iraq pullout debate

vimeo version

One of the major advantages of dots is that you can use them to simplify complex situations. I am currently studying the Iraq situation in great detail and I wanted to see if I could model the situation for someone who knows nothing about the situation in under 6 minutes. This is a living model so if you have suggestions of feedback please let me know; my intention (as should be the aim of any good presentation) is to start a dialogue.

Transcript from "iraq pullout debate" mondaydots model:

In order to understand the instability in Iraq, you must first understand the different players, their motives, and location of the country. So let's meet the players. You have the Sunnis from the West and the ShIia from the South East. These two groups have not got along for over 1400 years because of fundamental religious differences. Then you have the Kurds from the north who don't get along with either  the Sunni or Shiia and the U.S. from halfway around the world trying to figure it all out! 

For most it is difficult to understand why Iraq is such an important place. Why would so many people be so concerned over a patch of desert? Well Iraq is much more than just a desert. It is rich in natural   resources and more importantly it has a very powerful central location in the middle east. After World War 1, when the British conquered the Ottoman Empire, they divided up the land with the French and drew the borders for the country of Iraq. In doing so Iraq became the de-facto boxing ring for the middle east. The Sunnis, Shias, and the Kurds all want control of the nation, and the nations around Iraq have a vested interest in seeing that a specific sect has control over this central country. For example you have Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia rooting for the Sunnis, Shiia dominated Iran for the Shiias, and Kurd dominated turkey for the Kurds.

In 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq based on incorrect information that the country, and more specifically Saddam, possessed weapons of mass destruction. They removed Saddam and his entire party from rule; essentially toppling the Iraqi government.  After a couple different types of insurgent efforts, and the position of control over the country left essentially vacant, sectarian violence exploded across the country, with each entity battling to take control. Realizing that the removal of Saddam, could be the cause a nationwide civil war or a greater regional war; the U.S. were forced to stay. Their goal was to prevent war and rebuild the government to bring stability to the nation and region.

At the beginning of this effort, the U.S. set up camp in large bases called forward operating bases.  To minimize American casualties, they often only left the bases to go on scheduled patrols, break up skirmishes, or to clear a neighborhood or village, and then returning immediately back to base. This strategy had some inherent weaknesses. Existing in the bases and traveling in armored vehicles isolated the military from the civilians that truly needed their help and protection. Not everyone in Iraq is a  violent insurgent battling for power. In fact, most of the population are peaceful civilians who want the violence to stop and the government to be rebuilt so they can go back to  their lives of being a shop owner, doctor, lawyer, or another functioning member of society. Unfortunately there are just a few extremists who take advantage of the U.S.'s lack of connection to the Iraqi people. They knew that if they could attack and then blend back into society, the U.S. couldn't tell the difference between insurgent and civilian, and would   end up killing civilians in order make sure they got the insurgent. Each new civilian death creates a new source for insurgent recruits as the friends, family, and tribe members seek revenge and join the attacks on the U.S.  More civilians turn to insurgents, leading to more attacks on the U.S. which creates an ever increasing cycle of violence.

In 2006 under General Petraeus the U.S. understands that their conventional warfare tactics are not helping, but are actually contributing to the problem. They switch to a strategy of counterinsurgency whose main tenet is win the trust of the people by protecting the civilians from the insurgents. To do this, the U.S. military had to get the Iraqi civilians to not see them as an outside force, invading their land and killing innocent people, but as a peace keeping force that was there to help rebuild. It meant they had to get out from behind their huge bases and armored vehicles, and communicate with the people that they were there to help. Face to face interaction and speaking with civilians on a daily basis had some interesting side effects:

1. The Iraqi's could better identify with the American military men and women as real people and not just a mechanized force of tanks and hummers.
2. Connecting with the Iraqi people on a personal level made it easier for for the U.S. to distinguish between insurgent and civilian,
3. The Iraqi civilians were far more willing to share information about the organization and whereabouts of the insurgents with the U.S.
4.  The Americans were able to get the Iraqis to trust them and understand they are both working towards the same goal: get the country to a stable state so the U.S. can leave.

Fully embracing counterinsurgency, the U.S.moved from operating a few large bases to a lot of small bases set up in neighborhoods and in old police stations throughout the country. it was a very effective strategy that required more troops to further isolate the insurgents from the civilians, and it gave the Iraqi's the much need peaceful environment to rebuild local businesses and communities.

By doing thier part to stop the violence, the American's thought this would translate to an environment where the central government in Iraq could rebuild itself. Unfortunately this has not happened. The Iraqi government has to be rebuilt from the ground up and by fully embracing counterinsurgency some believe that all the U.S. has done is to create a dependency on their presence for peace, and that as soon as they leave the insurgents will be back to thier old tricks. The central question in the current debate is:  Will the insurgents be able to bait the country back into civil war or is the Iraqi country stable enough to rebuild its government after U.S. leave? Thank you for watching  and  I look forward to your responses!

Comments

[Josh Jordison]

Very nice model. I think it is a very effective way of explaining the general scheme of the war, especially to anyone who knows little or nothing about it. Keep it up! Great Blog.

-Josh

[Andreas Krey]

Good stuff. One nit, however: The kurds are a rather oppressed minority in turkey, and the turkish government is unhappy about their armed kurds having a refuge in northern iraq.

[jeff monday]

@Andreas - This is an excellent point. I will have to make the change to the model. Really it is only the Iraqi Kurds and not Turkey that is rooting for the Turks to have their own independent state.

[lol]

"In order to understand the instability in Iraq, ... the U.S. from halfway around the world trying to figure it all out!"

I loled once...

"In 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq based on incorrect information that the country, and more specifically Saddam, possessed weapons of mass destruction."

I loled twice...

"To do this, the U.S. military had to get the Iraqi civilians to not see them as an outside force, invading their land and killing innocent people, but as a peace keeping force that was there to help rebuild."

I loled thrice...

thanks for the lols :)

[Lol too]

Lol, totally!

Great exercise in naive/blinkered oversimplification or revisionism. Speaking of revisionism, people (revisionist mainly) ask what will the Bush legacy be? Will he later be seen as a strong minded leader in a time of great trouble instead of the incompetent cuckooed president his current public reputation rests on?

Answer is of course he'll become a Great President after death. Look at the way US transformed Reagan into a cold-war king who brought peace to the world using a massive arms-race and crippling deficit. Funny thing is they credit a catholic Pope with defeating Communism too. Perhaps they did it together, just the two of them.

I like these graphics a bit but this one seriously demonstrates the primacy of word over image when analysing history and social phenomenon.

[Lol too]

Afghanistan is also a "centrally located country in the middle east" which actually is the purported source of the 911 attacks conception and more central (used to be called the crossroads of the east). Yet the US choose to totally ignore Afghanistan, despite the huge Taliban and narcotics trade escalation in same period, perhaps you should consider why?

US interests in Iraq were manifold and very very deep, but the well-being of the Iraqi people were and remain incidental to that administrations needs.

[Isq Kohen]

COIN strategy in Iraq was practiced by Gen Patreus by giving $Millions of cash to different factions at the same time, providing arms to tribal honchos, providing more weekly gobs of $cash to keep people away from making, scouting to place IDE's.

Not exactly a sustainable strategy. This is buying the notion of 'victory' vs. giving cash (a form of opimum) to secure cleavage of safety for the troops.

Does not jive with your surface level analysis.