Iraq’s al-Anbar and al-Diyala turn on a sectarian dime

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

The Democrat and Media obsession with the lack of “political progress” in Baghdad proper serves greatly as a hammer with which to bash President George W. Bush, his policy and fellow Republicans.  But it exhibits also their woeful misunderstanding of what is happening, and needs to happen, if the Mesopotamian Democracy Project is to ultimately be a success.

Certainly the Democrats (and many of us cynics would say the Media) have chosen to highlight the area of least improvement to minimize and turn attention away from the successes of the Surge, as a part of their ongoing shameless political exploitation of our armed men and women at war. 

Human Events Editor Jed Babbin rightly describes the Democrats as “impervious to facts” on Iraq, and this serves as Exhibit A of this impermeability.

An Impediment Only to Himself

But more important even than this is the point, and the opportunity, that both Democrats and Republicans are missing despite the failure of a unified centralized authority to coalesce around Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.  Momentous progress, and definitive success, has been and can be achieved without a functioning democratic edifice being built in Baghdad.

Too Big for Iraqi Britches

Too many of our politicians have spent far too long in Washington, and are overly enamored with the concept and artificial import of an all-powerful central government.  It is this cloudiness of thought that they are now attempting to foist upon Iraq.  They view success or failure there through this warped prism; as goes the al-Maliki government, so, they say, goes the entire Iraqi effort.

But what we have seen so far from the Surge belies this perspective.  The military advances in al-Anbar and al-Diyala would not have been possible without the provincial political ones that preceded them. 

Current Multi-National Force Commander General David Petraeus was in a previous gig the head of training of the Iraqi Army.  In that capacity I am quite sure he came to realize what the pols marooned on Capitol Hill fail to grasp; the local leaders scattered throughout Iraq, and not those sent to Baghdad, are the ones who matter when it comes to effecting fundamental and profound change in country. 

Or Perhaps Not

Arabs, and Muslims, have been for millennia localized peoples, with allegiances to their extended families, their sects and the regions which they collectively inhabit.  The concept of a Western-esque nation-state, unilaterally created around and amongst them by their 20th Century European colonizers, remains for them a completely foreign abstraction. 

This is not to say that an “artificial” Iraq as we Westerners know it can not exist; in fact in can, provided it is properly federated with a strong but substantially limited central government deferring on nearly all things to the respective states that have organically grown and come together based on natural familial and religious ties.

For three failed years we steadfastly ignored all of this, and attempted to rally Iraqis, who could not care less about being “Iraqis”, to defend Iraq from the enemies within.  Success finally began to come not just with the necessary additional troops the Surge provided, but with the change in strategy to defer to local sheiks, clerics and ethnic leaders on how to best address the security problems posed by Al Qaeda and other foreign forces at work within the regions.

Think Locally, Act Locally

It is to these local principals that the residents of the various provinces look for leadership and guidance.  In al-Anbar and al-Diyala, the call was made by these men for their people to “Defend al-Anbar” and “Protect al-Diyala”, rather than greater Iraq. 

The difference in approach was palpable, in results quantifiable and substantial.  Local police and military facilities were suddenly overwhelmed with people ready to sign up to serve, and to give up information on the thugs, safe houses and weapons stockpiles in their midst. 

Adding to this was an overreach by Al Qaeda and others in their attempts to terrorize the citizenry out of their growing affinity for and affiliation with the American “occupiers”.  The intentional murder of children and other every day citizens has only served to further drive them into alignment and cooperation with U.S. forces, in search of protection from their co-religionists attempting to save their villages by destroying them. 

Which is why any calls for the premature withdrawal of these peoples’ protectors is both dangerous and foolish.  Were we to do so, we would be once again throwing our international allies to the wolves, and reinforcing our reputation as a nation that goes wobbly when all is not well.  Osama bin Laden has built his evil empire, and pit his strategy for victory, upon the belief that we will do exactly this. 

Finally Available, Should We Choose To Avail Ourselves

Things continue to turn towards the better in al-Anbar and al-Diyala, providing us examples of the proper path to even greater achievement in Iraq.  We can either take advantage of this hard won knowledge and press on, or fold up our tents and again leave our allies to face the withering slaughter, and prove that we are as shameful and weak and bin Laden says we are.