Iraqs Chaos
Why the insurgency wont go
away
Ahmed S. Hashim
8
The stealthy manner in which power was formally handed over to
the Iraqis two days ahead of schedule on June 28, 2004, was designed
to forestall the widespread violence that coalition forces expected
for the original date. It was also an acknowledgment by coalition
officials that the violent insurgencies they insisted would not
derail Iraqs reconstruction now threaten the emergence of
a sovereign nation.
Iraq is overridden with partisan
warfare by former regime loyalists, organized rebellions by disgruntled
Iraqis, terrorism by foreign and domestic Islamist extremists,
and a wave of crime by organized gangs.1
Rather than an all-out war of national liberation against coalition
forces and Iraqi authorities, groups with nothing in commonexcept
the demand that the coalition leaveare fighting against
U.S. forces in an insurgency that spikes and ebbs. We may also
see different ethnic or sectarian groups pitted against one another
in a massive fight over who gets what, and when and how. Signs
of such multi-layered conflict do not augur well for Iraqs
future stability.
Strategic attacks have been escalating
since July 2003, when the insurgents began bombing military convoys
and coalition vehicles. Insurgents have targeted senior Iraqi
political figures associated with the coalition, Iraqi security
forces, and even Iraqi technocrats and professionals, interpreters
and translators, and ordinary workers who collaborate”
with the coalition.2
They have also targeted foreigners working with the United States
in Iraq. The number of such attacks increased dramatically in
April and May 2004, when scores of foreigners were taken hostage,
and continued unabated through the summer. Insurgents have launched
attacks against nations that are part of the U.S.-led coalition,
killing officials and diplomats from Spain, Japan, and Italy in
the hope of driving a wedge between these nations and the United
States and ultimately forcing them out of Iraq (so far Spain and
the Philippines have withdrawn their forces). These attacks have
shaken the coalitions resilience and have led to public
protests worldwide. Insurgent groups have damaged or destroyed
electrical power stations, liquid natural-gas plants, and oil
installations. Considerable evidence suggests that the sabotage
of critical infrastructure by pro-Saddam insurgents was well thought
out before the onset of the war.
In the spring and summer of 2004,
new insurgents in Sunni regions showed a dramatic improvement
in small-unit fighting skills. They can now stand and fight rather
than merely shoot and scoot” or pray and spray”
as in the past, and they can conduct coordinated small-unit ambushes
against U.S. forces (as they did in Ramadi in early April) and
press attacks on supply convoys. In August 2004 Shii insurgents
in Najaf and Karbala opened another front for the U.S. military.
Even though the standoff between
Muqtada and the U.S. forces in Najaf ended without a massive urban
assault, the conflict itself seems not to have ended. A total
of 1,100 U.S. personnel were wounded in insurgent attacks in August.
The abduction and execution of hostages continued apace; a particularly
gruesome event was the killing of 12 Nepalese men in late August.
September started with a grim milestone when the thousandth American
soldier was killed, one of a dozen soldiers and Marines killed
in firefights with both Sunni and Shii insurgents.
Who is behind this complex insurgency,
and what do these groups actually want? The insurgency is not
a united movement directed by a leadership with a single ideological
vision. Indeed, the insurgents may have calculated that their
success does not now require an elaborate political and socioeconomic
vision of a free” Iraq; articulating the desire to
be free of foreign occupation has sufficed to win popular support.
Because they wish to avoid fratricidal conflict, these groups
are cooperating with one another and coordinating attacks at the
operational and tactical levels despite profound political differences.
As one insurgent leader put it, We first want to expel the
infidel invaders before anything else.” Once the
coalition forces leave it would not be surprising to see conflict
among the groups.
Combating this insurgency will not
be easy. The insurgent groups methods of organization and
political indoctrination remain opaque to American forces. The
American government has little understanding of social organization
and religious life in Iraq, especially the Sunni mosques that
have become centers of opposition to the coalition. But we can
begin with a look at the evolution of the different insurgent
groups. It is most useful to categorize the violence as stemming
from two insurgenciesSunni (by far the largest) and Shiiand,
from there, the groups that, although possessing different goals,
may join them tactically in the fighting.
The Sunni Insurgency
The insurgency began in May 2003
with an outbreak of violence among the Sunni Arab population in
an area bounded by the cities of Baghdad, Ramadi, and Fallujah
that has come to be known as the Sunni Triangle.”
The grievances of that minority groupprivileged under Saddam
Husseins regimestem from the threat to their identity
in the new post-Sunni Iraq, the mistaken assumption that they
would accept their loss of status and privileges peaceably, and
certain muscular” aspects of the American response
to their discontent.
With the collapse of an already
ineffective police force and the rise of vicious criminal gangs
(a result of the war and of Saddams release of over 200,000
criminals in 2000), the Sunni Arab commercial and middle classes
hoped the United States would protect them. But the United States
simply lacks the manpower to stop the decline of law and order
in Iraq and restore basic services. Middle-class allies would
have been an invaluable asset to the coalition, and their support
might have been forthcoming if their grievances had been addressed
from the outset. As one Sunni observer put it, If the Americans
came and developed our general services, brought work for our
people, and transferred their technology to us, then we would
not have been so disappointed. But it is not acceptable to us
as human beings that after one year America is still not able
to bring us electricity.3
The coalitions indifference to the concerns of the group
that had held the reins of power for over 70 years was seen by
leading Sunnis as a calculated step to marginalize that community
in the new Iraq.4
The Sunni insurgency also includes
a prominent Islamic nationalist element made up of former military
and security personnel who have received encouragement from the
preaching of the mainstream Sunni clergy. Traditionally, members
of the Sunni clergy have not been as politically active as their
Shii counterparts in mobilizing the populace against perceived
injustices. This has begun to change both in Iraq and in the rest
of the Arab world. We have also witnessed the emergence of younger,
politically active clergymen (imams) with clear-cut Salafist (purist)
tendencies. (The Salafis have contributed to the increasing violence
of the insurgency by targeting leaders of other communities, promoters
of moral laxity,” and non-Muslims. They have derided
the Shiis and their rituals and have even attacked and defaced
posters of Shii religious figures. In the fall of 2003 Islamists
were particularly active in Mosul, where they attacked a nunnery,
killed a well-known writer, bombed a popular cinema, and torched
four liquor stores.)
The Friday sermons have been a traditional
way of channeling political and social discontent in Muslim societies.
In Iraq the Friday sermons by Sunni clerics resonate with a population
that has no notable or charismatic politician or lay leadership
to turn to in this time of stress and humiliation.
While the Sunni insurgency is not
endorsed by all Sunni Arabs, its support comes from all
classes, both urban and rural, and includes students, intellectuals,
former soldiers, tribal youth and farmers, and Islamists. Even
some who do not actively support the insurgency are prepared to
express their admiration for the insurgents and their activities.
For example, a member of the Fallujah administrative council openly
stated that the insurgents are mujahideen, or holy warriors.
We dont know them,” he said, but added, Al
Anbar [the province where Fallujah is located] has a bigger nationalist
consciousness than the rest of Iraq. We are also more religious.
We consider this resistance a religious duty and a nationalist
one as well.”5
The sanctions regime that existed
between 1991 and 2003 promoted Iraqi religious revival. The destruction
of the Iraqi middle class, the collapse of the secular educational
system, and the growth of illiteracy, despair, and anomie have
resulted in large numbers of Iraqis seeking succor in religion.
Very conservative Sunni Arabs living
within the Sunni triangle were receptive to the idea of religious
political activism. Despite its original allegiance to militant
secularism, Saddams regime itself began to promote the re-Islamization
of Iraqi society over the past ten years to buttress its legitimacy.
This was symbolized by a number of religious policies undertaken
with the official sanction of the regime in its last four years:
in 1999 the regime launched an al hamla al-imaniyah or
Enhancement of Islamic Faith campaign that restricted drinking
and gambling establishments, narrowed secular practices, and promoted
religious education and religious programming in the media. The
regime even allowed Sunni clerics to politicize their sermons
so long as they focused their ire on the forces that kept Iraq
under debilitating sanctions. While the regime focused mainly
on reviving religion among the minority Sunni Arab population,
many Sunni Iraqi activists saw the regimes strategy as a
move from infidelity to hypocrisy,” as was described
by a senior Sunni Islamist, Dr. Usamah al-Tikriti.
The insurgency has benefited tremendously
from this fusion of nationalist and Islamist sentiments among
the Sunnis. In this context, the statement of an insurgent leader
that the most prominent resistance is the Islamic resistance”
should not be doubted. The pro-Saddam group lost considerable
power and legitimacy with the apprehension of the former Iraqi
leader in mid-December 2003. Moreover, many of the Islamic nationalist
insurgents have blamed the Baath party and the former regime
for the disasters that have befallen the country. These Islamo-nationalist”
insurgents showed greater motivation and dedication than either
the former regime loyalists or the freelance insurgents of the
early months of the insurgency.
As the Islamo-nationalists took
on a larger role, during the fall and winter of 2003–2004,
the insurgency became harder to fight for four reasons.
First, the insurgents grew more
proficient. American forces had killed most of the incompetent
ones; the tactics, techniques, and procedures of the surviving
insurgents became more lethal as a result of experience.
Second, their proficiency also increased
as a result of the role of former professional military personnel
who, for nationalistic and religious reasons, increasingly opted
for the path of violence. By fall these disgruntled military personnelwith
no great sympathy for the defunct regime but outraged over the
loss of status, privilege, and jobs that came with the disbanding
of the armed forces in May 2003began to play a larger role
in the ranks of the insurgency. Senior or mid-ranking officers
were acting as mentors for cells of untrained but enthusiastic
insurgents. After a terrible month of casualties for the United
States in November 2003, U.S. forces went after former regime
insurgents with greater vigor.
Third, young men from various Sunni
Arab tribes had begun to swell the ranks of the insurgency. In
the Fallujah area, the 50,000-strong Albueissa tribe has played
an especially prominent role; its members have claimed that it
was their fighters who shot down the U.S. Army Chinook that resulted
in the deaths of 17 U.S. troops in early November 2003. There
are several distinct motivations for these insurgents. Some are
intangible, such as the traditional tribal reluctance to submit
to any kind of authoritySaddam often had trouble with Sunni
Arab tribesand the conservative Islamist and nationalist
reluctance to submit to foreign infidels. Others are material
grievances the coalition could have addressed. As I mentioned,
these include the lack of security and law and order and economic
opportunities, but they also include alleged American missteps
and boorish” behavior: trampling on tribal honor and
customs when searching private homes and individuals and withholding
information and access to detainees for months. U.S. Standard
Operating Procedures when responding to ambushes and attacks have
resulted in the slaying of innocent bystanders; as one member
of the Albueissa tribe who lost his two-year granddaughter in
September 2003 to seemingly trigger-happy U.S. soldiers, put it,
It is their routine. After the Americans are attacked, they
shoot everywhere. This is inhumana stupid act by a country
always talking about human rights.”
These are not isolated incidents.
Conflict between Iraqis and Americans erupted in the equally conservative
town of Hit in May as a result of what the population saw as overly
aggressive American responses to hit-and-run attacks by insurgents
and a deliberate disdain for traditions: the searching of homes
without the presence of the male head of the household and body
searches of females by male American soldiers. In an extensive
discussion with several retired Sunni Arab officers I was forcefully
informed that one of the biggest factors promoting hatred of the
United States was its cultural ignorance and disdain for the Iraqis;
the evidence lay in the daily treatment of Iraqis and of detainees.
Fourth, foreign terrorists and Sunni
extremists began to play a larger role in the insurgency. There
is growing evidence of an influx of foreign Islamists and anti-American
groups, such as al Qaeda and the Tawhid organization of the enigmatic
Jordanian-Palestinian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Despite the insistence of the Bush
administration and some observers of the Iraq scene that the former
Baathist regime collaborated with al Qaeda, it is increasingly
clear that the American presence has attracted such groups into
Iraq following the regimes demise. Despite their relatively
small numbers they constitute a force multiplier and are willing
to engage in operations that most Iraqi insurgents would prefer
to avoid. The foreign Islamists infiltrating into Iraq would be
expected to make common cause with local Sunni Arab Salafis who
have emerged in cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul.
The mutual suspicion between Sunni
Islamists on the one hand and former regime loyalists, secular-minded
nationalists, and tribal elements who are actively opposing the
coalition on the other, does not mean that the latter groups would
be averse to providing logistical support for the former. The
attempts by freelance” jihadists itching to fight
the United States and by al Qaeda elements to infiltrate Iraq
can only be successful if such foreign volunteers are provided
with resources, protection, concealment, and the necessary means
to undertake their missions. They do not cross the borders into
Iraq with the resources they need, and furthermore, Arabs
are not all alike” and Arab infiltrators into Iraq do not
easily blend with the locals.
At the same time, however, the different
agendas and modi operandi of the nationalist Iraqi insurgents
and their ostensible religious Arab allies have caused considerable
tensions. In early summer, nationalist insurgents in Fallujah
were about to assault a group of foreign jihadists based in the
Jolan suburb and who were led by a Saudi with the nom de guerre
Abu Abdullah. Later in the summer the insurgent authorities”
in Fallujahlargely made up of former military personnel
and Iraqi police and led by clericssucceeded in kicking
out a number of non-Iraqi terrorists. But this did not resolve
the tensions between them and native-born extremists who have
the solid backing of a number of Salafi clerics within the city.
The rise of Iraqi Salafism and the
infiltration of foreign Salafis and al Qaeda operatives may also
explain the rise of massive suicide bombing campaigns in Iraq
beginning in August 2003. The numbers grew in the fall of 2003,
with some of the most devastating suicide bombings in mid-November
2003 against the Italians in Nasiriyah and in mid-January 2004
outside one of the gates into the Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA) compound in Baghdad.
The number of insurgents is hard
to ascertain. Neither the United States nor the new Iraqi government
knows. It is possible that the insurgents themselves do not know,
since they are waging such a decentralized war. It is also possible
that they exaggerate the number of their adherents for propaganda
purposes. But what we do know is that they have considerable sympathy
among the Sunni Arab populace. While sympathy for the insurgency
does not necessarily translate into activism within its ranks,
the insurgency does have several layers of operational activists
and supporters.
First, there are its combat componentsthe
individuals who commit the acts of violence against coalition
forces. The attackers are usually young meneither former
soldiers whose attacks and ambushes have been the best organized
and most professional, or men without military experience such
as students or tribal youths as well as unemployed menwho
undertake the attacks with the guidance of older men, usually
former regime soldiers, intelligence officers, or security-services
officers. There are also part-time insurgents who participate
in actions and then return to their daily routines. The most amateurish
insurgent fighters were also the dumbest,” and many
have been killed or captured.
Second, the insurgency has a layer
of financiers and arms suppliers. Insurgency is costly. Insurgent
leadership needs money to entice recruits to actively participate
in an enterprise that can lead to capture, injury or death. Support
for the goals of the insurgencythe fight for honor, nation,
ethnicity, etc.are motivating factors to join an insurgency,
but money and arms are needed to maintain an insurgent organization.
For this reason, the former regime loyalists hid large quantities
of money around the country before the downfall of the regime.
Many of these caches have been uncovered by American forces, and
several key insurgents have been captured with large quantities
of cash, but the insurgents continue to have access to financial
resources. They have received donations from private citizens
and particularly from rich families, especially those who are
in the construction, contracting, and commercial sectors in the
Al Anbar province.
As the Sunni insurgency has grown
stronger and developed these different levels of support, certain
dilemmas have emergeddilemmas that are common to all insurgencies.
The bloody battle in Fallujah in April 2004 can perhaps be seen
as a microcosm of the evolutionary cycle of an insurgent group.
Hundreds of the insurgents congregated in the town, particularly
in the Jolan neighborhood. They were well-armed and motivated;
many were well-trained. When they dug in to make a stand in this
city of 300,000, the United States had four options: siege to
the city and bombard it until the insurgents surrendered; launch
a full-scale but bloody urban assault; walk away; or negotiate.
Laying siege to the city and bombarding
it until it surrendered would have been a public-relations disaster
both inside Iraq and around the world. Indeed, even the relatively
constrained application of military force by the U.S. military
over the course of the battle drew considerable criticism from
allies. The United States could have launched an urban assault
that would have killed many Marines, insurgents, and civilians;
it would have destroyed the cityand totally destroyedAmerican
credibilitybut it would have resulted in the elimination
of a considerable number of the insurgents. Rejecting walking
away as acknowledgment of political and military defeat, the United
States ended up negotiating with the insurgents through intermediaries
to bring about a cessation of hostilities.
It was a political victory for the
insurgents because the United States had backed down, and, more
importantly, negotiated with the enemy. It was also a military
victory; they had fought the Americans to a standstill. That the
U.S. military could have razed the city did not matter. The cost
would have been too high. The insurgents were not defeated and
would emerge intact to fight another day.
The Shii Insurgency
By the end of March 2004and
to everyones surprisesignificant elements of the Shii
community also rose in open rebellion against the coalition when
the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr unleashed his so-called Mahdi
Army in the cities of Najaf and Kabala. Suddenly, the coalition
was faced with the unsavory prospect of a second insurgency led
by a faction of the Shii marjority and the coalitions
would-be allies. The precipitating factors of the Shii insurgency
were again the mistakes and failed policies of the CPA, but, as
with all conflicts, there were underlying causes.
The precipitating factors of Muqtadas
uprising seem simple enough. From the beginning, when he unexpectedly
emerged as a political force, Muqtada had shown himself to be
disdainful and critical of the CPA and of the Iraqis on the Governing
Council. However, for the most part he was smart enough to avoid
inciting violence.
Instead, he focused his energies
on revitalizing his fathers extensive political network
among the poor Shiis and the younger clerical establishment.
Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr had been one of Iraqs leading Ayatollahs
until he was assassinated by Saddam in February 1999 after he
had begun mobilizing the dispossessed Shiis, particularly
those of Sadr City, a sprawling, squalid suburb of Baghdad where
the unemployment rate hovers around 70 percent. Muqtada created
a militia, a major step in itself, but cleverly argued that it
would not be armed and would devote itself to social work in the
neighborhoods. But the members of the militia merely hid at home
the arms they had acquired from looted Iraqi military stores.
The ammunition was supplied by the central offices of the Sadrist
movement and members of the militia were able to conduct practice
and marksmanship in the numerous garbage-filled open fields that
dot Sadr City.
The militia was made up largely
of disgruntled and unemployed young Shii men who would stand
at street corners for hours on end every day. Eventually they
would be enticed to attend Friday sermons after which their entry
into the movement began. Few of the rank-and-file within the lower
levels of the militiaoften young barely literate kids who
had migrated from rural areas into urban centershad any
training in arms or small-unit tactics whatsoever. The size of
the Mahdi Army has been estimated to be between 3,000 and 10,000.
As Muqtada built up his organization,
the coalition and the CPA debated what to do about the Sadrist
movement, particularly after his sermons began to sound like they
were preaching violence against the Americans. In March 2004 when
the CPA decided to close down Muqtadas paper and then arrested
one of his chief aides, Muqtada concluded that the United States
was going to move decisively against him. He decided to preempt
by calling out his supporters, arming them, and throwing them
into battle against the coalition forces.
What we need to understand about
the Muqtada phenomenon is that it is not primarily religious,
but populist. Therefore, attacking his non-existent religious
credentials, as CPA officials did, simply because he is young
and has not yet reached a level of religious learning within the
Shii clerical hierarchy was a waste of time, effort, and
resources.
To be sure Muqtada draws support
from the fact that he is both a Seyyeda descendant of the
Prophet Muhammadand the son of one of the leading Ayatollahs
of Iraq, a man of pronounced religious learninga native
Iraqi religious scholar. But Muqtada is purely political: he is
a populist with xenophobic tendencies who does not like foreigners,
particularly Iranians, even as he takes material aid from them.
Indeed, among the reasons for Muqtadas distaste for Ayatollah
Sistani is the fact that the latter is Iranian by birth. In this
context, we must also see Muqtadas uprising as an internal
struggle within the Shii hierarchywaged largely between
the nativist” Iraqi Shiis such as Muqtada and
his movement on the one hand, and the returning exiles on the
otherover political and socioeconomic control of the Shii
population, and, by extension since the Shiis are the majority,
the future of Iraq itself. Whether Muqtada expected a wider rallying
of the Shii population to his side is not clear, but he
knew that no Shii leader or organization could openly take
sides with the United States or the coalition against him without
losing legitimacy or being considered open collaborators.
The Muqtada insurgency has a clear
class and social basis. Muqtada caters to the most dispossessed
elements within the long-suffering Shii community, which
constitutes about 10 to 12 percent of the total population of
25 million. His constituents are the young disgruntled men of
towns such as Sadr City and Al-Kut, which faces a similar unemployment
problem. Even if the Shiis did not welcome the advancing
coalition forces with open arms as was promised by the civilian
architects of the war and their exiled Iraqi advisers, without
a doubt the coalition did have considerable good will among many
of the Shiis in the early days of the occupation. It is
clear from my analysis of the situation on the ground in Iraq
and from statements of various Shii clerics over the course
of the past several months that the Shiis were prepared
to challenge the authority and legitimacy of the coalition if
the gap between its promises and its achievements were too great.
And the Shii political leader best prepared or able to undertake
that challenge was Muqtada. As Hasan Zirkani, a pro-Sadr cleric
in Sadr City bluntly put it in a November 2003 prayer meeting:
We had hoped that some of the problems might have vanished
by now.” He was referring to the lack of law and order,
rampant unemployment, lack of basic services in Shii urban
areas, and the coalitions disregard for the cultural and
societal norms of the population.
During two days of patrolling with
members of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in early March 2004
I got a full flavor of the rising tide of anti-American sentiment
among the young, especially among young men who claimed to be
members of Mahdi Army. In contrast, on my previous visit to Sadr
City, in November 2003, the inhabitants were still quite friendly
despite a serious contretemps between some of them and U.S. military
personnel a month earlier.
While other Shii clerics have
not openly joined the insurgency (for the most part they have
adopted a wait-and-see policy), Muqtadas revolt of April
2004 won support and admiration among Sunni insurgents, who plastered
his picture on the walls of Sunni-dominated towns. This would
have been unheard of a few weeks earlier. Members of the Mahdi
Army have begun to cooperate with the Sunni insurgents, and there
are rumors that a number of members tried to infiltrate into Fallujah.
The evidence of mutual Sunni and Shii sympathy has evoked
memories of the 1920 revolt when the two communities cooperated
in their uprising against the British; but while there have been
signs of cooperation in the insurgency, it has not been at a serious
level. More importantly, the outpouring of sympathy for each others
struggles with the coalition has shown that a genuine Iraqi nationalism
encompassing the two Arab communities, but not the Kurds, does
exist.
More importantly, Muqtada has gained
traction with many Shiis because of his perceived courage
in standing up to the coalition. Whether he did this in self-defense
or simply saw it as an opportune time, his act of defiance struck
a chord with many Shiis. By late March 2004 many within
that community had begun to see the June 30 agreement to transfer
sovereignty to Iraqis as bogus and begun to believe that Iraq
would continue to remain under barely concealed American control
beyond that date. One Shii radio outlet reported, The
supposed restoration of national sovereignty, of course, should
be preceded by an end to U.S. occupation. The plan, however, entrenches
the occupation and legitimizes its presence.”
Nonetheless, Muqtada has been unable
to foment a Shii-wide revolt. Many Shiis are simply
terrified of his political vision of an Islamic government ruled
by politicized clerics. Moreover, while his call to Iraqis for
a nationwide revolt against the coalition has helped him to become
a nationally recognized leader, he has yet to transcend the bounds
of his own constituency. Class tensions between Shiis were
revealed when the petite bourgeoisie and commercial class of Najaf
and Karbala responded angrily to the loss of business because
of the fighting.
After the collapse of Saddams
regime, these holy cities witnessed a massive revival in commercial
activity and the construction of housing and hotels to accommodate
pilgrim traffic from Iran and in the wider Shii world. Despite
tension between native Iraqis in these towns and the recent and
richer Iranian inhabitants (many Iraqis blamed the dramatic increase
in prices and rents on the Iranians), a large proportion of the
population was benefiting from the economic upsurge.6
If the Maoist adage that political
power grows out of the barrel of the gun is accurate, Muqtada
should worry, because he has the fewest barrels in Iraq. His militia
is generally the weakest in the country and while it contains
a number of members of the former Iraqi army, it also includes
a large number of young men who have little or no military skills
(including young men who had evaded the draft under the former
regime).
Thus, it is not surprising that
in the firefights of April 2004, casualties were very high among
young Shii insurgents in spite of the fact that they chose
to confront American forces in urban areas of holy significance,
where the United States has generally been more cautious about
using force. While many of the Sadrist militiamen were well-armed
and showed tremendous courage, they were not well trained and
were clearly not prepared for intensive block-by-block combat
(as were the insurgents in Fallujah). Few were from either Karbala
or Najaf; so they were unfamiliar with the lay of the land and
had no time to dig adequate defensive positions or build good
relations with the locals. Last but not least, the Sadrists did
not have sniper teamsa force multiplier in an urban environment.
Muqtada raised the banner of revolt
again in July and August of 2004. Several factors provoked the
renewed fighting. First, the truce that was established at the
end of the fighting in April 2004 was never really respected by
either side. There was constant probing for weaknesses and unnecessary
provocations. Muqtada, the coalition, and the new Iraqi government
began testing each other. Muqtada had also begun to worry that
the interim government and the coalition were about to try to
arrest him yet again.
Second, Muqtadas stature had
grown enormously since his first insurrection in spring 2004,
while that of Iraqi officials and politicians aligned with the
coalition had fallen dramatically. This was yet another time to
highlight their ineffectiveness. Indeed, Muqtada castigated them
for being puppets” and for their ineptitude at governing
and restoring law and order and basic services.
Third, the disjointed but parallel
insurgencies taking place in Iraq in April and May 2004, when
both the Sunni and Shii Arabs seemed on the cusp of a national
rebellion, may have whetted Muqtadas appeals for a nationwide
revolution and for taking a clear and unambiguous anti-American
stance. He thought it could be replicated and that he would be
the beneficiary. Much of Muqtadas rhetoric in July and August
2004 was nationalistic, anti-imperialist,” and religious
in tone. Cleverly fusing nationalist, economic, and Islamic motifs,
Muqtada accused the United States of seeking to exploit economically
and oppress Iraq and the Arab world for the sake of Israel. He
called for sectarian unity between Sunnis and Shiis and
accused the United States of trying to eradicate Islam. He made
it clear that his goal was the ouster of the foreign forces and
the emergence of an independent and free Iraq.
Muqtadas revolt of July and
August 2004 seemed to be better organized than the spring revolt.
The Mahdi Army still contained its share of wild-eyed and ill-trained
wannabe martyrs.” But this time it had its share of
better-trained small units of six men armed with rocket-propelled
grenades (RPGs), mortars, and AK-47 assault rifles. Such units
have been observed to move tactically with the riflemen giving
covering and protective fire for the RPG and mortar teams. The
Mahdi Army also enlarged the scope of the battlefield. They took
control of Sadr City; and they launched attacks against installations
and personnel of the interim government. Muqtada also calculated
that by making Najaf a strongholdunlike last time, when
the Mahdi Army did not know it that wellthe interim government
and the United States would have a hard time politically in dislodging
him from there. The Sadrists established their stronghold in the
huge cemetery in the city and in the shrine of Imam Ali.
By August 2004 the United States
and the interim government faced a clear dilemma. An assault in
both locations would have been considered sacrilegious. The United
States would justify the Sadrist view of it as seeking to destroy
Islam, while the interim government would reveal itself to be
a puppet.” Furthermore, any urban battle would be
bound to raise the ire of the Shiis in Iraq and around the
region; and indeed, when the United States launched an assault
to tighten the noose around the Sadrist strongholds in mid-August,
there was an increase in violence in the country and political
disgust even within the interim government and elements of the
Iraqi security forces.
A negotiated settlement with the
Sadrists would be bound to increase Muqtadas stature even
more, particularly after the interim government flip-flopped between
a stance that called for no negotiations and one that pleaded
with Muqtada and called for negotiations with the rebellious cleric.
If, on the other hand, the cleric were to die in battle, the United
States and the interim government would face a no-win situation.
Muqtadas followers would likely respond to his martyrdom
with an intense escalation of the violence. Muqtada has repeatedly
stated that he did not fear death and that, in fact, he was ready
for it. In my view this is clever rhetoric; as a Shii and
a cleric, Muqtada clearly understands the power of symbolism and
Shii history. I think, however, that he wants to survive
and be a key, if not the key, political player in the country.
Violence undertaken to establish his credentials and show his
independence from the coalition and the interim government is
the key instrument.
The stand-off in Najaf was peacefully”
resolved after the intercession of Ayatollah Sistani, which helped
forestall the need for an all-out urban assault on the Shii
insurgents ensconced in the cemetery and around the shrine of
Imam Ali. Although Muqtada and his militia earned the enmity of
Najafis as a result of the destruction that has been visited upon
this economically prosperous city, it is not clear that his political
stature has suffered elsewhere in the country. His militia hid
its weapons and quietly melted into the Shii population,
its personnel adamant that they would go back into the fight if
called upon. While Muqtada declared his willingness to enter the
political process and compete as a national political figure,
it is clear that there is little trust between him and his co-belligerents.
Serious clashes between U.S. forces and the clerics militia
continued in Sadr City in early September. Moreover, Muqtada has
not lessened his animosity toward the U.S. presence or what he
regards as the puppet interim government. He is likely to continue
to test the limits of his room for political maneuver by using
both violent and political means in the months to come.
The Future of the Insurgency
The situation in Iraq might be called
low-level, localized, and decentralized insurgency,”
with large numbers of independent political groups engaging in
violence to disrupt and remove the American presence. To be sure,
the violence may not seem low-level” to the U.S. troops
on the ground, who have faced an average of 12 attacks per day.
But the attacks are sporadic, and many do not end with fatalities
on either side. In an insurgency even insurgent attacks that do
not succeed (either by killing soldiers of the opposing side or
by destroying materiel) are still significant, because they disrupt
and destabilize while the government or the foreign power is working
for normality and stability. Moreover, we must not underestimate
the impact of attacks that cause injury to U.S. personnel. Low-level
violence must not be seen as an advantage for the coalition or
the new Iraqi government; it is still a condition of abnormality,
and it strains resources and affects the state of mind of the
public and the authorities.
The insurgency is still localized
both in terms of geography and popular national involvement. At
its height the Sunni insurgency was largely confined to one part
of the country, the center, and even to a particular part of the
center. Yet once again we must not ignore the fact that the insurgents
have often struck outside of their locales and caused considerable
destruction and death. The insurgents do not look or act differently
from the majority of Iraqis, and they can blend in easily with
the rest of the population. The Sunni insurgency is not national
in the sense of being popular nationwide, although Sunni insurgents
have argued that they have support among all sectors of the population.
This is not credible; neither Sunni Kurds nor Shii Arabs
are going to fight to bring back the former regime or bring Sunni
fundamentalists into power. And both Kurds and Shiis have
issues with the Arab nationalist orientation of some of the insurgent
groups. Similarly, Muqtadas insurgency remains localized.
He managed to get some sympathy and cooperation from Sunni insurgents,
but, more importantly, by the time of this writing no nationwide
Shii uprising had occurred. On the contrary, Muqtada has
managed to alienate a considerable element of his community. In
fact, none of the insurgent groups, whether Sunni or Shii,
have a nationwide legitimacy in this fragmented country; each
has a message that appeals only to a specific community.
But these limits on support for
the insurgents have not translated into an advantage for the coalition.
In preventing the insurgency from transcending the constraints
of localization, the center of gravity remains, without a doubt,
the peopleordinary Iraqi citizens who crave security and
law and order, and then economic activity.
The insurgency can evolve, and indeed,
from the vantage point of summer 2004 appears to be evolving,
into patterns of complex warfare and violence. Should this evolution
continue, the prospects for American success in bringing about
Iraqi security, political stability, and reconstruction will be
nonexistent. <
Ahmed S. Hashim is a professor
of strategic studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode
Island. He returned from Iraq in April 2004. The views expressed
in this article are his own and not those of any institution with
which he is affiliated.
Notes
1
Between November 2003 and late March 2004 I conducted extensive
research on the insurgency and the U.S. counter-insurgency campaign
on the ground in Iraq. This article also relies heavily on a wide
variety of open-source information about recent events
2
See Daniel Williams, Working With U.S. Proves To Be Deadly,”
Washington Post, September 7, 2003, p. 21.
3
Quoted in Rory McCarthy, False dawn of peace lost in violent
storm,” The Guardian, April 8, 2004.
4
Interviews in Karrada, Baghdad, November 2003.
5
Quoted in Charles Glover, Smiles and Shrugs Speak Volumes
About Nature of Attacks On American Troops,” The Financial
Times, September 25, 2003.
6
In contrast, Muqtadas movement had more traction in an impoverished
city such as Al Kut, a city which has no redeeming features to recommend
it and which I visited in early March 2004. In that city a group
of energetic young clerics either sympathetic to or with direct
links to Muqtada had built an effective and efficient network of
social and security services.
Originally published in the October/November
2004 issue of Boston Review. |