"Iraq: A Message From the Insurgents"

David Baran & Mathieu Guidere

Le Monde diplomatique (France)

The occupying forces in Iraq have managed to set up a national assembly, government and presidency; yet they are making little headway against armed resistance fighters. Who are these fighters, what do they want and how do they operate? There are some clues in their videos and texts.

IRAQ'S armed opposition, though routinely accused of speaking only the language of terror, makes a priority of communications strategy. Combatant groups produce an astonishingly large and varied range of texts and images, not limited to the visions of brutality we have seen on television.

Besides the threatening tracts there is an impressive body of strategic analysis, cold-blooded, lucid and detailed; while horrific videos are among productions that include some slick filmmaking, from lectures in classical Arabic on explosives manufacture to presentations, rather like party political broadcasts, when new groups make their first public appearance. (1)

The best-known opposition groups have developed specialised information offices. Many websites, some of which are almost online press agencies, updated several times a day, deliver their messages. On one site, a combatant recently urged his comrades to "break the media isolation imposed on the resistance".

What is the point, for the insurgency, of all this propaganda? Of what use is it as a tool of conflict? And should its limited, even counter-productive, impact in the West be seen as a sign of its mediocrity and inappropriateness?

As the United States and Iraqi authorities increasingly control all news of the conflict, their enemies struggle to make themselves heard. Explosions and kidnappings are noisy but do not put across a message. One reason for this is the problem of access encountered by foreign observers; another reason is the choice of media of the insurgent groups. They rely mainly on word of mouth, old-style tracts, communiqués and videos put out on websites that disappear shortly after creation - and almost all of it is only in Arabic.

Resistance propaganda is always censored, often deliberately, but also as an automatic function of its means of reception. When videos are broadcast, they are cut, usually stripped of argument and reduced to a few key images. Enemy discourse is discredited and invalidated as the work of "bloodthirsty fanatics"; as a simple rationalisation of inarticulate violence, it deserves neither interest nor analysis. Listening to an enemy who speaks the language of terror is regarded as giving in to that terror.

The use of terror (irhab) is a key issue for the insurgents. While some renounce it completely, many defend its effectiveness and its religious legitimacy. One recognised authority in Sunni Islam recently drew a clear distinction between legitimate and illegitimate terrorism, deeming its use in Iraq to be legitimate. Even the Iraqi dignitary Muhammad al-Alousi has said that he cannot imagine jihad without irhab (2).

In detailed military analyses on the web, experienced combatants place terror at the heart of their theory of psychological warfare. They present it as a technique for isolating the "collaboration" authorities from the rest of the population, and note that kidnapping foreign nationals is a highly effective way of taking the conflict into otherwise unconcerned and inaccessible countries.

Yet while effective communication with the enemy and its potential allies is mostly confined to crude terror tactics, the insurgency's massive propaganda production serves other purposes. It seems to be intended mainly for the fighters and their sympathisers. And it reveals a dynamic network of groups that are following each other's activities, forming alliances or competing with each other in an economy centred on violence. Every group has its own image and is in active communication with its rivals and allies. In this context, it is vital for each group to ensure that its actions are seen and appreciated by its peers - allies, potential recruits and competitors. Many of the communiqués plot their authors' positions on the insurgency's ever-evolving landscape. A typical example is a pledge of allegiance to the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, combined with a condemnation of attacks on civilians. As participants vie for influence and allegiances come and go, every message is careful to take into account the positions of opinion formers - ulemas and other respected thinkers.

Legitimating violence

Much of the propaganda is designed to meet a need for legitimation. This applies even to filmed executions of foreigners. They offer many details on how and why the victims were chosen, with explanations of alleged "crimes". They describe an orderly procedure of "trial" followed by "punishment", accompanied by theoretical discussion of what constitutes a punishable act, and by guidelines indicating how certain types of prisoners are to be treated "according to the traditions of Arab hospitality", published on the web. The final "punishments" are carefully staged as enactments of "divine justice".

The natural temptation in conflict is to treat the enemy as irrational and unsophisticated. To take its discourse seriously is to give it too much credit. Aware of this, the insurgents are careful to avoid the crudest propaganda and strive to present a well-argued, credible position. It is a priority to present as detailed a report as possible of each action, emphasising the "real losses" that the adversary will want to play down. Hence the profusion of short video accounts on the internet, each presenting a single attack, usually with a logo and a date, sometimes even with a scale-model reconstruction. The strategy is popular. A combatant, writing on an online discussion group, praised "the resistance's informational model", urging his peers to form "teams of reporters, photographers and cameramen". The insurgents have undeniably achieved a degree of sophistication in their discourse, in many ways because of their skilful manipulation of the wealth of resources in Islamic and Arab culture. Leaning heavily on just a few verses from the Koran, they invoke a succession of episodes from religious and Arab nationalist history, with a venerable tradition of poetry and tribal folklore. The war is likened to the battle of Badr, where Muhammad and his followers were victorious despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered. The "collaborators" are dubbed "children of Ibn al-Alqami", which is a reference to the 13th-century vizier who handed over Baghdad to the Mongol invaders. Resistance heroes such as Hamza Ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib and Omar al-Mukhtar are invoked (3). New patriotic songs are composed. These references are then translated into direct and often acerbic language that contrasts well with the highfalutin US talk of "liberty" and "progress", and firmly roots the current campaign in a long history of struggle and sacrifice (4).

The short history of the insurgency is also exploited to maximum effect. Its founding events and symbolic victories have been mythologised through recordings and pictures - especially images of celebration - that help shape the movement's vision of its own activity. Imagery from other conflicts - Palestine, Afghanistan and elsewhere - is the pattern for these. The propagandists make good use of the popular imagination in Iraq. Rumours about the enemy's attempts to hide its dead produced several long "documentaries" on US mass graves (5). Another source of images and inspiration is provided by the international media and the coalition forces. Their images are doctored and re-interpreted to reveal their contradictions and denounce their hypocrisy (6).

Put together, this forms a coherent and unified body of propaganda, considering the diversity and divisions of the armed groups that produce it. A vocabulary and set of references are now widely shared: the combatants are mujahideen; the enemy is a miscreant occupation force - like crusaders or even barbarians. It is bent on perpetuating "American-Zionist" imperialism through a puppet government serving only the US and its allies within Iraq: former exiles, pro-Iranian Shias and secessionist Kurds.

The enemy's power is not only accepted but so exaggerated as to ennoble all opposition to it in the name of Islam's core ideas of inventiveness, courage, abnegation, sacrifice and piety. In this context, the continuation of the struggle through self-sacrifice becomes the essence of victory.

Strategic shortcomings

This spiritual vision goes some way towards explaining the insurgency's lack of any real political alternative to the US-sponsored transition government. In keeping with their military strategy, designed expressly to prevent normalisation, the opposition groups' political programmes are usually limited to outlining forms of individual participation in the faith community (7). Other than vague coordination between combatant groups, the opposition did not attempt to provide an administrative framework for religious gatherings during 2004. So far, the online discussion forums reveal a confirmed lack of interest in any organisation beyond the basic strategic coordination needed to achieve greater military effectiveness.

Two other factors complement faith in blocking the insurgency's political develop-ment. Genuine disengagement on the part of Washington is held to be impossible, ideologically and realistically, given the transition regime's dependence on its US sponsors. Just admitting the prospect of US withdrawal would be counter-productive practically: it would break the insurgency's apparent unity and bring out its underlying tensions and rivalries.

If the opposition's strength lies in its ability to present a united front in its propaganda, its most telling weaknesses are found in its silences. Some of these are expected: there is no mention of the crucial financial motives behind hostage taking, nor of the manifest links between jihad and organised crime. But the lack of proper discussion of the insurgency's weaknesses or the enemy's chances of victory is of greater significance. It reveals a total aversion to self-criticism, for fear of discrediting the movement. There is an even greater taboo on recognising that most Iraqis are weary of the violence. Their attitude counts for little: the movement appears to be unaware, or unwilling to accept, that wars of insurrection derive their strength from the popular will.

Yet there has been a seismic shift in relations between the insurgency and the Iraqi population since spring 2004 when the insurgency, fighting on two fronts (at Falluja and in the south), enjoyed undeniable popular support. That popularity has since plummeted. Though the movement's capacity for action is undiminished, it enjoys support only in a few areas, and apparently more out of fear and ambivalence than out of committed solidarity. This change does not seem to bother the insurgents, who never mention it on their online discussion forums.

A substantial proportion of the Iraqi population, including that of some Sunni Arab areas in Baghdad, took the 30 January 2005 elections seriously. But for the insurgency, the poll is null and void since it was held under foreign occupation, without political parties or real debate between candidates and citizens. The long delay in announcing the results only confirmed suspicions that the "collaborators" were bargaining with Washington for a place in the puppet parliament, after a necessarily rigged vote. Confessions extracted from "terrorists" and broadcast on television are treated as gross fabrications, without considering the deep impression they make on many Iraqis.

Some groups do openly discuss the negative repercussions that some actions can have, and some effort to win over the population is discernible. The resistance looks after families whose heads of household have been unjustly imprisoned by the US. The many civilians displaced in large-scale military offensives, who are left to fend for themselves by the authorities, are also given help and support.

But these measures serve mainly to preserve a sufficient pool of sympathisers from which to recruit new combatants. There is no attempt to establish a strategy or a framework for mobilising the whole population. Broadly speaking, the only issue for the insurgents is working out who is for and against the occupation, though assessments vary from group to group. Convinced of the legitimacy of its cause, the armed opposition sees itself as an avant-garde and does not seek to rally a passive majority.

Perhaps its own voluminous propaganda is to blame, or rather the medium upon which it relies: the internet brings peers together in a big fantasy umma. Could this be causing the combatants to revel in illusions about their capacity to overcome, without winning over the Iraqi people?

(1) See the video Al-Dhurwa (Apogee) by the "Companies of Islamic rage".

(2) See albasrah.net (some text in English).

(3) The first, an uncle of the prophet Muhammad, is one of Islam's most famous martyrs and hero of a popular novel; the second, a hero of the Libyan resistance, is presented as "the martyr father".

(4) See the video Ajdâd wa Ihfâd: Muqârana Bain Mâdhî al-Umma al-Islâmîya wa Hâdhariha (Ancestors and descendents: Comparison between the past and present of the Islamic community).

(5) See the videos Râyât al-Haqq (The standard-bearers of truth) by Jaish Ansâr al-Sunna, and Halâk Al-Salîbiyîn Fawq Ardh Al-Râfidain (The damnation of the crusaders in the land of the two rivers).

(6)albasrah.net has some examples.

(7) One notable exception is the proposed constitution, including a section on the creation of a minister for jihad, on Hizb ut Tahrir official web site.

Translated by Gulliver Cragg source: http://MondeDiplo.com/2005/05/01iraq