The trouble with conservatives is that they don’t understand other cultures. Conservatives naively see the world through American eyes. On top of that, conservatives focus more on what other countries mean for America’s internal political battles than on what’s actually going on overseas. No doubt, this stereotypical complaint about American conservatives contains more than a grain of truth. Unfortunately — and counter to stereotype — American liberals have got exactly the same problem.
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Take Andrew Tilghman’s “
The Myth of AQI,” the latest big-buzz article in our national debate over the war in Iraq. Tilghman argues that self-interested politicians in America and Iraq — everyone from President Bush, to the Maliki government, to the Sunni resistance, to Moqtada al-Sadr — have all systematically exaggerated the actual size of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The truth, says Tilghman, is that Iraq’s internal battles are largely its own. Carefully scrutinize the statistical data on insurgent loyalty, Tilghman claims, and the international al Qaeda connection (and thus the link to the larger war on terror) barely exists.
Either/Or At least that’s what Tilghman claims. The problem is that Tilghman is operating on the naive assumption that it’s got to be one or the other. Either you’re a card-carrying member of AQI, or you’re a “local” Sunni tribal insurgent. Sorry, but that’s not the way things work — especially not in Muslim tribal societies.
That’s what our army has finally discovered — for example, through the work of
David Kilcullen.
Particularly in a Muslim setting, insurgents generally carry simultaneous local (e.g. tribal or sectarian) identities, on the one hand, and pan-Muslim jihadist identities, on the other. Recognizing this, America’s armed forces have begun making systematic efforts to play on local identities, as a way of breaking insurgents away from their connection with AQI. Yet the strategy itself is based on the fundamental insight that, at any given moment, an insurgent is — or has the potential to be — a “global jihadist” and a “local tribesman” at the very same time. These dual identities can either blend or conflict, and often do both in rapid succession.
But for Tilghman, it’s got to be a consistent either/or. When a suicide bomb goes off, either it’s AQI’s fault, or it’s “raw hatred between local Sunnis and Shiites.” In fact, an intertwining of broad-based jihadist rebellion with local tribal interests is one of the oldest and most characteristic patterns in Muslim social life. Classically, Muslim rulers in cities would do what they could to keep outlying tribes divided and at each others’ throats. And just as typically, the feuding tribesmen would occasionally find themselves unified by a charismatic mullah’s denunciations of the state’s corrupt rulers. A mullah who succeeded in unifying the tribes could spark a religious rebellion that might end in the overthrow of corrupt rulers. And this would conveniently leave the clans at the center of the rebellion ensconced in the seat of power and wealth. Over time, the new ruling clans would turn corrupt themselves, and the cycle would begin again.
This pattern was famously described by Ibn Khaldun — the greatest sociologist of Islam — way back in the 14th century. And the complex alliance between AQI and indigenous Sunni tribesmen is clearly a variant of this classic pattern. Pan-Muslim jihad, on the one hand, blends with local tribal self-interest, on the other.
Variations take many forms. Some jihadist rebellions unify opposed tribes. Yet it’s also possible for a single tribe, led by a charismatic mullah, to declare a jihad against a rival tribe. That might seem unlikely, since jihad is by definition a unified Muslim battle against non-Muslims. Yet if one tribe offers grounds to declare a rival tribe infidels, it is possible to have a jihad that not only defends the faith against apostates, but also serves as a pragmatic tool of narrow tribal rivalry.
Tribal Splits
Again, the complex alliance between the global jihad (embodied in AQI) and local Sunni sects and tribes is a variant of this classic social pattern. Iraqi Shiites have now been declared infidels by AQI (see Frederick Kagan’s important “Al Qaeda in Iraq,”) and this enables Iraqi Sunnis to simultaneously advance global jihad — and prosecute their local rivalry with Iraqi Shiites. When it comes to Muslim social life, this linking of broad-based jihadi piety to local tribal interest is the oldest story in the book. So Tilghman’s entire piece turns on a famously false dichotomy.
Tribal structure itself — based on the continual fission and fusion of clans into smaller or larger segments — essentially forces you to play double games. As the Arab saying goes: “Me against my brothers, me and my brothers against my cousins, me and my cousins against the world.” Tribals are always be poised to shift loyalties and alliances. The same holds true in dealings with outsiders. Tribes typically hedge their bets by laying down a basis for joining up with (and retroactively claiming loyalty to) whichever outside power (say the Americans or the Soviets) seems on top at the moment.
So Tilghman is correct to point out that “real uncertainties exist in assigning responsibility for [terrorist] attacks,” but he’s wrong to think this somehow proves American officials have misled us about the influence of AQI. Islamist insurgents frequently have strongly felt local and global identities, simultaneously. True, Americans and Iraqi officials have been emphasizing the “global jihad” side of the equation. Yet it’s absurd to pretend that emphasizing the “local rivalry” side is somehow more true.
