Legitimacy and Motivation

By Fester

Highly motivated, poorly trained, and poorly equipped people will often get more done than poorly motivated, highly trained and highly equipped groups.  And they will dominate against poorly motivated, reasonably well trained and lightly equipped groups.  That is what happened in Basra this week as the Mahdi Army was highly motivated to defend their own turf, their streets, their neighborhoods against what they perceived to be an existential attack on them.  On the other hand, the Iraqi Army/Badr Brigade militiamen in fancy uniforms and a government paycheck, were carrying out a political hit job and their motivation wilted once the perceived costs of completing the misison were raised.  And thus, we had British armor battalions bailing out units of the Iraqi Army. 

The problem per se is not training of the Iraqi Army, for all indications are that is going reasonably well.  Instead the problem is motivation to fight.  As I wrote in December of 2005, the Iraqi central government that we support with the US Army and Marines does not motivate its (theoretical) people to fight for a national cause.

I have a low opinion of the statement that the Iraqi military will be able to go head to head against the insurgencies in Iraq due to a combination of lack of training, lack of motivation to die for a central government that they don't care too much about, a poor junior officer and NCO corps, and general corruption.

We have seen what underequipped units that are motivated by strong loyalties to their clans, tribes, and sect have been able to do when the Sunni Arab Insurgencies in Anbar turned on the foreign fighters.  They were able to smush this group after watching the US and Iraqi military flail against them for years.  They were motivated and the results have been significant.

Yet the very strategic goal of the Bush Administration ---propping up a US friendly, pro-occupation veneer of a democratic regime--- will further the delegitimization of the Iraqi government and its ability to motivate people to fight and die for a national Iraqi cause instead of minor sectarian and political beatdowns.  Any Iraqi government that was reasonably democratic would be anti-occupation and far less of Washington's bitch.   So long as this is the de facto desired American end state, the Iraqi military will never be ready, and we'll see more articles like this from McClatchey:

The Bush administration was caught off-guard by the first Iraqi-led military offensive since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a weeklong thrust in southern Iraq whose paltry results have silenced talk at the Pentagon of further U.S. troop withdrawals any time soon.

President Bush last week declared the offensive, which ended Sunday, "a defining moment" in Iraq's history.

That may prove to be true, but in recent days senior U.S. officials have backed away from the operation, which ended with Shiite militias still in place in Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki possibly weakened and a de facto cease-fire brokered by an Iranian general.

"There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up" on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said, reflecting the frustration of some at the Pentagon. He and other military officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak for the record.

Having Iraqi forces take a leadership role in combating militias and Islamic extremists was crucial to U.S. hopes of withdrawing more American forces in Iraq and reducing the severe strains the Iraq war has put on the Army and Marine Corps.

The failure of Iraqi forces to defeat rogue fighters in Basra has some in the military fearing they can no longer predict when it might be possible to reduce the number of troops to pre-surge levels.

The Surge's geo-strategic political aims of creating a bubble of security that would allow for long standing political arrangements towards reconciliation to occur in a short time period have not been met, and will not be met.  Part of this is the lack of a coherent national strategy on Iraq so that the US is moving in often contradictory directions (state legitimacy COIN v. open network COIN) But another main source of failure is the political constraints of the United States in our unwillingness to cede power to groups that have more legitimacy on the Iraqi street and electorate than the current pliant government.  And until that happens, motivation will be an issue. 

Comments

[Avedon]

Who wrote this?

[fester]

damn it, it was me again