Richard Miniter on Iraq

If you speak Arabic...

…and get al-Jazeera (Arabic), you can watch me defend the war effort at 2:30 EST today.

Speaking through a translator, I plan to make the following points:

The surge is working. Al Qaeda has largely decamped from Baghdad to Diyalla, in the face of advancing U.S. and allied forces. Attacks in the Iraqi capital have dropped 80% on a month-over-month basis. American intelligence officers say that tips from informants are up and a near-record number of arms caches have been seized.

Iraq is not in a civil war. The various sectarian groups do not attack each other (in which the other armed groups would shoot back) nor do they attack the elected national government (for the same reason)—but specialize in attacks on unarmed civilians,usually when they are buying food for their families or participating in a religious obligation, such as a pilgrimage. In genuine civil wars, rebel groups attack government forces and, in cases where the government has dissolved, attack each other. Oh, and they try to win over the civilian population.

Sunni and Shia have not been fighting for centuries. Yes, there have been bloody pogroms in the past. But, in Iraq, this has not been convulsed by a constant, unbroken history of religious violence. Indeed, decades, sometimes centuries, pass before the next incident of inter-Muslim violence on strictly religious grounds occurs. Furthermore, there is a fair amount of inter-marriage between the two. So the idea that these two groups of Muslims have always been enemies and there is nothing that we can do to end the violence is nonsense.

However, nearly four years of war and plenty of Iranian and Syrian financial encouragement has produced Sunni and Shia militias. If the elected government and U.S. forces finally provide safety (as they are doing in Baghdad and have done in Ramadi), both the power of these militias and the incentive to join them will shrink.

And let’s not forget that Iran is funding both Sunni and Shia militias, as Eli Lake at the New York Sun has reported.

Finally, for those who are demanding that we leave Iraq now, I have a question: Why should Americans be the only foreigners to go? Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States each have their proxies and their plans for a post-war Iraq. Only America’s (and Iraq’s) plans involve peace, prosperity and democracy. Doesn’t that count for something?