It would be hard to describe the al Maliki admin of being a minority party. In fact, that is one of the ugly twists to this story: the Shia have every right to rule, as a majority in the recently minted democracy. From here it appears that the al Maliki admin is riding the tiger of trying to appease the Shia while oppressing the rebellion of the Sunni.
If he wants to impress the Sunni with the sincerity of his guarantees, he would arrest the most public leader of the radical Shia movement, Muktada al Sadr. He would be well advised to have his worldly affairs in order before he makes such a move.
About the only hope, however dim, is that someone in Iraq has the personal authority and charisma to pull a Ghandi. Like I said, however dim. Perhaps more along the lines of a Mussolini, you can rest assured this prospect is being mulled over by any number of military men in Iraq, even as we speak.
It wouldn’t get to that. Sadr leads a party in the Parliament itself, actually a vital part of Maliki’s coalition. If Maliki were to fail to do what Sadr wants, he just wouldn’t be PM anymore, to whatever extent that means anything anyway.
Yep. I do believe that is one of those “known unknowns.” Or an “unknown known”? Who knows?
But it surely isn’t an “unknown unknown” that Maliki’s Gov depend just as heavily on anti-American Shiite factions as he does on American forces to remain in power. That’s not merely dancing on the edge of a sword, he’s off the plane at 30,000 ft without a parachute. Only a matter of time before gravity does its thing and he splatters like a squished bug.
A Government with no power is exactly the same as no government at all. Anarchy rules. Take a look at Iraq for a perfect example of same.
Rumsfeld said he wanted to beef up MOD and MOI, and speed equipment transfer to these guys, but no one seems to have a plan for how to keep these shiite troops from going Rambo.
This is the reality the head in the sand people ignore. There are no ISF or police. Just militias in disguise getting training and weapons. Have people not been following events? Police fighting with ministry guards. One ministry attacking another? Police death squads. Army death squads. And now Rummy proposes embedding spies in coalition units!
Brilliance. Sheer brilliance.
There is nothing whatsoever the US or the UK can do now. We are the acted upon, not the actors in the situation.
And now one of our resident pony-hunters cites Vietnam with a straight face.
Vietnamisation - that sure worked out well didn’t it? I posted a link in another thread to an intelligence report that surmised the insurgency is self-supporting with an income of hundreds of millions of dollars from internal iraq rackets. Outside agitators and funding is just an excuse. All of them hate us and want us gone, with the limited exception of the Kurds.
The government can’t even stop its own ministries attacking each other let alone do anything at all about the insurgency. And Maliki holds power at the grace and favour of sadr’s mahdi army and loyal politicians (who have walked out in protest at him meeting Bush, remember.)
It can reasonably be argued that upon the death of Saddam, Iraq was heading for something like what an American pullout would cause. The only reason the US ever supported Hussein was that other, less stupid Presidents, listened to their other, smarter advisors who said Hussein, bad as he was, beat the alternative.
This is the Civil War reality. The Marines assessment is, to repeat:
“the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point” that U.S. and Iraqi troops “are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar,”
So remind me again - what does staying achieve compared to admitting we’ve screwed up and begging the world to help us out with the aid of a blank cheque.
I don’t know the answer but a start would be admitting we’ve screwed up, publically eat humble pie and work with whoever we have to on whatever terms we can get to put things right.
Perhaps it’s high time some of you put down the pom-poms and face the consequences of your actions – aiding and abetting a deranged war-criminal and his cabal.
And I wouldn’t take issue with that argument. I just haven’t been convinced that now that we’ve got our finger in the dike, there’s nothing to do but remove it. Which isn’t to say I haven’t seen strong arguments that our presence isn’t stopping the inevitable, but just that no one has yet argued–in this thread or elsewhere–that no foreseeable change in strategy could change results. Suppose, for example, that we decide to allow partition because we think it’s inevitable. Don’t you think our troops could play some role in making that partition at least a little less deadly?
I’ve consistently pointed out the fallacy in your argument - the belief that we can do anything. There is nothing. Name something? More force? Dropping nukes on baghdad? Our fingers aren’t in the dyke. They are in the huge hole made by the water already flooding around it. The civil war is in progress and the sectarian hatreds running wild.
The US cannot provide security enough for Bush to meet Maliki in Baghdad. It can’t do anything except bow to the inevitable.
Even the frggin’ Marines say they can’t do anything. The trouble is you have an implcit assumption that ‘anything’ must involve being consonant with US war aims.
Some of us are saying - that’s not possible. All you can do is beg and bribe the rest of the world to step in on whatever terms you can get. And if that means handing the mess over to powers we don’t approve of on terms they set then that’s what has to be done. But that isn’t going to happen. What will happen is Bush spinning things out long enough so that someone else has to make the hard call.
Meanwhile soldiers and civilians die every day.
Hold an international conference and pay whatever it takes to get muslim armies in there. If that means Syrians and Iranians then do it. It worked for Lebanon. And in a way it worked in Vietnam. Walk away and pretend the Made in the USA ‘State’ of South Vietnam could defend itself. Then the NVA come in and solve the problem.
The problem is the US (or Bush) would rather the death and destruction goes on endlessly than have a ‘losing’ solution no matter what price Iraq continues to pay.
See? That’s just the problem with your thinking. Who the fuck are “you” (in the collective US sense) to “allow” Iraqis to do as they wish with their country.
Beyond that, as tagos mentions, you continue to gloss over the fact that your presence there has been nothing but catastrophic from the start. There’s no dike and there’s no US finger on it.
The floodgates are wide open and your only choices are to try to stay afloat with the least amount of drowings (not an easy task, seeing as the insurgents get stronger by the day) or admit defeat/face reality and bail.
Just think of the invasion, bestowal of freedom, and continuing presence as a gargantuan welfare program for the downtrodden Iraqis. We do it because we’re do-gooders.
I’ve seen this bandied about in conservative circles every once in awhile but to my knowledge we’ve never had a good discussion about that hypothetical here.
I call BS. After Saddam someone would have been lined up as new ruler. Or maybe there’d be a coup of some sort. Point is, how in the world could it approach what we’ve done to their country? We dissolved the army and forced out the Baathists from all government jobs, including the friggin’ teachers. We pulled the rug out of their society. Why would that happen after Saddam died/ceded power?
Whoever the new leader is would’ve had to curry favor with the army. As far as I see things would’ve gone on the same – meet the new boss, same as the old boss, etc.
The Marines have never said any such thing, and I have no such assumption.
I fail to see how your argument is more complicated than simply: things have gone catastrophically bad in Iraq therefore nothing we can possibly do could be any better. You may find that argument convincing. I do not.
And it’s not like I’m not pointing out options for you to specifically address. You’ve just decided not to.
Determining our own position on partition isn’t imperialism. Right now our policy is to prevent partition. We can change that policy. Whether or not the Iraqis want it or not is irrelevant to my point, which was premised on the possibility that they do, or that it will be inevitable either way.
Who are you kidding? You’re in too much of a hurry to paint me as a warmonger to even read my posts (like, for example, my first response to you in which I say “No one here is arguing that the Iraq War has not been a catastrophe.”)
