Never satisfied to fail by half measures, this latest news makes me wonder whether the Bush administration is the result of some gentlemans’ bet to drive America as deeply into the ground as possible. Call it Hudsucker Proxy II: Potomac Boogaloo.
The Bush administration is deliberating whether to abandon U.S. reconciliation efforts with Sunni insurgents and instead give priority to Shiites and Kurds, who won elections and now dominate the government, according to U.S. officials.
The proposal, put forward by the State Department as part of a crash White House review of Iraq policy, follows an assessment that the ambitious U.S. outreach to Sunni dissidents has failed. U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that their reconciliation efforts may even have backfired, alienating the Shiite majority and leaving the United States vulnerable to having no allies in Iraq, according to sources familiar with the State Department proposal.
Some insiders call the proposal the “80 percent” solution, a term that makes other parties to the White House policy review cringe. Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people.
This idea of openly supporting the Sunni Shiite side in Iraq’s civil war, the “80 percent solution,”* has a layer of stupid that goes beyond the obvious catastrophe that would happen if we actually put it into effect (yes, there is a difference between passively and actively participating in genocide). By way of analogy, think about the national media. Rightwing partisans have fumed for decades about the media’s grand evil conspiracy to keep conservatives down. Ask a random rightie to flesh out their point and he or she will gladly sketch out mountains of damning evidence, a veritable Protocols of the Elders of CNN. In recent years leftwing pundits such as David Brock’s group have argued exactly the opposite point with equally damning mountains of evidence.
The point here isn’t that either “side” is necessarily correct. My view runs more along the lines that while two opposed points cannot both be right they can both be mostly wrong. As I see it the problem has less to do with partisanship per se (pedestrian human failures, on the other hand, are depressingly common) than with the media’s massive influence relative to its opaque internal decisionmaking. Other than the occasional darkly amusing FOX memo we the public don’t see much of the editorial process inside most media outlets, so we’re left to fill in whatever story suits our needs. As a result this knowledge vacuum can give the occasional inside glimpse more weight than it deserves. Whether or not Mark Halperin actually swings his ABC News coverage to please the rightwing viewers Halperin’s revoltingly obsequious behavior before Hugh Hewitt and others will color many people’s perceptions of ABC from now until he leaves the station.
Stepping back from my analogy, the Bush team has intentionally made itself one of the most opaque presidential administrations in history. Citizens of Iraq, just like the rest of us, have no real way of knowing the administration’s game plan regarding their own country. As a result I have no doubt that stray internal dialog like this will find a fertile ground in Iraq’s Sunni population, among the world’s nearly 1.5 billion Sunni Muslims and in the Sunni nations which make up our most important friends in the middle east.
Neoconservatives correctly viewed Iraq as a war of perceptions. In their view our success would create the perception of an irresistible American juggernaut and cow neighboring regimes into compliance without the need for (too many) further invasions. Well, Iraq is still a war of perceptions. Even after the unchecked looting, abu Ghraib and the bloody civil war idiot comments like our anonymous administration figure show that in this war we still have ground to lose.
(*) 80 percent solution? That’s great rhetoric. Hannah Arendt would be proud.
Walker
You mean the Shite side, don’t you? The article says we want to give preference to the Shiites, and the Sunnis are the 20%.
Walker
Damn. The post above shows that you definitely want to spell check before posting about the conflict in Iraq.
Tim F.
Um, spellcheck wouldn’t help. I just have a tendency to swap in the 180 degree wrong word when I’m writing (or talking) fast. Yep, that can sometimes be embarrassing.
demimondian
What would Arendt see in the relationship between the manifestly normal (albeit ambitious) Rumsfeld, Cheny, and Bush and the manifestly normal (albeit ambitious) Eichmann? I mean, really, the 80% solution will provide a completely final solution to the Sunni problem in Iraq, wouldn’t it?
I wish you hadn’t mentioned her, Tim. The road to this war truly does demonstrate the utter banality of evil, and the deep immorality of abandoning your principles to advance your own career.
Pb
What this means is that they’re (perhaps quietly and privately) coming to terms with the fact that this is a civil war. And if you want to fight a civil war militarily, apparently you have to pick a side:
And as usual, they’re looking at the military options, despite the obvious horrible ramifications. Is diplomacy ever really on the table for these clowns? Congress might have to finally step in and put its foot down now that the grown-ups (I hope!) are back in charge…
Pb
Tim F.,
You’re so vain, you probably thought that post was about you.
Jake
Maybe the Iraqis were better off when this Admin. didn’t grasp the difference between Sunni and Shia.
BTW, the use of the word “solution” in anything that involves killing people, particularly one ethnic group…does that strike anyone as a lettle bit screwed up?
Pb
Jake,
Well, I was going to mention that at least they didn’t call it “the final solution”, but everyone else sort of beat me to it, so I didn’t. But, yes, it’s incredibly screwed up. Which is what I’ve come to expect from these idiots, really. :(
Jon H
More like 80 Proof solution, really.
Elvis Elvisberg
The silver lining in this dark cloud is that the administration is condisering actions beyond “keep up the happy talk about the slide into chaos.”
The fact that the recommendation is “let’s consider persecuting the minority” shows that neoconservatism, which for all its delusions of omnipotence had at least a pretence of caring about human rights, was a flash in the pan.
Conservative foreign policy thinkers are now falling back on their natural inclination to support the young Saddams and Osamas of the world, all the while patting themselves on the back for their tough, clear-eyed realism.
stickler
Aside from how screwed-up morally the situation is, let’s not forget how screwed-up historically it will probably be: this country has a pretty crappy record when it comes to picking the winning side in other people’s civil wars.
1919: We tried to help the Whites against the Bolsheviks.
1949: We supported Chiang against Mao and the Chinese Communists.
1953: We supported the Shah against Iranian nationalists (this one worked pretty well until 1978).
1952, 1955, 1964: We did damn near everything possible to keep Ho Chi Minh from taking over Vietnam.
All in all, I’d suggest that Uncle Sam has every reason, historically, to keep the hell out of other peoples’ civil wars.
The Other Steve
There are plenty of retarded people who are not the President. By comparing retardation to our fucked up policy in Iraq, you are demeaning the fine upstanding retarded people of this world.
Tsulagi
I for one have full faith in Bush. Stupid is something most people try to avoid, but for this administration it’s a religion. They will stay the course, so you can fully expect with this or anything else that involves options, like a retard seeking missile they will home in on the stupidest course option. Then apply their special fubar magic to really make it their own.
The Iranians are really going to miss Bush when he leaves office. If they get sentimental, possibly they’ll give him a national holiday in his honor: Thank Allah for the Retard Day. Bush could be the master of ceremonies in Iran for the first official observance of TARD.
Maybe Hakim could offer that today when visiting the WH. You know, while Bush tries to give him a neck rub during a state dinner of barbequed pig.
Faux News
1919: We tried to help the Whites against the Bolsheviks.
1949: We supported Chiang against Mao and the Chinese Communists.
1953: We supported the Shah against Iranian nationalists (this one worked pretty well until 1978).
1952, 1955, 1964: We did damn near everything possible to keep Ho Chi Minh from taking over Vietnam.
All in all, I’d suggest that Uncle Sam has every reason, historically, to keep the hell out of other peoples’ civil wars.
Jake
They finally found a use for Cheney?
Punchy
I’m WAY confused. Aren’t the Saudis Sunni? How the fuck would they respond if we decided to wipe out their Iraqi brethren?
How would the Shites feel if we attempted to back them in Iraq, but kept fucking with their Iranian brethren…perhaps even bombing them?
We’ve made so many enemies in the M.E. that backing ANY side would cause mass chaos. Can anyone explain how backing one side or the other, while helping in Iraq, wouldn’t just infuriate other M.E. countries/populations???
RSA
Or the Seven-Per-Cent Solution, for fans of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. And given Bush’s history of cocaine use, it’s not a bad reference.
Zifnab
Don’t you see? This is classic political jujitsu. Bush always fucks up + Bush supports the side he doesn’t want to win + ??? = PROFIT!
By helping the Shia we area actually helping the Saudis. By supporting the Iranian-supported faction of Iraqis we are actually harming Iran. And by just sticking our own heads up our own asses and deliberately trying to fuck things up we are bound to fail at failure and thus succeed at everything. It’s brilliant!
demimondian
In my most cynical moments, I actually like the 80% solution. Backing the Shiites in the South neutralizes the Iranians, while simultaneously drawing Syria and Saudi Arabia into the conflict, draining them. Simultaneously, backing the Kurds in the north puts Iran on the defensive, while making it impossible for them to act: we threaten to leave the South to the tender mercies of the Syrian-backed Sunnis if they do.
With luck, they fight until they finally ask us to intervene to make things make sense again.
BlogReeder
I couldn’t agree more. The M.E. is a classic “Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t” situation. Too bad they have so much oil. Of course, we know it’s all Bush’s fault anyway.
Detlef
Punchy wrote:
I’m WAY confused. Aren’t the Saudis Sunni? How the fuck would they respond if we decided to wipe out their Iraqi brethren?
Well, maybe this column by Nawaf Obaid (an adviser to the Saudi government) in the WaPo is a warning shoot.
Stepping Into Iraq
Or maybe it´s just his private opinion. :)
Of course he writes about a “phased withdrawal of American troops from Iraq” but I don´t think domestic opinion in Saudi-Arabia would like the “80% solution”.
Pb
PoTD!
Indeed. The buck stops there!
Bruce Moomaw
Actually, it’s kind of refreshing that this particular cretinous idea came from the State Department rather than from the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz clique. Maybe Condoleeza will live up to her initial promise after all.
Punchy
Somewhere, the Underpants Gnomes just read this and smiled.
BlogReeder
I was talking about the M.E., Pb. Iraq is just a small part.
We know before 2003 he even created Saddam because Rumsfeld went there in the 1980’s. It would be more interesting to show how Bush started the Isreali and Palastainian conflict.
Tim F.
Bravo, blogreeder. You truly take the strawman to the next level.
ThymeZone
He may challenge Darrell for the Alfalfa Award for 2006, at this rate.
A new King of Straw?
TenguPhule
And what makes you think Bush wants the Shiites to win?
Never fear, Bush has never failed to prove me wrong as to what else he can possibly make worse over there yet. I half-expect him to invite Turkish troops in next to ‘keep the peace’ near the border. After all, the Kurds are pretty much the only people left there he hasn’t tried to bend over and Mark his Folly in yet.
ThymeZone
What percentage of the people in the White House do we think can tell the difference between Shia and Sunni?
Zifnab
Maybe he can get the Russians to watch Afganistan for us while he’s at it.
Jake
[crickets chirp]
More importantly, how are the soldiers supposed to tell the difference? If the US goes with the “80% solution” (AKA Operation Screw the Sunnis) what are they supposed to do, ask people to raise their hands? Or maybe they’re supposed dress up as census workers. “Really, we’re just asking. And this isn’t a gun, it’s a big…uh…ink pen.”
Faux News
Regarding Kurdistan, if you wish to have some amusing reading go over to Redstate.com every few days. Besides the usual “only cowards cut and run” (thanks Mean Jean Schmidt) there is this re-occurring posting about how the USA should just declare Kurdistan an independent country and let the rest of Iraq descend into total anarchy. There is only one tiny, insignificant problem with this thought. Turkey has stated it will attack and invade an independent Kurdistan. What are we going to do about that? Attack a NATO ally? But then again Neoconservatism is not reality based. So who knows?
Zifnab
Speaking of RedState, the community is staunchly supporting either John Bolton with a shaved mustache or (and I don’t know if this is funnier) Sticky Ricky Santorum. I can only hope and pray that the WH is dumb enough to go with either of these two model conservatives.
Pb
That would be interesting. Or you could show how Bush built a giant machine to control the weather. Or you could just build yourself a hut out of straw.
But then another question you could ask is, if the Bush family didn’t start the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, then what’s their opinion of it?
Perry Como
K-Lo’s idol on Global Orgasm Day?
/27 levels of wrong
Anderson
Actually, it’s kind of refreshing that this particular cretinous idea came from the State Department rather than from the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz clique.
Not so fast. Laura Rozen’s sources tell her it’s supported by Cheney’s people. (Hint: if Cheney wants anything done these days, he’s well advised to disguise its origins.)
No wonder Riyadh summoned Cheney last month — they know who’s the guy to talk to.
BlogReeder
First off, Pb you’re an ass.
Second, you’re phrasing of this as if you believe they did. Third, what do you care about their opinion?
Fourth, you’re still an ass.
TenguPhule
BlogReeder joins the Irony of the Day Hall of Fame.
Pb
BlogReeder,
Only in the transom of your little mind.
You wound me, sir! I care about their opinion at least as much as I care about your opinion, if not more! That’s because (a) they actually have, and have had, a great deal of influence in the world, and especially in my country, and (b) there’s also the entertainment value to consider–and as people go, they’re pretty messed up. So far, you only qualify for (b), but hey, that’s something!