UPDATED: "Taliban": Well, They All Look the Same....

This week Josh Mull ("UJ"), both in his guest blog and in his comments, has offered valuable insight into the complexity of local groups and insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I've now discovered an analysis by Steve Hynd ("Cernig"), which I think is an excellent introduction to the political, economic, and social dimensions beyond the label "Taliban". It's reprinted below this report from Al Jazeera:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWT1kqoeszI[/youtube] 

Taliban: What's in a Name?

Two years into the Iraq war, moderately well read Westerners already knew that the insurgency there wasn't monolithic. Honest reporting repeatedly made clear that Al Qaeda, Sunni militant groups of various varieties and Sadrists didn't see eye to eye and often worked at cross purposes even while all were hostile to America and its allies.

Yet after seven years in Afghanistan, the same cannot be said about Western knowledge of militants in the region. There's a big, amorphous mass called "The Taliban" which is in cahoots with Al Qaeda - and that's about as fine grained as it usually gets.


That was sufficient back in 2001. The American-led coalition invaded to engage Osama bin Laden's group and the Taliban's organized fighters and on the battlefield itself Afghans quickly sorted into those who were either Al Qeada or Taliban, or those who were against them.

But it doesn't cover the current complex situation at all well,which means the West's voters are at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding - and approving or disapproving - their leaders' plans. As Brandon Friedman, a former officer who served in Afghanistan, put it in a recent email:

Instead of fighting organized theocratic government forces and their foreign terrorist guests, we're now arrayed against a Tatooine-esque combination actual foreign terrorists, actual Taliban fighters from two different countries, narco-warlords jockeying for regional power and influence, regular warlords jockeying for regional power and influence, angry Afghan citizens who've grown weary of civilian casualties, angry Afghan civilians who've grown weary of foreign forces and their broken promises, regular Afghan citizens who side with the Taliban out of sheer necessity for survival, angry opium farmers, Pakistani agents, and, finally, the invisible blight of government corruption.

Reducing that complexity to a simple "Us and Them" formula hinders much of the debate about Afghanistan.

So it was pleasant to see, among coverage of recent US missile strikes, a report by Mark Mazzetti, David Sanger and Eric Schmidt of the New York Times which tried to explain the various flavors of Taliban, their motives and their aims. The piece highlighted the difference between the Taliban group that Pakistan is most interested in opposing, Baitullah Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, which is believed responsible for the campaign against Western forces in Afghanistan.

The latter group thinks the former has no business attacking Pakistani security forces or the Pakistani government, pointing to a reciprocal tension between Pakistan and the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. While the Pakistani government is happy to do peace deals with Haqqani's network and less so with Mehsud's, the coalition is more likely to eventually do so with the latter. Meanwhile, Pakistani counter-terror efforts are always going to focus on Mehsud's groups - which isn't all that useful to the West.

We could do with more of this kind of reporting about the region. In particular, we could do with more differentiation on press reports of the four or five main current strains of Taliban of interest to Western efforts in the region. That's the plea recently made by Frederick Kagan, in a short article for the National Review Online reproduced at the American Enterprise Institute:

There is no such thing as "the Taliban" today. Many different groups with different leaders and aims call themselves "Taliban," and many more are called "Taliban" by their enemies. In addition to Mullah Omar's Taliban based in Pakistan and indigenous Taliban forces in Afghanistan, there is an indigenous Pakistani Taliban controlled by Baitullah Mehsud (this group is thought to have been responsible for assassinating Benazir Bhutto). Both are linked with al-Qaeda, and both are dangerous and determined. In other areas, however, "Taliban" groups are primarily disaffected tribesmen who find it more convenient to get help from the Taliban than from other sources.

In general terms, any group that calls itself "Taliban" is identifying itself as against the government in Kabul, the U.S., and U.S. allies. Our job is to understand which groups are truly dangerous, which are irreconcilable with our goals for Afghanistan--and which can be fractured or persuaded to rejoin the Afghan polity. We can't fight them all, and we can't negotiate with them all. Dropping the term "Taliban" and referring to specific groups instead would be a good way to start understanding who is really causing problems.

Mullah Omar's Taliban - the original Afghanistan-ruling Taliban - is nowadays more under the day-to-day direction of Mullah Bradar (or Brehadar), Omar's trusted chief of military operations but it still leans heavily towards the position of Jalaluddin Haqqani's Taliban, which has largely supplanted it as the pre-eminent force in Afghanistan. Both are based in Pakistan but mostly interested in attacking allied forces in Afghanistan and the Afghan government. As one prominent member of Omar's group told Asia Times reporter Syed Saleem Shahzad last September:

It is necessary to understand that there is a sea of difference between the people who call themselves the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban [led by Mehsud] and the Taliban. We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we oppose the policies they adhere to against the Pakistani security forces.

We individually speak to all groups, whether they are Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Arabs, Uzbeks or whosoever, telling them not to create violence in Pakistan, especially in the name of the Taliban.

Journalists in the West could do worse than refer to veteran reporter Anand Gopal's incisive look at the various competing groups of militants in the region, which also include the resurgent Hizb-i-Islami of charismatic fundamentalist Hekmatyar, who like Haqqani used to be one of those favored by both CIA and ISI intelligence agencies. Gopal writes of a "rainbow coalition" arrayed against U.S. troops, which is "competing commanders with differing ideologies and strategies, who nonetheless agree on one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners."

As Brandon Freidman writes, it's tempting to default to the soundbite term "Taliban" when talking about all these groups and to thus treat them as if they were one monolithic structure. But a more nuanced debate is not only healthy in any democracy, it might pave the way for Western public acceptance of what every military commander has said must eventually happen if there is ever to be real peace - an accord with more moderate groups to reconcile them to mainstream Afghan and Pakistani politics.

Decoding the Political Challenges of the Iraqi Elections

Four days after the provincial elections in Iraq, the political complexities are beginning to emerge. While many are still caught up in the two-dimensional narrative of "victory for the secularists, defeat for Iran", this  is at best a diversion which does not appreciate the complexities of politics and society after Saddam.

Consider and contrast, for example, the fatuous cheerleading of the Kagan spin machine (Kimberly and Frederick in the Wall Street Journal) with Juan Cole's simple, effective correction: "Iran did not Lose the Provincial Elections". And, for the less onerous but still simplistic readings of "Big Win for Prime Minister al-Maliki", Cole has a more detailed breakdown today (which we reprint below) and an incisive conclusion:

Although Nuri al-Maliki's Da'wa Party got over a third of the votes in Baghdad and Basra, they clearly did not achieve a commanding position, and its share in the more rural Shiite provinces was signifcantly less..

The big story here is that the Shiite religious parties (and yes, the Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party is among them) again swept the Shiite south. However, those Shiite parties that won out this time want a strong central government, not a Shiite mini-state.



The irony, which is deliberately missed by those who want to twist the election into a simple "victory for America, defeat for Al Qa'eda, defeat for America's enemies" narrative, is that less than a year ago, the US was working against a strong Baghdad and in favour of stronger local Sunni movements. Then, however, al-Maliki asserted himself in the battles for Sadr City and Basra and Washington swung behind him as the most effective Iraqi leader.

But, of course, those local Sunni movements that had been courted by the US in the "surge" are still around --- indeed, up to 48 hours ago they were threatening a mini-war with Baghdad --- and so are the other parties in al-Maliki's coalition. As we said last summer and will say again, Iraqi politics is now beyond Washington, and the US military is marginal, not central, to the complex processes that will play out beyond any simple invocation of "democracy".

Religious Parties Sweep Shiite South; Sunni Arabs fragmented, mainly Secular
JUAN COLE

The Iraqi provincial election results are out. They confirm what I said last Monday, that the parties who want a strong, united Iraq have come to the fore in these elections. Although Nuri al-Maliki's Da'wa Party got over a third of the votes in Baghdad and Basra, they clearly did not achieve a commanding position, and its share in the more rural Shiite provinces was signifcantly less..

The big story here is that the Shiite religious parties (and yes, the Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party is among them) again swept the Shiite south. However, those Shiite parties that won out this time want a strong central government, not a Shiite mini-state.

There is nothing here to give comfort to those Americans who fear Iranian influence in Iraq. The Islamic Mission Party or Da'wa is just as committed to warm relations with Tehran as is the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The Da'wa leaders were in exile in Tehran for years just like ISCI. Da'wa is more "lay" and less clerical than ISCI, but being "lay" means non-clerical, not secular. Da'wa wants an Islamic State.

These election results raise severe questions about the viability of the Biden plan, which foresaw three decentralized super-provinces overseen by a weak central government. Most of the victors in this election are strong believers in a centralized civil bureaucracy.

On the whole, I think these results are encouraging for Obama. The Sunni Arab ex-Baathist secular elites have reentered polities in the Sunni Arab areas. These election results put paid to the fantasies of Dick Cheney and John McCain that Sunni Arab Iraqis are pro-"al-Qaeda." Most of them would not even vote for a religious party, much less for a radical fundamentalist terrorist group. Cheney said that if the US left, al-Qaeda would take over Sunni Arab Iraq. That is highly unlikely given these election results.

Iraq voted as several distinct demographic zones.

In the two provinces with very large Shiite cities, the Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa) of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki took over a third of the vote. Another 15-20% of the vote went to Shiite fundamentalist parties such as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq or the Sadrists. Contrary to what a lot of observers are saying, the Da'wa Party is not secular and it is not anti-Iran. It is Iraq's oldest Shiite fundamentalist party, founded in the late 1950s, and it explicitly works for an Islamic republic. Its leaders consult with and tend to defer to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Since these parties will have to make post-election coalitions to rule, given that none gained a majority, the resulting provincial governments will resemble those formed by the United Iraqi Alliance, which grouped as allies these same Shiite religious parties. The major difference in this election in the big urban areas is that in Baghdad, the Shiite middle class gave the Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi nearly 10% of the vote, and the Sunni fundamentalists got a similar percentage. Of course, some Sunnis may have voted for Allawi's Iraqi List. But the election returns suggest that Sunnis are no no more than ten to fifteen percent of the Baghdad population, and that Iraq's capital is now a largely Shiite city. In Basra province, the Sunni proportion seems even smaller, tiny, even. This is odd because Zubayr near Baghdad is a largely Sunni city of 300,000. The Basra middle classes, once fairly secular, returned the big religious parties overwhelmingly.

The second zone is the medium and smaller Shiite cities of the south. There, Da'wa did not do nearly as well, receiving between ten and twenty-three percent of the vote. The other 90 to 77 percent of the seats went to other fundamentalist Shiite parties in the main. The Sadrists showed substantial strength in some provinces, garnering 14% and 15% of the vote. Although the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq suffered a massive reversal, insofar as it had dominated the provinces of the south from 2005, it still often ranged from 8% to 15% of the seats in these provincial councils. Other small Shiite parties, including former PM Ibrahim Jaafari's National Reform Trend and the Islamic Virtue Party, both small Shiite fundamentalist parties, often got between three and eight percent of the vote.

The final zone is the four Sunni Arab provinces, which did not vote similarly to one another.

The ethnically mixed Diyala Province in the east split its vote, with about a quarter going to secular parties with a Baathist background; about a fifth going to the Sunni fundamentalist bloc; a fourth going to the Kurdistan alliance, and about 15 percent going to Shiite fundamentalist parties.

In al-Anbar, the secular and tribal parties won big, with the religious parties marginalized (15% of the vote).

In Ninevah, a big, secular, centralizing party, al-Hadba', got nearly 50% of the seats, sweeping away the Kurdish representatives that were once prominent on this provincial council.

Salahuddin returned so many small parties that seeing a trend thare is beyond me. The over all picture of the Sunni ARabis is that contrary to the last administration in Washington, the Sunni Arabs of Iraq are mostly secular nationalists and are uninterested for the most part in fundamentalists or "al-Qaeda."

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi High Electoral Commission announced 90 percent of the results in the provincial elections held Jan. 31. More results are given in Arabic in this al-Hayat article. The New York Times has a fairly complete list of results in English.

Below, I list the major results, though I'm leaving out the very small parties. I will use the names of the leading parties rather than the names of their coalitions, since they aren't really much of a coalition and typically there is a strong party core. So the Islamic Mission Party or Da'wa of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ran with others as the Coalition for a Government of Laws. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (which is especially close to Iran) ran with some other closely allied small parties as the Martyr of the Prayer Niche Alliance. And the Sadrists, followers of Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, ran as "The Free Independent Movement." But I'll just call them Sadrists. Likewise, among Sunnis the National Dialogue Front of Salih Mutalk (secular, Sunni, ex-Baathist) ran in a coalition called "the Iraqi National Plan." Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National List kept its name. Former Prime Minister Ibrahim Ja'fari ran a party called the National Reform Trend.

LARGE SHIITE PROVINCES:

Baghdad: Da'wa won 38%; the Sadrists won 9%; the (Sunni) Iraqi Accord Front won 9%; The Iraqi List won 8.6%; the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) won 5.4%; The National Reform Trend won 4.3%

Basra: Da'wa won 37%; ISCI won 11.6% the Gathering of Justice and Unity won 5.5%; the Sadrists won 5%; the Iraqi Accord Front won 3.8%; the Islamic Virtue Party won 3.2%; the Iraqi List won 3.2%; the (Shiite fundamentalist) National Reform Trend won 2.5%

SMALLER SHIITE PROVINCES

Dhi Qar: Da'wa won 23.1%; Sadrists won 14.1%; ISCI won 11.1%; National Reform Trend won 7.6%; Islamic Virtue Party won 6.1%

Qadisiya: Da'wa won 23.1 %; ISCI won 11.7%; the National Reform Trend won 8.2%; the Iraqi List won 8%; the Sadrists won 6.7%; Islamic Loyalty won 4.3%; the Islamic Virtue Party won 4.1%

Maysan: Da'wa won 17.7%; Sadrists won 15.2%; ISCI won 14.6%; National Reform Trend won 8.7%; Islamic Virtue Party won 3.2%

Najaf: Da'wa won 16.2%; ISCI won 14.8%; Sadrists won 12.2%; Loyalty to Najaf won 8.3%; the National Reform Trend won 7%

Wasit: Da'wa won 15.3%; ISCI won 10%; Sadrists won 6%; Iraqi List won 4.6%; Constitutional won 3.9%; National Reform Trend won 3.2%

Babil: Da'wa won 12.5%; ISCI won 8.2%; Sadrists won 6.2%; the National Reform Trend won 4.4%

Muthanna: Da'wa won 10.9%; ISCI won 9.3%; Republicans won 7.1%; National Reform Trend won 6.3%; Sadrists won 5.1%; the National List won 5%; the Gathering of Muthanna won 4.9%;
Academics won 4.4%; the Middle Euphrates won 3.9%; the Islamic Virtue Party won 3.7%; the Iraqi List won 3.5%

Karbala: Yusuf Majid al-Hububi won 13.3%; the Hope of Mesopotamia won 8.9%; Da'wa won 8.5%; the Sadrists won 6.8%; ISCI won 6.4%; Justice and Reform won 3.6%; the
National Reform Trend won 2.5%; the Islamic Virtue Party won 2.5%

SUNNI PROVINCES

Salahuddin: Iraqi Accord Front won 14.5%; the Iraqi List won 13.9%; the Iraqi National Plan won 8%; the Kurdistan Alliance won 4% (plus many, many small parties)

Diyala: Iraqi Accord Front won 21.1%; the Kurdistan Alliance won 17.2%; and the Iraqi National Plan won 15%; The Iraqi List won 9.5%; Da'wa won 6%; the Coalition of Diyala won 5.3%; the National Reform Trend won 4.3%; the Sadrists won 3.1%; the National Movement won 2.6%; the Islamic Virtue Party won 2.3%

Ninevah: al-Hadba' won 48.4%; the Kurdistan Alliance won 25.5%; the Iraqi Accord Front won 6%; the Iraqi Islamic Party won 6.7%; the Turkmen Front won 2.8%; the National Iraqi Plan won 2.6%; ISCI won 1.9%

al-Anbar: the Iraqi National Plan won 17.5% ; the Awakening of Iraq won 17.1%; Iraqi Accord Front won 15.9%; the National Movement for Reform and Development won 7.8%; the Iraqi List won 6.6% (plus small parties)