EXIT STRATEGY FOR IRAQ:
ARABIC-SPEAKING PEACE-KEEPERS

SYNOPSIS:

    We can now see that the main problem in Iraq is not terrorism
against any other parts of the world
but tribal violence among different groups of Muslims.
The presence of US troops only makes this situation worse.
One solution would be for law and order
to be restored and maintained
by several thousand Arabic-speaking peace-keepers from other countries.
All such police and soldiers must be perceived by everyone
as not favoring one group of Iraqis over another.
This would allow US troops to leave quietly.
And eventually Iraqi peace-keepers would replace
the Arabic-speaking peace-keepers from other Arab countries.

OUTLINE:

I. THE PRESENT SITUATION—MUTUAL GENOCIDE

II. MUTUAL GENOCIDE IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND GANGLAND USA

III. LAWLESS IRAQ

IV. AN ARABIC-SPEAKING PEACE-KEEPING FORCE

V. THE TIME-TABLE FOR TURNING OVER PEACE-KEEPING

VI. WORST-CASE SCENARIO—FULL-SCALE CIVIL WAR

I. THE PRESENT SITUATION—MUTUAL GENOCIDE

    Since 2003 Iraq has been occupied by US military personnel.
These troops are supposed to be keeping the peace in that country,
where we overthrew the dictatorial government.

    Iraq is torn by violence of one group of Muslims against another.
They seem to kill each other whenever they can get away with it.
And the current lawless situation allows lots of opportunities
for private armies and death-squads to kill members of other groups.
This kind of civil strife will continue for the foreseeable future.
Will a strong central government with an obedient military force
be able to control such tribal violence at some time in the future?

    Without getting into the details of these Muslim differences
and to prevent any suggestion of favoring one side or another,
I will call them simply Muslims A and Muslims B.
(There are also sub-factions of each major group,
but that does not matter for this analysis.)
Both sides have private armies or militias,
which are loyal primarily to their own ethnic or tribal group.
And even some of the military forces employed by the Iraqi government
are really more loyal to their own ethnic-religious group
than to the country of Iraq.

    Both Muslims A and Muslims B operate death squads,
which kill the other kind of Muslim
whenever good opportunities for killing present themselves.
This happens often, since the citizens of Iraq
are also divided into Muslims A and Muslims B.
Muslims A think twice before calling the police
when 'their own' death squad is killing hated Muslims B.

    (We should remind ourselves, however,
that most everyday Muslims are peaceful, not violent.
The minority of violent Muslims get into the news
because they are having such a large impact on the current situation.
If peaceful Muslims ever get the upper hand,
then the tribal violence might end.
See more thoughts along this line in another cyber-sermon:
"Peaceful Muslims & Violent Muslims".)

    Peace will be restored when there is a police force or a military order
that is trusted by all Iraqis to enforce the laws without regard to ethnic identity.
As long as Iraqis continue to think of certain armed groups
as either "our army" or "their army",
there will be no peace in Iraq.

II. MUTUAL GENOCIDE IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND GANGLAND USA

    Perhaps we can understand the tribal violence in Iraq
if we compare it to other situations
in which people kill each other because of their group identification.

    Until recently in Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics
had rival para-military forces whose main function
was to kill members of the "opposite religion".
Of course, they thought of this function as "defending" their own tribe.

    Oddly, these two opposed gangs were of the same race
and had the same religion—Christianity.
But the slight differences between these ethnic groups
was enough for them to kill one another when law-and-order broke down.

    Even in the United States of America,
where we pride ourselves on being very civilized,
we see continuing gang-warfare in our ghettos.
Members of rival gangs kill one another as the opportunities present themselves
simply because the 'enemies' are members of a different gang,
sometimes easily identified because they wear different colored clothes.
Their identities as gang members means
that they must hate members of the rival gangs.
How close is this to the current situation in Iraq?
Are we really seeing mutual genocide between different gangs
of young men who think of themselves as 'Muslims'?

    In both of these examples, the 'enemies' are quite similar to one another:
They speak the same language.
They live in the same neighborhoods (at least to some degree).
They belong to the same racial groups.
They have the same basic religions.

    When we see Muslims A and Muslims B killing one another in Iraq,
we might be able to understand such mutual genocide
by looking at Northern Ireland and gang violence in the USA.

    Good policing seems to be the best way
to prevent mutual genocide in civilized nations.
When law-and-order breaks down,
the rival tribes take those opportunities to resume killing one another.

    Sometimes mutual genocide is prevented by a strong government
that is not democratic and does not have the consent of the governed.
Military dictators have also been able to maintain law-and-order.
Marshall Tito ruled the former Yugoslavia with an iron hand.
And he kept the Croats and Serbs from killing each other for the most part.
When his dictatorship ended, the rival tribes were free once again
to kill member of the other ethnic group.
And the military forces also took part
because they were identified with one tribal group.

    Likewise Saddam Hussein kept Muslims A and Muslims B
away from mutual genocide while he was still in power.
In both cases of military dictatorship,
the dictator was known to belong to a specific tribe.
But that did not matter.
The dictator was able to maintain law-and-order,
even when that included genocide
committed against certain small tribes of people.
(In November 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty
of ordering the deaths of hundreds of Kurds.)

III. LAWLESS IRAQ

    With the violent overthrow of Saddam Hussein
by the armed forces of the United States,
Iraq has descended into tribal violence.

    As the armed militias 'defending' either Muslims A or Muslims B
become more powerful and better organized,
there is danger that they will begin to fight each other
in order to gain the upper hand in governing Iraq.
This would mean a better-organized civil war.
And the winning side will have the oil revenue and government jobs
to give to their own people
while the other losing side in the civil war
will get less of the benefits the government can hand out.

    The US military forces are supposed to help Iraq
to move beyond this violence of Muslim against Muslim.
But the mere presence of foreign occupiers only adds to the problems.
In my view, our presence is not the solution to Iraqi problems.
On the contrary, I think our military presence mostly adds to the problems.
Put another way, having US military forces in Iraq
is more a burden than a benefit to Iraq.
We do more harm than good.

    The people of Iraq can ask about the last eight years:
Was it worth the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
to change the government we had under Saddam Hussein
to the government we have now?
Will all this killing eventually be justified
by some new form of government that will emerge in the future?

    Americans ask similar questions:  
Whenever another atrocity committed by US troops comes to light,
whenever another group of prisoners is abused,
whenever we learn of more people being killed,
we ask ourselves when would be the best time to withdraw.

    No matter what religious factions Iraqis belong to,
they can be united in the hatred of the American occupiers.
Our military forces do not speak Arabic for the most part.
So law-enforcement is very difficult.

    As a nation we seem to have a consensus
that we should not merely "cut and run"
—pull our military forces out and allow Iraq to handle its own internal problems.
We worry that full-scale civil war would follow.


IV. AN ARABIC-SPEAKING PEACE-KEEPING FORCE

    One workable alternative would be to have the US troops
replaced by professional soldiers from other Arab countries.
These forces would already be trained and ready to take up
the duties now performed imperfectly by US military forces.
The greatest advantage of being from other Arab countries
would be that they can speak the language that most Iraqis use every day.
There would be fewer mistakes by the peace-keepers
due to lack of understanding of what the Iraqis are doing and saying.
The Arabic-speaking peace-keepers would not be seen as foreign oppressors.
They would operate under the direction of the Iraqi government.

    Iraq is a very rich nation in terms of oil resources.
It is so rich that there are no taxes on the people.
Oil production is owned by the government.
And that produces enough money
to pay hundreds of thousands of peace-keeping troops.
It might take some time to get the oil production back to pre-war levels.
But the sooner this revenue stream is restored,
the sooner the government of Iraq can pay for peace-keeping efforts.
Until the oil is flowing again at pre-war levels,
the government of Iraq can borrow money by issuing bonds,
which will be redeemed when the oil-revenues return to normal.

    Of course, Iraq will also be employing many Iraqis in its military forces as well.
But one problem in the current system
is that some militias are understood to favor one kind of Muslim over another.
So people only trust the military forces that are identified with their own tribe.
If Iraq is going to remain one country,
then eventually the military forces must be perceived
to enforce law-and-order without regard to group identity.

    When private armies try to maintain law-and-order,
they are loyal first to their own families and tribal groups.
They cannot be trusted to arrest or kill
members of their own families or tribal groups
even when such members have clearly broken the law.
In Iraq, tribalism seems to be stronger than nationalism.
And no matter who pays the police,
they are emotionally committed primarily to their own groups.
How long will it take before non-tribal police will patrol Baghdad?

    The foreign Arabic-speaking peace-keepers should be so organized
so that no one knows what kind of Muslims they are
(if they belong to one sect of Islam or another
or if they have no religious-ethnic identification at all).
This should make them completely neutral in the tribal strife now tearing Iraq.
Iraqis will no longer want to kill the peace-keepers
because the foreign occupiers are perceived to be oppressing the people.
Reasonable people of every group will see that it is in their best interest
to support the police because the peace-keepers will be protecting all Iraqis
from all forms of violence that might be visited upon them
—from whatever source.

    As said before, every effort must be made
to prevent anyone from thinking of the peace-keepers
as favoring one tribal group of Iraqis over another.
The Arabic-speaking peace-keepers must be completely above Iraqi tribal politics.

    In order for the new peace-keepers to be perceived as completely neutral,
it might be necessary to hire them individually
rather than hiring whole platoons of soldiers from other Arab countries.
Or each group of peace-keepers could be so well-balanced
among various Muslim identities
that Iraqis would not be tempted to say that they favor one group over another.

    The Arabic-speaking peace-keeping forces would disarm the tribal militias.
This would have to take place gradually,
after the population agrees that private armies are no longer needed
because law-and-order is being maintained by the Arabic-speaking peace-keepers,
who are not identified with any faction
and who are paid and controlled by the government of Iraq.

    Right now all Iraqis can be very confident that the peace-keepers are infidels,
because the are all American (and some British).
So there is a continuous open-season on killing Americans.
All of Iraq is a free-fire zone:
Any Iraqi who has a gun, a grenade, or a bomb can kill Americas.
And the present police will do nothing about it.
This would be completely reversed if the peace-keepers
were fellow Arabic-speaking Muslims
who have no agenda except to maintain law-and-order.

    Baghdad is a major area of conflict at present.
Killings are a regular part of their daily lives.
No civilized nation or city would tolerate such mutual genocide.
Nor should any city tolerate being occupied
by soldiers who do not speak the language.
I have lived in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota for over 50 years.
And we would never consider having police who speak only Arabic
patrolling our streets and attempting to enforce our laws.
Why should we expect the citizens of Baghdad
to tolerate English-speaking military forces
who have little or no understanding of Arabic
and who do not understand the tribal structure of Iraqi society?

   And it is not the duty of the US tax-payers to pay for law-enforcement in Iraq.
American taxpayers should not be expected to pay Baghdad police.
We have enough problems enforcing the laws in our own cities.
I want my tax dollars to pay Minneapolis police,
not US military forces patrolling Baghdad,
making themselves easy targets for militants of any side.

V. THE TIME-TABLE FOR TURNING OVER PEACE-KEEPING

    Instead of declaring a particular date
on which US troops would be completely gone from Iraq,
we should insist that the Iraq government implement plans immediately
to get as many such Arabic-speaking peace-keepers on the ground as possible.
There is no need for delaying the beginning of this turn-over by even one month.
It will begin with one small group of Arabic-speaking peace-keepers,
who will be very high-profile in the country because they are the first.
And if they perform well—to everyone's satisfaction—
then there will be less resistance to additional troops from Arab countries
coming to take over the peace-keeping operations
now performed so imperfectly by the US troops.

    As peace is restored by means of these Arabic-speaking peace-keepers,
then the US forces can leave without much fanfare.
The total number of peace-keepers will probably have to be over 100,000
for the foreseeable future.
Saddam Hussein needed 400,000 troops to maintain order.
The number of foreign Arabic-speaking peace-keepers
might have to be even that high because law-and-order has broken down.
But if the oil-revenues could support 400,000 troops before,
the same government money can employ 400,000 Arabic-speaking peace-keepers.
These professional soldiers will have no personal or emotional stake
in the tribal warfare among the various groups in Iraq.

    These transitions can take place as quickly as the replacement peace-keepers
can begin to patrol the streets of Baghdad.
As law and order is actually established,
everyone who is now fearful of being killed in tribal violence
will notice that it is safe to resume their ordinary lives once again.

    Likewise, the peace-keepers from other Arab countries can withdraw
as soon as Iraqi police have actually taken over the role of patrolling the streets
and keeping the death squads from killing people belonging to other tribes.
Once the tribal violence has ended,
then Iraq can return to the more normal situation
in which its own police will be able to maintain law-and-order.
The number of Arabic-speaking peace-keepers employed by Iraq
can be slowly reduced once everyone agrees
that Muslims A and Muslims B have stopped killing each other.

    And if tribal genocide ends,
perhaps with the help of Arabic-speaking peace-keepers,
then there might be some hope of Iraq creating a stable government.

VI. WORST-CASE SCENARIO—FULL-SCALE CIVIL WAR

    If the government of Iraq is not able to govern the country,
then it will be overthrown by militants of one faction or another.
And the country will return to military dictatorship.
There is probably nothing we can do (or should do) to prevent this.
We know nothing about governing Iraq.
And we never should have tired in the first place.

    Tribal loyalties might prove to be too strong to keep Iraq as one united country.
If the people are committed first to their own tribal group,
then whichever group is strongest will eventually rule the country.

    A civil war of a few years duration might ensue.
And the foreign Arabic-speaking peace-keepers will probably withdraw
if there is no 'law-and-order' to preserve.
Iraq will have chaos for a few years.
But eventually some form of government will emerge.
In my opinion, it is not the role of the US government
to attempt to impose democracy on other countries.

    Maybe Iraq will be divided (at least temporarily) between the warring factions.
(We might remember that even the United States was divided during the Civil War.
Thus even regional loyalties can sometimes outweigh national identity.)

    Civil war in Iraq might finally be resolved by establishing three states
on the land that was once called Iraq.
This will result in considerable internal migration,
as people move to the new smaller states
established by their own ethnic groups.
(Some reports suggest that half a million Iraqis
have already re-located themselves to safer areas.)
(November 2007 update: Now 2.5 million Iraqis have moved within Iraq
and a similar number have left the country.)
But it is better for even millions of people to be displaced
from their homes and to move to safe places among their own tribes
than for the same millions of people to be killed in a civil war
to determine which tribe will rule all of Iraq.

    I regret the loss of life whenever it happens—to whatever persons.
My view at the beginning of the war is the same as it is now:
The US government should never have overthrown Saddam Hussein.
If we had done nothing in 2003,
thousands of people who are now dead would still be alive.
And thousands of more people who are maimed for life
would still be whole-bodied.
And it would be the responsibility of the Iraqi people
to change their form of government if they really want to.

    And even now—after the disastrous intervention by the United States—
it will still be the responsibility of the Iraqi people
to establish a government
—or three different governments for smaller states—
that they can live with.

drafted July 8, 2006; revised 8-3-2006; 10-20-2006; 11-8-2006; 11-16-2007; 6-18-2011

AUTHOR: 

    James Park is an independent existential philosopher,
living and writing in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Much more will be learned about him from his website:
An Existential Philosopher's Museum.

SEE RELATED CYBER-SERMONS:

How a World Peace Force Would Handle Situations Like Iraq
Better than the United States as Policeman.

Peaceful Muslims & Violent Muslims.

Deprogramming Former Members of Al-Qaeda.

Holy War Against Terrorism.

Policing Mutual Genocide: Not a War on Terrorism, Not a Civil War.

Lessons from Iraq.

Go to the opening page for Heart, Mind, & Spirit
—an electronic magazine for UUs on campus.

Go to the index page for the World Wide Cyber Community .

Go to other cyber-sermons by James Park,
organized into 10 subject-areas.

Go to the opening page for Free Cyber-Sermons .

Return to the UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM page.

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