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Some Peace in Iraq

Peace amid the ruins

By Ralph Peters

After my recent visit to Iraq, it’s clear that the war today is a very different conflict from the war of years past. Most notable: The enemy has become our ally, and in many cases, our allies have become the enemy.

In 1945, it seemed unthinkable that the people of Berlin would ever applaud anyone in an American uniform. Our bombers had destroyed much of the city, and the Red Army ravaged what remained.

Three years later, Berliners cheered the American pilots overhead. The remarkable shift was provoked by their experience with Soviet brutality.

That's an approximation of the turnabout in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. In 2004, U.S. firepower left swaths of the city in rubble. Three years later, local residents realized that, while the Americans couldn't be defeated, we intended to leave eventually, and that a far harsher enemy, al-Qaeda in Iraq, meant to remain and rule through sharia law in its fiercest interpretation.

Today, the children of Fallujah wave at passing U.S. troops much as the children of Berlin once waved at the "candy bomber."

After spending the last two weeks of August in Iraq, speaking with privates and generals, with sheikhs and Iraqi officials, I returned more optimistic than I've been in many months. Real progress is evident at the local and regional levels. Exasperating difficulties remain, but the strategic landscape has shifted — largely to our advantage.

Paradoxically, our former enemies, Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents, have embraced a new reality while, here at home, politicians and pundits remain frozen in stances they assumed in 2003. The war has evolved profoundly, but the home front remains unchanged.

Two paths

One crucial difference in Iraq is that we now operate along two distinct, if related, paths. The first continues the attempt to enable Iraqis to build a government that reflects the people's will and satisfies their needs. But the second track is arguably more important — and largely missed by the media.

Whatever might have been the case in 2003, in 2007 we're fighting for our national security. Even if al-Qaeda didn't have a single operative in Iraq four and a half years ago — a proposition that remains in dispute — the terrorists subsequently declared it their main front.

The move was a grave error for al-Qaeda. After a honeymoon in which Sunni insurgents allied themselves with foreign extremists, Iraqis found the severity and blood thirst of al-Qaeda in Iraq a far more insidious threat than the U.S. presence.

Sunnis began to rally to the American side in an alliance of convenience. As a result, al-Qaeda is suffering not only a massive defeat but also a strategic humiliation. This violent rejection of al-Qaeda by fellow Sunni Muslims amounts to the greatest American public diplomacy triumph since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Al-Qaeda will retain the ability to attack civilian targets for years to come. Even so, the terrorists are recognized as outlaws now, not as Arab champions. We might find that al-Qaeda's international eclipse began in Anbar province, when Muslims took up arms against the organization.

(In one striking instance in the town of Karmah, near Fallujah, I witnessed a Marine captain restraining an Iraqi general from launching a premature attack on one of al-Qaeda's remaining strongholds. The rage the Iraqi felt toward the terrorists was, to put it mildly, unfeigned.)

Beyond Anbar province, the troop surge implemented over the past six months, coupled with the refreshing leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, has produced encouraging results in Baghdad and beyond. Though it doesn't do to overstate the progress — much of Iraq remains violent and unstable — the determination of the war's opponents in the USA to dismiss the positive developments defies empirical reality.

If some Baghdad neighborhoods remain murderous, others have been rejuvenated by a combination of determined security operations and local empowerment. A visit to the Haifa Street area, the scene of ferocious combat only last January, now takes you past soccer games, refurbished parks and busy cafe patios. Children swim in the Tigris River, while their elders fish from banks newly cleansed of garbage. And America's stock has soared with the local residents.

We're not the enemy anymore.

In war, alliances and goals evolve, often surprisingly. Gen. Petraeus' current strategy, outlined to me during an office visit, might be summed up fairly in three goals: al-Qaeda shattered, Iran excluded and sectarian violence reduced to a level that would allow the Iraqi government to function.

On the first count, the progress has been startling. On the second, U.S. forces are holding the line. As for reducing sectarian feuding, that, too, has been a success story — to the point where some U.S. officers believe that we'll soon transition from a counterinsurgency role to less intensive peace enforcement and peacekeeping operations.

A growing Shiite threat

With former enemies allied with us to fight al-Qaeda, we're now threatened primarily by those we expected to befriend us, Iraq's Shiite majority. Shiite extremists pose the greatest danger to our troops and to their country's progress. The principle characteristic of the failing, Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is paranoia, and the Shiites overall seem programmed to see only enemies, never well-wishers.

The never-quite-got-there civil war that fueled so many opinion columns over the past few years could still erupt at last — within the Shiite community, as Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army takes on the Shiite establishment's Badr Brigades and Iran attempts to play kingmaker. We cannot disengage until that danger is defused.

In Gen. Petraeus' report to Congress, he is describing real progress and remaining problems. He has spoken of potential troop withdrawals next year. No matter what he says, though, Washington will judge his words according to its political biases. The general is winning in Iraq, but he might not be able to win on Capitol Hill.

That would be a shame, since, after nearly four years of getting it miserably wrong in Iraq, we're finally getting it right.

Ralph Peters is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and the author of the recent book Wars Of Blood And Faith.

TLDR

What we got for this Christmas

For 13 years since we bought our very first house in the Ojai Valley we have been harassed by our neighbors. All because we are different and look different. They do not like our life style and seek to punish us however they can. This includes harm. We turn the other cheek more often than not. We could have had legal action many times over. A few months back one of the neighbors even hit our truck and we said she could work it out with us. She never did. Two days ago on the corner of the house kitty corner to ours they put a camera on the roof which is pointed at our front door. It in no way faces their properties. Now what little privacy we had is gone. They call agencies on us all of the time. The agencies do nothing in general to stop these people from doing these things to us. They say they have to come out each time. We loose time, peace and privacy. We have had a swastika put on our fence, a note threatening to kill our children, and much much more.

What I want for Christmas is for the Ojai Valley to stand up to those nasty people and band together to protect the victims that are going through what we are. You have the power to say no. You have the power to pray. You have the power to make police have approval on all cameras (ie that they see what it is looking at and they monitor it on a regular basis so these evil people do not take away our peace. I want a stop gap where if 5 calls go into any or all agencies on the same family in a 5 year period and they are not valid calls that the people making the calls are prosecuted by the agencies being called. Give us back our peace. Give us back our life. Give us back our liberty.

A Sad Ojai Neighbor

Interesting info on water rates on the OVN blog...I thought that we do use Casitas water, we just run it through Golden state pipes. Is this not so?

I moved out of Ojaitown and am now down the road north of Meiners Oaks. I'm getting settled in to the point where I can settle some scores.

Congrats to the Post for hanging in there. Tyler had something about the 4000th post below. And evan is keeping the Peace.

The complexion of commentators has changed since I was an activist; seems like another lifetime. More fluffy with some real nut cases on board. The comment above by Ralph Peters from the main, main, mainstream government paid, bought and sold press, thanks to an apparently local enabler shows how weird this Post can get.

Anybody can say anything when there are no standards of truth.

And what the hell is this about a neighbor pointing a camera at your front door? Is someone making this up to get attention or to bury the Post deeper in the ground? Do folks sign off as Anonymouse because they really are that fightened? What is Ojai coming to?

Peace, sisters, peaxc.

At Farmers Market, Sunday, I bought this 2008 calendar, Strength is Beauty, from the photographer-artist herself, featuring open Ojai womem (no Oprah these). Restored my faith in humamity. I've got it pinned (actually nailed with pinlike nails) in a prominent place opposite a flower encircled analogue clock in my 150 square foot home on wheels. It's one pinup I'm not ashamed to show.

Drop by sometime. I'll show you my calendars. I bought a small ice shack type woodstove so it's nice and toasty inside on these cold, rainy days.

God, sometimes I hate myself and sometimes I love myself. Give me a break. I turned 68 December 10. Senility on top of oldtimers' disease.

I wouldn't want to live anywhere else but in the Ojai Valley. It's so sexy with those double breasted gravel trailers laboring up the grade with their deliveries. I can actually see and hear them from my new homebase. How lucky can one get? Hey, people have to eat. But gravel?

Enough. Peace on you all.

Talk about weirdly wired. I just posted. First it wouldn't take and then it took but three times. Three strikes and I should be out. We'll see what umpire Tyler does with this. Comments 5, 6 and 7 are from Dennis Leary, aka Dennis the Men ace, not Anonymous. I'm not Anonymous and never have been.

Dennis Leary is not Anonymous. He's me.

Yikes. Comment 6 and 7 have been deleted but comment #5 still reads Anonymous as does comment #6. Is it me or the system? Is this some government plot to make us all anonymous?

Dennis Leary, alias anonymous.

I deleted the duplicates, Dennis. Just remember to put your name in the Name field...