Iraq, the unraveling (XXX): What 2010 may bring

Wed, 11/04/2009 - 2:07pm

In the new issue of the New York Review of Books, Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group offers a good summary of why he thinks the coming year will be a turbulent one in Iraq. I think he is right -- and that 2010 will stand alongside 2003 and 2007 as a turning point. In short,

...just as Odierno will be pulling out his first combat brigades, starting in March, Iraq will be entering into a period of fractious wrangling over the formation of a new government. If Iraqi national forces fail to impose their control, an absence of political leadership could thus coincide with a collapse in security; if politicians and their allied militias resort to violence, the state, including its intelligence apparatus so critical for maintaining internal stability, could fracture along political, ethnic, and sectarian lines."

Fasten your seat belts. Meanwhile, here is a bunch of headlines from this morning:

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I fear you ain't seen nothin

by JPWREL on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 3:05pm

I fear you ain't seen nothin yet.

Not to worry!

by Paul G on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 3:55pm

Not to worry! Now that the cops have those spiffy new bomb detectors everything will be OK.

An accurate census

by Walking Wounded on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 4:22pm

is the foundation to fair elections under our system. According to Mr. Rick's last book, it was also a (belated) primary step in pop-centric COIN.

Without the census, there's no basis for judging progress toward fair elections and accountability of the government.

The vast displacement of Iraqi people due to post-invasion civil war and ethnic stratification in no way diminishes the need for a census: to vouchsafe the 1 vote/citizen principle, and the evenhanded delivery of basic security, education, water and power services.

The failure of both the occupying power and the replacement regime to call for census should raise a red flag as to whether representative gov't is intended or desired by either entity.

Why turn to violence?

by JWing on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 6:54pm

This is Iraq and there's always the possibility of more violence, but the question is WHY would the parties turn to it after the 2010 elections? If it's anything like the past it'll probably take 3-4 months to put together a government because no party will get a majority, and the biggest vote getter, probably wont even get a plurality. The biggest struggle will be between Maliki and his distractors the Kurdish parties and the Supreme Council. There will be intense negotiations to get smaller parties to join the larger blocs to try to get the most seats in parliament to form a ruling coalition. How would violence play out in this situation? I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but most of Iraq's struggles are now political, and there was plenty of wranglin for control of the provincial councils after the Jan. 2009 vote, and deaths and attacks actually dropped afterwards to the lowest levels since 2003. It would seem that most of this will be resolved through giving concessions to smaller parites through control of ministries, rather than turning to the streets and fighting. Things are a lot different today in Iraq than 2005 when the last national elections took place.

Census

by Steve358 on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 11:41pm

1066. William the Conqueror. Conquer first; conduct a census second (The Domesday Book).

Accurately counting heads in a war zone begins with an understanding that these are dynamic, and critical numbers for any military or civilian strategy.

In the demographic world, a census is an "official" but primarily statutory number, usually confirmed three years after the census day. We should not confuse formal census data with real-time population figures that can be estimated by a number of dynamic sources (refugee registrations, food ration figures, house counts, etc...)

Adequate sources exist to create and monitor real-time, dynamic population figures, but it's just not done.

Walking Wounded, we seem to be alone with me in believing that by counting something more accurately in a conflict zone, you can know something more about it (Lord Kelvin, the father of modern quantitative sciences). Go figure?

Death and taxes

by Walking Wounded on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 12:27am

The storied journey of Mary and Joseph begins when an Italian Kaiser calls for census and more taxes. The Hordes were also known to count serfs and set the tax rate, making the village accountable to prevent enemy recruitment from the taxable labor pool.

Gen Odom's thesis is that the side that has the local penetration and control to tax is the real gov't. The Taliban is taxing the opium and heroin, just as the VC levied taxes to run their war, and JAM puts a levy on commerce tansiting their AO.

Now that I think about it, a substantial portion of the enemy effort these last 8 years was funded out of US taxes and credit.

Iraqi Census

by JWing on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 3:08am

Iraq is going to have a census. They have one year to complete it and the work has already begun in Ninewa, Tamim, Dohuk, Irbil, and Sulaymaniyah\. Like everything else, it's delayed and caught up in all the major disputes in the country, especially between Baghdad and Kurdistan, but it's finally started. For more see: http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/10/iraqi-national-census-returns.html

The power to tax. Since

by Steve358 on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 8:22am

The power to tax.

Since Ottoman days, Iraqi governmental authorities were required to count every sheep and every person in every tent, tax them, and send the money to the Empire.

Perhaps Sadaam's purpose in counting was more expansive, but throughout the war and the post-war, census officials continued to count, and to produce articulated and well-grounded estimates for each province.

Kurdistan, particularly, has it's own high-quality branch of Iraq's census bureau (CoSIT).

It is also a truism since Stalin that population data can have substantial political repercussions, so the fact that some government agencies may not, under every circumstance, be willing to openly share it should come as no surprise in a conflict zone.

The knowledge gap is not in the host countries, but in ours.

Perhaps we don't need that kind of detailed population information because, after all, we are just engaged in "expeditionary" and "contingent" civilian operations? (Just passing through, one year at a time for nine years?)

The population metrics for Afghanistan---poverty, health care, life expectancy, and a soaring birth rate---are astounding compared to the rest of the world; on par with the lowest rungs of sadness and suffering.

If used as the basis for genuine analysis, it would show that Afghanistan's real and enduring problems are three-fold: soaring populations, rapid and un-managed urbanization; and a deep cycle of drought/crop declines.

Against all of that, it is obvious that Al Qaeda, Opium, political instability, the "civil" schism between urban and traditional agriculture, and even the corruption and war lords, are all symptoms of a problem, and not the cause.

Attacking the cause means a sincere and synchronized international commitment to a long-term development plan to bring Afghanistan up a rung or two on the development ladder, and help them to find their own way to some small future.

Why? Because without that, the next decade will see an Afghanistan with 50 and not 26 million, pressed hard into narrow habitable pockets rife with urban chaos and desperate farmers fleeing consistently failing crops. Wanna try that problem on for size?

If you focus on the real development problem, the military role and "expeditionary" contingent operations become both definable and purposeful. Until US policy focuses on the cause of Afghan problems (as evident in the numbers), instead of our initial expeditious interests, we will never accomplish anything sustainable there.

That's what the numbers show...