I find this report on Iraq's reinstatement of 20,000 former Baathist military personnel pretty amusing:
Iraq on Friday reinstated 20,000 former army officers dismissed after the U.S.-led invasion, a landmark gesture at reconciliation ahead of the March 7 elections.
It's a move designed to allay some of the bitterness that still rankles Iraq — years after the Bush administration first made the controversial decision to dismantle Saddam Hussein's army.
The 20,000 returnees are the largest known group to rejoin the officer corps.
The timing of the announcement also raised suspicions that Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his allies were just currying favor ahead of the election for a new, 325-seat parliament.
News of the reinstatement was followed by a U.N. announcement that Iraq was gaining momentum with its bid to end U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's army invaded Kuwait in 1990. The U.N. Security Council pledged "to review, with a view toward lifting" the sanctions once Iraq's safeguards against acquiring weapons of mass destruction are shown to be sufficient.
The 2003 order by Iraq's then-American governor L. Paul Bremer to dissolve Saddam's 400,000-strong army, the largest in the Middle East on the eve of the 2003 invasion, is widely seen as a key factor that fed the alienation many Sunnis felt toward the new Iraq.
The progress is evident in two areas. One, can we admit that it is tremendous progress when the leader of Iraq makes a big decision designed to improve his electoral chances? My how governing has changed for the better in Iraq since 2003.
Second, there is progress in that Iraq's security situation is strong enough to risk the potential problems of having true-believing Baathists amongst the "former" Baathists. These former military members, with colonel being the highest rank and including non-commissioned officers, should help with the middle ranks of the military. Well, as long as they can get with the program and adjust to a Western-oriented army rather than a Soviet-model army. The NCOs especially will have a big adjustment to make.
I do wish to protest the long-standing idea that we "disbanded" the Iraqi army after the war. The army self-disbanded and we formalized that disappearance by dissolving the legal status of the army.
Further, the idea that Baathists who lorded over and abused the Shia and Kurd majority needed the indignity of dissolving the Iraqi army to join the insurgency is ludicrous. Add in centuries of Sunni Arab rule over the Shias and Kurds, and the idea that the Sunni Arabs were ready to submit to a Shia majority is absurd. Even today many Sunni Arabs dream of somehow returning to power and restoring the old days. So what is possible today with reintegrating the Sunni Arabs into the military was not possible in 2003 or even 2006.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, can you imagine the disaster that would have unfolded in spring 2004 during the twin Sadrists and al Qaeda offensives when half of the new Iraqi army units dissolved when faced with attacks? If "former" Baathist officers had been in place, I have no doubt that significant numbers of units (and government offices if Baathists were in the government, too) would have defected and not dissolved. We would have had a Sepoy Revolt of our own and possibly a civil war right then and there.
A successful election next month is indeed crucial to establishing habits of rule of law and settling differences through politics and not bullets. I don't hope for election results that lead to Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and Shias learning to love one another. How's that working here with our Red and Blue state divisions? All I hope for is that all sides view elections and legal maneuvering--and yes, even pre-election stunts--as the way to resolve even deep-seated divisions.
