Christians in Iran and Iraq

I’ve read and listened to a few things recently about Christians in the Muslim world. I’ve heard from several different sources over the last few years that ex-Muslims report having dreams that persuade them to become Christians. Here are some things that I have read recently:

• Peter Leithart linked to Joel Rosenberg’s blog post about a Daily Caller article, in which an Iranian defector claimed that the Iranian authorities are flummoxed by a large number of Christian converts. You can get all the salient information from Leithart and Rosenberg without making the unfortunate discovery that I made: that the editors of The Daily Caller apparently believe that the only way to gain a readership is to plaster their site with scantily-clad women.
• Leithart also summarized the contents of a Charisma magazine article about Muslim conversions, especially in Iraq and Iran.
• Eric Metaxas and Brian Mattson both wrote about the case of Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American pastor, who was recently arrested in Iran. Metaxas’ article contains a link to an interview that Breakpoint’s John Stonestreet did with Abedini’s wife Naghmeh and the American Center for Law and Justice’s Tiffany Barrans.

Short film on the Iran-Iraq War

Joel Wing of Musings on Iraq posted a 37-minute documentary on the Iran-Iraq War (in 4 YouTube installments). It’s pretty good (if “good” is the right word for a film about that war) and has a lot of footage. A couple of notes:

• Iran’s human wave attacks, Iraq’s first use of chemical weapons against Iran, and the beginning of the Kurdish uprising are all in the second installment.
• When the USS Vincennes accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger airplane, the Iranians misinterpreted it as evidence of the superpowers’ unwavering commitment to supporting Iraq. I’d heard about how much that mistake intimidated the Iranians before, but I didn’t know that it affected their desire to continue fighting.

What Saddam thought

At Musings on Iraq, Joel Wing writes that Saddam did not plan the post-invasion insurgency, as some thought at the time, because he didn’t think that his government was going to fall. It’s strange that despite the talk of “regime change” here, he completely discounted the possibility:

The project found that Saddam and his top officials’ worldview was shaped by Iraqi history, and was quite different from what Americans were thinking. First, Saddam did not believe that the United States had the will to invade Iraq. He looked at Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and even the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and interpreted them all as examples that the Americans could not take casualties, and preferred to use air rather than ground power. Saddam also looked at Iraq’s past intransigence with the United Nations weapons inspectors and its 1993 attempt on former President Bush’s life in Kuwait where the U.S. just launched air and missile strikes as other examples to bolster his opinion. A few senior military officials believed that the Americans would actually invade, but they thought it would be like the 1991 Gulf War where the U.S. would carry out a massive air campaign, and then invade the south, but never head towards Baghdad. For example, the former commander of the Iraqi Air Force and Air Defense told interrogators after the war that, “We thought that the war would be like the last one in 1991. We figured that the United States would conduct some operations in the south and then go home.” The Director General of the Republican Guard’s General Staff told his captors, “We thought the Coalition would go to Basra, may be to Amarah, and then the war would end.” In 2002, when Washington and London were stepping up international pressure upon Baghdad, Saddam thought that France and Russia would stop any United Nations’ resolutions that authorized the use of force. That was because Iraq had created strong economic ties with both since the 1990s in an attempt to undermine U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. Even if the U.S. were to invade, Saddam thought that Iraqi troops were better fighters, and would cause such heavy casualties, that President Bush would stop. As Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said, Saddam “Thought that this war would not lead to his ending.”

When the invasion came in March 2003, Saddam was obsessed with the military details and giving orders, but because his staff had been conditioned to hide bad news from him out of fear that he would have them killed, he never knew how serious the threat was, and how fast the American troops were moving towards Baghdad. Instead he thought the Iraqi forces were actually winning. General Abed Hamid Mahmoud, Saddam’s secretary for example, later told the U.S. that Saddam ordered the Foreign Ministry on March 30 to tell the French and Germans that Iraq wanted an unconditional surrender from the U.S. Even in the last days of his regime in April, Saddam was still coming up with plans on how to defend the capital, and ordering units that had been destroyed into new positions. To the very end, Saddam was focused upon the invasion, and not what would happen afterward. That’s why no documents or official was found that said that he ever thought about forming an insurgency. Before the war, he thought it wouldn’t happen, and then when it did, he believed the U.S. would never head towards Baghdad, and that his army could stop the Americans in their tracks. The idea that he might be deposed, never seemed to enter his mind until the night he fled, and his regime collapsed.

How will Iraq turn out?

Walter Russell Mead makes the case that the US achieved victory, of the world-historical variety, in Iraq, destroying Osama bin Laden’s dream of a revitalized, militant Islam. By winning the contest for the hearts of Iraqi Sunnis, coalition forces defeated bin Laden. Michael Totten excerpted part of Mead’s post and added his own commentary.

I still think that it’s too soon to call it a victory; as Joel Wing’s Musings on Iraq blog notes, corruption and violence still bedevil Iraqi society, and recent protests show a level of discontent with the government. Neither optimists or pessimists know how it will all turn out, but Mead’s post is a good statement of his position.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Joel Wing summarized the history of al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq at his blog, Musings on Iraq, which synthesizes media reporting on important trends there. Among his several links was this one to a dated (2004) but interesting biographical sketch of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the first leader of the organization.

Wing’s whole post is good, but here was one key section:

Al Qaeda in Iraq was actually started by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a rival to bin Laden’s organization. Zarqawi, real name Ahmad Fadhil Nazal al-Khalaylah, was a Jordanian Islamist who was exposed to radical jihadist ideas in a Palestinian refugee camp in his home country while he was growing up. In 1989 he left for Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets, and in 1991, he and fellow countryman Mohammad al-Maqdisi formed Bayat al-Imam to foment an Islamist revolution in Jordan. The two were arrested for their activities in 1994, and Zarqawi was eventually released as part of an amnesty program. He then traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan where he eventually met Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden offered assistance to Zarqawi to create his own terrorist camp in Afghanistan, but the two maintained different ideologies and separate organizations. Zarqawi’s was called Tawhid wal Jihad, Unity and Holy War. In Mid-2002 Zarqawi entered Iraq to set up terrorist cells to resist the impending American onslaught on Saddam Hussein. After the U.S. invasion, Zarqawi’s organization was responsible for some of the first and deadliest terrorist attacks in the country, which would led him to become the world’s most infamous terrorist at the time, eclipsing even bin Laden.

Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Zawahiri had their own plans for Iraq. In November 2003, Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders met in Afghanistan to discuss the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda decided that they were going to shift their focus from the Afghan war to the one in Iraq, and cut military support and funding to the Taliban as a result. Bin Laden believed that Iraq was the new field to confront the Americans, and that it would also give them reprieve in Afghanistan to re-organize and re-build. As a result, Al Qaeda began diverting some of its fighters and operatives to Iraq to try to organize and make connections with insurgent groups already there.

The journey to unite bin Laden and Zarqawi proved to be a difficult one. The two had different ideas about strategy and tactics, and Zarqawi was intent upon making a name for himself, not some other group and leader. Zawahiri for example, believed that Al Qaeda could kick the United States out of Iraq by working with locals, and then establish a Caliphate there, which would become a center of Islamist radicalism throughout the region. Zarqawi on the other hand believed that best way to expel the Americans was to start a sectarian war, which would rally the country’s Sunnis to his group. The fighting would then spread throughout the rest of the Middle East leading to a regional jihad led by him. These differences would initially keep the two sides apart.

Eventually Zarqawi and Al Qaeda were able to work out an agreement, but it took time. In January 2004, the U.S. found a letter from Zarqawi to Al Qaeda asking for aid in his plans. They allegedly turned him down. (1) Finally, in October 2004, Zarqawi issued an internet statement pledging his allegiance to bin Laden. In December, Al Jazeera also aired a tape of bin Laden saying that Zarqawi was his deputy in Iraq. That was when Zarqawi renamed his group Al Qaeda in Iraq. By doing so, Zarqawi gained the name recognition that came with Al Qaeda, while opening up new sources of funding. Bin Laden in turn, got a foothold in Iraq. Despite these statements, the relationship between the two remained rocky.

By the end 2005, the differences between the two became public. In October 2005, the United States released a letter they had captured from Zawahiri to Zarqawi. It said that Al Qaeda in Iraq needed popular support, and Zarqawi’s tactics were costing them that. Specifically, Zawahiri reprimanded Zarqawi for attacking Shiites, carrying out beheadings, bombing mosques, and not consulting with Al Qaeda about his plans. Al Qaeda would also criticize him for attacking other militant groups that refused to follow his lead. Zarqawi was his own man, and never stopped with his policies. In fact, in 2006 he released his first public video that showed him out in the field with a machine gun, symbolically comparing himself to bin laden and Zarqawi, and saying that he was fighting while they were in hiding.

The divided Kurds

I assigned a few chapters from Beverley Milton-Edwards and Peter Hinchcliffe’s Conflicts in the Middle East since 1945 (Routledge, 2008) for my Middle Eastern history course this semester. One of them briefly told the modern history of the Kurds, who I believe are the largest people-group in the world without an independent state. After Arabs, according to the chapter, they are the largest ethnic group in the Middle East.

The major theme of the chapter was the division that has hampered Kurdish nationalism. While they are mostly Sunni, there are Shia Kurds in Iran and also Christan and Yazidi Kurds. More significantly, the Kurdish homeland spans multiple countries: Turkey, Iraq, and Iran most prominently, with smaller communities in Syria and Armenia. This division between different states has made it difficult for Kurdish nationalist to cooperate across state boundaries and has resulted in Kurdish militias being used as proxies against their own governments: Iranian Kurds fighting the Iranian government with the support of the Iraqi government and vice versa in the 1970s and 1980s, and Syria reportedly wielding the Marxist PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) against Turkey.

Egypt’s unrest and the Arab-Israeli conflict

Jeff Goldberg linked to a New York Times opinion piece by Yossi Klein Halevi who writes that many Israelis fear that the demonstrations will result in exchanging the stability of Hosni Mubarak for the aggression of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Halevi writes that the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt neutralized the danger of an attack on Israel by the Arab states, which makes sense. Egypt provided the backbone of the failed wars of the Arab states against Israel. I’ve read different versions of the saying that different Arab groups wanted to fight Israel to the last Egyptian soldier. Until the treaty with Egypt, Israel’s allies in the region, Iran and Turkey, had come from outside the Arab world. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the recent tensions with Turkey’s Islamist government changed this, but these developments have been mitigated by peace with Egypt. So you can see where the worry comes from.

Goldberg also corresponded with Elliott Abrams to get a comment on Israeli fears of an Islamist Egypt and included Abrams’ response, which was interesting:

The Israelis first of all do not believe in the universality of democracy.  They believe what many American “experts” did in, say, 1950–democracy was fine for us and Western Europe, but not for Latins (too much Catholic culture) and Asians (too much Confucianism).  They believe Arab culture does not permit democracy.

They see a danger in Mubarak’s fall, and they are right: we do not know who will take over now or in a year or two from now.  But this is at bottom a crazy reaction.  What they are afraid of is the Muslim Brotherhood, right?  Mubarak has ruled for THIRTY YEARS and leaves us a Brotherhood that is that powerful?  Isn’t that all the proof we need that dictatorship is not the way to fight the Brotherhood?  He crushed the moderate and centrist groups and left the Brothers with an open field.  He is to blame for the Brothers’ popularity and strength right now.  The sooner he goes the better.

I think that Abrams shows too much confidence in “the universality of democracy.” Western democracy emerged in a specific cultural context, and the reassurances that Abrams (and the Bush administration in which he served) gave about opening up the Middle East to democracy have been at least partially damaged by Hamas being elected in the Palestinian territories and what seems to be a fairly dysfunctional new Iraqi state. But Bush was right that we won’t really know the verdict on his policies for a long time. We simply have no idea how it will all turn out.

Rick Richman wrote about this same subject at Commentary’s blog Contentions. He distinguishes between a “achievement” in Iraq and a failed policy in the Palestinian territories. Earlier, former Bush administration official Peter Wehner, also writing at Contentions, noted this Washington Post editorial’s account of progress toward democracy and stability in Iraq in 2010. I think that Richman and Wehner are too optimistic about Iraq, which has had many ups and downs since 2003. For example, I saw in the Chicago Tribune today that Transparency International ranked Iraq fourth from the bottom in its 2010 rankings that measure perceived public corruption. But it’s important to look at the positive things that Richman and Wehner note as we try to sort everything out.

Employment in Iraq

Joel Wing writes that the Iraqi government is hoping to create government jobs in order to address the problem of 55-60% unemployment and underemployment:

Baghdad, and organizations such as the International Monetary Fund have all said that they want to develop the private sector in the country, but it appears that for now, the government is going to look to itself rather than businesses to try to create jobs. The government is already the largest employer in the country with 4 million workers, and in 2010 salaries and pensions took up 72% of the budget. The deputy Planning Minister criticized the plan saying that the authorities can’t create enough positions to adequately fight unemployment, and that 30% of public employees only work part-time to begin with. If the 2011 budget includes this idea it would only add more useless jobs to the inefficient public sector.

Muqtada al-Sadr: Iraq’s leader in waiting?

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, writing at Now Lebanon, believes that Iran has played its cards patiently and well in this year as the Iraqi cabinet formed:

Iran has lost a battle, but not the war. By entering the Maliki cabinet, Tehran has planted the seed for a Sadrist movement that promises to prosper in the future. Like in Lebanon, it took decades before Hezbollah could control the country.

During the March elections, the Sadrist movement showed signs of organization superior to other Iraqi groups. Sadr is currently residing in Qom, probably to burnish his religious credentials. By the time he is done, Iraq will be ready to receive him as a leader with the legitimacy to lead the country.

Like in Lebanon and the rest of the region, Iran is in no hurry to spread its influence. If a couple of decades is what it takes for Iran to dominate Baghdad, then so be it.

What is the American future in Iraq?

Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq (2007-2009) argues that the US needs to consolidate the gains of the surge and capitalize on the rare case of Iraqi openness to the West:

NOW WE need to shore up the accomplishments of Baghdad. If it is true that failure in Iraq would have had far-reaching consequences for our interests in the region and beyond, it is also true that the emergence of a stable, prosperous and pluralistic country can have a positive impact far beyond its borders. Since the 1958 revolution that overthrew the monarchy, successive Iraqi regimes have defined themselves in opposition to the West generally and the United States in particular. For example, Iraq led OPEC in nationalizing the oil sector. For the first time in fifty years, we are witnessing an Iraq that wants close economic and strategic ties with the West. Nuri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders have made multiple visits to Washington and European capitals. Immediately after his campaign against Jaish al-Mahdi in 2008, al-Maliki went to Brussels for meetings with EU and NATO representatives. The signal to the West—and to Tehran and Damascus—was clear. Major international oil companies, including from the United States, are now helping to develop the country’s petroleum resources. An Iraq at the heart of the Middle East, strategically linked to the West could profoundly alter the political calculus of the region. And we now have the blueprint to make this a reality.

In the post-surge climate of relative stability at the end of 2008 we were able to negotiate two historic bilateral accords, the Status of Forces Agreement and the Strategic Framework Agreement, which provided for a smooth handover from the Bush to the Obama administration. They are our road map for the future. Perhaps inevitably, most public attention has been on the first, which provides for the full withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011. That agreement effectively ended the allegations in Iraq that America sought permanent occupation, as it did the debate in this country about our presence there. Although we are no longer involved in combat operations, the fact that our military is on the ground is an important reassurance to Iraqis. The Obama administration’s decision to reduce troop levels to fifty thousand by the end of August will require very careful management to ensure that Iraqis do not become less inclined to compromise as they wrestle with the hard decisions ahead of them. And if the new government in Baghdad approaches us about the possibility of extending our presence beyond 2011, I hope we will listen very carefully.

The Strategic Framework Agreement should emerge over time as the model for our long-term relationship. It lays out the parameters for a U.S.-Iraqi partnership in education, trade, diplomacy, culture, and science and technology. It is the outline for an alliance that can fundamentally alter the strategic map of the Middle East. But it will require U.S. commitment. I am heartened to see Vice President Joe Biden engage directly and repeatedly on Iraq. That sustained, high-level effort will be essential in helping the Iraqis deal with the multiple challenges ahead of them and in cementing our partnership for the future. Over time, these agreements will define an increasingly normalized relationship between two sovereign partners. At present, our active involvement will continue to be vital. We need to be sensitive to Iraqi concerns over sovereignty, but we need to be in country.

While recent progress has brought new hope to Iraqis, the fear hardwired into their society from the Saddam era remains profound. The Shia are afraid of the past—that a Sunni dictatorship will reassert itself. The Sunnis are afraid of the future—an Iraq in which they are no longer ascendant. And the Kurds, with their history of suffering, are afraid of both the past and the future. Our sustained presence and involvement works to mitigate those fears.

The main point of his argument is that Iraq should not be allowed to slip back into what it was before the change in policy in 2007 (military surge and “political, economic and diplomatic” involvement).  If it does slip back, the same groups that drew encouragement and operational space from our withdrawals from Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Pakistan take advantage of this withdrawal.

There are a few interesting things about Crocker’s piece.  First of all, he is really widely respected, as far as I can tell.  He was part of a team in the second Bush administration that was far more effective in Iraq.  So he’s worth listening to.  Second, he never defends the invasion of Iraq.  Third, his logic commits the US to the Middle East with no end in sight, focusing on the bad things that could happen without much of a consideration of any costs to us.

Hat tip: Tom Ricks