Iraq Civil War

The media may not call it the Iraq civil war, but every day we see images and read stories that confirm: that is what it is. Sunnis go on a killing spree--in a Shiite neighborhood; Shiites in army uniforms round up Sunnis and carry them off to be killed, or shoot them on the spot; "terrorists" set off bombs in a Shiite market: 48 killed; Sunnis turn up by the tens and fifties, bound, "with signs of torture" in Iraq's morgues. Every day.

The Iraq civil war doesn't look like the US civil war, with two competing governments and two contending armies; it looks like the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), in which Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Palestinians and Druse all massacred each other, even after the Arab League unsuccessfully intervened (in 1976), and it went on until everyone was exhausted and all parties could renegotiate a compromise constitutional arrangement 16 years and seven months after it started.

On one side of the Iraq civil war is the "democratic" government elected with our interference, its army and police forces (mostly Shiite) funded, trained and equipped by us, and the Shiite militias, intimately connected to powers within the government; on the other side are the insurgents and terrorists, mostly Sunni Iraqis, ex-Baathist former supporters of Saddam Hussein, and others outraged by the presence of American troops, or rather, outraged by the murders, rapes, and massive destruction that US troops have wreaked on this besieged country.

[added 9/28/07] The outrages to which Iraqis are subject daily has also enabled a new entity, al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, to organize and recruit in Iraq. Al Qaeda was never there during Saddam's rule, the only exception being an outpost in the far north of the Kurdish enclave, where the US prevented Saddam from regaining control. AQ has specialized in its usual terror in Iraq, terrorizing where it can, attacking not only Americans, but Shiites and resistant Sunnis. It is the latter activity that has angered Sunni Sheiks enough that they were willing to ally with the US to drive them out. That struggle is still ongoing.

For perspective from someone who is living there, go to Iraq, up close and personal

Why do I have a page on the Iraq civil war on a website devoted to the parallels between the US and the late Roman Empire? Because the mess that we have created in Iraq is the kind of imperial war that led to the downfall of Rome. (The mess was loudly predicted by almost every critic of Bush's invasion, including the advisors surrounding his father, George H.W. Bush.)

Furthermore, our military operations in Iraq more closely parallel the later military developments of the Roman Empire, including the increasing dependence on foreign mercenaries, the huge costs of war that bankrupted the empire, and the loss of even the minimal liberties Romans had enjoyed, because of the Empire's pursuit of imperial conquest. Iraq Civil War--how to profit from it. Make no mistake about it: the American invasion of Iraq has led to the Iraq civil war. Fear of creating just such conditions was why George IV (H.W.) declined to take Baghdad in the first Gulf War, and agreed to let Saddam remain in power, despite previously vilifying him as another Hitler.

By George V overthrowing the government of the Sunni minority in 2003, by pursuing radical "de-Baathification," by disbanding the Iraqi army without disarming it, and by insisting on elections based solely on population (unlike the delicate balancing of ethnic groups in Lebanon), George V insured that Iraq would descend into civil war.

Lebanon is not now being disrupted by civil war; it is being attacked because one of the constituent parts of its carefully balanced government also has a militia supplied by Syria and Iran, and is zealously committed to the Palestinian cause.

Civil war means that the US can continue to control Iraq's oil fields, since the elected government is too weak to effectively defend itself, or the oil fields. Further, insurgent attacks on wells, pipelines and refineries play into the game plan of the oil companies: it raises the price of oil, and therefore their profits.

Civil war also means that the Iraqi government does not have the political power to challenge the American drive to "privatize" Iraq's economy, which had always been government controlled until the invasion. The government also does not have the power to oppose the US plan to keep the oil fields from being fully developed, courtesy of the global oil companies that want to maintain high oil prices. That is why the oil industry has NOT been privatized.

Another parallel between US and Roman imperial policy is divide et impera, divide and rule; the Iraq civil war is the result of American policy, unintentionally or not, and allows the US to divide and rule, or at least to maintain its "permanent" bases, its stranglehold over Iraqi oil and industrial policy and its "strategic presence" in the very center of the Middle East.

Rome used precisely this policy to take over, bit by bit, large parts of the then known world. If we don't intend to stay, then why have we built the largest US embassy in the world in Baghdad's green zone, and why are we constructing four huge, permanent bases in Iraq? We are attempting to follow in Rome's footsteps (whether we know it or not), but we are already nearly bankrupt, something that didn't happen to Rome until it had ruled an empire for over 500 years.

One thing more: we did not intend to spend $300 billion (and counting)

For more on the cost of the Iraq war

It would be more accurate to say, in both cases, that war-profiteers made (are making) huge amounts of money, but in the case of the US occupation of Iraq, only about $21 billion of it came from Iraqi assets. More than half of that money is now unaccounted for; over $12 billion of it was shipped over to Iraq in shrink-wrapped pallet loads of $100 bills; troops played with "bricks" of $100 bills, some absconded with some of it; no one knows where all of it went, but probably many people suddenly got very rich, or lived very high on the hog. The UN is investigating.

Meanwhile, the Iraq civil war continues to escalate, even as our government says, "We're making progress."

Note added 9/28/07: since the "surge" there have been more reports of "progress," but Iraqis are still killing and being killed in just about the same frequency. What the surge apparently did was to stop the increase in violence in Baghdad, but didn't reduce it much, even though most of the ethnic cleansing behind it (Shiites driving Sunnis out of neighborhoods and in small part vice-versa) has been almost completed. And the violence of the civil war spread to other parts of the country.

The Sunni Sheiks' alliance with the US in places like Anbar is shaky, under continual attack by others (some are al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, but not all). Further, the Shiite government is wary of this alliance, since the Sheiks are just as much opposed to Shiite domination as they ever were.

I have a question: can the Iraqi army operate in these Sunni areas without American protection? If not, then the US has set in motion the process towards eventual partition of the country, into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish autonomous enclaves, or perhaps independent countries.

Some have said that Iraq could go the way of Yugoslavia, not a pretty prospect. Just remember: the whole unraveling was due to W Bush's intervention; otherwise it would not have happened, at least until Saddam died, and perhaps not even then. Now it's definitely happening.