Empire Notes

Everybody likes to talk about Iraq and civil war. A few weeks back, word leaked of a classified CIA estimate in which the worst-case scenario for Iraq was civil war and all of Bush’s opponents said, “Aha!”

The civil war trope seems unshakable. Even during the unprecedented period of Shi'a-Sunni unity in April, when both were under assault by the U.S. military, and public opinion among Arabs unified not only against the occupation but also in support of the resistance, "civil war" was still the constant refrain over here.

The dangers exist. There is a serious divide between Arabs and Kurds. There is a divide, retrievable but not easily so, between Shi'a and Sunni. And there are also numerous other divisions, between those, like Moqtada al-Sadr, who want a theocratic state, and those, like Sistani, who don't.

Such divisions have always been necessary to colonialism, not only in its ideological justifications -- we must stay in order to protect minorities or prevent internecine violence -- but very materially in its ability to establish and perpetuate itself. Divide et impera is a highly effective strategy, but it is difficult or impossible to apply unless there are some divisions to exploit. Hindu vs. Muslim, Arab vs. Kurd, Zulu vs. Xhosa, etc.

At the same time, however, U.S. military operations have created greater unity; there are reports, for example, that Sunni mujaheddin groups were giving tactical training to the Mahdi Army during the August offensive in Najaf. The assault on Fallujah and then the Abu Ghra’ib revelations unified Arab public opinion against the United States

The Arab-Kurd divide actually intensified in April, but again there is little basis for civil war. There is not the background or the dynamic for mass killing of, say, individual Kurds in Baghdad like the murders of Tutsi in Rwanda. And there will be in the foreseeable future no Iraqi Arab force able to even think about invading Kurdistan, where 75,000 peshmerga wait.

Unfortunately, the United States, by its continuing presence and operations, is creating another force that offers an even more frightening prospect of civil war, with a clear religious basis. The model for potential civil war in Iraq is not, or at least not primarily, Lebanon; it is Algeria. Returned fighters from the Afghan jihad formed the GIA, which has fought the Algerian government in a war that is phenomenally brutal on both sides and that has killed 100,000 people since 1992. That was, for Americans, such a minor byblow of the CIA operation in Afghanistan that even after 9/11 no one talks about it.

The GIA was distinguished by the extremism of its ideology, even among Wahhabis; at one point, bin Laden dissociated himself from them because of their extremism.

In Iraq, that role is to be played by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War). By “monotheism,” they mean primarily anti-Shi’ism. They are not primarily an anti-occupation force; they target Shi’a directly, with American soldiers occasionally as collateral damage.

So virulent are their methods and ideology that they would have had no chance to grow in the absence of the occupation. Zarqawi emerged openly on the Iraqi scene with a missive in which he denounced the Shi’a for being inherently collaborators with the occupation. Then he had the Ashura bombings of early March carried out, with over 180 killed. At this point, nobody in Iraq supported him.

Then came the assault on Fallujah, and the concomitant defeat of U.S. forces for the first time since Vietnam. Zarqawi had nothing to do with this defeat. But he capitalized on it. In the highly charged, radicalized recruiting ground that was Fallujah after the assault, Tawhid wal Jihad could pose as the most radical organization of all. Since that time, its name is everywhere and its political influence among the Iraqi resistance is growing.

There are some indications that it is still small; perhaps as few as 100 Iraqi members. It can still be nipped in the bud by other indigenous forces if the United States lays off further assaults. Another offensive into Fallujah, though, and all bets are off. If Iraq goes the way of Algeria, it will be because of, not in spite of, the U.S. presence.