Edward Trimnell's Online Guide to the Middle East
The Four Wars of Iraq
In early 2007 Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Shortly after being sworn in, Gates described the conflict in Iraq as “four wars, not one.” Gates’ assessment of “the four wars of Iraq” is summarized below. It provides an overview of the difficulties that the United States and its coalition partners face in the embattled country:
War #1: Shiite vs. Shiite: The Iraqi government is currently dominated by the country’s Shiite majority, under the leadership of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki, however, isn’t the only Shitte aspirant to power. Southern Iraq is home to a variety of secular and religious Shiite leaders who are jostling for political clout and a hold on the region’s resources. (A large percentage of Iraq’s oil reserves are located in the south.)
One of the most infamous of these contenders is the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (b. 1973). Still in his thirties, Muqtada al-Sadr is related to Baqir al-Sadr, who was killed by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1980. Muqtada’s father, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, was assassinated by Ba’athist agents in 1999; two of Muqtada’s brothers were also killed by Saddam’s henchmen.
Despite Muqtada’s relative youth, his lineage and his personal boldness have given him considerable clout within the Iraqi Shiite community. He commands his own militia, known as the Mahdi Army. But the Mahdi Army has competitors. Many smaller militias exist in the Shiite south. There is also evidence that the Mahdi Army itself lacks any real solidarity; rival factions are said to exist within the group. These factions alternately cooperate and spar, depending on the circumstances of the moment.
Meanwhile, Al-Maliki’s survival as prime minister depends on the support (or least the tolerance) of the various Shiite factions. Thus far, Al-Maliki and his government have been either unwilling or unable to crack down on the unruly elements within the Shiite community.
War #2: The Shiite vs. Sunni sectarian conflict: Iraq’s sectarian conflict has been simmering since the Ottoman era. Saddam kept a lid on violence between Shiites and Sunnis by turning the country into a police state. (And Sunni-Shiite violence was not unknown even during the Ba’athist era.)
The old hatreds between Iraq’s Shiites and Sunnis have reemerged with a vengeance since the U.S. invasion. This did not occur completely without outside intervention. Al-Qaeda was a chief instigator in the revival of the sectarian conflict. Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Laden’s top lieutenant) has publicly called on Sunnis to kill Shiites in Iraq along with American forces; and many of the initial attacks against Shiites were carried out by non-Iraqi al-Qaeda operatives.
Nevertheless, the Shiite vs. Sunni conflict has now acquired a momentum of its own, in the form of a self-perpetuating cycle of violence. This conflict is perhaps the single largest obstacle to Iraqi national unity; Iraq is literally at war with itself.
Each new round of attack and reprisal hardens attitudes on both sides; and the enmity between the two groups is becoming more entrenched as the warfare continues. It will likely take generations to repair the damage done by Iraq’s sectarian violence.
War #3: The anti-U.S. insurgency: A variety of groups in Iraq have been targeting U.S. and coalition forces in deadly attacks since the early days of the occupation: remnants of the old Ba’athist regime, radical Iraqi nationalists, and homegrown Islamists. While these groups lack the sophistication of the U.S. military, they have proven themselves to be quite capable of killing American military personnel, and interfering with efforts to restore normal life in Iraq.
War #4: Al-Qaeda: Al-Qaeda is attacking both U.S. forces and Shiites in Iraq. The terrorist group has also, on occasion, engaged in turf battles with rival Sunni terrorist groups operating in the country.
Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq consist of various nationalities. Some are Iraqi recruits; but many are foreigners who have come to Iraq at the behest of al-Qaeda. These “foreign fighters” hope to destabilize the country and force the United States to withdraw its troops.