Iraq: Deja vu all over again

I think if we want a crystal ball into US/Iraq troubles we should be looking a the Soviet/Afghanistan experience before, during and after the Soviet invasion--the parallels are disturbing.

Svetlana Savranskaya detailed the Soviet experience in Afghanistan over at the National Security Archives in 2001. In the following quotations you can just swap the words 'Afghanistan' for 'Iraq' and 'Soviet' for 'U.S.' and strangely you feel you're reading about the U.S. troubles in Iraq. She noted:

"Afghanistan did not fit into the mental maps and ideological constructs of the Soviet leaders. Their analysis of internal social processes in Afghanistan was done through the conceptual lens of [of their own political doctrine], which blinded the leadership to the realities of traditional tribal society. Believing that there was no single country in the world, which was not ripe for socialism"

In much the same way that Wolfowitz et al believed that the Iraqi's were ripe for democracy and discounting the "realities of traditional tribal society" lying below the surface just waiting to be unleashed under the right conditions.

She goes on to describe how the Afghan communist government was never a unified party and that

"...it was split along ethnic and tribal lines. The infighting between the 'Khalq' and the 'Parcham' factions made the tasks of controlling the situation much more challenging for Moscow... [including] ...underestimation of ethnic tensions within Afghan society was one of the reasons of the unsuccessful policy of national reconciliation."

As we have seen over recent weeks the crumbling of National Reconciliation in Iraq with the departure of the Sadrist's from government and the threat of of the Sunni block to also leave due to their long term concerns about the absence of a withdrawal time line.

Svetlana goes on to say:

"The Soviet Army also quickly realized the inadequacy of its preparation and planning for the mission in Afghanistan. The initial mission—to guard cities and installations—was soon expanded to combat, and kept growing over time. [and] While the formal mission of the troops was to protect the civilians from the anti-government forces, in reality, Soviet soldiers often found themselves fighting against the civilians they intended to protect, which sometimes led to indiscriminate killing of local people. ...while the regular Afghan army was often unreliable because of the desertions and lack of discipline."

Again one of the things noted is the constantly evolving mission creep for troops who I imagine have no clear understanding of what the mission is from one month to the next as well as the same complaints regarding Iraqi army unreliability due to desertions and lack of discipline .

What is more telling is that the Soviets knew there was no military solution six years before they pulled out of Afghanistan. Some thirty years after the Soviet invasion Afghanistan is still racked by symptoms of a civil war and is considered by many to be a failed state. More pointedly the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is seen as playing a central role in the rapid rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics and the delegitimization of Communist Party rule ultimately leading to its collapse.

What is that saying? Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it :)