Blood in the Sand
The more we learn about Iraq, the less we seem to know. Americans try to get between the killers and their prey while many Iraqis want to kill Americans so that they can go back to killing one another. Of course, all Iraqis are not like this. But many of those who are not are long gone from the country, leaving behind an ever more warped populace.
In Sunday’s NYT “Week in Review” section, the reporter Edward Wong tells us that Iraqis have long been famous in the region for desiring a particular outcome in their conflicts, an outcome that is described by the word “sahel”. Sahel means the absolute destruction of opponents, followed by the complete destruction and humiliation of their bodies. The hanging of Americans in Falluja was by no means a fluke. It was SOP.
Wong’s conversations with Iraqis suggest that many feel this way about their enemies. They do not intend to rest until they have completely destroyed them. Even if they belong to a minority like the Sunnis, they feel that their honor demands that they strive persistently and unwaveringly toward destroying their foes. The Sunnis are convinced that they are meant to rule, and the Shi’a are trash from which the country must be cleansed. The Shi’as see themselves as humiliated and violated for centuries. It is past time for them to wreak their vengeance. Both groups see Kurds as unimportant people meant to be ruled. The Kurds, on the other hand, have their own grievances and unsatisfiable aspirations.
In this context, the American hope that the factions will tire of the conflict seems unlikely to be realized. All sides see death as strengthening their cause, either the death of their own or of the enemy. And the more horrible the deaths on either side, the more they fire the desires, self-righteousness and hatred of those still alive.
We should add to this the general Iraqi view that Americans are weak and unreliable. They are unreliable because they do not have the depth of feeling of the Iraqis. Whatever schedule we might have for leaving, we will leave, so many Iraqis feel they can just wait us out. But the last few days suggest that they are not willing to wait bloodlessly. They want to kill us to encourage our departure, but also because they just like to kill whomever they have defined as the enemy. And they want to kill one another to position themselves for the real struggle that will follow.
One should add that the Shi’a mistrust the coalition because outsiders have always abandoned them, and they see our real allegiance to be to the Sunni countries of the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Sunnis mistrust us because our supposed dedication to “democracy” produces a system that favors the Shi’a. Neither side has any concept of sharing or compromise. The Kurds mistrust us because we have repeatedly abandoned them after encouraging their efforts, and because they feel our stronger tie is to the Turks in NATO who want nothing to do with an independent Kurdistan.
(In making this summary of Wong, I am leaving aside the much more complex texture of the society in which hatreds and killings often reflect, and reflect intensely, animosities that exist within each of the broad groupings with which we must deal.)
Wong’s analysis does not provide the analytical basis with which analysts generally like to approach conflict. But the continued inability of American forces to reduce the killing of either Iraqis or Americans in the current “surge” must be confounding to the generals. This inability cries out for an analysis that admits we are lost in the bloody sand and don’t know what to do next. Ultimately, the key failure in Iraq has more to do with being there at all and less with failures of strategy, tactics, equipment, or an inadequate number of boots on the ground.
