The Chlorine Gas Attack, the Religious War and Iraq
Remember when the poobahs declared a Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq? It was our fault, they said. But despite the fact that we had caused it, they said, we were supposed to get out of the way because the U.S. had no business in a religious war. And, according to several Senatorial poobahs, the problem was political, not military anyhow – Sunnis and Shiites just needed to learn to get along better. (See JINSA Report #634)
Check again.
Remember when the poobahs declared a Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq? It was our fault, they said. But despite the fact that we had caused it, they said, we were supposed to get out of the way because the U.S. had no business in a religious war. And, according to several Senatorial poobahs, the problem was political, not military anyhow – Sunnis and Shiites just needed to learn to get along better. (See JINSA Report #634)
Check again.
The chlorine gas used in the Sunni Anbar province attacks Friday was apparently industrial – not weapons grade – hence the limited casualties. American military sources said it was designed to frighten the local (Sunni) population. Who did it? Shiites? No. The culprit appears to be al Qaeda in Iraq, which announced the formation of a Sunni Islamic Republic a few months ago. The Islamic Republic was rejected by a fair number of Sunni tribal leaders who have now taken up arms against the mainly foreign forces. Those leaders met with (Shiite) Prime Minister al Maliki last week in the company of U.S. Gen. David Petraeus. (JINSA Report #648)
Furthermore, Iraqi sources reported that at Friday prayers in a major Najaf mosque, a senior Shiite cleric called Iranian (Shiite) interference in Iraq “not in Iraq’s interest.” This follows the withdrawal of the Fadheela Party from the Shiite governing bloc, the UIA. An Iraqi blogger explained: “The Fadheela leaders said the reason for breaking away… was because the UIA didn’t act as a patriotic movement. This is a challenge by the Arabic hierarchy of Yaqoubi (the Ayatollah behind Fadheela) to the Iranian-born Sistani and his hierarchy, combined with a call for a nonsectarian political process.”
Far from looking like a simple religious war – Sunni Iraqis with al Qaeda against Shiite Iraqis with Iran – Iraq now looks like a multi-party, multi-ethnic, multi-religious mess. (Sorry, there’s still no other word for it.) But it is increasingly a mess in which various Sunni and Shiite elements accept a nationalist Iraqi identity over religious solidarity with foreigners – al Qaeda or Iran. That is unalloyed good news.
This is where it starts to look familiar. When people say, “there is no military solution” – as they often do in the case of Israel and the Palestinians – they mean that at the end of the day, only negotiations will produce durable political security. True. But it is equally true that in the Middle East, political conversation will inevitably be undermined by radical elements for whom “winner take all” is the only acceptable outcome. ONLY military force – Israeli, American or Iraqi as required – can keep radical elements at bay. Or kill them. Either way, they have to be taken out, because there is no possibility of moderates braving out or enforcing ANY political agreement under the threat of chlorine gas attack or bus bombings or Hamas/Fatah internecine warfare.
The “surge” is beginning to show progress in securing Baghdad, if not other places, and Baghdad is the prize. But attention should be paid to the provinces, where Iraqis are deciding whether and how to align with Baghdad. And us.