Loaves and Wishes
Roger Petersen and Paul Staniland of MIT offer a three-point plan for averting an Iraqi civil war by diversifying the security forces. In summary
* “First, Sunni veterans need to continue being brought back into the security forces.”
* “Second, the US and its Iraqi allies need to shape the deployment of security forces so that provinces with a clear ethnic majority are disproportionately manned by soldiers and police of that ethnicity.”
* “Finally, at the national level, Shiite political parties should not push for control of both the Defense and Interior ministries.”
This puts me in mind of an ancient Michael Kinsley jape about the Economist. You always got the sense, Kinsley wrote, that the author decided there would be three steps first, and only then began to wonder what they were.
I have an even better plan, better because it has only one point: a new generation of weaponry based on deadly Insurge-o-Rays. Insurge-o-Ray weapons will kill foreign fighters and irregular fighters genuinely bent on overthrowing Iraq’s central government while leaving peaceable Iraqis unmolested. This works because Insurge-o-Rays cause a quantum disruption in the neurons of the brain’s “rebellion center” (Medulla L’Ouverture) when and only when the atoms of the medulla l’ouverture fluoresce with violent, insurrectionist impulses. Because Insurge-o-Rays use a part of the spectrum to which the brain’s Islets of Publius (the portion associated with constructive political engagement) are invisible, Iraqi troops armed with Insurge-o-Ray weapons could be trusted to keep order in any part of the country.
There are technical issues to work out. But my Insurge-o-Ray idea has every bit as much to do with the laws of physics and physiology as Petersen and Staniland’s proposals do with the political realities of societies riven along ethnic and sectarian lines. And with my proposal there are some phat defense contracts to be had. Advantage: Unqualified Offerings.
POSTSCRIPT: I swear I am not bitter because I dropped out of the authors’ institution! My oldest friend has a graduate degree from their very program! But there’s a killing irony here: Petersen and Staniland are trying so hard to be “constructive” that their proposal takes on a paradoxical unreality. This is the dilemma of every impulse to be “helpful” about the Iraq situation. All approaches are so unpromising that continuing to offer them at all, if you lack genuine power, perpetuates the illusion that the decisions of those with genuine power haven’t put us in an irredeemable situation.
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Jim Henley offers the hard-nosed, technocratic, Libertarian* solution to the problems in Iraq: I [...]
Comment by JR —
March 9, 2006 @ 11:01 pm
I think you’re being unfair to the MIT people; they’re just saying that things are real bad, offering some ideas about what needs to change (and saying these changes are difficult/unlikely), and then saying that if changes aren’t made Iraq is totally screwed. Sounds about right to me. . .
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 10, 2006 @ 12:56 am
Justin, you’re sort of right. They’re acknowledging that things are real bad. They’re saying if changes aren’t made Iraq is screwed. All true. But dang, man, in what universe does the dominant group of a riven society voluntarily forebear to to seek the two most powerful security-related ministries? Seriously, if you can tell me where a country fractured along ethnic and/or religious lines managed to put together such an army and have it be other than the instrument of dominance for whichever group captured it, then yeah, I was unfair. And seriously, there may be one or more I don’t know of. But my impression is that what really happens in countries like Iraq is that either the minority or majority captures the good violence agencies and uses them to compel submission from the other groups. What am I missing?
Comment by Frank Warner —
March 10, 2006 @ 12:57 am
I’m not sure what the last sentence of your postscript means, but I like your Insurge-o-Ray idea so much that I must agree.
Those MIT guys might have missed the mark by insisting on security forces that match the ethnic neighborhoods they patrol. It sounds good for a second, and then it sounds like a local militia.
Comment by Francis —
March 10, 2006 @ 2:07 am
don’t forget Belle’s pony.
Comment by Tequila —
March 10, 2006 @ 3:54 am
Reminds me of the economist’s way out of a hole: ”First, assume a ladder …”
Comment by dsquared —
March 10, 2006 @ 3:59 am
* “First, Sunni veterans need to continue being brought back into the security forces.â€
* “Second, the US and its Iraqi allies need to shape the deployment of security forces so that provinces with a clear ethnic majority are disproportionately manned by soldiers and police of that ethnicity.â€
* “Finally, at the national level, Shiite political parties should not push for control of both the Defense and Interior ministries.â€
This looks rather like a recipe for a military coup to me.
In general, one thing that I believe marks out the London Business School from all other business schools is that MBA candidates are taught there an important lesson due from John Kay:
”Some business problems do not have solutions”.
Comment by ajay —
March 10, 2006 @ 6:03 am
Iraqi military commander after first use of Insurge-O-Ray, 2008: What? An earth-shattering kaboom? There wasn’t supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!
dsquared is right. A Sunni army run by Sunni power ministers in a Shia government? Blimey. The saving grace may yet be a) that Iraq is now covered in troops – army, Interior Ministry, ”police”, ”special forces” etc – so there may yet be a sort of Baronial balance of terror and b) they’re all so hopelessly incompetent that no one military force is likely to be able to dominate the entire country.
Comment by ajay —
March 10, 2006 @ 6:10 am
Looking further down, I see you have already made more or less the same point re incompetence.
Comment by Jon H —
March 10, 2006 @ 1:00 pm
I expect the insurge-o-ray would look something like Al Franken’s mobile satellite downlink helmet.
Comment by MoXmas —
March 10, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
Is the Insurge-o-Ray inspired by Robert Heinlein’s Asian-Kill-o-Ray? (FIFTH COLUMN)
I like the idea that all problems in Iraq may be solved in the future by adopting plots from Heinlein novels. Powered armor, here we come! Naked populations! Meteor strikes!
Comment by Robert Waldmann —
March 10, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
Hey I’m an MIT graduate school dropout too. I guess it was MIT dropout solidarity that led you to blogroll me (thanks).
By the way, I think that your newly invented anti l’Overtour rays will also be useful in addressing one of Iraq’s urgent environmental need Dessalineation (don’t you Hait it when people ride a pun into the ground).