this article raises an issue that's been batting around in my head for a while. the article reports that a lot of iraqi soldiers deserted rather than fighting against the mahdi army during the recent basra offensive. what the article doesn't go into in much detail is the fact that the iraqi army is well infiltrated by various iraqi militias. it really should come as no surprise that when a brigade is made up of mahdi army members, they are not going to fight against the mahdi army.
the issue this raises for me is the difference in strategy between destroying a group you don't like and co-opting it. once you start thinking about it, the issue pops up again and again. it seems that conservatives, at least the people who call themselves "conservative" these days, favor destruction, believing that any other strategy is selling out to the enemy whereas i think the destruction strategy simply doesn't work and that co-opting is the only realistic alternative.
so, for example, paul bremer decided to destroy the iraqi army in 2003 instead of co-opting it after the americans took control of the country. the idea was to start over from scratch, getting rid of all the baggage that came along with saddam's army. the problem is that when you are talking about people, there is no "scratch." the baggage is there whether you like it or not. iraqis still had their own histories and interests. by ignoring that fact and pretending you could have a clean slate, it created an even bigger problem.
the same thing is true with hamas in the israel/palestinian conflict. hamas took part in the 2006 palestinian elections and after its victory at the polls it was potentially co-optable. it had taken part in the elections, and by doing so had tacitly recognized one of the premises of the peace process. the organization's leadership was split between pragmatists and hardliners and the division could have been used to push the organization into a better direction. but instead israel, with the backing of the bush administration, refused to deal with hamas and sought to destroy it. that famously backfired. and now we have a stronger hamas with the hardliners solidly in charge.
no matter how many times the destruction strategy fails, it gets tried again and again. it's really kind of funny how not advocating a strategy with such a losing record is the one that is portrayed as weak and ineffective.
