Iraq: Tribal Engagement Lessons Learned

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES--overt interactions between coalition military and foreign civilian personnel for the purpose of obtaining information, influencing behavior, or building an indigenous base of support for coalition objectives--have played a central role in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). They have involved efforts to reach out to village headmen (mukhtars), tribal sheikhs, Muslim clerics, elected officials and representatives, urban professionals, businessmen, retired military officers, and women. Tribal engagement has played a particularly prominent role in OIF. This reflects the enduring strength of the tribes in many of Iraq's rural areas and some of its urban neighborhoods. And tribal engagement has been key to recent efforts to drive a wedge between tribally based Sunni Arab insurgents and Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar province and elsewhere, as well as efforts to undermine popular support for the Mahdi Army in largely Shi'ite neighborhoods and regions of the country. (1) Because of the growing importance of tribal engagement for coalition strategy in Iraq, its potential role in future contingency operations, and its potential contribution to future phases of the War on Terrorism, it is vitally important for Army leaders at all levels to understand what history and the social sciences suggest, and what coalition forces in Iraq have learned, about how to engage and leverage tribes and tribal networks. Anthropology 101 for Soldiers: What is a Tribe? A tribe is a form of political identity based on claimed descent. (2) It is not necessarily a lineage group, as tribal subunits (sections or subsections) may manufacture fictive kinship ties or alter their tribal identity or affiliations for political, economic, or security-related reasons. (3) Tribes may also be of mixed sectarian or ethnic composition. Thus, Iraq's Shammar and Jubur tribes have Sunni and Shi'ite branches, while Qashqa'i tribesmen in Iran are of Turkish, Persian, Arab, Kurdish, Lak, Luri, and Gypsy origin. (4) There is no such thing as a typical tribe. Tribes may embody diverse kinship rules, structures, types of political authority, and lifestyles (sedentary, semi-nomadic, nomadic), (5) which may be influenced by security and economic conditions and government policies. (6) Thus, for instance, the Arab tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, Levant, and North Africa tended, at least traditionally, to be relatively egalitarian and non-hierarchical organizations lacking a well-developed leadership structure, while the Turkic tribes of the Central Asian steppes tended to be hierarchical, highly centralized organizations ruled by powerful chieftains. (7) Although Arab tribal ideology is relatively egalitarian, in reality, major disparities in status, power, and wealth exist within and between tribes. (8) Among settled tribes, sheikhly families and clans tend to form dominant lineages that are better off and more influential than other families and clans in the tribe. (9) Bedouin tribes of common origin are looked down on by those of noble origin, while smaller (weak) settled tribes are often looked down on by larger (strong) settled tribes). (10) Tribal Values, Processes, and Organization (11) Tribal values remain deeply ingrained in Iraqi society and have had a profound influence on Iraqi social mores and political culture. (This observation holds for much of the rest of the Arab world as well.) These values include the high premium put on ingroup solidarity ('asabiyya), which finds expression in loyalty to the family, clan, and tribe, (12) coupled with a powerful desire to preserve the autonomy of the tribe vis-a-vis other tribes, non-tribal groups, and the authorities; (13) personal and group honor (sharaf); sexual honor ('ird), which pertains to the chastity of the family's female members; manliness (muruwwa), which finds expression in personal traits such as courage, loyalty, generosity, and hospitality; and pride in ancestry (nasb). …