Ralph Peters On Coming Religious War In Iraq

[Annie]

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/back_to_baghdad_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

BACK TO BAGHDAD

By RALPH PETERS

July 27, 2006 -- WHEN I visited Baghdad in March, there was no civil war. There is no civil war in Iraq today. But it's beginning to look as if there might be one tomorrow.

Something vital has changed. In Baghdad.

For three years, the violence was about political power in post-Saddam Iraq. Sunni Arab insurgents and Shia militias may have been on opposite sides, but the conflict was only a religious war for the foreign terrorists. And the fighting wasn't between the masses of Sunnis and Shias - who were the victims of all sides.

Now it's different. The unwillingness of the Iraqi government to take on the sectarian death squads slaughtering civilians is polarizing Iraq (while the Kurds build up their own peaceful slice of the country as fast as they can).

Political violence with a religious undertone is becoming outright religious violence. The difference is crucial. The earlier fighting was over who should govern. Increasingly, it's about who should define Allah's will on earth. Nothing could be more ominous.

Political struggles may be resolved through compromise. Historically, only immense bloodletting and the exhaustion of one side or both leads to even a bitter, temporary peace in religious conflicts.

Leaders may bargain over who runs the ministry of health, but they won't horse-trade over conflicting visions of the divine. When men believe they hear a command from their god, they go deaf to other voices.

Instead of working aggressively toward a solution, key elements within the Iraqi government have become part of the problem. Responsible for the police and public order, the Interior Ministry has failed utterly. Instead of behaving impartially, Shia-dominated police units provide death squads to retaliate against Sunni insurgents. As a result, more Sunnis back the insurgents in self-defense. More Shias die. More Sunnis die. The downward spiral accelerates.

This is bad news for our troops in Iraq. For the first time, we may face a problem we have no hope of fixing. We can defeat the terrorists. We can defeat a political insurgency. But when our forces find themselves caught between two religious factions, the only hope is to pick a side and stick to it, despite the atrocities it inevitably will commit.

We're not ready for that, psychologically or morally. Yet. We'll try to be honest brokers. But men on a violent mission from God have no respect for mediators.

We helped make this mess. Instead of relentlessly destroying terrorists and insurgents, we tried to wage war gently to please the media. We always let the bad guys off the ropes - and apologized when they showed the press their rope burns. We passed up repeated chances to kill Moqtada al-Sadr and break his Mahdi Army militia. We did what was easiest in the short term, not what was essential for the long term.

Now the only way to avoid an outright civil war is for our troops and the Iraqi army to break the sectarian militias in a head-on fight. The media will howl and we'll see a spike in American casualties. But it's our own fault. We put off going to the dentist until the tooth rotted. Now it's going to hurt.

The alternative would be to let Iraq fail. And we need to ponder that possibility honestly. While it's far too early to give up, we need to "think the unthinkable." We can force the Iraqis to do many things, but we can't force them to succeed. If the jealousy, corruption and partisanship in the Iraqi government prevent the country's leaders from dealing forcefully with Iraq problems, we should no longer sacrifice our troops.

Here's the brutal reality: If Iraq is destined to become yet another monument to Arab failure, there could be far worse outcomes than a bloody civil war - as long as our troops are out of it. We should be drawing up contingency plans to move a reinforced division and adequate airpower to the Kurdish provinces in the north, to withdraw the remainder of our forces to the south, and then to let Iraq's Sunni Arabs and Shias go at it.

Yes, Iran and Syria would be drawn in, through proxies or directly. Not necessarily a bad result, to be frank. At present, Iran and Syria ally against us. An Iraqi civil war would drag them into a military confrontation. Bad news for Hezbollah, not for us.

Let's raise another "impossible" issue: If the Arab world can't sustain one rule-of-law democracy - after we gave Iraq a unique opportunity - might it be a useful strategic outcome to watch Arabs and Persians, Shia and Sunni, slaughtering each other again? Just don't try to referee the death match.

Meanwhile, our troops are doing all they can - and our cause remains just and good. Iraq could still succeed. It's too early to walk away.

But the Iraqis have to get their act together. We can't keep the training wheels on the bicycle forever. If they won't unite to fight for their own country, we'll have to accept that our noble effort failed.

We should never publicize a timetable for a troop withdrawal, but here's what President Bush should have told Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, yesterday: "You are failing your country. We'll give you six months. If your government can't produce a unified response to sectarian violence that treats all sides impartially, we'll withdraw our troops and our support. Then you can fight it out among yourselves."

Failure in Iraq would be a victory for terror. In the short run. But the terrorists might then find themselves mired in a long and crippling struggle. An Iraqi civil war might become al Qaeda's Vietnam, not ours.

One other thing our president should tell Iraq's top leaders: "If you fail your country, the United States will be embarrassed. But we'll remain the greatest power on earth. Few, if any, of you will survive the catastrophe you brought upon your people."

 

[dilloduck]

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/back_to_baghdad_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

Agreed--the gap between Sunni and Shia is widening. A good thing in the WOT but a disaster for Iraq.

 

[theHawk]

We should of just divided the country into 3 different countries from the start. These assinine borders where made up by the Brits decades ago. At least let the Kurds be their own country, they like us and have oil. Democracy cannot work if the citizens don't believe in it, so the Sunnis and Shia can kill themselves for all I care.

 

[dilloduck]

We should of just divided the country into 3 different countries from the start. These assinine borders where made up by the Brits decades ago. At least let the Kurds be their own country, they like us and have oil. Democracy cannot work if the citizens don't believe in it, so the Sunnis and Shia can kill themselves for all I care.

The "peaceful" Kurds are already in Turkeys' and Irans' crosshairs.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Yep. Divide the country up and get out. Or just get out. Democracy only works when people are close enough culturally and do not have a deathwish for their opposition party.

The only way to keep this violence under control would be to be as repressive as saddam. We just need to somehow keep a watch on their missile and nuke technology and blow it up when it gets too advanced. Oh. and stop immigration from these countries. They're freaks.

 

[ekrem]

We should of just divided the country into 3 different countries from the start. These assinine borders where made up by the Brits decades ago. At least let the Kurds be their own country, they like us and have oil. Democracy cannot work if the citizens don't believe in it, so the Sunnis and Shia can kill themselves for all I care.

The KRG rules on a territory large as 80.000 Km2.

Due to Saddam-policy to this region (no investment and oil exploring) in this territory the oil boom just begins there.
Anyway, it is being estimated that KRG-Territory has about 3 Billion Barrels Oil reserves. This is differingof the gravity of the oil a equivalent sum of 400-550 Mio Tonnes of Oil.

This is just a waterdrop in a growing fire (demand). For example, Iraq is being estimated to have over 120 billion Barrels of Oil.

The North-East Iraqi region which the Kurdish KRG rules, has no industry. Majority of income is agriculture.

This is no Propaganda of me, it is from the Kurds theirselves. Look at the source
http://www.kurdistancorporation.com/docs/IKBI04_pp12-30.pdf

Kurdistancorporation
official investment site for Iraqi-Kurdistan


From this document it reads:

Reflecting the region’s weak industrial base, locally manufactured consumer goods are limited to
- furniture,
- plastic shoes
- and bags, cheap clothing like socks,
- and simple items like electrical cord.

So Kurds are dependent on the Kirkuk issue, as there is the most oil in Norther-Iraq. But Kirkuk is outside of Kurdish KRG-rule. Besides Oil wealth in Kirkuk, Kirkuk has petrochemical industries, cement plants and other big factories which will ensure Kurds wealth and pensure them a possible spring board to independence.

The Kirkuk issue will decide much what is going to be with Kurds in future.

 

[Annie]

More on the war of religions and warning of Islamic military model:


http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/target__hezbollah_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

TARGET: HEZBOLLAH

By RALPH PETERS

July 28, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, Israel's government overruled its generals and refused to expand the ground war in southern Lebanon. Given the difficulties encountered and the casualties suffered, the decision is understandable. And wrong.

In the War on Terror - combating Hezbollah's definitely part of it - you have to finish what you start. You can't permit the perception that the terrorists won. But that's where the current round of fighting is headed.

For the Israelis, the town of Bint Jbeil is an embarrassment, an objective that proved unexpectedly hard to take. But the town's a tactical issue to the Israeli Defense Force, not a strategic one.

For Hezbollah, it's Stalingrad, where the Red Army stopped the Germans. And that's how terrorist propagandists will mythologize it.

Considering only the military facts, the IDF's view is correct. But the Middle East has little use for facts. Perception is what counts. To the Arab masses, Hezbollah's resistance appears heroic, triumphant - and inspiring. We don't have to like it, but it's true.

So why is defeating Hezbollah such a challenge? Israel smashed one Arab military coalition after another, from 1948 through 1973. Arabs didn't seem to make good soldiers.

Now we see Arabs fighting tenaciously and effectively. What happened?

The answer's straightforward: Different cultures fight for different things. Arabs might jump up and down, wailing, "We will die for you Saddam!" But, in the clinch, they don't - they surrender. Conventional Arab armies fight badly because their conscripts and even the officers feel little loyalty to the states they serve - and even less to self-anointed national leaders.

But Arabs will fight to the bitter end for their religion, their families and the land their clan possesses. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah exploits all three motivations. The Hezbollah guerrilla waiting to ambush an Israeli patrol believes he's fighting for his faith, his family and the earth beneath his feet. He'll kill anyone and give his own life to win.

We all need to stop making cartoon figures of such enemies. Hezbollah doesn't have tanks or jets, but it poses the toughest military problem Israel's ever faced. And Hezbollah may be the new model for Middle Eastern "armies."

The IDF's errors played into Hezbollah's hands. Initially relying on air power, the IDF ignored the basic military principles of surprise, mass and concentration of effort. Instead of aiming a shocking, concentrated blow at Hezbollah, the IDF dissipated its power by striking targets scattered throughout Lebanon - while failing to strike any of them decisively.

Even now, in the struggle for a handful of border villages, the IDF continues to commit its forces piecemeal - a lieutenant's mistake. Adding troops in increments allows the enemy to adjust to the increasing pressure - instead of being crushed by one mighty blow.

This is also an expensive fight for Israel in another way: financially. The precision weapons on which the IDF has relied so heavily - and to so little effect - cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to seven figures per round. Israel has expended thousands of such weapons in an effort to spare its ground forces.

Theoretically, that's smart. But we don't live in a theoretical world. Such weapons are so expensive that arsenals are small. The United States already has had to replenish Israel's limited stockpiles - and our own supplies would not support a long war. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, a relatively easy win, we were running low on some specialized munitions within three weeks.

Precision weapons also rely on precision intelligence. It doesn't matter how accurate the bomb is if you can't find the target. And Israel's targeting has been poor. It even appears that Hezbollah managed to feed the IDF phony intelligence, triggering attacks on civilian targets and giving the terrorists a series of media wins.

The precision-weapons cost/benefit trade-offs aren't impressive, either. Killing a terrorist leader with a million-dollar bomb is a sound investment, but using hundreds of them to attack cheap, antiquated rocket launchers gets expensive fast.

Just as the U.S. military learned painful lessons about technology's limits in Iraq, the IDF is getting an education now: There's still no replacement for the infantryman; wars can't be won nor terrorists defeated from the air; and war is ultimately a contest of wills.

Those of us who support Israel and wish its people well have to be alarmed. Jerusalem's talking tough - while backing off in the face of Hezbollah's resistance. Israel's on-stage in a starring role right now, and it's too late to call for a re-write.

As a minimum, the IDF has to pull off a hat trick (killing Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, would be nice) in order to prevent the perception of a Hezbollah victory - a perception that would strengthen the forces of terror immeasurably.

If this conflict ends with rockets still falling on Haifa, Israel's enemies will celebrate Hezbollah as the star of the Terrorist Broadway (Ayman al-Zawahiri's recent rap videos were an attempt to edge into Hezbollah's limelight). Israel - and the civilized world - can't afford that.

Yes, Israel's casualties are painful and, to the IDF, unexpected. But Hezbollah isn't counting its casualties - it's concentrating on fighting. In warfare, that's the only approach that works.

Israel and its armed forces are rightfully proud of all they have achieved in the last six decades. But they shouldn't be too proud to learn from their enemies: In warfare, strength of will is the greatest virtue.

Ralph Peters' new book is "Never Quit the Fight."