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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
ScottHorton.org is the website.
Keep all my interview archives there, more than 2,700 of them now, going back to 2003.
And our next guest today is Adolphe Chamoux.
Warscapes.com has got his new piece, is Iraq on its way to a civil war?
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing?
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Interesting article.
And of course, you're probably suffering from the same thing as me, a frustration about how in America, people seem to, certainly in the media, they just want to pretend the Iraq war never happened and never existed.
And certainly we don't need to know anything about what's going on there now, or we certainly don't want to hear about, you know, why it's the consequence of what our government did there in the last decade and that kind of thing.
But that's exactly what I want to hear.
I appreciate you writing about it because I still care about it.
And it seems to me like what you're really writing here is, you know, is the civil war that's been going on this whole time going to continue or even get worse, really?
Is that about right?
That's about right.
Yeah.
I think there are indications that, like the 2005 and 2006 type of civil war could occur in Iraq.
Iraq is really, was taken back by the invasion, and I'm not exaggerating, 30 to 40 years backward.
And I realize any loss of an American life is really heart sickening to us, all of us.
But when we mentioned the death and injury, we mentioned about a little less than 5,000 American soldiers paid a very high price for that ill-fated invasion.
But there are 40,000 injured, seriously and severely injured also.
But the Iraqis are never mentioned.
About 200,000 to 300,000 Iraqis, tens of thousands of children were killed, half a million wounded, many people, another half a million with PTSD, all that is not mentioned whatsoever in American media.
It's really very unfortunate.
Yeah, you know, it's strange because at the time of the war, it seemed like just the day before all the real war hype, people remembered that Vietnam was a really bad deal and that it really hurt the American people back home a lot, and that every homeless guy on the side of the row is wearing a camouflage jacket.
I mean, in the 1980s, right, in the 1990s, there's no mystery about it, right?
Yeah, these things come with real consequences.
And before the war, they decided, we're just going to pretend we don't know any of that.
We're just going to all believe that this time it's going to be completely different.
It's going to be awesome.
It'll be over in three months, like Paul Wolfowitz says, and they'll greet us with flowers and chocolates and all this crap.
You know, the number of American soldiers gone to Iraq and come back is over one and a half million.
Among those, all the indications are from Army data and DOD data that about half a million, they may have some sort of mental health issues because of the war.
Why do you think the rate of suicide is so high?
I think it's because the moral conflict among those soldiers who are raised to be good, they send them and they have to kill and they have to, you know, break doors in the middle of the night and frighten women and children.
Why do you think we have such a high rate of suicide and PTSD and other mental health issues?
Because these soldiers are put in untenable situation where they know they have a moral conflict, but we come here, we only applaud for them.
We don't help them.
Yeah, well, of course, the imagination is always that we're going up against the Wehrmacht, right?
Even if we're invading Panama or whatever it is that we're doing, it's always the German military under Nazi command that we're smashing.
And so in the public imagination, the soldiers won't have any more problem with it than American soldiers had waxing the Wehrmacht back then.
I mean, the truth is, nah, they're patrolling people's neighborhoods and killing any man with a rifle or any man who happens to any man or woman or child happens to be nearby a man with a rifle or or, you know, way out of control.
Absolutely.
And that's I could see, hey, if you put me in that situation, I'd probably be a suicidal wreck later on in life, too, if I had one.
Absolutely.
And I have seen some of those people.
I have met them.
I have met the injured.
I have an actual experience of what they go through.
Yeah, well, me, too, I think a lot of people have and I think they'll probably continue to want to ignore it as best they can, though, rather than really face up to it.
And then and that's all to make it easier for our government the next time, too.
But so anyway, let's change the subject to to the article here and the people of Iraq and what they're going through.
I mean, in the in the broad step, basically, when they overthrew the Baathists, they overthrew the Sunnis and then they helped the United Iraqi Alliance and their armies, the Bata Brigade and the Mahdi Army do this sectarian cleansing and kick all the Sunnis out of the capital city.
And that was the civil war that killed a million people.
But it still grinds on.
It sort of let up a little, but it never really ceased all the way.
As far as I know, it seems like the Shiite led government doesn't really control the Anbar province and the so-called Sunni triangle and all that like a real state would.
But then again, the Sunnis have been completely frozen out of the government as well.
And then not even to mention the Kurds, I guess we could put that off for a minute.
But basically what we're seeing is the remnants of the Sunni based insurgency fighting the Dawa party and and the Supreme Islamic Council and that kind of thing still, right?
Absolutely.
Unfortunately, the current government doesn't believe in in sort of being the government of the entire population of Iraq.
And that's really the source of the problem.
They take care of the Shiite.
And this really, for me, is unfortunate because I don't use words like Shiite and Sunni because Iraq never was worried about Shiite and Sunni and Kurds because there are literally millions of intermarriage among them.
This is something was a result of the invasion.
So neglecting the Sunnis, because some of them were Baathists, is just an unfortunate outcome of the occupation.
And of course, it builds up resentment among those people.
So of course, the bad people like Al-Qaeda takes advantage of it, unfortunately.
Well now, and there was a ceasefire to a degree there for a while when Petraeus was paying off the Sunnis, the Sunni based insurgency leaders, anyway, they had been offering every year since the invasion to make a deal, just let us patrol our own neighborhoods and stop killing us and we'll stop killing you and that kind of thing.
And Petraeus finally accepted their offer and created the Sons of Iraq and the Concerned Local Citizens and whatever, under the promise that these fighters would eventually get government jobs basically.
But that never really happened.
And I don't know whether even the fall in casualties was very overblown during that time or not, but it seemed like a lot of the insurgency was willing to wait and see whether they could get jobs as cops or soldiers, and then the answer was no, you can't.
To be very honest, in part, the history of that period hasn't been written accurately yet.
In part, and I predicted that in my article then, in part, the Sunnis were sick and tired of these foreign Al-Qaeda fighters telling them what to do, telling them who to marry, their children should marry, their daughters should marry.
And I predicted that they're going to turn around and kill those people and get rid of them from Iraq.
The Iraqis are not used to some guy, just because he's somewhere else, comes in and I want to fight the Americans, I'm going to tell the Iraqis what to do.
They were abusive, they're nihilistic, the Al-Qaeda.
But they were nationalists.
They had feelings against any occupation, no different.
And I asked many, many soldiers and others, and generals even, what would you do if the Chinese invaded and occupied?
What would you do?
And the answer is very clear.
What do you do?
You resist it.
Right.
Yeah, well, and of course, at Antiwar.com, we were one of the few places that did cover that, starting really in the beginning of 2006.
Before the surge even happened, the surge began in the spring of 07, but it was the beginning of 06 is when the Sunni insurgent leaders, the actual Iraqis, started turning on the Syrians and the Egyptians who were bossing them around.
Absolutely.
But he was clever, and he did the surge, and it worked, because it was a combination of factors.
Yeah, well, yeah, he showed up and got in front of a parade that was already down the street.
You know, what a hero.
Anyway, I guess, Maliki, there are elections coming up, right?
Is he really standing for election, or he is a de facto dictator now, or what?
The parliament, as a matter of fact, passed a bill forbidding him from running again, and the election is not coming yet, but they have asked him to hold the election ahead of time, and he refuses.
And he already declared that the parliament's decision is irrelevant because it's unconstitutional or whatever.
So there is really conflict, and, of course, what fueled the conflict, Taliban is very, very sick, and he may not make it.
So everybody is jockeying for position to have that position in their belly wick.
So there are many, many brewing factors in Iraq which doesn't bode well to the future of Iraq.
Of course, our oil companies are not helping.
They sign these oil deals with the Kurds as if the sovereign government of Iraq doesn't exist, and sort of they are putting more oil to the fire in Iraq, like they say, and no pun intended there.
So why should an Exxon, an American company, go and sign such an agreement with a portion of Iraq, basically?
Right.
Well, and you say in your article that Talibani has really, he's one of the two most powerful Kurdish leaders, and he's really played a very important role in smoothing over difficulties between the Kurdish population and the Kurds.
Absolutely.
In moderating the Kurdish leadership of Barzani, the other guy, and the Iraqi government.
He's been really a bridge in that regard.
Well, and so are you saying he's irreplaceable in that regard?
Yeah, I think every human being is replaceable, but it's going to be difficult because the conditions now are so ripe for sniping at each other and having a conflict.
That is the problem.
That's the acute problem that adds to this conflict.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I was talking with David Enders the other day from McClatchy, and he was saying that, as always, they're putting off the election in Kirkuk, because it always is the referendum about whether Kirkuk is a Kurdish city or an Iraqi city, or I don't know exactly what the question is that's always proposed.
Historically, it's all the time been a mixture of Turcomans, Kurds, and Arabs, all the time.
Anybody to claim it's been pure has never been pure.
Right.
But that seems to be what's in question, right?
Let's have a vote on whether this is a Kurdish city or not, and then if they did have that vote, then everybody would start butchering each other, apparently.
Exactly.
That is a very big problem, because, you know, it's not just land, it's also oil.
Right.
Well, yeah, exactly.
Who controls Kirkuk controls all the adjacent oil lands.
Exactly.
Sorry, that usually goes without saying, but it shouldn't.
It's certainly the important point underlying it all.
The, you know, partial autonomy to the Kurds is no doubt in my mind, and historically, they will get their own autonomous nation.
But the current history is not on their side, unfortunately.
And so for them to start acting as if they are government is just really not in the interest of the region, because the Turks will go to war with them and there is no way they could stand up for the Turks.
The Iranian will go to war with them.
So, you know, they have to be a little more moderate in terms of what is possible in the next few years rather than what could be possible in three to three decades later.
On the oil issue with it's, I guess, primarily Exxon is what you're referring to there, going in there and making a deal with the Kurds and trying to freeze out the central government.
That's right.
Why do the Kurds, I could see why, you know, Exxon wants to cut in as few people as possible.
Maybe they're even playing politics, you know, against our former Shiite friends in charge there, something like that.
But why is that in the interest of the Kurds to, I mean, obviously there's the pure short term financial gain of trying to freeze out the central government, but then they're really causing a political problem there where they can smooth it over with a little bit of cash.
I agree.
I think partially it's that, but also partially we are independent.
We could do whatever we want.
But I think my attitude is where is our State Department?
Why couldn't they moderate them?
Our State Department, they have tremendous influence on the Kurds, not because of just during the invasion, decades before the invasion.
So they have a tremendous influence.
They exist.
Their autonomy exists because we helped them, remember, prior to the invasion.
For a decade, we had the no-fly zone, basically, on the Kurds.
And that's why they maintain their autonomy.
And they were a good, I mean, the Kurds, to be very honest, like I said, I support their autonomy, but they thought of their situation, because they are a small, very small ethnic group, they thought of themselves like Israel and Middle East.
Their only savior is to be aligned 100% with U.S. foreign policy, and this way they have a guarantor for their safety and well-being.
And it worked, to be very honest.
I don't agree with it, the way they did it.
But nevertheless, they are desperate for a safe zone, basically, and they did get it.
But I think, I just don't want them to be encouraged to go further and further to alienate the central government.
It's not in their interest, because if Iran and Iraq have a war with them, they will not be able to survive.
And I hope that will never happen.
Right, well, and of course, they've got to contend with Syria and Turkey as well.
Oh, yeah.
The whole region is really at a boiling point.
A real independent Kurdistan is a tough road to hoe, no doubt about it.
It is.
Not now.
Maybe in the future.
All right, now, so, Muqtada al-Sadr, I think it's pretty obvious, right, that he and Maliki don't get along.
That he's kind of stuck with, it was sort of like the Bata Brigades and the Mahdi Army had to compromise and support the Dawah Party that didn't have its own army, kind of thing.
And that was their compromise, right, in the United Iraqi Alliance.
But anyway, my point is this, that Sadr, back in 2004, you know, was, well, and really the whole time, he seemed to be the most nationalist and least pro-Iranian of the Shiite leaders.
And lately, and that kind of went away after a while, after the Americans chased him into Iran.
But lately, he's been sort of coming out and saying things about, I guess even during the last parliamentary elections in, what, was it 2009 when, or 10, when he tried to make an alliance with Alawi for a little while, and then decided not to.
Anyway, my point being, he's got a lot of Iraqi nationalism, and not just Shiite nationalism.
I agree, and that's why he sometimes supported Sunni demonstrations, sometimes, not sometimes, many times he really supported the Christian plight of, you know, they were being, their churches bombed, and he came and visited them and showed them at least moral support.
So he's been really, you're right, nationalist and learning.
You know, his guys did a lot of the cleansing, so-called sectarian cleansing of Baghdad as well, right?
Yeah, he was not ready for it.
Most Shiite did not get involved in that after that period, I mean, you know, for the second time, despite some, these bad actors like al-Qaeda, they were killing Shiite to entice another civil war, and they didn't take the bite.
And that is, well, to the Shiite and to the Sadr himself.
So you're saying that, well, like in 2006 and 7, that was mostly the Badr Brigade and not the Mahdi Army that was putting drills in everybody's head and that kind of thing, forcing the Sunnis out of town?
I think so.
I think so.
I think al-Sadr did not get involved, really, down and dirty in these wars.
They may have supported them here and there, but he was not the spearhead and the main body of the fighters, yes.
And so now, do you think that there's enough of a little-R Republican system actually left behind by the Americans that something like a Sadr-Alawi alliance could result in Maliki's loss of power and his replacement, more or less peacefully?
I really can't predict any of that.
It is very, very difficult to see how that will come about, and I doubt it.
I really doubt it.
I don't know how that will come about.
It's very, very hard to predict that.
Nouriel Maliki doesn't look like he is going to give up power easily, and Sadr doesn't have the stature, really, to form a government on behalf of the Shiite yet.
And the Kurds, by themselves, they cannot do it, because the majority, 70% of the people are not Kurds.
So it's a very complex situation, and unfortunately, since the invasion, those differences have been ingrained in them.
And I am very pleased that there is no Lebanon-type civil war anymore, and I think that speaks volumes to the Iraqis' willingness to be patient and understanding of that ethnic group.
But if they keep pushing it and pushing it, no one can predict what will happen.
Yeah, I kind of wonder whether there will ever really be such a thing as Iraq again.
I mean, these sort of soft lines can really harden...
Oh, I think there will be.
I really do.
I think the Iraqis, they all want Iraq.
Iraq has been in existence in that region, regardless of the name, continuously going on for 7,000 years.
Really.
I mean, if you look at the history, that whole region of Iraq, you know, from north, south, and east, and west, has all the time existed in terms of as a community, continuously for 7,000 years.
It's really an amazing phenomenon.
And the reason is because it used to be the fertile crescent, the water, the environment are good, the domestication of animals was there.
Remember, they were the cradle of civilization, so there is that part of it which retains that kind of sustenance for all these thousands of years.
Well now, so I read an article, I guess it's been about since half a year ago or so, and it was some rebels in Syria.
And they were explaining that, well, even if we can't take Damascus, we'll at least want to take the predominantly Sunni parts of Syria, and break them off, and maybe create a new Sunni-stan, that's not what he called it, but whatever, Sunni-Arab alliance with the Sunni parts of Iraq, who have been frozen out from everything, you know, the land and all.
Now we're going into a whole different new ballgame, where the Saudis and the Qataris, and even to a lesser degree, the Egyptians are promoting Sunni divide and beating up on the Shiites, it's unfortunate, but the Saudis spent billions of dollars to foment these things, and they of course, they have no troops to send.
And that's really in part what's playing in Lebanon and in Syria, and in a smaller part in Iraq.
And yeah, that's why the whole Middle East could engulf in conflagration, really.
It's a very volatile region.
Well, now, so what do you make of all the stories over the last couple of years about how the CIA and the Obama administration are doing all of this to help coordinate the whole thing and to pay tens of millions of dollars here and tens of millions of dollars there, and at the same time, boo-hoo, we don't want to accidentally help Al-Qaeda, and we're so reluctant to send them weapons, and it just seems like they're doing that anyway, more or less.
I mean, if they're helping coordinate, the Qataris sending weapons, isn't that the same damn thing?
Well, they think they could control it and make it small region by small region, and that doesn't work.
That will not work.
The best thing is really, in general, we should stay out of it, to be very honest, unless there is a foreign force, which there isn't really.
The people of the region are not like foreigners in general.
Well, you know, I talked with David Enners, I mentioned him a minute ago, from McClatchy Newspapers, and he was saying that, well, I was making the comparison or asking him about the comparison between the Sunni-based insurgency in Iraq and how Al-Qaeda in Iraq was really a very small part of that insurgency, and he was saying that in Syria, no, they are the insurgency, that's it, they got brigades of 5,000 men, and it's Al-Qaeda in Syria, and they're the ones doing the fighting.
And I don't think he was saying they're all foreigners, necessarily, but they're all at least, you know, down with the suicide bomber brigade of complete kooks.
It's very hard to really tease out exactly who these groups are, because they're really forming and disbanding within a few months, and they take advantage of the situation.
Clearly, there is an Iranian, and there is a Sunni, and there's a Shiite, and there's Al-Qaeda, and there's Hezbollah in that region, you're talking about Syria now, and it's not clear at any given moment exactly what the operating forces are, to be very honest.
Yeah, well, certainly from Texas, that's true.
All right.
Well, listen, Adil, I really appreciate your time on the show today.
Thank you, Todd, I appreciate it.
All right, everybody, that's Adil Shamu, and he is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and a senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, FPIF, you know, John Pfeffer and the great crew over there.
His blog is ForWarOrPeace.com, and we'll be right back after this.
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