|
Last week heavy fighting broke out in Basra, the main city of southern Iraq. The instigator was not some shadowy rebel or terrorist organization, but the Iraqi government: for reasons unclear Mr. Nouri al Maliki, the Prime Minister, had decided to challenge Muqtada al Sadr, another Iraqi leader, whose militia controls the town. The Iraqi army was sent in, and Mr. Maliki moved south to personally supervise the operation. After several days of intense fighting the government offensive petered out. Not only did the Sadrites put up stiff and effective resistance in Basra, but they widened the conflict to other cities. US reinforcements had to be called in while the Green Zone (the heavily fortified government/US enclave in Baghdad) took accurate and deadly mortar fire. Over the week-end Mr. Sadr offered a cease-fire, which was quickly and gladly accepted. The Sadrites had won. The episode highlights a major problem of US policy in both Afghanistan and Iraq, namely the willful disregard of, and hostile attitude towards, communal armies or militias. These are usually categorized as "rogue" (if not criminal) elements to be neutralized and eliminated as soon as possible. This attitude (and the lack of understanding of what "militias" really are) is one of the main causes of the lack of progress in either security or politics. This issue arises from the fact that the borders of many states in the Middle East are not borders between real nations - in the sense as France or the US are nations. Most of these states are artificial creations left behind by disintegrating empires (Ottoman, British, Russian or French) and include diverse ethnic communities, whose only experience of government has been that of oppression by a foreign power, by a dictator, or by another ethnic community. When such oppression is removed, the first reflex of such ethnic groups is to create an armed force to police their territory and defend themselves from attack or occupation. These forces, which we call "militias" generally turn out to be well organized, competent, and trusted by the local population. Whenever the US recognized these forces as legitimate and cooperated with them, the results have been excellent. The Kurdish militias of northern Iraq (created under US protection) have made that territory the safest and most stable in the country. In Afghanistan the swift US victory was in great part due to the use of the ethnic militias of the Northern Alliance. More recently, the current US commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, has recognized the usefulness of Sunni militias in fighting Al Qaeda terrorists, and is providing them with both funds and weapons, with encouraging results so far. Yet our primary policy (at least under the current administration) has been to ignore (or fight) the militias while attempting to create, at great effort and expense, a "national" army and police. There are two major problems with such a concept. First, in areas where the concept of "nation" is still an abstract idea (which means about 90% in both Iraq and Afghanistan) the "national" army will be seen as an occupying force rather than "our soldiers". The second is that control of the "national" forces (army and police) will become an object of contention, with such forces used for the benefit of the faction that controls them rather than that of the state as a whole. This is exactly what happened in Basra: the army was sent in to participate in a factional fight, not to answer a threat to the state as a whole. A far more effective policy lies in the upgrading of local militias to the level, first, of a regular territorial force and later of a standardized national guard. This allows to legalize and to build up the legitimate components of the militia while identifying and eliminating the dubious ones. Leaving the status of the militias uncertain (as in the current policy) only creates a twilight zone within which real service to the local community will blend with factionalism, the search for personal profit, organized racketeering, crime and rogue acts of violence by splinter groups. The creation of militias is a natural response of local communities to weakness, corruption and inefficiency in the higher levels of government. They should be utilized rather than banned, as shown by America's own history. It was the Massachusetts militia which, at Concord, fired the first shots of the Revolutionary war. While it took the Continental Army to finally defeat the British, the state militias played an important role in providing trained soldiers, assuring local security and harassing the Redcoats and the Loyalists. The Second Amendment to the Constitution honors this contribution, by recognizing the importance of local militias in preventing and fighting tyranny. Those who today shape our policies in foreign conflicts would be well advised to remember it.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
