Conventional wisdom has it that the Bush/Petraeus surge is working. Why anyone would believe anything that mob say any more is completely beyond me, but I think it’s significant that those seeking to cast doubt on the usual explanations for the alleged drop in violence are themselves American and the perspectives US-centric. Not that I’m dissing Americans (since I am a US citizen) and nor am I dissing Ken Lovell who links to one such view in a post yesterday:
One frequent point made is that the decline in violence has largely been achieved by paying ex Sunni insurgents to support the American occupation forces … a situation which would seem to be quite precarious and unlikely to endure in the long term.
The other, related, story is about the lack of political as opposed to military progress, which is a convenient out for Petraeus, at least, since it’s a story basically of his own invention, if not for Bush (and McCain, whose candidacy is only plausible because Iraq doesn’t appear to be the disaster area it was).
But it would seem to me that it might be valuable to read something from someone who’s been to Iraq, and who is British and thus not embedded in the American dominated narratives. So this article from New Statesman reporter Rageh Omaar is highly relevant. Please take the time to read all of it, but here’s what struck me as key:
The reality is that the surge is not what has led to the lower levels of violence, and attacks on US troops are still causing considerable casualties. What has had a far greater impact has been the decision by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to call a ceasefire between his Mahdi army, a force of up to 100,000, and US troops and Iraqi government security units. Although US commanders on the ground ascribe almost every attack on Iraqis and their troops to al-Qaeda-linked groups, this is mainly for political reasons - to support President Bush’s notion that Iraq is the central battleground in the fight against the terrorists.
The fate of the surge (and Omaar makes the point that larger numbers of troops have been in Iraq before) essentially rests not on anything the US does, but on the willingness of al-Sadr and his troops (and his grassroots) to maintain a ceasefire - basically for their own reasons. That’s all of a piece with the fundamental illusion that still grips what passes for discussion of the war in America - the denial that what America does, or doesn’t do (short of getting out altogether) really is one of the least important factors driving the changing nature of the situation in Iraq.
On the subject of ‘the Surge’ and where Iraq is headed, there is this piece from Prospect Magazine’s Iraq correspondent, who has the marvellous name of Bartle Bull. He also “is British and thus not embedded in the American dominated narratives”, and he too does not fear to challenge “conventional wisdom”.
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9804
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two-day trip to Iraq is a clear sign that the surge has in fact worked, or that Iraq is stabilising at very least.
This is reflected in Iran cutting its backing for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who directs Mahdi Army militia.
Instead, Tehran has thrown its weight behind al-Sadr’s rival, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the country’s most powerful Shiite political insider and supporter of al-Maliki’s government.
It wasn’t that long ago the conventional “wisdom’ on the Left was al-Maliki’s government was a “Vichy style” regime and that Sadr would eventually overthrow him.
Remember?
Also, public perceptions of the situation in Iraq have become significantly more positive over the past several months, even as opinions about the initial decision to use military force remain mostly negative and unchanged.
The number of Americans who say the military effort is going very or fairly well is much higher now than a year ago (48% vs. 30% in February 2007). There has been a smaller positive change in the number who believe that the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals (now 53%, up from 47% in February 2007).
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1258
Surely public perceptions in Iraq are a more relevant indicator of whether the surge is working than public perceptions in America?
And Ahmenijad embracing the Iraqi government is a good thing?
…So, presumably, his motivation for a continued ceasefire is?
Iran, backing Al-Sadr?
You’re having a laugh.
Iran is on very good terms with both major Shia parties in the governing coalition, Al-Hakim’s ISCI and Al-Maliki’s Da’wa, which isn’t surprising given they hosted them for two decades of Saddam’s rule. Muqtada al-Sadr is a Iraqi nativist whose appeal rests in his opposition to both Iran and the US and has been locked in a factional turf war with ISCI over control of the Shia South.
Nope. I remember no such diktat issued by the central committee of leftist thought, (Iraq special working group). Or to put it less satirically - Bollocks to your statement, the only unequivocal message from ‘the left’ was that the politics were being mishandled and al-Maliki wouldn’t survive without external propping up.
wilful says: “Nope. I remember no such diktat issued by the central committee of leftist thought…”
Here you go…
- John Pilger, 10 March 2004
Pilger, while often insightful, does not speak for all of us.
…and which central committee of leftism is Pilger on?
Also, he’s referring there to the US-selected Iyad Allawi govt. which was a US attempt at a client govt, which kinda backfired when they only got 14% of the vote in the January 2005 elections.
This article just shows the desperation of the left to try and find some reason other than skilful US military management for the success of the surge.
Sadr has called a ceasefire for a very simple reason. HE WAS LOSING!!! Every single engagement with the US military sees them lose massively. With the Sunni’s coming into the tent the massive majority of US military power could have been directed at the JAM exclusively. Sadr recognised this even if you didn’t. Sadr had absolutely no choice he either watched his entire operation destroyed in a matter of months or see it somewhat diminished but still largely intact by broadly cooperating with the US. It was clear his organisation was also fracturing with those more militant and Iranian backed wanting to continue to fight. Those people are now dead or in jail. Sadr is not, and this obvious truth has not escaped his attention.
Even the reasons in the article given for the ceasefire are silly. Apparently he wanted to give some respectablity to his members in parliament who apparently represent a “large” number. ( That will be news to a lot of people who can count)
So he sacrificed a supposed winning hand in a guerilla war just to gain a veneer of respectablity. Spare us this twaddle.
Anyone who still believes he has an “army” of 100K is also dreaming.
IF you want to read something intelligent about what was different about the surge
read this
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/822vfpsz.asp
You people need to educate yourselves about COIN. Go to Small War Journals read what our very own LTC David Kilcullen has said and done.
You might just have to simply accept that Generals Petraeus and Odierno with Amb. Crocker have done a good job.
Leinad says :
Unlike his father, Muqtada had little formal religious standing to interpret the Koran, and relied for religious authority on an Iran-based Iraqi exiled cleric, Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, who was a student of Bakir al-Sadr. Muqtada al-Sadr formed the Jama’at al-Sadr al-Thani (Association of the Second al-Sadr) as the key organization of the al-Sadr family network. 1
1 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/al-sadr.htm
Ayatollah Kazem Husseini Haeri is a prominent Shia leader. Haeri was born in Iran, but moved to Iraq to lead the Shia community there. He was a top leader of the Al-Da’wa Party in Iraq. His involvement in the party led to his exile in the 1970s, when he moved to Iran, where he remains to this day in the holy city of Qom.
Haeri is considered the successor to the uncle of Muqtada al-Sadr, but since Haeri has resided in Iran since the 1970s he has not been able to fully take on this position. 2
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazem_Haeri
Muqtada is also the protege and the personal representative in Iraq of Ayatollah Kazem Husseini Haeri, an ultra-orthodox Iraqi and close confidant of Iranian leader Khamenei. 3
3 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FD15Ak02.html
That’s why Sadr runs to Iran whenver things get hot for him.
“The fundamentalist Shia cleric seen as the biggest threat to unity in Iraq has fled to Iran, according to American officials.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/14/wiran214.xml
If the link to John Pilger equating the elected government of Iraq with the Vichy regime doesn’t work, try this link
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1063309.htm
Nonsense. Sadr called a ceasefire because he won what he wanted to win.
1. Iraq has been ethnically cleansed of Sunni.
2. Sadr controls the Iraqi parliament. His votes are crucial for the passage of the Oil Law, which has been approved by the Cabinet but will not pass the parliament without Sadr’s support. And he won’t support it. The US is therefore in stalemate.
3. Sadr knows that the US is leaving. Time is on his side. Why fight an enemy when the clock does it for you? Roll on the first Tuesday in November! (No, not the Melbourne Cup.)
4. Sadr’s biggest worry are the pro-Iranian Shiites. Sadr is a nationalist. He represents the best hope for US interests being promoted in Iraq. But the Bush administration were too bone-headed to perceive this. Idiots!
Sadr’s ceasefire is with the ISCI, they’re the real threat to his powerbase, not the US military, which is equally loath to get into another round of ugly street-to-street fighting in Sadr’s slums - it isn’t a good look on telly, especially not in the midst of the wonderfully successful Surge.
Sadr’s resasoning for extending the ceasefire is only nonsensical from narrow reductionist viewpoint (i.e. one focused on street-warfare and guerrilla combat as the be-all and end-all of the power struggle in Iraq).
The JAM is locked in a three way turf-war with ISCI and Fadilah, in Basra and the South, part of of which is over political legitimacy in the long term, something that he cannot secure with armies of Shia slum kids. To that end the cease-fire allows Sadr to get his house in order and cut the thuggery back to a dull roar, to refocus on political campaigning for the Governorial elections - which has been stalled by the ISCI to prevent a potential Sadrist sweep.
I must have missed John Pilger’s election as sole spokesperson for TEH left.
Was is a close vote or did he win in a landslide?
Katzsays:
Sadr is a pro-Iranian Shiite.
See my point above: Muqtada is also the protege and the personal representative in Iraq of Ayatollah Kazem Husseini Haeri, an ultra-orthodox Iraqi and close confidant of Iranian leader Khamenei.
It’s just that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn’t as pro-Sadr as he used to be.
Muqtada al-Sadr is the son and Protege of Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, and not reknowned for his Islamic scholarship, he was educated and raised in Najaf, not Qom and is strongly Iraqi nativist and anti-Iranian.
Haeri has advised him and acted as a go-between in his battles with ISCI and Dawa, and has also criticised him for taking up arms against other orthodox Shias. Again, these relationships between orthodox Shia clergy and leaders aren’t simple master-puppet things, Haeri can be close to both Khamenei and Sadr without either working for the other.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing Eliot Ramsey.
Ayatollah Kazem Haeri has criticised Sadr for mounting an insurrection against the Maliki government.
Seems that Sadr was not pro-Iranian enough for the good Ayatollah.
This is all a matter of degree, because no sensible Iraqi Shiite leader could ever hope to have any influence as an enemy of Iran.
Sadr, however, has pushed that relationship to, and beyond, breaking point on occasion.
Eliot Ramsey has demonstrated his ignorance about the complexity of Shiite politics in Iraq.
Katz asks:
It seems to have been a landslide. Try Googling Maliki + Vichy + Government
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=Maliki+Vichy+Government+&btnG=Search&meta=
Katz asks:
I guess that’s why he’s been dumped.
Funny, I’m left-wing and I think Pilger’s a flake with an appaling habit of trying to shove every situation into his procrustean ideological melodrama.
Anyone who thinks Maliki and the ISCI-Dawa alliance are Vichy puppets of the US deserves to argue forever with the people who think Sadr is an Iranian client.
This one’s from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette!
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06118/685715-192.stm
Can Eliot Ramsey provide a date on which the Pittsburgh Post Gazette joined TEH devilish left wing conspiracy of lies against al Maliki.
(For the record, I have always stated that al Maliki is a thorn in the flesh of Chimpo and his Clique of Imbeciles. Because like Sadr, al Maliki knows that Chimpo is about to slither down the memory tube of history.)
Is Sadr Iran’s puppet, or is he dumped?
You’re an idiot.
Katz asks me:
As I said above:
And as you said, Katz:
Thanks for the “idiot” comment. I guess I win.
Leinad asks me:
Trying to shove every situation into one’s procrustean ideological melodrama is pretty well what Leftists do. And you have to admit, John Pilger is better regarded and more widely quoted on the Left than most.
You’re a Leftist?!
Now there’s an amazingly precise assertion. “regarded� by who? Most what? I’ve never read his books, watched his docos or quoted him (unlike you…) and I don’t know anyone in my underground marxist resistance cell who has. I’m sure he has appeal to some lefties, but your attempt to paint him as an arbiter of Left-ness is a laughable attempt to get around dealing with the complex, serious issues confronting the Coalition in Iraq (as opposed to y’know, point-scoring).
In that regard you’ll find common ground with the Pilgerites.
Leinad says of John Pilger
Let me introduce you to Harold Pinter and Noam Chomsky, whom you might also not consider to be “regarded” as significant leftists
- Harold Pinter
Noam Chomsky has claimed that the reason why journalists have invented the terms ‘to pilger’ and ‘pilgerise’ is because, when faced with the uncomfortable facts about the consequences of U.S foreign policy that Pilger presents, ‘ridicule’ is the only response they are capable of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger
Now, how about Hugo Chavez? Left enough for you? Or just another unknown?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/the-war-on-democracy/2007/09/27/1190486438118.html
Leinad, hi!
Just a question about your relationship with John Pilger. How do you conclude that “Pilger’s a flake with an appaling habit of trying to shove every situation into his procrustean ideological melodrama” if you’ve “never read his books, watched his docos”?
Do you know him personally?
What is it that is so timelessly funny about “Teh”??
I still chuckle every time.
The “this” in the above assertion refers to your (incorrect) belief that the surge is working.
It has nothing to do with any change in preference that Iran may or may not have for Sadr in relation to other Iraqi leaders.
Hakim has always been Teheran’s preferred option in Iraq.
You cannot succeed with such crude semantical retrofitting.
Eliot: I’ve read some of his articles on Iraq, East Timor, Afghanistan etc.
Anything else?
Leinad asks”
Sure. Noam Chomsky and Harold Pinter’s unqualified praise for John Pilger. Would you consider them fairly prominent Leftists?
I’ll leave Hugo Chavez aside for the moment on the grounds that his personal and political devotion to his “brother” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alone probably qualifies the Venezuelan drug-runner and pro-Venezuelan warmonger as a Fascist more than a Leftist. But, you know. He pretends to be a Leftist.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8J6NURG0&show_article=1
So, Noam Chomsky and Harold Pinter? Influential Leftists?
Eli @ 30
Sure, comparitavely. Would you rather play this game with a Chomskyite? I’m sorry but again, I don’t think much of the guy’s political writings and I’m not qualified to speak on his linguistics.
I’m unimpressed with Chavez as well. Are we finished hunting for strawmen?
OK Eliot,
here are my opinions, but they’ve not been assessed by the Central Committtee, and last I heard most of the Politburo was dangling from lamp posts on ropes…
A. Pilger: loudmouth buffoon, widely published, very arrogant; almost reaches Michael Moore depths in slanted and selective rants.
B. Chomsky: a cunning linguist, but when he strays out of his special area into foreign policy etc, displays all the weaknesses of the autodidact amateur enthusiast: sloppiness, selectivity, WTFWIK?B. He has forever been skewered by his mealy-mouthed apologetics for the young Pol Pot regime, circa 1978, when at least THREE published authors [a French priest Ponchaud!! and two published by ‘Reader’s Digest’ OMG !! got the basic story of mass murder right]. Chomsky poses as an intellectual but is not rigorous enough to qualify, except in linguistics.
C. Pinter: he wrote plays, innit?
You’ll need to choose a few spokespersons more representative of Teh Left.
cheerio, chin up!
Katz very politely states:
Well, the Iraq Body count seems to indicate that militia attacks are down, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to feel its safe enough to travel around the country.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
The Iranian Islamist president also seems to think the elected Iraqi government will be around long enough to warrant his working to improve bi-lateral ties, and the Vichy-style US-puppet al-Maliki’s regime itself thinks it’s okay to host him.
So, it cannot be going all that bad under the circumstances.
Indeed, Leinad might be interested in this article in which John Pilger disputes the Iraq body count data, perhaps for no than reason Pilger’s article starts with a quote from that other utterly inisgnificant leftist identity Noam Chomsky.
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060410_iraq_body_count.php
Erratum: …”Venezuelan drug-runner and pro-Venezuelan warmonger”…
That should read …”Venezuelan drug-runner and pro-FARC warmonger”…</em
So sad! What matters of course is the US perspective on all this and that their casualties are down. Who cares what the PEOPLE of Iraq are experiencing or might want?
‘Teh surge’ is a success because it makes it nearly impossible to frame the war, in the upcoming presidential elections, in such a discouraging way as previously done. And, it encourages the narrative of, if we(US) are ‘winning’, we can’t leave. All total BS of course!
Lets get back to Iraq:
This is pretty interesting. It looks like Al-Hakim and ISCI (or SCIRI or SIIC or ISIC) have killed off a bill for provincial elections which had been in the works for over a year. The Sunnis and the Sadrists as well as a Dawa MP are complaining that this is a ploy by ISCI to assume greater control over the districts, while an aide is claiming the bill was killed because it gave the PM the power to remove governors by fiat.
Qld Nats take note: that’s a real uneasy coalition
Katz wrote:
The Chomsky loves Pilger loves Chavez crap is boring me to beers, so I thought I’d lapse into pedantry. Wikipedia’s a less than credible source, but it’s not the first Tuesday in November. It’s the first Tuesday that comes after the first Monday in November.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
I didn’t know that Monday thing Alister. Thanks.
Katz wrote:
And at 16 Katz said:
So, obviously Sadr is the winner. And then Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pops in for a visit. Obviously no connection.
Debbieanne says:
Well, this is where the Left steps in an provides strong moral leadership. For example:
“But if we were to only support pristine movements, then no resistance will be worthy of our purity.”
- Arundhati Roy
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/605/605p28.htm
“While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the “Bush gangâ€? will attack another country. If they succeed, a grievous blow will be suffered by the Bush gang. ”
- John Pilger (pace Leinad)
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/568/568p10b.htm
And here are a few others who think the Iraqi “resistance” are just dandy - oil trading magnate George Galloway, filmmaker Michael Moore, journalist Naomi Klein, Vagina Monologist Eve Ensle, amongst others.
No notable Leftists in there. Nope.
http://volokh.com/posts/1124131079.shtml
katz - the US will be in Iraq for decades with 50K plus troops and able to man them up to surge levels within weeks. Sadr will die of old age waiting for the US to leave. This idea he is just sooo cunning waiting out the US is nonsense. Everyday his powerbase withers, the best he can hope for is to be some Iraqi equivalent of Al Capone in a few years time.
The US also does not need to resort to Fallujah levels of violence to de-fang Sadr if he drops his ceasefire. They need only CLC/SoI him out of the slums.
I am sorry to disappoint but Sadr is no Ho Chi Minh.
I actually like McCain’s idea of the US staying in Iraq for a thousand or ten thousand years. My cybernetically-transferred consciousness would laugh it’s vat off at Withdrawal 12008.
Evidence?
Oh and Kingsley: liking the new acronyms. ‘Concerned Local Citizens’ - sounds like your local community anti-develoment protestors, while you can see the Revolutionary War echo with ‘Sons of Iraq’.
Has a better ring to it than SIWPTTBNTU - ‘Sunni insurgents we’re paying truckloads to be nice to us’
… what could possibly go wrong?
And Uncle Ho was no Uncle Joe (Stalin), Kingsley. To gain Katz’s attention, you may try comparing Sadr to Raul Castro
or to the Sainted Argentinian Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
On Teh Left and Iraq (GW2). I could be wrong, but I recall many different attitudes to the invasion of Iraq, by folk who might self-describe as moderate left or left. Here are examples from 2002/2003:
1. Total pacifist - all war is wrong
2. Saddam is a nationalist being attacked by imperialism and deserves support
3. No war for oil!
4. The UN sanctions have been killing kiddies in Iraq: no GW2
5. We should invade because Saddam is a tyrant, but only under the UN flag.
6. Saddam has likely lied about his WMD program, but it’s none of our business.
7. If you support the Palestinians you must support Saddam.
8. Anything George Bush does is probably stupid, and we shouldn’t have a bar of it.
9. The US is in fact the Great Satan.
10. Israel is the Beast.
11. Casualties in a new Gulf War are likely to exceed half a million; this is too high a human price to pay.
12. Give the weapons inspectors a few more months.
13. Saddam doesn’t support al Qaeda, the real fight should be in Afghanistan.
14. The Yanks deserved 9-11.
15. The US doesn’t have detailed plans for the occupation of Iraq after an invasion.
All of these or variants thereof were expressed publicly in Australia before the invasion, by various spokespersons and speakers.
How do they stack up now? Personally I agree with Andrew Bartlett: it is possible to oppose the invasion, and subsequently to be concerned with this question: “OK, the invasion happened, Saddam was overthrown, what should the Coalition and the new Iraqi Govt do now???”
To Kingsley:
The UN mandate under which US troops persist in Iraq runs out in December 2008. Maliki made sure that would happen. If the US decides to stay in Iraq, they’ll have to find a whole new justification for doing it.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04521793.htm
I doubt President Obama will want to do such a thing.
Checkmate.
Katz asks:
South Korea. Okinawa. Germany. The Philippines. You name it.
Even Cuba, if you are prepared to count Fort Lauderdale and Miami where Cuba’s population lives.
The Yanks are amazingly patient.
And talking about Hugo Chavez, see Wediary comment on October 6, 2007 - 1:44pm: “Don’t miss this investment opportunity….”
http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/2059&from=90&comments_per_page=90
42 Ambigulous, you forgot one:
My favourite.
I was 8., 15. and a bit of 13.
I didn’t think there’d be huge casualties in the initial invasion (unlike the people warning that Baghdad was going to become another Stalingrad) but I suspected that most of the Iraqi army would melt away to wait and see, and that the Republican Guard etc would go underground. Didn’t see the total breakdown and looting coming, was expecting some generals to openly defect and help in the transition. I didn’t think the insurgency and civil war would break out as soon or as violently as they did. In that regard I was underestimating the Bush Administration.
I guess there is a universe in which the above sentence makes sense.
What on earth (this one) does the demographic structure of two Florida cities have to do with the continued presence of US troops in Iraq?
You’ve got to do something about that reality-based thinking habit, evidently, Katz!
Katz baffled, asks
Sigh. Obviously, if the Americans can get themselves into Iraq without a UN mandate, and can then negotiate a UN mandate, they can and will, should it become necessary, stay the course in Iraq. And President Obama is no more likely to run away from Iraq than, say, Presidents Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy or Truman ran away from any other politically important UN mandated operation, for example Korea. Or Afghanistan. And they’ve been patiently waiting on the Hereditary Castro Dynasty to fall over in Cuba for 49 years this coming summer.
They’ll wait.
*cue “Twilight Zone” music
*/cue “Twilight Zone” music
The Americans got themselves into Iraq with what is technically called “an invasion”.
You may find the word in a dictionary that is a little more “grown-up” than the one you presently use.
If the US want to go back to Iraq after the lapse of the present UN mandate, unless they strike an agreement with whatever government may be in power before the lapse of the current mandate, the US will have to “invade” again.
The president who does that will be commiting him/herself to emulating the geopolitical genius of George W (Chimpo) Bush.
Yeah, right. I can see that happening.
Not.
Katz says:
Er, what if they don’t leave “after the lapse of the present UN mandate”?
Then it’s called illegal occupation, which is as a serious a breach of international law as invasion.
(”illegal” appears several pages before “invasion” in grown-up dictionaries. Hope that helps.)
But I take your point. Chimpo doesn’t understand the word “illegal” either.
However, I think you’ll find that the next president will be able to read without moving his/her lips.
And have you ever wondered why the Chinese and the Russians didn’t veto this mandate in the Security Council?
Have you ever had the “Fable of the Tar Baby” read to you?
To spell it out. The Chinese and the Russians perceived correctly that Iraq was military, geopolitical, economic and financial poison for the US.
How right they were.
Katz that mandate has rolled over before it’ll roll over again. If the US were going to realistically have to pull out in December the logisitics for that would have to start rolling now. They are not. Where is the call from Talabani, MAliki etc for the US to start planning to pack their bags?
You are also pinning all your hopes on an Obama victory and that even if he wins that he’ll be oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Oil at $200 a barrel might just slow him down. A De facto Iranian invasion of Iraq could set off a Middle east wide war Arab Vs Persian. Do you think Obama will just sit by and watch this unfold?
As for others making the old criticism of “what could go wrong with recruiting and paying ex-insurgents?” sarcasm. Welcome to COIN. It’s how it is usually done. By definition 2 sides need to cooperate for there to be a settlement. I might add the Awakening/Salvation councils/CLC - SoI’s etc have now existed for well over 12 months in many places. When is this much predicted collapse going to happen?
At end of the day only time elapsed will prove who wins this argument but the premise Al Sadr has settled for a ceasefire for no better reason than he’s worried about his reputation is unbelievably naive. He examined whether he could gain power by force realised he couldn’t and probably would result in his obliteration so he backed off.
What we have here is the Left side of politics not evaluating the facts as presented but desperately trying to find some reason other than US Military management for the success of the Surge. They need to because they have clung to this idea that you cannot defeat insurgencies as one of their prime arguments for opposing military action. Petraeus and Odierno have demonstrated this to be false.
The Surge/COIN is a success, it is not guaranteed Iraq will retain and improve this stablity but the fact remains that right now it is a success and Al Sadr’s power has waned under it but far less than what opposing it would have.
You’re welcome to believe that. But read below.
That’s an easy one.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/26/asia/iraq.php
Last November Maliki vowed that he had signed off on the last renewal of the UN mandate.
Of course the Diem option is always open to the US…
Funny how Iraq-war defenders have suddenly discovered counterinsurgecy warfare in all it’s splendor, after a few years of pretending there wasn’t any insurgency after all.
Paying your enemies off is isn’t a new idea, and it’s not a marvellously successful one either as Valens, the poor sods who hired Hengist and Horsa, Stilicho, Aetius, a brief look at the history of the Byzantine Empire, and Machiavelli might tell you.
And yet it wasn’t on anyone’s radar until March 2007, when the Surge was cooked up.
Well, the settlement is the issue. So far this brilliant COIN strategy looks like this:
1. Pay Sunni Insurgents not to shoot us
2. ????
3. Political settlement.
When you stop paying? When they’ve re-tooled, rested, re-trained and the sums that keep them quiet no longer add up? It’s been a year to get a stable, functional government, get all sides talking to each other, get some powersharing and reconciliation between al-Dawa/ISCI and the NDC and IAF.
What’s happened on that front? Nada.
Do you have any evidence of this, Katz? Have they been confiding in you? Tell us all.
No GregM. It is surmise on my part.
No public document issued by China or Russia is likely to contain such information.
Successful powers tend to keep their secret motives, well, secret.
But if you can come up with a better explanation i’d be happy to hear it, especially in light of the fact that both countries were prepared to veto US invasion of Iraq before Bush unleashed his famous “Shock and Awe.”
When Bush’s terribly exciting Iraqi adventure proved to be less shocking and awesome than virtually anyone could imagine (if you don’t count me, of course) the Chinese and the Russians suddenly found room in their hearts to allow the US to continue its wonderful world-making work in Mesopotamia.
So, yes, GregM, my statement was surmise. Any critic of it must account for the inverse relationship between the likelihood of American success and the level of support offered to American plans by Russia and china.
Katz says;
Oh, well. That’s it then. The USA will abandon Iraq in December this year. Perhaps George Bush’s final executive order. And al-Maliki will be glad of it.
So, what we should all do is jot this down for December in Microsoft Outlook calendar, making careful note of Katz’s no-doubt scientifically informed prediction. “Checkmate” as she says. Give her a big accolade in January for being so precise.
December 2008 is going to be a busy month for old George W. I mean, Scott Burchill (of course) also has him “attacking Iran” then.
He recommends this from the Guardian (of course):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330197756-110878,00.html
Mind you, an “imminent attack on Iran” has been pretty well earmaked as an absolute dead cert for just about every single available slot on George W’s business schedule for, oh, years now. Going back and ahead on now.
Odd that Maliki would, as head of state, need a UN mandate to ask the USA to stay, though. Something new in international law?
Nice sarcasm Eliot Ramsey.
With a lot more practice you may achieve irony.
Point of information. Maliki is head of government, not head of state.
The UN mandate allows the US to stay with a specified number of troops for a specified period of time.
You do understand the difference between a request and a licence?
Let me spell it out.
I ask you to buy a dictionary. That is a request.
When you pay for that dictionary at the dictionary shop, you have legal licence to remove it from the shop.
Mandates aren’t new in internaitonal law. Thy go back at least as far as the Versailles settlement in 1919. You may or may not know that in 1919 Australia was granted a League of Nations mandate to administer ex-German New Guinea.
I’m not responsible for anything Scott Burchill writes. You don’t have to be a right-winger to be an idiot. Let me go on record as saying that it is extremely unlikely that Bush will take any serious military action against Iran. (Although I don’t rule out some act of provocation.)
A COIN strategy that isn’t focused on the one key objective of such a strategy will only just turn up more bad pennies.
Nab’s link is an elegant statement of the internal contradiction inherent in TEH Surge.
This internal contradiction is so blatant, it raises the question how it could be allowed to persist.
I believe the answer lies in the exigencies of US domestic politics.
TEH Surge isn’t designed for victory in Iraq. TEH Surge is designed for Republican victory in the swing states in the coming US elections.
Katz, thank God you’re here to explain these things. No, really, I mean that. You say:
So, if al-Maliki decides he’d like the Americans to stay on, his merely being head of Iraq’s Vichy-like government won’t have a bearing on the outcome? Let’s say he musters enough support in Iraq’s Vichy-like parliament for an extension of the US troop presence in Iraq, and the Americans agree, then it’s just darned too bad because the UN mandate is expired.
And you’ll have the last laugh? Nine months from now? because it’s L.A.W. law, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it?
Eliot Ramsey, you appear to be someone who takes it as personal affront when reality does not accord with your fantasy.
Bad, bad reality!
So to your quaint little counterfactual:
In that case, the Americans would be welcome to stay, and legally too!
Just one problem: who in the Iraqi parliament is gunna vote for such a proposition?
Are you perhaps contemplating some ultra-secret, black-ops, remotely operated mind control ray?
Are they talking much about the Pentagon Mind Ray on Small Wars Journal these days?
I hope not, because I wouldn’t want that cat to be let out of the bag.
Katz says:
Well then, let’s see what happens. In December, you say?
What was that? An ‘Al-Qaeda in Messopotamia’ victory salute? Maybe Sadr City should call in a few Sunni tribes to help them with that?
Anyway, after December, once the US withdrawl is underway, the Vichy Regime in Baghdad will be in an unprecedented position, won’t it? Saddam will be gone. Shiites will control parliament by an elected majority. The Kurds will be at peace (well, not being massacred for a change). Iran and Iraq will be friends again. The Sunni tribes will be helping hold down al-Qaeda. And Iraq will control its own oil reserves.
Obviously, the credit for all that should go to the ‘Human Shields’, and the likes of George Galloway, Arundhati Roy, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and that weird Australian doctor whose name I can never remember but appeared at the 9/11 Truth Now conference in Sydney a couiple of weeks ago. Helen Caldicott! That’s it.
Let’s admit it. They put in the hard yards.
Without them, Uday would still be dragging nurses and kindy teachers down to his ‘love pit’ in the dungeon underneath Saddam’s palace and otherwise getting ready to take over the family business when the old man eventually retired.
Say? Whatever happened to the old man, anyway?
Sorry, I forgot to provide the link to the item about today’s market bombings in Baghdad. Here you go… http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/55-killed-in-two-baghdad-road-bombs/2008/03/07/1204780004032.html
As much as I hate to add fuel to the fire (yeah right), I couldn’t resist this from Eliot Ramsey:
Please define the course…? How long will it run? Till the job is done right? So what’s the job? What does it entail? How is success measured (what are the metrics)?
And another:
Who are we at war with? Iraq? Ummm… hang on…
You do know that the ‘Global War on Terror’ is simply a propaganda line right? Please don’t tell me that you’ve bought into that clash of civilisations nonsense have you? And if you have please tell me that you’re aware that it’s self-fulfilling and that everyone’s favourite Evil Terrorist Mastermind(TM) Osama Bin Laden is one of the most vocal adherents of the thesis… he quotes that crud constantly. Then again, so does Bush Jnr… you comfortable with the thought that Bush & OBL approach the issues facing us from the same perceptional bias?
Jingoistic fun with real prizes!
(I’ve left an opening for you to trot out the Islamofascist line but I wouldn’t recommend it - even GWB wont touch that one in a public statement)
On topic: Teh Surge isn’t ‘working’ as the KPIs are not married up to the political strategies being sought by Washington (let alone the needs of the Iraqi’s).
And that doesn’t even enter into the area of debate on troop numbers (30,000 approx extra troops, in 8 hour working shifts = approx 10,000 extra boots on the ground at any one time = not enough to be effective at anything except blowing more stuff up)
On COIN:
So, so, so CBF’d typing out my standard rant about US CT/COIN approaches, it’ll be in the archives in several places anyway. Short version: Suppression = good short term, bad long term. Accommodation = bad short term, good long term. Both strategies must be utilised for long-term political success. Our American friends are too heavily focussed on suppression, with little or no accommodation policies evident. Logical conclusion: same as the French in Algiers, who tried the same thing.
If I had to emphasise one thing about the US in Iraq, I’d point out that though we tend to give it primary focus as an ‘occupying’ force, effectively it is one heavily armed faction of out of dozens. It may have the most military power, but it is hamstrung at every turn by a lack of political clout, a deficit which has deeped as the various Iraqi factions have developed their power bases.
If the last five years have taught us anything it is that military force is heavily discounted in a counter-insurgency war, and is of almost nil value in political negotiations. The US’s only effective bargaining counter to the Iraqi govt. is withdrawal of support, an option hardly worth contemplating. What the US wants, and what it can get from the political parties and the armed groups are very different.
This current strategy is holding violence down at the expense of a much greater conflagration further down the track and is only justifiable by the achievement of serious long-term political objectives; powersharing between the government and the Sunnis, disbandment or incorporation of the militias, an effective federal arrangement and resolution of the oil-revenues issue on an equitable basis.
If those were accomplished, there is the possibility that we could see a gradual wind-down of the conflict over a few years.
However, the signs aren’t good. I mentioned up thread the wranglings over the pronvincial elections bill, but as well, the recent revision of Bremer’s DeBaathification law ended up being drafted by Sadrists and appears to be even harsher than the original, and is likely to further alienate the Sunni parliamentary blocs.
This is not the workings of a Vichy-parliament, nor is this the Junta of the Republic of Vietnam. Iraq doesn’t fit the lazy generalisations of Baby-Boomers and remorseful ex-Maoists. Iraq is the Lebanese Civil War times ten, on the worlds second largest oil reserves awash in the castoffs of two armies. And the US is stuck in the middile of it.
Tony D asks
It depends on who you mean by “we”. George Galloway, Arundhati Roy and John Pilge, feel that “we” have “no choice” but to support the Ku Klux Resistance, so judging from yesterday’s double bombings in yet another a crowded Baghdad shopping area, “we” at war with women, kids and old guys doddering around bazaars and playing chequers outside cafés and the like.
Tony D asks;
Well, according to Katz, it will run till December this year because the Shia have already won. Certainly that might explain Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit. He obviously thinks the place has a future worth exploring. Presuming he doesn’t still want to annex the Shiite areas.
This is your answer Eliot Ramsey?
If so, it suggests that you can be both intelligent and original, even if not simultaneously.
That’s nicely done Eliot, good attempt at a dodge.
Leinad at [68] wrote inter alia
“the lazy generalisations of Baby-Boomers”
which I hail as an apt and widely-applicable description of what passes for “thought” or “analysis” by some folk.
We learn a little about a conflict. Years later we see another conflict and try to transfer our [meagre] understandings across the gulfs of time and place, to a zone where there are different religions, histories, social practices, armies, politics and other influences. It makes no sense. And what makes even less sense, is to launch tirades and abuse against others who are struggling to understand the conflict.
Yes, I mean you.
Tony D says:
Oh my goodness? Was that a serious question? Oh, okay then: I’d say the “job will be done” when the Ku Klux Resistance whom “we have no choice but to support” is so well and truly crushed that it cannot any longer carry out bombing attacks like the one in the market yestrday. And when it realises that Sunni ascendancy in Iraq is finished and that even the Sunnis are sick of them.
As for “we” who “have no choice but to support” them, though, the job might be done when Socialist Alliance and other “peace groups” stop plastering Newtown with posters like this one praising the latest Hamas “victory”. Okay?
Really, boys. About time that one came down. Wouldn’t you say?
Call it a question asked in good faith Eliot. Which you have answered with a subjective set of metrics.
Just don’t conflate Democracy with Liberalism like the neo-cons always do.
And you really gotta stop that analogous labeling, you’ll have a lot more credibility here if you stop oversimplifying issues and groups. Stick to using the real names for stuff, for instance wtf does the KKK have to do with it? Or are you suggesting that the insurgency in Iraq is led by white, American extremists?