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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Nov-06
The Democrats tackle the Iraq war

Web Log - November, 2006

The Democrats tackle the Iraq war

Democrats and Republicans alike are hoping that Jim Baker will bail them out.

New Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says that ending the war is her highest priority. But how?

As regular readers of this web site know, I've frequently argued that George Bush had no choice politically but to pursue a ground invasion of Iraq in 2003, and if Al Gore had been President after 9/11, he would have done the same thing. Either way, we'd be in generally the same situation today.

The current situation provides a kind of test. With the Democrats now in power, and presuming to have a mandate to end the war, we can see if they succeed.

So far, the signs don't indicate that they can even come up with plan. The proposals are as follows:

Just start pulling troops out, either immediately or in a few months.
But if that happens, argue the naysayers, then there'll be full-scale "civil war" in Iraq, and Iran and Turkey will rush in and take control of the country.

Pull the troops out, but stage them in a nearby country so that they can rush back in, in case there's trouble.
But what country would even be willing to stage over 100,000 American troops? And the naysayers point out that the insurgency in Iraq would immediately get worse, so the troops would have to rush back in right away.

Just set a deadline for the Iraq government to get its house in order, and threaten to pull out the troops if they don't meet the deadline.
But the naysayers point out that setting a deadline is no different than the preceding two options. The insurgents will know that all they have to do is hold out until the deadline passes.

Increase the number of troops, and defeat the insurgency, and win the war once and for all.
But the naysayers point out that that will only make it easier for the Iraqis to remain dependent on American troops. It's better to keep the troops at their current level and force the Iraqis to build up their own army and police force, with American training help.

Army General John Abizaid, speaking at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government on Saturday. <font size=-2>(Source: Reuters)</font>

Army General John Abizaid, speaking at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government on Saturday. (Source: Reuters)

Actually, when I talk about "naysayers," I mean one naysayer in particular: Army General John Abizaid, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. The list above summarizes some of the major questions and responses.

One thing was pretty clear: No one has any idea what to do next except to try to fight the war to victory. Although there are a few "anti-war" Democrats who are demanding early withdrawal of troops, there's little support even from Democrats for such a move.

This is what I mean: There may be a new set of politicians in town, but there's no choice but to follow the same policy.

Speaking at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government on Saturday, General Abizaid compared al-Qaeda to the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Europe.

"If we don't have guts enough to confront this ideology today, we'll go through World War Three tomorrow," he said. If not stopped, the extremists would be allowed to "gain an advantage, to gain a safe haven, to develop weapons of mass destruction, to develop a national place from which to operate. And I think that the dangers associated with that are just too great to comprehend".

Abizaid said the world faces three major hurdles in stabilizing the Middle East region, and all three of them come together in Iraq: Easing Arab-Israeli tensions, stemming the spread of militant extremism, and dealing with Iran.

There's a new political twist to threats of an Iraqi "civil war."

As I've said zillions of time on this web site, you can call anything you want a civil war, but a real civil war in Iraq is impossible at this time, because only one generation has passed since the genocidal Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a war where you have massive numbers of Sunnis and Shiites killing each other is not possible for several more decades.

In fact, CIA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden told the Armed Services Committee that "No single narrative is sufficient to explain all the violence in Iraq today."

"No single narrative is sufficient to explain all the violence we see in Iraq today," Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the CIA director, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

Attempting to describe the enemy, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the DIA director, listed "Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, former military, angry Sunni, Jihadists, foreign fighters and al-Qaeda," who create an "overlapping, complex and multi-polar Sunni insurgent and terrorist environment." He added that "Shia militias and Shia militants, some Kurdish pesh merga, and extensive criminal activity further contribute to violence, instability and insecurity."

A more detailed description was given by Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples:

"The conflict is unquestionably complex and difficult. The fight to define post-Saddam Iraq has been primarily an intra-Arab struggle to determine how power and authority will be distributed. Iraqi nationalists, Baathists, former military, angry Sunni, Jihadists, foreign fighters, and al Qaida provide an overlapping, complex and multi-polar Sunni insurgent and terrorist environment. Shia militias and Shia militants, and extensive criminal activity further contribute to violence, instability, and insecurity.

The U.S. presence obscured the true nature of this fight between and among competing groups for power as observers focused on insurgent attacks and rhetoric directed at the United States. Today, DIA assesses the conditions for the further deterioration of security and instability exists within this ongoing, violent struggle for power. Although a significant breakdown of central authority has not occurred, Iraq has moved closer to this possibility primarily because of weak governance, increasing security challenges, and no agreement on a national compact."

As you can see from Gen. Maples testimony, the situation is extremely complex, and he believes, as many do now in Washington, that there is the potential for full-scale civil war now in Iraq. He doesn't say that it's happened yet, or that it's happening now, but that it's "moving closer."

The thing is that it never does get there. Iraq is in a "generational awakening" period, and there's a powerful generational pull back from full-scale civil war. You can call this kind of violence a civil war if you want, but if you're expecting the kind of all-out civil war that's occurring in Darfur today, or Rwanda or the Balkans in the early 1990s, then it's not going to happen, because it's impossible during a generational awakening era.

But now we can see what the new political twist is.

During the last couple of years, it's the Democrats who have been promoting the view that Iraq is moving toward civil war, arguing that the Administration policy has been a failure, and now we should just pull out and let them fight the civil war themselves. This is what we did in Vietnam, isn't it, and that worked out OK, didn't it? (Ignoring the massive genocide that occurred in Cambodia following the American withdrawal.)

But now the "civil war argument" comes from the other side. It's the Administration side that's saying that if we pull out now, then there'll be massive civil war in Iraq, and this will result in the World War III that I quoted Abizaid above as referring to.

This whole "civil war" argument is really beginning to bemuse me, but of course the situation is very serious.

I first wrote about this "civil war" fear on August 19, 2003, just after the United Nations building in Baghdad had been bombed. Here's what I said:

"The really dangerous scenario is that large numbers of Palestinian and "mujahadeen" terrorists will be motivated by identity group relationships to move into Iraq as a theatre of war against the Americans. That isn't happening now, but it's one of several possible scenarios that may unfold in the Mideast region during the next few months and years."

This is what's happening now. Iraq is, more and more, becoming a "theatre of war" for outside Muslim terrorist groups.

Tony Blair said something similar in an interview on Saturday:

"[You] see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al-Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, we're headed for a "clash of civilizations" world war, it's increasingly clear that Iraq will be an important theatre of war for that world war.

In the meantime, the government is becoming increasingly paralyzed. That's because the government is currently run by the Boomer generation, the generation born after WW II, the generation that has no skills except the ability to make vitriolic statements about people who DO try to get something done.

The only person who was actually doing something was Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was born in 1932, and is from the Silent generation, a generation of people who actually have skills besides arguing. Rumsfeld has been restructuring the armed forces to prepare the country for the coming Crisis. His replacement by a bureaucratic Boomer is an enormous loss to the nation and will cost us.

No one in Washington knows what to do about Iraq, but what's really funny is that, between making vitriolic statements, everyone, Republican and Democrat alike, is hoping and praying that Jim Baker will bail them out. Jim Baker is heading up a bi-partisan committee to make recommendations on Iraq, and he'll be making his recommendations in December. Why is this funny? Because Baker is another Silent, born in 1930, and is one of the few people left in Washington who can still get things done. But Baker's report will be non-binding, so it's unlikely that anything difficult in it will be implemented.

There's another important principle of Generational Dynamics (applying concepts of Chaos Theory): No political decision can have a predictable effect on the coming "clash of civilizations" world war.

So it's possible that withdrawing our troops will speed up the start of the world war, and it's possible that NOT withdrawing our troops will speed up the start of the world war. It's impossible to predict.

So my expectation is that last week's Democratic victory won't lead to any major change in policy in Iraq, but the effect of any such policy change is unpredictable anyway, so it doesn't really matter, does it.

As I've said many times, Generational Dynamics tells you the final destination, but doesn't tell how you get there. So we don't know how we'll get to the "clash of civilizations" world war, by my expectation continues to be that we won't withdraw our troops until some larger war elsewhere (Palestine/Israel, Taiwan, etc.) forces us to do so. (18-Nov-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Nov-06 The Democrats tackle the Iraq war

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Nov-06
The Democrats tackle the Iraq war