JOURNAL: The Window of Controlled Chaos Slams Shut

Back in 2004, I wrote a brief on how the US, unable to contain the growth of Iraq's open source insurgency, was planning to use loyalist paramilitaries (the Latin American solution) to contain it (this is analysis I repeated a year later in the New York Times):

The establishment of... loyalist paramilitaries in Iraq would quickly put the insurgency on the defensive. Over the next year, their activities will likely result in a level of "controlled chaos" sufficient to allow the US to withdraw its forces. Additionally, these militias could operate while the government maintains a fig leaf of democracy.

This is exactly what happened. However, I ended the brief with this caveat on the consequences of this choice:

• Institutionalized corruption. These militias would likely involve themselves in illegal activities. A government abetted franchise for their counter-insurgency activities would require inaction in regards to their criminal actions.
• Human rights abuses. These militias will operate within the same rule set used by the guerrillas they are fighting. This means assassinations, hostage taking, etc.
• Long term instability. While the militias will be able to put a lid on the growth of the insurgency, they will likely be unable to eradicate it. This means that Iraq will be stable enough for the US to leave but will suffer long-term instability.

The Window Slams Shut

Unfortunately, the US didn't take advantage of the opportunity to withdraw during 2005. Decision makers mistook the controlled chaos enabled by the use of militias for progress towards their maximal goals in the country. That illusion officially ended with the attack on the Samara shrine (a form of social system disruption, likely a coup de grace by Zarqawi). After that event, the fragile structure of the system flew out of control as Shiite militias began to ethnically cleanse Sunnis.

The US is now caught between the militias and the guerrillas and the situation will deteriorate quickly.

Here's a likely scenario for how this will play out: deeper entrenchment within US bases (to limit casualties) and pledges of neutrality (Rumsfeld) will prove hollow. Ongoing ethnic slaughter will force US intervention to curtail the militias. Inevitably, this will increase tensions with the militias and quickly spin out of control. Military and police units sent to confront the militias will melt down (again), due to conflicting loyalties. Several large battles with militias will drive up US casualties sharply. Supply lines to US bases from Kuwait will be cut. Protesters will march on US bases to demand a withdrawal. Oil production via the south will be cut (again), bringing Iraqi oil exports to a halt. Meanwhile, the government will continue its ineffectual debate within the green zone, as irrelevant to the reality on the ground in the country as ever. Unable to function in the mounting chaos and facing a collapse in public support for the war, the US military will be forced to withdraw in haste. It will be ugly.

UPDATE: After I wrote this, there was news that the US intervened by attacking a gathering point for Shiite militias in Baghdad. An Imam was killed along with 16 others. There was also a raid on an Interior Ministry prison (Badr). The scenario begins...

Comments

[Vet]

As America is building a "super-bunker" embassy in Baghdad with 15-foot-thick concrete walls, I think America is planning to stay there, dug in like an Alabama tick, until opponent(s) develop a tactical nuclear device capability to dislodge them and half the city.

By comparison, Cheyenne Mountain's nuclear blast doors are 2.5-foot-thick steel!

[daCascadian]

I think you go wrong when you think compromising their physical logistics tail will force the U.S. military to leave

The rest of your analysis seems very solid

"No better friend, no worse enemy" - 1st Marine Division in Iraq

[John Robb]

I think that is going to play a larger part. But you are right, it needs more meat. I'm going to spend some time working on the scenario and will post an expanded version.

[iang]

"super-bunker" embassy in Baghdad with 15-foot-thick concrete walls ???

I thought castles died out with the invention of the cannon and the sapper .. but forgive me for being out of date :)

[Cardenio]

We're not leaving. We've found a way to not go broke doing this and can keep it up for a long time. I maintain, as I have from day one of this, that formenting a civil war and stage managing was and is ' the plan '. If we have to fight in Saudi Arabia, we'll do it from Iraq now. Maybe Iran too ? That's the question on my mind now.

[Valdis]

John, you are a mad genius ;-) ...and you predict the future too!
That's why we hang out here.

BTW, here is a good clip that supports how bad things really are, and how stupid this attack on the media is...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/26.html#a7669

[Alex Epstein]

You're right about the militias, I think, but it's unlikely any militia's going to want to take on the Marines head-to-head, ever. They're just too well trained, armed and armored. They've already learned how expensive it is to tangle with US forces.

However, the militias can render the Marines irrelevant, by proving that they can do anything they want to their fellow Iraqis, and the Marines can't stop it. If the Marines withdraw, it will be for political not military reasons ... which is the classic point of a guerrilla war.

[Bowen]

The US will not leave Iraq as long as Dubya is president. He could not have been clearer on that point. We can but speculate on the reasons, but I think they are as follows:

(1) Dubya's personality. For Dubya to withdraw would be a gigantic admission that his critics were right and that he was wrong. He finds admission of any error almost intolerable (there was a lovely description by Tom Englehard describing the speech in which Dubya said that "...to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility" which characterized his facial expression at that point as looking like a man who had just swallowed a grasshopper and was feeling the legs going down). Dubya can't pull out. He would see doing so as admitting total failure. It would be an unbearable humiliation. He would rather be forced from office than do it.

(2) Fear that the Middle East would collapse into chaos. This is a real enough worry: the US has climbed on the tiger and now is too petrified with fear to get off.

(3) Hope that somehow, someway, it will all work out. I think the groupthink in the Whitehouse is completely committed to this idea, because it is so personally tempting: instead of a humiliating withdrawal, they get to wear crowns of glory at the triumphal conclusion, a glory made greater, not less, by the bleakness of the prospects for success as the years rolled by.

(4) Greed. There's a trillion dollars of oil under the Iraqi desert and there's a US army sitting right on top of it. It is more than the powers-that-be can bear to give it up and just walk away.

[jon]

If we are forced out, because of a civil war or the like, the road out will be very difficult. I think every nationalist, jihadi, and other people that want to gain some sort of legitimacy in Iraq will make some sort of attack against us. It won't be like the battles we had with Sadr's militia, or the foreign fighters in Fallujah. It will be many, many IED's, and many quick pulse like attacks by fighters with small caliber weapons.
I also think that both Sunni and Shia will get involved in the fighting.

[daCascadian]

I think I (somewhat) agree with Cardenio

Iraq will be our Forward Base in the Middle East and things will continue to be "unstable" for some time, if for no other reason than to justify our massive presence there

The U.S. military will probably do little, if anything, to actually stop the blood letting twixt Sunni & Shia since the strategic view is, I think, "let them fight it out & we`ll deal with those left standing" (very Straussian as I understand him)

Reminds me of that period prior to the Battle of Sekigahara in pre-Tokugawa Ieyasu Japan or possibly (I`m reaching) the Warring States period in Chi`na

A non-Vietnam Vietnam possibly (different mistakes for different reasons possibly with the same result)

I think there are still lots of possible future states available to this non-linear loosely coupled chaotic system, many of them positive for the crew of Spaceship Earth

Stubborness will not be an asset going forward

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence

[daCascadian]

Cardenio >"...Maybe Iran too ?..."

Fairly simple matter actually (so to speak)

"All" that has to happen is for the province of Khuzestan to be taken where a majority of their oil revenue comes from; it is right next to sourthern Iraq

No need to occupy the entire country, just one province & then the (political) dominos take over

Not that I am advocating this, just thinking about tactical realities

"Proof depends on who you are. We're looking for a preponderance of evidence, and some people need more of a preponderance than other people." - John Kantner

[the fake fake al]

Maybe we could hand Iraq off to the French. Be fair play, don't you think?

Great analysis. Why haven't the unsurgents attacked supply lines already? And how does the Al Quada angle play into this?

[Billmon]

There is no precedent, I think, for an occupation army finding itself in the middle of communal mayhem on such a massive and uncontrollable scale -- unless maybe it was the British in mandatory Palestine, which isn't exactly a hopeful thought. Usually the locals wait until AFTER the foreign devils have been expelled to tear each other to pieces.

Under the circumstances, it seems to me the only sane thing for the Army to do is to pull back to its main bases, hunker down, and hope the fighting eventually burns itself out -- and that meanwhile neither side fucks too badly with the supply lines to Kuwait.

But the last thing I would do -- and I mean the LAST thing -- is go looking for trouble with the Shia militias. Which is why I tend to think Sunday's firefight (or massacre, or whatever it was) was a huge but unintentional screwup. It looks to me like somebody -- probably Sunni partisans in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense -- really played the Americans for a bunch of suckers.

Either way, though, it's a pretty good illustration of the truth of John's point that we've missed the window for an orderly withdrawal. Bush didn't want to leave, and now he can't leave -- not without the classic helicopters-on-the-roof shots.

[Jimmy Wu]

Sunday's firefight appears to be against Sadr's Mahdi Army. He has always been for an activist Islam rather than Sistani's quietist approach. Sadr has always worked actively to defeat the American occupation.

So Sadr picking a fight with the Americans is inevitable. The good thing, relatively speaking, is that Sadr represents only a small faction in the UIA. Sadr is in direct contention with SCIRI for leadership of UIA, which means that we will have help in crushing the Sadr rebellion.

And Kurds still believe that their interests line up with America's, which means that the Iraqi Army, which has a lot of Kurds, is not likely to melt away in the coming fight.

[floopmeister]

And Kurds still believe that their interests line up with America's, which means that the Iraqi Army, which has a lot of Kurds, is not likely to melt away in the coming fight.

Yeah, but will they melt away in the face of the Turkish army?

The Turks are not an army to be dismissed lightly - and they will not sit by while the Kurds of northern Iraq claim some sort of independence out of the shambles.

They will inevitably intervene. This is the true nightmare, in my mind.

[Stimey Long]

Jimmy Wu: Sadr is in direct contention with SCIRI for leadership of UIA, which means that we will have help in crushing the Sadr rebellion.

That statement is wrong on so many levels. Just to take one: do you really think that SCIRI would retain any public credibility if they took up arms against Sadr, who's parliamentary block is arguably the most powerful in the UIA?

[Duncan Kinder]

A fundamental problem for the United States is that - if John is even half right - nobody in his right mind would want to enlist / re-enlist.

That would require the Unites States to withdraw, to adopt a draft, to endure a military comprised of individuals who are not in their right minds, or some combination of the above.

[Marcello]

"if John is even half right - nobody in his right mind would want to enlist / re-enlist."

Well,it is not like many people have a lot of options these days.

[Jimmy Wu]

Floopmeister:
Mr. Robb's scenario does not deal with the Turks. WRT Turk vs Kurd, we can only wait and see.

Mr. Long:
"Help" can come in many forms. Since we excel in kinetic skills, we don't really need SCIRI's help in that regard.

If you agree that SCIRI & Sadr are struggling for leadership of UIA, then we can agree that Sadr being gone is in the political interests of SCIRI.

[Robert]

When Osama bin Laden rides a stallion into Mecca the real genius behind our actions will be apparent. Bush has acted out Osama's grandest dreams.

[steve laudig]

"Unfortunately, the US didn't .... Decision makers mistook the controlled chaos enabled by the use of militias for progress towards their maximal goals in the country...." A color blind person mistakes yellow for grey, and green for grey because they can't not. The color blind don't have "full spectrum" perception or I suppose that, in some instances, persons who've never seen the color "yellow" or "green" haven't are incapable of categorizing "yellow" or "green" as a color other than "grey." Their cognition has been trained to recognize these colors and characterize, group them as forms of grey. In a way, these handicapped individuals [they aren't "differently abled"] can't not see anything other than grey. They are inescapably programmed to only see grey. They adhere to the "Church of Grey." It's deterministic I'll grant. I wonder if it's an accurate description of the faith-based current U.S. administration? It's learning disabled.

[steve laudig]

this is the visual:

http://www.mishalov.com/Vietnam_finalescape.html

[daCascadian]

Robert >"...Bush has acted out Osama's grandest dreams."

Ah yes, the one about The Perfect Caliphate coming into being

Most Nostradamians would probably agree with you (and probably lots of others as well)

*The Anti Christ* blather & bloviation

The future is a product of today`s actions, not the next page in some demented script hacked up to satisfy some political delusion

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." - Niccoló Machiavelli

[Beavis]

Interesting blog, though it misses one of my pet ideas. Cardenio says "We've found a way to not go broke doing this and can keep it up for a long time." I do not believe this is true. If there is one thing that Osama learned when we were funding him in Afganistan, it's that if you hunker down long enough, the military-industrial complex of the super power that you are fighting will drain that super power dry. Afganistan had more to do with collapse of the Soviet Union than Reagan. Take a look at the deficit and tell me "We've found a way to not go broke doing this and can keep it up for a long time."
Another comment, from Billmon, "Under the circumstances, it seems to me the only sane thing for the Army to do is to pull back to its main bases, hunker down, and hope the fighting eventually burns itself out -- and that meanwhile neither side fucks too badly with the supply lines to Kuwait." Put's us into the draining the country dry scenario too. Unless our troops are willing to live out that "Apocalyse Now" quote "A rice ball and a little rat meat - that's great R&R", we will be broke in five to ten years. (If we aren't already, but we just don't know it yet.)

[John Robb]

Do you mean this:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/11/journal_bin_lad.html