cfr.org Interview on Iraq

by Patrick Lang (bio below)

The Council on Foreign Affairs folks talked to me today about the present inter-communal violence in Iraq.

Pat Lang

Lang: Political Process Will Move Forward in Iraq, Despite Sectarian Violence

Introduction & First Question:

Interviewee: W. Patrick Lang
Interviewer: Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer

February 24, 2006
“Save this country,” U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad pleaded with Iraqi leaders on February 24. The bombing of a golden-domed shrine in Samarra sacred to Shiites set off a fury of reprisal attacks that left at least 138 people dead, including several prominent Sunni clerics. A curfew was called to restore order. Shiite leaders urged restraint, as Iraq descended to a level of anarchy and sectarian violence unprecedented in the postwar period. Headlines around the globe warned of civil war. The New York Times claimed “political talks are in ruins.” Yet W. Patrick Lang, former head of Middle East Affairs and Counterterrorism at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, disagrees with these pronouncements. He doesn’t believe the attack on the Askariya Shrine will scuttle the political process, nor does he think it will impede the insurgency. In an interview with cfr.org, Lang discusses the looming threat of a general civil war, the role of Shiite militias in stoking violence, and what this all means for U.S. forces in Iraq.

What should the U.S. response be to this latest round of violence in Iraq?

LANG: There’s really nothing we can do about it. We lit a fuse on this by the kind of political process we’ve been sponsoring, which is clearly reversing the social order in Iraq to the unhappiness of the Sunnis. The Shiites have been pretty quiet because the electoral process has clearly been going in the direction of handing power over to them. Leaders have urged [Shiites] to be quiet, and not carry out reprisals. But this [latest attack against the shrine] is such an outrage from their point of view. This is like blowing up St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. … Read all

Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann (interview), CNN and Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room (interview), PBS’s Newshour, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” (interview), and more .

Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
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Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)


“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2