Sunday, September 09, 2007

Are We Or Aren't We?   [Jonah Goldberg]

I keep hearing people say we're "arming the Sunnis" in dire terms — the implication being that we're destined for blowback once the Sunni tribes kick out al Qaeda in Iraq. There are responses to the concern, but it strikes me as a legitimate and serious objection worth discussing — if it's true. But the thing is last week on Meet the Press, the NYT's Michael Gordon — whose spent lots of time in Sunni areas — said it's simply not true. The relevant quote:

MR. RUSSERT: If we, in fact, are arming the Sunnis and we've already armed the Shiites, are we arming both factions in a civil war?

MR. GORDON: Well, we're not arming these groups. They're not being given arms by the Americans, but you're pointing to one of the very real risks. I mean, the potential here is by organizing these Sunni groups in Baquba and...(unintelligible)...and...(unintelligible)...and all sorts of places in Iraq, we do have a mechanism to provide local security and really to drive out al-Qaeda of Iraq. The downside is unless this becomes institutionalized and these people become either Iraqi police or somehow approved by the Iraqi government, we might be setting the stage for more intensified civil war.

Since then, I've read lots of blanket assertions that we are arming the Sunnis. The latest issue of Time (via Nexis, so no link) has a long cover story by Michael Duffy et al. advancing the "blowback" concern, which reads in part:

That's because there are unmistakable risks to the new Sunni alliance. Arming the Sunnis against al-Qaeda is fine, but if they tire of their alliance with Washington, they become just another faction armed with U.S. weapons. Shi'ites and Kurds worry that the Sunni tribesmen who are fighting alongside American troops now have little or no loyalty to the Iraqi government and would just as soon turn their guns on Iraqi forces as on al-Qaeda. In addition, strengthening a Sunni stronghold in the middle of the country goes a ways toward cementing the very partitioning of Iraq that the Bush team has long sought to avoid. Which means the U.S. has to reckon with its new Sunni allies on roughly the same terms that lobbyists calculate the tenuous support of Senators they don't really trust: the question isn't whether you can buy the Sunnis; it's whether they will stay bought. "These people used to be America's problem, so America has bought their friendship," says the Iraqi analyst. "When the Americans leave, these people will become Iraq's problem."

Now, "arming the Sunnis" might be mangled code for "organizing the Sunnis" or "aiding the Sunnis" but the these are differnt things, no? Maybe the guys at The Tank can settle this for me. Are we or aren't we arming the Sunnis? Curious minds wants to know.

Update: From a friend:

Jonah,

Regarding our arming the Sunnis, the answer is no. read some Bill Ardolino from Fallujah. We are recruiting neighborhood watch members and they are authorized to carry their own weapons. All Iraqi males are authorized to own an AK-47 and once they join they get a hat, a t-shirt and the right t patrol their neoghborhood. i they are good they can be promoted to the Iraqi Police.

09/09 05:46 PMShare