Jane, you ask some very good questions.

This war, though, is political -- we were not attacked by Iraq.  The present situation that you are reporting from was created by politics.  If we had just gone to attack the terrorists who destroyed so much on September 11 you would not even be in Iraq.

American discourse has been gravely wounded and debased.  Only now is the truth starting to come out.  All have been affected by this, from regular citizens to the highest levels of government and, sadly the highlest levels of our media, our fourth estate.

How can there be a real debate on Iraq when the present Administration is determined there will be no debate and the Republican Congress refuses to do its job of oversight?  If it is true that we were misled to war, how can this Administration allow a debate that would prove that?

We should all be united against the terrorists who attacked America -- instead I find myself feeling more threatened, as an American, by my own government.

You have been on the ground in Iraq and seen the shooting war.  There is a war here at home, too, and I agree it is as hostile as you say it is.  The two are inextricably linked and until the truth comes out that situation will remain the same.

Oh, I think it's a hell of a lot more hostile on the front lines in Iraq - just ask the families of the over 2080 American soldiers killed because of Bush's deceptions, ask the families of the dead Iraqis, ask the families of the wounded Americans (including mine), ask the families of the wounded Iraqis, & ask the families of the traumatized (including mine). Please don't "tsk, tsk" us if we're upset about this dishonest, immoral, illegal war engineered by a bunch of lying war criminals.

The lives causes of the mess in Iraq are not where you are.

Excuse us while we, with our shortage of responsible journalists, continue to examine them in hopes of finding a way out.

Heroism and sensationalism are fine for the story, but when the journalist uses them for purposes of self-promotion, it's time for the audience to find a news channel where the advertisements are occasionally interrupted.

p.s. I agree that we are doomed if the trend does not change. It could be back to the 19th century of the rags worse than any Murdoch tabloid infotainment, agitating people by "word-of-mouth" from "free speech" to the stage of draft rioters lynching blacks. But I have faith that it will...blogging is young and the market will sort itself out, like all others...IF people like you speak up for yourself and challenge from time to time, it will happen sooner rather than too late to repair damage.

it's time for the audience to find a news channel where the advertisements are occasionally interrupted.

That depends upon whether what you are replacing it is better or worse.

The transgressions of individuals are easily dismissed by educated readers and people with good common sense.

Interruption by who? The people "informing themselves" by turning to egotists with agendas other than professional status or monetary gain can be much more dangerous. Think Father Coughlin operating in the relatively new revolutionary medium of radio.

This here

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I see as a bad and dangerous thing; the end game as I see it is homogenous news/opinion by vote of the mouse click. Editors are dinosaurs, and Jane might as well stay home and write from her jammies, as every Tom Dick and Harry choses what is news now. Note that the fact that 1,000's died in Africa yesterday is no where on that list. The further democratization of 'what is news" will give you more of: lowest common denominator, just like what you already hate about ratings-driven TV news. Few want to pay for what things they don't want to hear about.

And Well, you're missing the story strikes me as a somewhat arrogant, very self-centered statement: your view of the story and world is the correct one. Perhaps a mother with a soldier near Khanaqin is interested in simply knowing what actually happened there yesterday as well as Baghdadis with relatives there, and not interested in your big picture opinion of why we are in Iraq or how the war should be handled. Myself, I mostly like to make my own judgments on the latter, including administration and opposing spin. What I know I don't need is the "op-eds" of people who haven't been on the ground there at all and don't have expertise on the topic. That is like reading polls, very useful for politics, and often infotaining, but it won't affect my own opinion in the least.

I think you're absolutely right - these are essential questions we need to define the debate about what to do about Iraq and avoid getting even more mired in purely political battles at the expense of Americans and Iraqis...

Jane Arraf

I'm replying to an arrogant and self-centered statement.

I would be happy to be supplanted by a real Edward R. Murrow or Lincoln Steffens. I defer to Josh Marshall, but not to the Edward R Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and  CNN's Senior Baghdad Correspondent and Baghdad Bureau Chief.

And now I shall reply to another one:

What I know I don't need is the "op-eds" of people who haven't been on the ground there at all and don't have expertise on the topic.

The people making the decisions "haven't been on the ground there at all" either and don't have the expertise of the sort you seem to think is necessary to understand how Iran came to dominate Iraq. For discovering the machinations and incompetence, it's good to remember the old tale about Mullah Nasruddin:

Bystander: Mullah, why are you looking under that streetlamp for your gold ring. You  dropped  it there, in the shadows.

Mullah  Nasruddin: But I can't find it there because the light is over here.

(my translation) 

And of course you know where I have been and what I know. I wish I could see that dossier.

Real debate Jane?

That's exactly what we needed 3 years ago.. Exactly what you d your claque prevented three years ago



Spend more time in Fallujah, Tal Afar, and America


Less time kissing Betlway butt in the Hall of Mirors, Versailles sur le Potomac


We're all Harold Fords now

My best to Blitzer...

Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) was recognized at 5:20 p.m. Schmidt won a special election in August, defeating Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, and is so new to Congress that some colleagues do not know her name.
...

Just as matters seemed to calm a bit, Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) suddenly charged across the aisle to the GOP seats, jabbing his finger furiously at a small group of GOP members and shouting, "Say Murtha's name!" Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), who had led the chants for striking Schmidt's comments, gently guided Ford by the arm back to the minority party's side

I read this post and honestly didn't know why it was posted.

It has been consistently reported that

(1) the suicide bombers are mostly foreigners
(2) the insurgents are almost entirely Iraqi.

As was pointed out, the question of whether the insurgency is Iraqi is different than the question of whether the suicide bombers are Iraqi.

On the honest debate:  this will be impossible.  It would require too much backtracking from the Administration.  Honesty means admitting it when you are wrong. 

Nope, the war will be decided here, not in Iraq, and it will be decided based on the public's confidence in our wartime leaders.

 At risk of bumbling into eliciting a personal attack, I’m going to try to take a whack at these questions. I don’t pretend to have the complete answer; my insights are informed primarily by U.S. military thinking over there (which itself is informed by many scholars on middle eastern studies, culture and Islam among other things), which is more sophisticated than many people would give them credit for. They have an interest in understanding their enemies’ motives, their M.O., and how to get them to stop fighting. I am a journalist, just returned from two months in Iraq, my third trip in three years.
 
1)      I truly wonder, what they are after by attacking civilians in mosques and at funerals, and also journalists' hotels. It doesn't seem targeted to getting the U.S. out, and it's making enemies of people they hope to eventually rule.
 
The underlying assumption here is that people who blew up the Hamra acutally want political power. If it is Zarqawi, his motives are not necessarily to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis for political power but, so far, to a) establish himself as the big bad b) encourage Iraq toward chaos to diminish American power/standing c) keep Iraq in chaos to allow him ungoverned territory to do his work (ie, creating an Afghanistan-like haven for his growing organization where he can direct other attacks, rest, reset, raise funds etc.) d) kill Americans and other infidels – any innocents caught in his wake will go on to paradise anyway, if they deserve it e) perhaps lay a foundation for a new caliphate, which seems to be his general aim from what he writes.
If he gets to take over Iraq – which I don’t think is his plan as he doesn’t really have an interest in governance – he’d rule by fear and punishment like the Taliban, I suspect, and certainly doesn’t worry about winning the consent of the governed.
 
If this attack was carried out by the myriad other players in the Iraq insurgency – at LEAST 90 percent of which is Iraqi, and then mostly Sunni -- there are any number of possible reasons. Iraq has a violent history and the first instinct of people there is to figure out who is the most danger to them so they don’t piss them off or don’t get noticed. One way to exercise power in Iraq – the most efficient way – is to scare people into not crossing you. I talked to a lot of Iraqis – Sunni, Shia, Kurds of both stripes – and most mentioned Ayad Allawi as a politician they thought could rule the country, simply because he is tough (see the circulated rumors/perhaps truth that he killed six insurgents himself by shooting them in the head in his office. This rumor – and perhaps truth – was circulated for a reason.)
 There is another aspect to the insurgency that gets less attention and is very difficult to quantify but bears mention because of how it complicates things. Fallujah, Ramadi and the towns in Euphrates River Valley are historic (thousands of years) smuggling routes, and during the decade of sanctions organized and enriched themselves mightily while Saddam turned a blind eye.  They helped get many products into the country that were otherwise unavailable. The smuggling organizations are closely braided into the tribes – they are in some cases indistinguishable --- and into legitimate business. There is therefore a part of the insurgency that is very much like the Mafia in Sicily pre World War II, and in Iraq they are able to cloak themselves in the mantle of opposing the occupation. So if you are a Sunni and you don’t like their criminality, you can get behind their political views – however loosely held – or their money or if that doesn’t work, you can be afraid of them. One of the things all the IEDs are good for is drawing attention on to certain roads at certain times, tying up the Americans doing patrols and looking out for bombs while they continue their smuggling on other roads. Chaos serves the purposes of common criminals. And don’t look to Iraqis to turn in the smugglers, because many people benefit. Families won’t eat without the money collected by smuggling sheep (generally out of the country, Iraqi sheep sell for 4 X the price in Syria, I think – they are prized there), alcohol, electronics, weapons, people…
 
2)      (With journalists, it's targeting people who could actually give them better P.R. if their methods were different!)
If the goal is chaos, or to build an international reputation, or to harm the reputation of the United States – what better way than to target journalists? It serves the purposes of the insurgency and Zarqawi to convince journalists Iraq is a place of violence and chaos and is uncontrollable (and you could make a strong argument either way.  I came away from this last trip with a pretty muddled view. There are pockets of great violence, and pockets of relatively stability, and the one true thing I can say is in Iraq, you can depend on nothing to stay the same. Quiet towns can go to hell overnight, seemingly, and the most intractable village can all of the sudden get a new generator and water pump and go inside and watch TV for the rest of the summer. No more problems.) Reporters reporting that Iraq is in chaos, is violent and uncontrollable -- which may or may not be true -- erodes the American will to stay and fight, if we don't see how are immediate interests are being served.


If you doubt this, please pay attention to the White House’s campaign to put a happy face on Iraq, it’s refusal to concede bad news, and to the U.S. military’s frustration with media coverage of the war, which emphasizes – for reasons good and also somewhat lame – the boom boom over the humanitarian and (modest) reconstruction progress. The military believe this gives the enemy they are fighting encouragement. They think it makes him seem much bigger in the eyes of the people they are trying to influence (Iraqis, who are looking to see who the big bad is they need to cuddle up to or at least not piss off; and Americans, who are necessary to continuing the war.) See Gen Casey's comments at the Pentagon last year that the enemy is "not 10 feet tall."
 Finally, don’t make the mistake that there is a rational reason behind everything that happens in Iraq. The insurgency has coalesced far more tightly in the last year but it remains primarily a fractured body of many little cells  -- many of them influenced heavily by tribal alliances, or so the military believes. More and more the cells are coming together for more coordinated ops, which is bad, but when they meet like that, it also opens up an intel window that makes it marginally easier to catch them. More people involved, more likely someone will talk. Coordinated attacks are more deadly, but also fewer because of the work and risk involved in pulling them off. You have to trust people you don't know necessarily that well.
 Any given roadside bomb could be planted there by someone looking to pick up $100, or someone pissed off that their brother was killed, or pissed off that they don’t have a job, or pissed off that they are being occupied, or pissed off that the electric still doesn’t work, or because someone is threatening them.
 There is not necessarily a single reason for an attack, which makes them very hard to address. There is also interesting counterinsurgency theory behind this. One kind of insurgency the military studies is “en foco” – the type advocated by Che Guevera, if I recall correctly. In that model, you start an insurgency before you have any clear political goals, with the hopes that during the chaos someone will come up with SOMETHING everyone can eventually rally around. That may be part of the phenomena behind Iraq. The fighting certainly does provide an opportunity for various sheiks and organizations to try to gain power by exercising, or attempting to exercise influence over what’s happening. Many’s the case when a sheik has said t o an American officer “I can turn off the fighting in this province if you give me X, Y, and Z” – and of course, they can’t.
 
3)      I just don't get it, even in the sense of true civil war, unless it's to cause total chaos or simply thoughtless Sunni v. Shiite vengeance.
Some think Zarqawi is after that civil war – it may be that he wants a war that drags all of the Arab world into its maw (push the Shiites hard enough and iran may well come over the border); the Kurds will pull away if Iraq descends  into total chaos, causing Turkey to freak; Saudi Arabia gets all weird because they have a weakening grasp on power over their people anyway…and what could be the end result is a massive, long holy war of sorts that ends up with everyone begging for SOME kind of order…and a Taliban-like, Salafist or Wahabi government can come in and deliver it and poof, you’ve got your caliphate. Maybe. I don’t give him that much credit. I think he is still trying to establish himself and he needs a little ungoverned territory to do it. The concern I came away with is, what if all these Baghdad attacks are meant to send a message about his power, and eventually, if Iraq does settle down into stability, he is able to say either overtly or otherwise that hey, if you look the other way at my training camps out here, I’ll leave Baghdad alone. Or do you want another car bomb?
A state’s first obligation is the security of its citizens – that is how it wins consent and retains power in the end – so a war weary Baghdad might be willing to cut that deal. Then what? More failed US cruise missile attacks on fabric tents in the desert, which obviously did nothing to dissuade bin Laden from 9/11. Unless we’re willing (and we won’t be) to send troops back into duke it out with him on the ground.
 
4)      It's going to be a real small state of those willing to live under them if they continue these tactics.
“Willing to live under them” is so not the issue in Iraq. The question the practical dictator in training would ask (and possibly “democrat in training” – see Allawi comments above) is “can I make them scared enough that they don’t challenge me?” That has been the path to power throughout much of Iraq’s history, and certainly its recent history. No reasons to think that will have changed at this point. Indeed, what the US is trying to do (and not that well, but there are some signs of progress and hope…) is bring to life a government that actually governs by, as I’ve said, winning the consent of the people rather than demanding loyalty through physical violence. I have no idea if its gonna work out. It could be that the Iraqis vote in a "strong man" that makes them feel safe. The excesses of the Iraqi Interior Ministry are likely signs of things to come, and it will  be interesting to see if Iraqis care about that. My guess is they won’t, for a complicated set of reasons including the desire for security, inexperience with civil liberties and human rights, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the obedience to hierarchy encouraged by Islam (and other religions, of course) and lack of experience with anything different. It has been suggested to me several times that Iraq is a nation of abused children who always side with their abuser. In that case, it could well be a "generational
 It’s an interesting construct, although I have met many Iraqis who are brave and resourceful and profess to want freedom and who voted at some risk to themselves.
 
I offer this as a perspective to consider, not the final answer to any of these questions.

Most grateful for the extremely thoughtful analysis and input, pamrhess; I'm honored that my puzzlement inspired someone with some experience in Iraq to spend so much time answering. Your comment should really have been a Discussion Post elevated to the front page.

Dan K:

Well yes, of course I thought of the torture revelations, and of course they were probably extra added inspiration for the attackers, but I found that perhaps too simplistic, as I really truly think that there is a serious "chicken-and-egg" problem with narrowing it just to that; the relationships between all these groups would be much more complicated than that.

In much of the coverage of the 'secret' detention rooms with the torture accusations, it's pretty clear to me that the impetus was an emphasis (same as the Americans did with Abu Ghraib) on telling thugs to do whatever they could think of to stop the insurgent attacks on civilians, giving them free reign. And by saying that I am not so naive as to think that some of those thugs have prejudices and axes to grind against various Sunni tribes.

The attacks on civilians have been going on for a long time, while the Interior Ministry only a short while ago was being run by a Sunni who basically admitted to a New York Times reporter that he used some nasty techniques himself. I sensed in his reported statements that he himself has a bit of an axe to grind, in the manner of "they are worse than me." (Scroll down at link for Wong and Burns article.) I think it's kind of disingenuous to think that there would be holier-than-thou Sunni insurgent tit-for-tat about torture.

Also, I recall a very good recounting, several months back, by the Iraqi blogger Raed's brother of his own experience being picked up in roundup and detained for virtually no reason, in which he spoke most eloquently of the very low level of police and jailer education and intelligence as well as very sordid and dangerous conditions. No torture accusations but certainly suggestions of beatings. He basically made it sound as if he had not been lucky enough to be put before a judge with a rudimentary education, he might not be alive today much less rotting in a packed cell. So the torture accusations may be new to us, but I don't think they would surprise many Iraqis, as most have probably heard about what is going on in detention centers.

While (as pamhrees points out so well in one of the scenarios in his comment) these attacks may not be the result of smart and logical tactical planning,  I just don't have the impression that attacks this big are spur of the moment, knee-jerk reactions to recent revelations. These big attacks on civilian targets seem to come in spurts  in the past and I wonder whether we will see more the closer we get to the election.

P.S. Your use of the mafia word brought to mind some thoughts I have long had about Zarqawi. (Cavaet: I did read your post carefully and realize you weren't using it in relation to him.) I think his understanding of gang culture from his time in prison (noted in several biographical articles I have read,) is something that is an important factor. It differentiates him from the educated 'intellectual' al Qaeda guys of wealthy backgrounds like Osama and Zawahiri. That gang culture is much more attractive to 'humiliated youth,' especially if already of tribal background. This is why you don't sense true Islamic fundamentalist fervor from descriptions of insurgents, they have joined a gang, not a religious death cult. Sure, they might be into enforcing hijab for women and closing liquor stores, but that often seems more about empowerment over others than religious fervor. This m.o. also fits well with Saddam followers. And it certainly fits extremely well with Sadr's followers (and Sadr himself.)

I have always taken the documents that are purported to be the words of Zarqawi with a grain of salt, knowing that they might be U.S. counter-ops or propaganda ops to increase American public support.  But I still believe that there is quite a rift there between the ideology of the original al Qaeda and Zarqawi. The latter seems more interested in power above all, and this fits with all you've said about the chaos.