Caleb Carr: Let Them Have Their Civil War
[Caleb Carr is the author of "The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians" (Random House). He teaches military studies at Bard College.]
As the violence in Iraq has expanded, analysts have been asking: Are we witnessing the beginning of a formal Iraqi civil war? But far more important when we consider what role our troops might play in the extended fighting is the question: Does the United States have any right to forcibly stop such a war, when and if it begins?
Civil war, as defined by many generations of military theorists, shares characteristics with insurgencies and revolutions, but there are distinct differences, too. Although insurgencies are contests of rival groups, insurgents need not control any appreciable territory to be effective. Civil wars, on the other hand, involve two or more armed groups, each controlling part of a country. And although civil wars, like revolutions, can be influenced by outside forces as well as ideological considerations, sometimes they are merely struggles for power. Still others -- like the American Civil War -- are contests over not just politics or power, but some high motivating moral principle as well.
No such principle would seem to be at play in Iraq, for one of the insurgency's glaring deficiencies has always been its lack of a coherent ideological rallying point for all Iraqis. Its aim, by contrast, has been simple: the return to power of the Sunni Muslim minority that held sway under Saddam Hussein, or, failing that, the kind of endless anarchy that will make any other government's rule impossible....
This may not be textbook civil war, but it is certainly shaping up to be the beginning of one.
If Americans ever had the power to stave off such a conflict, the past three years of misguided military policy have exhausted it. But military ability to stop a civil war is not the key issue. Nor should excessive concern for our own national security cloud our policy decisions: The first casualties of any expanded fighting will almost certainly be both Saddam Hussein (who has been kept alive thanks to U.S. insistence on his trial -- and thanks to U.S. guards) as well as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is now despised more than Hussein by many Iraqis. No, the real issue of importance for Americans with regard to any impending Iraqi civil war is: Are we morally justified in trying to prevent it?
Before answering, Americans should consider a few facts from our own national experience. Our Civil War was viewed as an exercise in horrendously destructive national suicide by most of the nations of Europe -- and an expensive one at that, for it cut off European textile mills from Southern cotton. Britain and one or two of her fellow members in the European balance of power considered intervening -- but intervention was averted, mostly through the careful warnings of President Abraham Lincoln and his diplomatic corps. They stressed that civil war in America was a more morally complex affair than the usual European grab for power. It was, at its heart, a contest to end the institution of slavery....
Not only is it impossible for Americans to stand in the way of an internal Iraqi balancing of the scales, it also reeks of hypocrisy. We went to Iraq, according to our president, to make Iraqis free. If that is so, and if their first decision as a free people is to declare war upon one another, just as Americans once did, where do we derive the right to tell them they may not? We cannot, again, condone genocide (we can even cut it short by keeping land and air units in the region); but neither can we any longer delay justice -- even if it is to be forcibly dispensed....
Read entire article at Wa Po
As the violence in Iraq has expanded, analysts have been asking: Are we witnessing the beginning of a formal Iraqi civil war? But far more important when we consider what role our troops might play in the extended fighting is the question: Does the United States have any right to forcibly stop such a war, when and if it begins?
Civil war, as defined by many generations of military theorists, shares characteristics with insurgencies and revolutions, but there are distinct differences, too. Although insurgencies are contests of rival groups, insurgents need not control any appreciable territory to be effective. Civil wars, on the other hand, involve two or more armed groups, each controlling part of a country. And although civil wars, like revolutions, can be influenced by outside forces as well as ideological considerations, sometimes they are merely struggles for power. Still others -- like the American Civil War -- are contests over not just politics or power, but some high motivating moral principle as well.
No such principle would seem to be at play in Iraq, for one of the insurgency's glaring deficiencies has always been its lack of a coherent ideological rallying point for all Iraqis. Its aim, by contrast, has been simple: the return to power of the Sunni Muslim minority that held sway under Saddam Hussein, or, failing that, the kind of endless anarchy that will make any other government's rule impossible....
This may not be textbook civil war, but it is certainly shaping up to be the beginning of one.
If Americans ever had the power to stave off such a conflict, the past three years of misguided military policy have exhausted it. But military ability to stop a civil war is not the key issue. Nor should excessive concern for our own national security cloud our policy decisions: The first casualties of any expanded fighting will almost certainly be both Saddam Hussein (who has been kept alive thanks to U.S. insistence on his trial -- and thanks to U.S. guards) as well as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is now despised more than Hussein by many Iraqis. No, the real issue of importance for Americans with regard to any impending Iraqi civil war is: Are we morally justified in trying to prevent it?
Before answering, Americans should consider a few facts from our own national experience. Our Civil War was viewed as an exercise in horrendously destructive national suicide by most of the nations of Europe -- and an expensive one at that, for it cut off European textile mills from Southern cotton. Britain and one or two of her fellow members in the European balance of power considered intervening -- but intervention was averted, mostly through the careful warnings of President Abraham Lincoln and his diplomatic corps. They stressed that civil war in America was a more morally complex affair than the usual European grab for power. It was, at its heart, a contest to end the institution of slavery....
Not only is it impossible for Americans to stand in the way of an internal Iraqi balancing of the scales, it also reeks of hypocrisy. We went to Iraq, according to our president, to make Iraqis free. If that is so, and if their first decision as a free people is to declare war upon one another, just as Americans once did, where do we derive the right to tell them they may not? We cannot, again, condone genocide (we can even cut it short by keeping land and air units in the region); but neither can we any longer delay justice -- even if it is to be forcibly dispensed....