events in a chronological list and presto: the impression of uninterrupted, widespread violence destroying Iraq. But that was a false impression. Every day, coalition forces were moving thousands of 18-wheelers from Kuwait and Turkey into Iraq, and if the “insurgents” were lucky they blew up one. However, flash the flames of that one rig on CNN and, “Oh my God, America can’t stop these guys,” is the impression left in Boise and Beijing.
I actually believe the Iraqi civil war began in July or August 2003, when former regime elements (Saddam and his supporters) began a campaign to try and regain power. That’s the civil war we need to hear about– and the Sunnis slow, fitful move into the political process is a battle in that war.
UPDATE: There appears to be a problem with the comment mediation routine since Saturday when the site was down for server work. We’ll try to fix it sometime in the next couple of weeks. At the moment that’s the best I can do.
Why would we expect the same people who brought us the overwrought and dishonest post-Katrina coverage to be any more accurate about events in Iraq? Both stories are useful for demeaning the administration, so they have a usefulness that transcends a simple reporting of fact.
Comment by Kitty Crouch — 3/1/2006 @ 9:36 am
All during Lebanon’s fifteen year civil war, there were people in the streets, businesses operating, and yes trucks going in and out (I visited there in 1982, right in the middle of it). But are you going to say that was not a civil war? This is typical, rather than face up to the problem, you try to use semantics to pretend there is no problem. ED NOTE: Did you read the entire post? Evidently not. Read the entire post, particularly my comments on the civil war starting in July or August 2003. You just accused me of playing semantic games. You failed to read and process easily available information– you leaped to accusation without full analysis or appreciation of the facts. And your own comment demonstrates that. Would you like to add a correction?
Comment by zen_less — 3/1/2006 @ 9:58 am
It is really disturbing how you wingers will point your fingers at the media and actually accuse them of false reporting when facts are such that they undermine the Bush administration. Of course there is not a full scale civil war gripping the country, but sectarian violence that targets each other’s mosques and has produced 1300 dead cannot be chalked up to “terrorism.” See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, right? Creepy.
Comment by lazerlou — 3/1/2006 @ 10:35 am
Iraq Transition is Working Ralph Peters offers easily the cheeriest analysis of the current situation in Iraq that I have encountered from a knowledgable observer: THE reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. Non…
Trackback by Outside The Beltway | OTB — 3/1/2006 @ 10:39 am
Why would we expect the same people who claimed that Iraq had WMD be any more accurate now and say that Iraq is in a civil war?
Comment by richard peters — 3/1/2006 @ 11:18 am
It may have been begun by ex-Saddam supporters, and maybe not - but it would not have gotten anywhere had we not provided fertile soil with Rumsfeld’s shocking incompetence, and the entire Bush administration’s stark refusal to believe what they didn’t want to hear, no matter how factually based. Intelligence analysts as far back as 2003 were stating that the insurgency was fed by “local conditions - not foreign terrorists_ and drew strength from deep grievances, including the presence of U.S. troops.” http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13984828.htm . These reports received a reportedly ‘cool reception’ by Rumsfeld and Cheney, who then proceeded to go on the air and say the insurgency was ‘in it’s last throes’, the last futile actions of frustrated dead-enders, etc. etc. If only that were the case. But reality is trumping these disconnected wishes.
Comment by jim — 3/1/2006 @ 12:01 pm
Victor Davis Hanson: At War With Ourselves Victor Davis Hanson has an opinion piece up today at the Wall Street Journal, in which he addresses homefront conflicts over the war in Iraq. He writes: There is a more disturbing element to these self-serving, always evolving pronouncements of the …
Trackback by Sister Toldjah — 3/1/2006 @ 12:07 pm
From Mr. Bay’s column last year: “In World War II, destroying Nazi divisions and taking islands from the Japanese provided hard yardsticks to gauge military success. Irregular warfare rarely offers such a clarifying quantitative measure. Over the summer of 2004, I had the benefit of anecdotal measures. Iraqis I talked to would tell me they intended to vote in the January elections. The elections would be “the big island,” the defining moment in the post-Saddam political struggle, and it would be the Iraqi people providing the public yardstick. That’s precisely what happened. The Jan. 30 election provided the broad and deep perspective the police blotter obscures: This is a war of liberty against tyranny, and it’s a war we are winning.” I question the use of elections as the only measure of progress. The first national elections in Russia were the elections for the Constituent Assembly in 1918, preceeding the civil war and Bolshevik rule. We all know how Hitler took power. The objective, as opposed to anecdotal measures all say we’re losing. Attacks the last three months are the highest since the battles in April, 2004. Infrastructure is in worse shape than in 2003. Sistani has called for tribal militias to protect shrines. The goal now is to get out with a fig leaf. Remember how Iraq was going to be a model for the region? ED NOTE: Why do you use the term “only measure?” Bit of a straw man sentence, it seems to me. Iraq is the model, which is one reason Iran fears it. See how this plays out in 20 years. And there have been three elections. They are indeed the best public yardsticks. And they are models.
Comment by the term "only measure?"Mark Zimmerman — 3/1/2006 @ 12:26 pm
The money quote in the VDH article For many, Iraq is no longer a war whose prognosis is to be judged empirically. It has instead transmogrified into a powerful symbol that apparently must serve deeply held, but preconceived, beliefs” Only he’s talking about Bush’s critics!!!! Remember, it’s not just the US media raising alarms about impending civil war; the Iraqis themselves did this in their public statements. The threat is real, not a fantasy of Bush’s critics. “
Comment by Mark Zimmerman — 3/1/2006 @ 12:40 pm
Feb 22 in the smoking area of the Atlanta Airport,I had the honor of giving a light to an Army Sgt. fresh off the plane from Baghdad. I asked him point blank: Is it as bad over there as we are hearing back here? His Answer: Nope! I hope he has a happy mid tour leave in Rochester NY and a safe return to Ft Drum after the tour is over. Thanks Sgt.!!
Comment by FireFireFire — 3/1/2006 @ 12:40 pm
What is clear is that the world is in a continual state of upheaval. No matter how far back one traces the source of conflicts, more conflict is found, built on a foundation of other conflict, and so on. Wars are not won or lost over periods of a 3 or 4 years, rather decades. Col. Bay is quite right in suggesting we look back in 20 years. By then we’ll have (one hopes) gained some perspective, and seen some shake out. I for one think the Iraq war is only one of the early battles that is setting the stage for more and more widespread conflict betwwen what’s left of the “West” and radical Islam. Questions of strategery and political blunders aside, Presidnet Bush exemplifies the vision and resolve required to attain any meaningful long term victory. As a separate aside; Regarding the recent Zagbe poll where an “overwhelming majority” of servicemen/women in Iraq want to go home now and end the war immediately if not sooner. Wrong Question! Ask if they’re committed to doing their job as long as they there. Ask if they believe in their mission. Ask if they’re doing any good. Ask if they think the people of Iraq are better off for their presence and work. Ask any soldier, any where, any time, any army if he’s got complaints, he’ll give you a list. Ask if he want’s to go home and when; they’ll all say “yes”, and “now”. War sucks, fighting a war sucks. In this case, the alternatives to not fighting suck more.
Comment by Scott — 3/1/2006 @ 1:58 pm
“Why do you use the term “only measure?†Bit of a straw man sentence, it seems to me. Iraq is the model, which is one reason Iran fears it. See how this plays out in 20 years. And there have been three elections. They are indeed the best public yardsticks. And they are models. ” Why the term “only measure?” Because this is the only measure you offered in your essay! That and the anecdotal evidence of how Iraqis intended to vote. Where did this notion arise that we can only tell we’ve won after 20 years? You people say anything to perserve your faith in Bush. ED NOTE: The elections are the best public measure, and remain so– which was the point of the column. You substitute public measure for “only”– which I find to be a very curious and narrow reading of a column, narrow to the point of silliness. Don’t waste time like that. Ask a serious question and you’ll get a serious answer (if I have time, and I do at the moment). Your “twenty year lens” question is a fair question, and one I would ask if I were in your place. (I actually think 12 to 15 may be more accurate than 20, but that’s a hunch.) The “notion” of twenty years (or thereabouts) is something former Senator Bob Kerrey and I discussed in April 2004– and there’s a column on the subject. I’ve written about the “time frame” issue and have discussed it in a couple of speeches. The column ran in June 2004, I think, while I was on active duty in Iraq. I wrote it before I went on active duty (Creators wanted to have a half-dozen columns on-hand, so I did interviews, wrote a piece about agro-terror, and reviewed books, columns that weren’t time sensitive.) StrategyPage has the Kerrey column in its archive (please go find it). There’s a speech by Bob Kerrey from late 2003 as well that talks about this. Your typo “perserve” is interesting. Typos like that are something everyone makes on the Internet. We know you meant “preserve” but you come close to writing “persevere” — and that’s an important word. Winning a war takes the will to persevere; it certainly took perseverance to win the Cold War. The current left-wing attacks on Bush replay the 1983 attacks on Reagan (the so-called “Euromissile crisis”). I wrote about this in November 2003 (also in the StrategyPage archive). To his activist critics Reagan was an incompetent, a warmonger, a man who was going to start a nuclear war in Europe. Regan’s critics howled when he called the USSR an empire of evil. He was a deluded man when he challenged Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” (Berlin Wall). It didn’t take 20 years for the Wall to fall– that happened November 9, 1989. By 2003 many of the people I heard (personally) dissing Reagan in 1983 had conveniently forgotten about it. In 2003 they were all for prosecuting the Cold War. Huh? If we had followed their prescriptions (particularly in 1983) we would have handed the USSR a propaganda victory and given it a military edge. Instead, Reagan turned the Soviets’ gambit into a political and strategic defeat. (Reagan was following through on the Carter Administration’s “dual track” strategy– which was “conciliatory” and weak. Read the essay, it provides a quick background.) Twenty year’s on Reagan’s critics suffer from convenient memory loss, offer no apologies, and no mea culpas. But they buckled in the clutch, they did not persevere. They also personalized attacks on him rather than analyzing policy and recommending sound policy options. The Iraqi people do persevere– I’ve seen it first hand. As I recall, Kerrey and I also discussed the Versailles Treaty (correcting that Treaty’s mistakes vis a vis the Middle East and Arabs in particular). Anyway– I also suggest you consider faith in the Iraqi people (and I know many Iraqis), knowledge of the benefits of liberty and democracy, and an awareness of the strategic implication of technological compression.
Comment by Mark Zimmerman — 3/1/2006 @ 3:01 pm
Decades, 6 months, same thing. Less than a billion dollars, half a trillion dollars, same thing. Visionary leader, worst President in the history of this country, same thing. Against torture, for torture, same thing. Damn, these guys are NECER wrong.
Comment by Robert — 3/1/2006 @ 3:37 pm
If your definition of success is: - a country moving toward a Shiite theocracy and closer every day to Iran - a new hotbed for anti-American hatred and breeding ground for terrorists - an effort perceived throughout the Moslem world as a huge failure largely due to American intervention (and so having the opposite effect of what we had fought for) - by most empirical evidence still far from being restored to pre-War services (btw, germany was in better shape by 1948, so don’t bother) - Costing us $400 BILLION, 2300 dead, 12,000 crippled (to say nothing of 40K dead Iraquis - proportionately worse than the Civil War was to us) and counting - focusing our energies on the WRONG GUY while the real wack jobs in Iran and North Korea REALLY build nuclear bombs Why, if that’s yor definition of success (and we mustn’t forget the three elections), then: We’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie! Blinders OFF, please. Reality Check, please. History will not be kind. ED NOTE: Where is this “definition of success?” Please show me the quote.
Comment by Peter Swiderski — 3/1/2006 @ 4:47 pm
The Cold War ended only when Reagan took a conciliatory approach. Star Wars and the arms build-up had nothing to do with it. Cheney and the others thought Reagan had lost his marbles when he signed the agreements that ended the Cold War. I still remember Rush Limbaugh crowing vindication during the attempted coup in the early 90’s, crying “see, we never should have trusted these Commies!!” But in any event, even if the critics were wrong about Reagan (and they weren’t; Reagan bequeathed us the Taliban and OBL); it doesn’t follow that Bush’s critics are wrong today. You should argue your case on its merits; it makes no sense to claim that because critics were wrong 20 years ago, they’re wrong today! What measures of success to you see in Iraq, besides the elections? And the critics were right about the 2005 elections, they should have been postponed to bring the Sunni in. ED NOTE: Again, a rather narrow reading, to the point of being wrong. The Soviets came back to the theater nuclear arms bargaining in 1985– and accepted zero-zero (No Pershings and GLCMs, no SS-20s– the deal Reagan offered them prior to US deployment in November-December 1983). The Soviets’ aggressive gambit failed– a gambit they had invested heavily in militarily, economically, and politically. They lost and they knew it. They returned to conduct serious disarmament talks– real reduction. They wanted an edge, the US denied them the edge. They challenged militarily and politically, the US met the military challenge (by deploying missiles) and beat them politically. This is historical fact. It took perseverence, vision, and guts to defeat them. As for Star Wars– the Soviets feared we could carry off Star Wars– though the technology was an utter stretch. Did you read the essay from November 2003? I compared the rhetoric– it’s the same playbook, the same personal demonization, and the same strategic blindness. As for other indicators, go read my cover article from (I think) the July 22, 2005 Weekly Standard. Ralph Peters sees those indicators as well. For background, read my essay “Reinventing Iraq” from December 9, 2002 Weekly Standard. Read the second paragraph that describes post-invasion problems. I critique this essay (say what I got right and what I missed) in a column written last fall — I forget the date but please see the StrategyPage archive. It’s probably in September or October 2005.
Comment by Mark Zimmerman — 3/1/2006 @ 6:44 pm
“The Iraqi people do persevere– I’ve seen it first hand. As I recall, Kerrey and I also discussed the Versailles Treaty (correcting that Treaty’s mistakes vis a vis the Middle East and Arabs in particular). Anyway– I also suggest you consider faith in the Iraqi people (and I know many Iraqis), knowledge of the benefits of liberty and democracy, and an awareness of the strategic implication of technological compression.” It’s offensive that you impute I have a low opinion of the Iraqi people, or do not appreciate the benefits of liberty and democracy. Remember, it’s the Islamists that want to correct the mistakes of the Versailles Treaty. This is was bin Laden means when he goes on about uniting the arabs under a new caliphate. And of course, one of the biggest mistakes of Versailles was to unite the three, disparate Ottoman provinces into a single nation, Iraq. The US is all about maintaining the legacy of Versailles, not correcting it. ED NOTE: Offended? Given your tone, your accusations? You told me in flame lingo my goal is to preserve “faith in Bush?” I suggest you have faith in people and you’re offended? I enjoyed the discussion until this point, but once again silliness dulls your comment–and this time flagrant silliness. This discussion is over.
Comment by Mark Zimmerman — 3/1/2006 @ 8:08 pm
If 1,500 killed in one week of sectarian clashes is not civil war, then what is? There is nothing “hysterical” in simply calling something what it is. If this isn’t civil war, it is pretty darned close. What would be a sufficient level of violence for you to concede that a civil war is going on in Iraq? It seems you will believe anything so as not to admit that Bush screwed the pooch on this one. ED NOTE: Did you read the entire post? You comment indicates you did not. Read the entire post before making an accusation that makes you look presumptuous and suggests the comment is either “canned” or planned. I have argued since late 2003 that the Iraqi civil war began in July or August 2003.
Comment by Aaron — 3/2/2006 @ 12:55 am
Colonel Bay: Where do you find these people? I mean Zimmerman, Aaron, and Swiderski? And others. While I read what you say first, they don’t even have the courtesy to give your thoughts some thought. As things improve and Z, A, and S realize that there ain’t gonna be no Iraq Civil War, they will become wilder and wilder as the Caravan passess and they are still barking… Regards
Comment by Good Ole Charlie — 3/2/2006 @ 2:16 pm
Stanford political scientists James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin developed the following definition of civil war in a 2003 ASPR article which is widely accepted (1) involve(s) fighting between agents of (or claimants to) a state and organized, non-state groups who (seek) either to take control of a government, take power in a region, or use violence to change government policies. (2) The conflict has killed at least 1000 over its course, with a yearly average of at least 100. (3) At least 100… killed on both sides (including civilians attacked by rebels). The last condition is intended to rule out massacres where there is no organized or effective opposition. Iraq’s civil war began when the country elected the First National Assembly in January 2005 and it has progressively deepened ever since. “Civil War” doesn’t fit the fantasy? There’s the Orwellian version, spun specially for Truly Gullible Believer. Negroponte - “a complete loss of central government security control, the disintegration or deterioration of the security forces of the country” Aah but facts are such pesky things A US Army major on patrol in Baghdad, quoted in the LA Times, “the city has become a hobbesian nightmare where everyone is your enemy and your life is a war” ED NOTE: The civil war began in July or August 2003– when members of Saddam’s ancien regime decided to try and recover power. The bombs started. The assassinations and kidnappings began again (Saddam’s folks killed and incarcerated when in power). Facts are pesky things.
Comment by John McCutchen — 3/2/2006 @ 10:31 pm
News and Blog Wrap Up Austin bay Blog agrees with Dadmanly that 1300 killed and counting does not constitute a civil war. Amazing. These are our “military minds”? Again, the right wing nut ruling party are concerned about what the definition of “is” is. I am sure they h… ED NOTE: Don’t know who you are, but not only did you not read what I wrote, you mis-state my views. There is a civil war in Iraq, and has been since the late summer of 2003. (Read what I wrote.) Your first three sentences misrepresent my views and do so with grade school polemical excess. That’s why this comment will remain here– for historical purposes. We’ll review this comment in twenty years– the misprepresentation, the rhetoric, and –more importantly– we’ll review the civil war in Iraq. If you choose to post a correction or clarification –you may pick the word that makes you feel more comfortable– I will consider posting it if it’s written thoughtfully and soberly. The clarification should point out that I have argued for over two years that Iraq is fighting a civil war– Saddam’s ancien regime began it to regain power. The Sunni-Shia struggle-within-Islam is thirteen centuries old. Both Saddamists and Salafists have tried and are trying to exploit it.
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