The Inevitable Fall of Iraq

Lately, I have been turning on CNN for coverage of the Middle East, and found them to be well, fair and balanced.  Anderson Cooper asks tough questions of guests and has a variety of them.  I was surprised at how well one guest summarized the roots of the conflict.  Essentially, the Shia majority under Maliki was abusive of its power towards the Sunnis.  (Of course, the Sunnis were favored by Saddam who brutalized the Shiites, but whatever.)  This has given rise to ethnic hatreds that fueled support for ISIS. ISIS claims to represent a swath of Arabic speaking peoples in the western Mesopotamia, parts of Iraq and Syria.  These people feel more loyalty to tribe than to the imagined country named Iraq.  Of course, I am not the first one to notice this. Writing in the CSM in 2007, O'Brien Browne laid out the case for separate nations to be carved out of Iraq.

Mesopotamia, as the region that includes Iraq was called until recently, had never been a "country" or "nation" in the modern senses of these words. The wise and largely benign rulers of the Ottoman Empire, who reigned over this land for centuries, realized that no outside force could ever rule this area by foisting preconceived notions of nationhood upon the population, whose loyalties lay with family, tribe, linguistic grouping, and religious orientation.

Unfortunately, when historic mistakes must be corrected, but the only means of correction is armed conflict, the most violent and ruthless group will come to the fore to lead the charge.  This is how the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, to cite one well-known example. ISIS is nothing if not ruthless and bloodthirsty, but that will be their undoing as the administration of the apparatus of statehood requires skills other pure ideology.  Further, they have made too many enemies.  The governments of Syria, Iraq and Turkey are all going to work against them, as well as the Kurdish regional government.

Meanwhile, Browne saw the break up of Yugoslavia as instructive for what might need to happen in Iraq.

Unfortunately, this meant that wars had to be fought. Though vicious, cruel, and bloody, this process was vital. Its beneficial results can be seen on a modern map of the region: New countries such as Croatia have the telltale odd shape and wiggly lines of older, established, stable countries. Gone are those artificial border lines, the unreal trappings of a federation that should never have existed. Gone, for the most part, too, is the explosive anger that exists when ethnic groups are unwillingly thrown together. Instead, although Serbs, Croats, and the other groups do not love one another, they can now live alongside one another in relative harmony. Where this is not the case, as in Kosovo, ethnic tensions continue to bubble.

I think that ISIS has made too many enemies to survive, but the idea that the Sunnis of western Mesopotamia should have their own state will outlast these vile genocidal madmen.  There is no constitution capable of imposing trust between peoples riven by religious and ethnic conflict.

Some maps to help sort it out:  Iraq by ethnicity/religion source: Royal Burglee's Flatworld Knowledge web site:

Here is the situation today, according to a map on Wikipedia titled "Syria and Iraq 2014-onward War map" by Haghal Jagul - Own workTemplate:Syrian civil war detailed mapTemplate:Iraq war detailed map. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of Syrian Civil War and the Iraqi insurgency
   Controlled by Syrian rebels 
   Controlled by Syrian government 
   Controlled by Iraqi government 
   Controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) 
   Controlled by Syrian Kurds 
   Controlled by Iraqi Kurds 
   Controlled by the Qaraqosh Protection Committee

Weekend Round Up

President To Ask Congress for Authorization for Syria Strike

I am not going to rehash this news.  My take is that Obama doesn't really to want strike Syria, especially without help from the Brits.  There is little upside and all downside for him.  This is classic Obama.  Just as he put the work of passing the ACA on Reid and Pelosi, minimizing his own downside; he can blame the failure to punish Syria for chemical weapons use if the Congress votes against the authorization.  Tough problem solved.  No wonder he immediately went golfing after the announcement.  

Syria: Problem solved. Time to work on my swing.

DeMaio, Faulconer Are the Favorites on the Right for San Diego Mayor

Or so says sdrostra blogger and political analyst Steve Gramm.  His analysis is that DeMaio will receive less support from traditional Republican groups if he backs out of the 52nd Congressional race to run for mayor.  Faulconer could potentially run in the 52nd according to the one of the commenters.  Personally, I hope that DeMaio continues his run for Congress, he already has that campaign momentum going.  In a crowded field on the left, which includes Fletcher and Mike Aguirre, Faulconer would certainly make the run off, if he were the only well-known Republican.  DeMaio is reportedly going to decide and announce what he will do on Tuesday.  Look for a Faulconer announcement shortly after if DeMaio stays in the Congressional race.  I have already endorsed Faulconer, in part because I have liked him as my council member and because I want DeMaio to take back the CA-52 for Republicans. 

Affordable Care Act Heavily Subsidizes the Elderly at the Expense of the Young

But you already knew that.  However, the WSJ performed a public service by closely analyzing the effects of the law on residents of Toledo and concluded that the nature of the law is to so subsidize the elderly, that it will cause them to sign up for coverage disproportionately.  This isn't really news, except for the detailed and fairly irrefutable analysis of the situation.  Meanwhile, your friendly neighborhood federal propagandists are referring to the ACA as "Obamacare."  I don't do that, because it was really Reid's and Pelosi's monster, but also, really?  I expect better from a federal agency.

No one is invincible. Enter your video about why health insurance matters to you & win! http://t.co/gbKleAcdDA #hyavideocontest #ObamaCare
— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) August 26, 2013

I was asked about the prize mentioned:

@BDaddyLiberator @HHSGov What would you win, a "free pass" from the Death panel?
— Doo Doo Economics (@DooDooEcon) August 31, 2013

Turns out that winning propaganda can be worth up to $30,000 in cash prizes.  Does this strike anyone else as creepy?  If you follow the link to the HHS tweet, conservatives come out in force to lampoon this blatant effort.  If there were any Justice at HHS, this would be the winning video:

That's a wrap on the slow news weekend.

Update on Syria

Bashar al-Assad has published an editorial that carefully analyzes Obama's options in Syria.  It's sort of a return favor for Obama basically leaking the entire battle plan to him. Just paying it forward, I guess.  Assad's reasoning is clear and unimpeachable.

I’ve looked at your options, and I’m going to be honest here, I feel for you. Not exactly an embarrassment of riches you’ve got to choose from, strategy-wise. I mean, my God, there are just so many variables to consider, so many possible paths to choose, each fraught with incredible peril, and each leading back to the very real, very likely possibility that no matter what you do it’s going to backfire in a big, big way. It’s a good old-fashioned mess, is what this is! And now, you have to make some sort of decision that you can live with.

It's the Onion of course, and it's not really Assad, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Syria in Context

The context is the ongoing struggle between Shia and Sunni sects of Islam.  YaLibnan reprinted an article from CNN by Geneive Abdo along with this helpful map at right.  In both Iraq and Syria, the violence between Sunnis and Shia continues as borders drawn by French and British colonialists don't correspond to the tribal and sectarian divisions of the region.

Abdo points out that Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi has attempted to rally the Sunni world into defeating the Shia "heretics." On the Sunni side we have the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda.  Hezbollah, Syria and Iran are Shia.  But Syria is not predominantly Shia, and but Bashar al-Assad and his predecessor/father are Allawites leading to the alliance with Iran.  Like the al-Qaeda-in-Iraq targeting of Shiites during the U.S. occupation there, the Syrian conflict is best understood as part of a long term struggle between Sunnis and Shiites.

However, not all Sunnis are united in common cause.  The Saudis see themselves as the center of Islam and view the Muslim Brotherhood as a rival.  Ottoman Turkey was once the center of the Muslim world and modern Turks are viewed with suspicion by Arab Muslims.

With evidence of a chemical attack by Assad's forces, we are being pushed into a dangerous game.  Supporting the opposition could be chemical weaponry into the hands of al-Qaeda if Assad falls.  But our moral authority is lost if we do nothing, especially after Obama's "red line" speech.  Assad apparently thought that he could get away with this.  Here is a quote from Obama:

"We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," the president said. "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

Maybe 350-400 deaths doesn't qualify as "a whole bunch" in Obama's thinking.  Is that the lamest threat ever issued by a Commander-in-Chief?  If we intervene now, and don't overthrow Assad, there will be pressure to do so.  But if we succeed, we will be faced with a different menace that has taken over the chemical weapons cache.  At least Assad only gassed Syrians, al-Qaeda may not be so restrained.

We probably have to do something to hurt Assad, but which allows him to continue in power.  Better yet, let the Saudis broker a deal.  They hate both sides, but don't want problems spilling over into other areas. We might need the Israeli's help too.  Bad timing to have been pissing off your few friends in the region, eh?

Long term, we need to drive down the price of oil so these nut-jobs don't have the cash to buy so much weaponry, chemical and otherwise.

Morton's Fork, Egypt, Syria and False Dilemmas

I have read of the foreign policy choices in Egypt compared to Hobson's Choice, which is to say there is no choice at all.  However, it seems more like Morton's Fork, in which one is confronted with two equally bad options, where Hobson's choice is a "take it or leave it" situation. In the case of Egypt, the military has imposed dictatorship in the name of defending the constitution and is in the process of implementing a bloody crackdown against the Islamists.  For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood, through the office of President Mohamed Morsi, was on its way to imposing an Islamist theocracy in violation of the promise of freedom and the constitution that accompanied the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.  The administration was accused in turn of supporting the Muslim brotherhood and the military, by means of foreign aid.  My personal belief is that the wheels at State turn too slowly for us to respond in any way that is aligned with the foreign policy desires of the President.

Similarly, in Syria, Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against the opposition. This opposition appears to be an Islamist coalition and sometime front for Al-Qaeda.  A key quote from the NYT: "Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of."  Assad is a brutal dictator in the mold of his father, but the opposition is no friend of democracy either.  The U.S. has vacillated in support of the opposition, and with good reason, there are no obviously good options.

In the case of Egypt, I believe we are faced with a false dilemma.  There is more complexity to the Egyptian political scene than merely Islamist vs military.  There is a large democratic leaning minority.  Right now, the administration is taking a PR beating from that group for our previous support of the Muslim Brotherhood in the name of supporting democracy.  But we don't have to support a democratically elected government that doesn't itself support democracy.  Obama erred in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi.  But we should be clear that we expect fresh elections from the military.  It will be a long time before we have real influence in Egypt, but the only way to achieve that end is to consistently support freedom.

In Syria, our policy is accidentally correct.  We have vacillated in our support of the rebels just enough so that they have not been defeated.  A jihadist victory in Syria, including control of likely caches of chemical weapons, would be a disaster for the west and Israel.  However, Assad's freedom of action is being contained by the civil war.  We can't forget that Bashar Assad and his predecessor/father have made mischief in the Middle East for decades, often in cooperation with Iran and Hezbollah.  If the U.S. were to articulate its policy, it would be to contain Assad and prevent him from using chemical weapons to seek revenge on the rebels.  Until such time as the Syrians come to their senses, this is the best that can be accomplished.  At the end of the day, I find it hard to find great fault in Obama's policy.  There is little to be done in the short term, and we seem to be stumbling towards something resembling the least bad options.

What You Should Be Reading.

• Dean has been keeping us up to speed on the continued obstructionism against the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare being perpetuated by. . . the Obama administration.  This of course is the fault of the Republicans.  The WSJ covers some of the same ground, with less humor, but more depth.  KT proposes the logical solution to implementation issues with the ACA; Hayek would agree with the connection made.
• Why do we need big coal or other fossil fuels?  The answer to that question is probably in your pocket. (H/T Professor Perry.)