Centerfield

Great post, Jon! A lot of doom an gloom predictions are happening without much to back them up.

Last night Charlie Rose interviewed the Emir of Qatar. They covered a lot of ground. But, one of the questions Charlie asked was about the insurgency in Iraq. The Emir emphatically stated that the insurgency is getting stronger and has been for a while, with no signs of abating.

Now... that's not the same thing as saying that Iraq is inevitably headed for a civil war per se. But, the Emir made it pretty clear that from his vantage point a bit further south in the Gulf that there is definitely cause for concern.

I dare say that his perspective is a wee bit closer than our's is half a world away.

BTW, the Emir also stated categorically that he wants to see democracies spread thru the entire region. Qatar is, of course, easily the most progressive, democratic nation in the Middle East, despite the fact that it is dominated by the Whabbi sect just like Saudi Arabia is. The Emir himself is a Whabbi.

When they say "civil war" in Iraq, I don't think anyone means giant set-piece battles like our own Civil War (or, as we southerners sometimes call it, the War of Northern Aggression). Instead, it'll tend towards lower-level violence and constant insecurity as various factions struggle for control.

Put yourself in an Iraqi's position. Most people you know want a nice, stable democracy like Germany. But there are lots and lots of people who want to seize power or impose theocracy or sow chaos or kill Americans or enrich themselves or promote their clan or grab land or whatever, and basically don't want a nice stable democracy like Germany. And if the only way to stop these people is to form your own militia and start killing the enemies...well that looks like a civil war.

But what do I know? I figured that after we toppled Saddam, the bad guys would be rational enough to keep quiet for a few months and just wait for the Americans to leave. Silly me.

Well, it's possible that the Emir is an honest broker with better information and perspective than us, and that he is indeed on our side in wanting more democracy. It's also possible that he isn't. How can we be reasonably sure that he isn't trying to help drive the perception that the insurgency is growing stronger, especially given that he is wahabbi?

Most sensible people expected that the run up to the vote on the constitution would coincide with the most ramped up efforts to date to use violence to de-stabilize the effort to democratize.

I'm more concerned with the nature of popular support for the insurgency than death toll figures. Tthe latter certainly can not be dismissed. But i suspect that at the currrent time there's a still a majority of Iraqis that want this democracy, and that knows that the insurgency is primarily driven by the most radical sunnis,and that these sunnis will make things much worse for kurds and shi'ites if they win. The question is, will the vast majority of sunnis follow and support the insurgency, or will they chose to participate in return for a piece of the pie that keeps getting baked despite the violence.

In the recent elections, most Sunnis eschewed participation, and some later expressed their regret at following the recommendations of their leaders to opt out. What level of sunni participation in the ratification vote is enough to signal a buy in by Sunnis to the offical process, such as it is? 30% ? 50% ? 70% ?

When the constitution gets ratified despite substantial sunni opposition (it may not pass, but I'm guessing it will), how will sunnis react then? In forecasting how the post-ratification sunni response unfolds, let's consider that after the ratification, the next big attention grabber is bound to be Saddam's trial. Seems mto me that the way to keep regular sunnis buying in is to keep having big issues come up that regular people will want to have a say in..

..and the other part of figuring is, how much support can the insurgency get? Don't they have to convince people that they can rise above the level of being a chronic (albeit fatal) thorn. Let's not overlook the possibility that insurgent acts are breeding resentment against them in some quarters.

I don't think the idea of people wanting democracy in the abstract and having a civil war (or more likely civil strife) are mutually incompatible. The Iraqis likely do want democracy--but on whose terms? If the Sunnis think that the democracy being created excludes them and leaves them subject to Shiia domination, they may reject that system whether or not they want democracy. Democracy is just a word--it sounds good, but until it is operationalized it means nothing.

Moreover, we look at democracy as an end in itself, ie, that the process of voting, etc. is important regardless of the particular outcomes. But that's at least in part a product of living in an economically advanced country where constitutionalism is well established and that, regardless of how heated the debate gets, we all know that we can live with the result. In a country like Iraq, people may be looking at democracy, not as a process, but as a way of improving their lives. If it doesn't do that or if it looks like the process will harm them, they likely won't support it. I'm not saying this is necessarily so, but I think we should recognize that the abstract desire for democracy does not preclude an unwillingness to accept the results.

It's also not mutually exclusive for people to hate the insurgents but blame the Americans for it, as seems to be the case in some areas. Again, it's the difference between dealing with things in the abstract and dealing with reality on the ground.

I think Marc is right about the Iraqi people looking at democracy as a means of improving their life rather than as philosophical premise for good governance.

As for the Emir of Qatar... I think Qatar's record under this Emir speaks for itself. No Arab nation is even close to as liberal in terms of woman's rights, voting rights, universal education, universal health care, etc. And the Emir justly deserves most of the credit for it. He toppled his own father in a bloodless coup, citing rank corruption as his justification for seizing power. By all accounts Qatar is hyper-aggresive about stopping corruption, at least in relation to all of her neighbors. And while other Arab nations routinely siphon off much of their petro-dollars to pad the bank accounts of their leaders, Qatar reinvests it's petro-dollars into the country and improving the lot of it's citizens.

Interestingly enough... when asked by Charlie Rose what he thought about the idea of Americans setting a specific date for withdrawing from Iraq, the Emir, who speaks excellent English, emphatically argued that doing so would be strategically stupid. He also stated that it is his opinion that a big part of the problem in Iraq right now is that not enough nations are participating with troops... making it easier for the insurgents to demonize the occupation as a form of American imperialism.

A bit later in the interview the Emir argued that the UN should take over in Iraq and stay there until the Iraqi democracy is stable.

I don't trust anyone's ability to assess the mentality and sentiments of the Iraqi people right now, one way or the other. I'm hopeful. What you say about the appeal of Germany and Japan flourishing under democracy sounds reasonable to us, but do most Iraqi's really think that way? Who knows? For decades Iraq was a totalitarian society with highly controlled information. I don't think Saddam's education system and press held them up Germany and Japan as an inspiring model.

It only takes a minority of the populace to make a civil war spread.

I see Zarqawi has declared "all out war" on the Shiites. I doubt foreigners like him are hugely influential on the populace at large, but I then again I really don't know. Even without a sympathetic populace, you can see how he could get a conflagration spreading with more attrocities.

Susan, that's a great point: basically,we just don't know.

It's only a small minority of people who sit even semi-comfortably for more than a day or two in the face of an enduring uncertainty. It's human nature to find uncertainty excruciating, indeed unbearable. I think it makes most people much happier to pretend to know, which allows them to judge and make plans. People really don't like suspending judgement.

In the context of the Iraq war, I find it unavoidable to acknowledge the virtual omnipresence of the fact that I don't know how it's going to turn out. If you ask me, there are ample reasons for both pessimism and optimism. Overlaid on this is the fact that history teaches us that political outcomes seldom hinge only on our best-laid plans. Some entirely unforeseen incident could turn events irrevocably in one direction or the other. It could be an earthquake, a particularly tragic or heroic small scale event that takes on outsized symbolic significance as a last straw as it relates to recent surrounding trends, the emergence of some particularly gifted political leader, some popular fad that has a unifying effect in creating an emergent post-invasion culture...who knows?