عجفت الغور

Rayburn - Iraq After America

Tags: iraq, books

Forward

  • “American police action has largely been defined by hoping something turns up to end the conflict”

Chapter 1

  • Dawa was modeled after the muslim brotherhood
  • Largely driven underground by Saddam
  • Born out of young clerics from najaf in 1959-1960, elders adopted a mostly quietest stance
  • Born out of a desire to drive back communism’s appeal
  • Originally cross-sectarian
  • Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr wrote the treatises that became the core
    • Presented Hegel/Marx with Islam as a viable alternative to communism and capitalism
  • Musa Sadr (BIL and older cousin to Baqir) founded the amal movement in lebanon
  • 3 Sadr’s fostered people conversant in Marxism to promote Islam
  • Dawa armed uprising in 1977
  • Split into exiles in lebanon, iran, and the west

Chapter 2

  • nouri al-maliki
    • Not from a clerical family
    • largely middle tier functionary between 2003-2006
    • Captapulted into the scene by Khalizad
  • Maliki’s ascendence set against the backdrop of the al-Qaeda bombing in Samarra
  • Muqtada al-Sadr withdrew his ministers in 2007 following the troop surge
    • Maliki survived with a coalition of Shia and Kurdish parties
    • Mahidi and Barzani attempted to secure a no-confidence vote, but could not get the green light from Iran or the US
  • August 2007
    • Sadrist militias attached solders guarding the Imam Hussein Shrine in Kerbala
    • Maliki’s response garnered him immense popular support
  • Shia militias in 2007 broke out into civil war
    • Especially over control of basra
  • March 24, 2008 - Maliki begins the “Charge of the Knights” offensive in basra
  • April 5, 2008 - Sunni and Kurdish political parties throw their weight behind Maliki instead of the Muqtada al-Sadr’s party, political and military victory followed
  • May 20, 2008 - Sadrists capitualted to Iraq army’s occupation of Sadr city
  • Kut captured from Sadrists in March
  • Amarra captured in June
  • Ultimately broke the Sadrist control of the South

Chapter 3

  • sahwa (awakening) movement started in 2006 and spread in 2007
  • Maliki applied the same principals in 2008 to the shia community
    • Set roundtable for shia tribal leaders
  • Jan 2009 provincial elections
    • Stunning defeat for the 2005 political class
    • Foreshadowed the 2010 elections
  • Maliki negotiated the withdraw of US troops from cities in 2009, used it as a talking point
  • August 19, 2009 - al-Qaeda conducts a large bombing in finance and foreign ministries within the gz (green zone)
  • October 26, 2009 - al-Qaeda stages even larger attack in GZ, kills over 600 Iraqis
  • March 2010 - Intensive intra-Shia competition for votes leading up the elections
  • Maliki’s base was largely middle-class or lower middle class voters
  • Security situation of the GZ made other politicans depend on the Dawa for support
  • Security apperatus of the state was folded into the Dawa
    • 2011 - PM’s office sets up the “Office of Security and Information”
      • Similar to Presidental Diwan under Saddam
      • Also sets up the counterterrorism burea, giving Malki control of the special forces
  • Judge Medhat al-Mahmoud’s favorable rulings granted maliki significant power
  • Rival political leaders also did not oppose the centralization of the state

Chapter 4: The Shia Supremists

  • badr Corps and islamic supreme council of iraq (isci) returned the same time to Iraq
    • Largely did Iran’s bidding
      • Hunted down former pilots of the Iraqi Air Force, lead to general asylum decree in Kurdistan
  • SCIRI took over mosques in Baghdad
  • Interim PM Jafari inducted hundreds of Badr Security officiers into ministry of interior in 2005
  • Post 2005 Sunnis were largely driven out of the city
    • 2004-2005 large scale sectarian cleansing
  • Maliki used the health ministry and other governing bodies to be complicit in this
  • Feb 2006 - Oct 2007 - UN HCR estimates 1MM baghdadis became IDP’s

Chapter 5: The Sunni Chauvists

  • Saddam embraced Sunni points in early 1990’s to shore up support
  • Iraqi Islamic Party
    • Offshoot that disagreed with Saddam’s binding of Sunnism and the state
    • Later asked the Brotherhood to help for a resistance organization against Saddam in 1979-1980
    • Worked with occasional other politics groups, like the Dawa
  • Saddam developed a Salafi opposition to the brotherhood, binding the Baa’th and Salafism
  • Saddam’s plans laid the groundwork for an insurgency
    • Funding was also provided by Bashar al-Assad
  • 2005 elections
    • US wanted to capture Fallujah and Mosul before elections
    • Sunnis boycotted the elections
      • Major blunder, did an about face in Dec 2005, assuming Sunnis were majority of pop
        • Return to violence after they did not get their desired results
  • 3 senior sunni politicians wanted to break the gov from within:
    • Khalaf Ulayan
    • Mahmoud al-Mashadani
    • Adnan al-Dulaimi
  • Zarqawi caused a rift in the Sunni insurgency
    • Accelerated with the Samar bombing
  • IS produced a three-pronged backlash
    • Awakening
    • Rift b/tw other jihadi groups
    • growing population revolution against al-Qaeda in 2007
  • 2008 elections
    • Awakening movement grew into a political party in Anbar
    • Saleh al-Mutlaq & Tariq al-Hashimi gained mainstream following, both largely secular
    • Election of Sunni groups in 2009 caused softening of jihadist stances, like in Ninewa
  • Rend Rahim said pre-2003, Sunnis considered Shia’s “quaint” in religious practices

Chapter 6: The Kurdish Maximalists

  • “Build a land bridge to syria kurdistan”
    • This book leans very much towards primordialism
  • PUK & KDP
  • Turkomen communites within Kirkuk posed a problem
  • Kirkuk’s proven reserves = libya
    • 145 mm barrels
  • Saddam dramatically caused a demographics change in Kirkuk
  • Kurds seized Kirkuk in 2003 and established the forward “green line”
  • Article 140 in iraqi constitutionalism used 1957 census
  • Shiek Abdul Rham Munshid al-Assi - “It is an iraqi city”
    • pg 141
    • What does this tell us about state level nationalism?
  • Rejection of kurkds by Turkomen as well
    • Sunni-Shia rift in Turkomen towns
      • pg 142
  • Displaced kurds were allowed to vote in Kirkuk’s 2007 elections
  • PKK played its hand, Turkey’s response in 2007 caused an Iraqi political crisis
  • National level held issues with Kurkds and Arabs
    • Local level was somewhat functioning, city council bargin struck
  • Mosul’s diversity caused some problems with Sunnis and Kurds
  • “When power changed hands, moslawi’s would not accept the new order”
    • Again primordialist
  • Disbanding the army had major reprecussions on Mosul
  • Kurdish green line post 2003 aspirationally included places with Kurdish minority
  • Sinjar was an ethnic battleground
  • Assassination of Osama Kashmouks in 2004 caused Mosul to slip into insurgency
    • Jihadists used Sinjar and Tel Afar as staging ground
  • Shia Turkomens in Tel Afar sought protection
  • Remergence of al-Qaeda in 2007 in Ninew and mosul
  • 1 million christians in 2003 to 1/2 mil in 2010 in Iraq
    • Used as pawns b/w kurds and sunni politicians
  • Lawless, but groups largely bought into the Iraqi state
  • KDP ruled Mosul from 2003-2008, failed to bring it propserity like Irbil
  • Dawa and Maliki became referes in Sunni/Kurdish Dispute

Chapter 7: The Shia “resistance”

  • Sadrists ballooned into a “resistance” axis
  • Sadiq Sadr employed same methods as muslim brotherhood, attracted smart students to study religion under him
    • His movement outlasted him
  • Invasion was broadly not aware of the Sadrist movement in 2003
  • 3 groups fought for Najaf in 2003
    • Hakim and SCIRI
    • Sadrists
    • Clerical Establishment
      • Run by Abdul Majid al-Khoei
    • Jaysh akmahdi represented a mobilization of lower-class shias
  • Movement in 2004 lead to the spintering
  • Insurgents had issues with Muqtada’s leadership, driving them towards Qassem Solemani
  • SCIRI and Badrists were too close to the US for Iran in 2004, Sadrists presented a good counterweight
    • Lebeanese hzbollah were useful staging ground
  • Muhandis capitalized on the Sadrists split
  • 3 later groups
    • Muqtada groups
    • AAH, worked with Quds
    • KH
  • 2006-7
    • Maliki took advantage of the Sadrist split, tried to build AAH as an alternative to Muqtada al-Sadr
  • sistani was a target
    • Iranians
    • Strange cults such as Soldiers of the Heart
  • Sadrists aimed to follow hezbollah’s example of creating a state within a state by capturing key ministries
    • Health, Water, Transportation, etc
  • Muhandis moved freely within Quds force
  • MEK - Mujahdeen -e Kalq

Chapter 8: 2010-2013

  • 2009 parlimentary election depended on the polarization of the party
  • Maliki went back to being a Shia champion
  • de-Baathification committee barred over 500 members from running
  • Iraqiyah party ran virtually unopposed in Sunni areas, and attracted secular Shias
  • Maliki asked for Medhat to interpret the consitution to allow “any” party with 163 MP’s to become the first
    • Lead to a 9 month deadlock
    • Ended with the Irbil power sharing agreement
  • Maliki cracked down on Sunni rivals in 2011 with security forces against an Arab Spring like event
  • Attempted to arrest Vice President Hasimi, lead to him seeking refuge in Istanbul
  • Maliki fractured the cross sectarian Iraqiyah by poaching Sunni MP’s
  • Attempted a no-confidence vote, failed to rally
  • Syria’s politics cast a long pall over Iraqi politics
  • Hollowing out of the Sunni moderate by Maliki gave way to AQ and IS, with a new civil war in 2013

Links to this note