The current state of play in the standoff between Congress and Bush over Iraq is that the military commander, General Petraeus, will report to Congress in September on the progress of the surge. Petraeus, who was appointed because he’s supposed to be an expert in counterinsurgency and to have better political antennae than other generals, has emphasised that the surge will not work if political progress is not made by Iraqis. This is generally understood to mean a settlement of oil revenue allocation which would not squeeze out the Sunnis, laws which revise de-Baathification, an inclusive government, disarming militias, and so on. All of which should have been done years ago if it was ever going to work. To date, Maliki’s government hasn’t even been able to present all the relevant laws to the Iraq parliament. In news today, it’s being reported that the Parliament is going on summer vacation til September, not resuming until just before Petraeus has to report.
The surge is dead.
I wouldn’t expect such paragons of diplomacy as Dolly Downer, too busy slagging off Mohammed Haneef, to have any comment. But the Liberal Party should be very afraid of the election period proper, when Labor intends to campaign vigorously on Iraq.
Elsewhere: More surge is dead news from Tim at Surfdom.
But do the Labor Party intend to ‘campaign vigously’ on this issue? They haven’t really done it on any other issues thus far, though the unions have campaigned against Workchoices on Labor’s behalf.
Any criticism of the Iraq war from Rudd is likely to draw simplistic allegations from the press and the Libs that Labor is in bed with terrorists.
This is an unpopular war, and always was, but it has never been sufficiently disliked by Australians to have an impact on Parliament. Also, Parliamentarians are more concerned with wedgies these days, than with decent policy.
All of this is compounded by the poor quality of reporting on Iraq in Australia. As it turns out, not every insurgent in Iraq is an Al Qaeda crony, but rather, there is a large movement of Sunni nationalists who are simply opposed to the occupation and view the current Government as collaborator stooges. This isn’t likely to be debated in our farcical ‘question time’ at any point soon.
I understand that the strategy is to keep the key areas of differentiation in reserve for the campaign.
No, I don’t think so, not quite like that. There have been several occasions this year when Labor has made some noise about Iraq, and the government has looked very uncomfortable indeed.
Don’t forget by the time we get to the campaign, as I’m suggesting, even “stay the course with the surge” will almost certainly be an argument that’s completely unviable.
I agree with HR.
From the perspective of deomestic Australian politics, the War on Iraq is simply some pianissimo shrieking violins a la “Psycho” behind the fortissimo wailing of the Great Housing Squeeze Horror.
The highly-leveraged folks hanging on by their shredded fingernails to their McMansion dream know nothing and care less about foreign policy fiascos.
Rudd would be well advised to shut ut about Iraq, unless he has an audience consisting entirely of doctors’ wives.
They don’t vote?
Check out some of the polling about the swing against the coalition in its safe seats.
I’m not sure that’s true anyway, and it’s wrong to think that this (perhaps partly mythical) group are the only voters who swing.
Of course they vote.
And of course Ratty is on the nose out in McMansionland.
But Iraq doesn’t count hard against Ratty.
And the mention of Iraq by the ALP provides Ratty with an opening to score his only realistic opportunity for victory — fear of terrorism and national security.
Threfore the ALP would be well advised to run dead on Iraq.
And how effective is that going to be after the Keystone Cops thing with Haneef?
Less effective than it may have been otherwise.
That’s why I’d bet the house on a Rudd prime ministership.
So, whatever happened to our Teh Last Superpower amigos?
[*ducks*]
Hey, don’t look at me. I never read those interminable threads.
Mark:
Mark,
the laws are meant to allow the control of all new oil fields by the major oil companies and the cancellation of previous oil arrangements, for instance those arrangements the kurds made with smaller oil companies.
Its all about PSAs. As for the Sunnis being locked out. The Anbar province has rich deposits of oil and gas.
As if the Bush regime would care if any group in the Middle East was missing out. LOL
Elsewhere: More surge is dead news from Tim at Surfdom.
Interesting interview with Iraqi nationalist resistance leader
Hmm, surge “dead”, eh? Let me do a little cut-and-paste from two newspapers who had observers in Iraq recently. Neither paper is exactly a coven of Bush-lovers.
From the NYT’s op-ed pages, “A War We Just Might Win”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html?em&ex=1186027200&en=25372190b5db8e13&ei=5087%0A
And from the Guardian, an article titled “Violence ebbing. Wealth returning. Can this be Iraq?”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2126636,00.html
Is this a bad joke?
Large parts of Iraq have been cleared of Sunni. More than 2,000,000 have fled the country. There are none left to kill.
As Tacitus said of the Romans: “They created a wilderness and called it peace.”
Well, given how certain Sunni elements treated the other religious and national groups when they had the whip hand, perhaps they are just reaping the whirlwind that they sowed.
And don’t forget that Sunni elements were the ones who provided most of the bombing, kidnapping, and murder in the initial aftermath of the invasion, that led to the current state of affairs.
It’s sad for Sunni innocents caught up in this. But, hey, it was sad too for ethnic German civilians in Eastern Europe in ‘45.
The situation in Mosul and Tel Afar may support the argument that by withdrawing occupation troops you reduce the causes for violence. I’d be interested if the troop reductions are due to their being redeployed to Baghdad. In Basra I believe the main target of the violence there is what’s left of the dwindling British presence.
Brendan, I was citing the official line from the Bushies on the political preconditions that have to be met. That doesn’t of course exclude the fact that they might be being disingenuous.
All this may be true.
But in the welter of tail-chasing indulged in by apologists of Bush during the course of the Iraq fiasco is this overarching fact: The theocratic cultural revolution that has occurred right under the very noses of the soldiery of the only remaining superpower has ensured the hegemony of clients of Iran.
Is this really what the US sees as “a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with”?
If so then the Bush Clique is easily satisfied.
The Bush Clique could have achieved this with one thousandth of the expenditure of blood, treasure and credibility that they have squandered so far in Mesopotamia.
The only way the Americans can win this is if the next President does a Nixon and goes to Tehran to make a deal. Either way, the region will have to face Saudi-backed Sunnis trying to beat Shia for top-dog of a putative Caliphate.
The Sunni nutters do not even consider the Persian Shia to be Muslims!
With our Federal Police involved in a suspicion,rather than at the scene of the crime,how can any honest evaluation of what Sunnis may or may not of done be secured without forensic and other evidence!?.Australians as most of you are here and so far away,are guessing a lot about all sorts of matters Iraq. I think you can make limited occasional guesses from what English speaking players and observers are saying which over time,may transpire as accuracies.I am inclined to think,that Australians would be as nutworthy as any groups in Iraq under these conditions..come on be fair otherwise we lose the war for our chances of being honest with ourselves! If the reality of 4 million humans on the verge of starving doesnt get you,and,all you can go on with is something else,theses type wars will go on and Americans save a lot of money waiting for the oil. Chances are they be fed UNO approved American poisoned shit anyway..which is another bullet for the West.And yet some of the diet of U.S.A. troops could be directly given to the millions.The bastards are doing it on purpose..overfeeding their own soldiers and allowing the food reserves to run down,big and thin rats in a war against each other,and neither at full energy calorie conversion.Under those conditions I would go on holidays.
mark says:
I doubt it. There does not seem to be much mileage for the Opp. in trying to win votes off the Govt. by playing to its strengths. The LN/P lead the ALP on national security issues, according to Newspoll. The Australian reports:
Latham kicked up a fuss about how bad the Iraq war was, and was going, and it did not seem to do him much good.
The ADF’s presence in Iraq was always tokenistic, done to pay premiums on the ANZUS alliance. Most Australian voters know this fact instinctively. But most Australian commentators ignore this fact intellectually.
Iraq war has mostly been a non-event as far as AUS national interests are concerned. It has not cost AUS all that much in blood or treasure. We havent done much fighting, mostly just own-force protection. It has harmed our reputation with the UN, but helped our credibility with the US.
I predict that Iraq-war will be a non-issue during the campaign, unless an ADF convoy gets hit by an IED or a patrol gets wiped out in an ambush.
Strocchi unfortunately has a point - there have been no ADF combat deaths, YET. As Androids said, “do people need a bomb to go off in Sydney..?”. What, like the Hilton?
I fear the APEC conflab more than anything else on the visble horizon. Every other wedge/rabbit has turned to faeces, but the agent provocateurs are limbering up.
Mark:
Mark,
Oh yes, I got that. I was just commenting on it.
Western media hardly deviates from the official line about the oil laws being all about sharing between different Iraqi groups. PSAs are hardly ever mentioned. Nor are statements from the Iraqi oil unions. Nor is the amazing percentage (80% ?) of the profit the oil companies will receive for as long as the U.S. and Britain military can occupy the place.
As if that percentage issue matters anyway. The new oil companies themselves (e.g. Exxon Iraq) will be measuring output and the selling it to themselves (e.g. Exxon Cayman Islands) at the Iraqi docks. And again they will resell it to themselves (e.g. Exxon America) once it arrives stateside.
Gee, I hope they don’t spill any in the process. Otherwise how will they be able to calculate their taxes, and stuff?