"Your country, your problems"
From VOA News:
Supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr celebrated in Badhdad's Sadr City district Tuesday, as a blockade was lifted on orders of Iraq's prime minister. U.S. and Iraqi forces abandoned checkpoints in the Shi'ite neighborhood within hours of Nouri al-Maliki's decree. Al-Sadr had ordered businesses and schools closed Tuesday as part of a strike to oppose the blockade. The blockade was part of a search operation for a missing American soldier, whom U.S. officials believe was kidnapped by Shi'ite militants.
Whether or not the missing American soldier, who was an interpreter, was genuinely kidnapped or AWOL; and whether or not there are other circumstances about the situation in Sadr City we don't know, Maliki's order to dismantle the checkpoints clearly shows how politically powerful Sadr is within the Iraqi government. Sadr's forces expressed their opposition by using the political strike, fair enough, but that does not diminish the fact of his influence.
To have disregarded the PM's order, would have been a politically unthinkable alternative for an America that recognizes Iraq as a legitimate government. They could no more thrust Maliki's order aside than they could any other Head of State's within his own borders. But clearly the identification between the former occupation government and the Iraqi government has begun to wane in the middle of what Donald Rumsfeld described as the process of declining influence. But the necessary consequence of independence is an acceptance of the consequences of independent acts. The liability of a parents for the actions of their children diminishes strictly with adulthood.
It is now possible — or at least it should be — to speak of the American "side of the bargain" as the limit of liability. America can only guarantee giving other nations a chance — as parents can only give their children chances — one can never guarantee absolute outcomes. There are going to be disappointments, but there have been real accomplishments and a lot of unknowables for the future.
posted by wretchardthecat at 11/01/2006 01:43:00 AM
34 Comments:
One wonders if this was a move on Al-Sadr's part to "prove the lie of Iraqi independance" or some such, possibly in hopes of stirring up a general uprising in Iraq just ahead of our elections here in the States. Backing down may well have been the smart play here.
al sadr could have and should have been taken out a long, long time ago - the price for dancing with the devil is always paid in blood - take him out with an air strike and when his militia engages, devastate the area of engagement with massive air strikes anywhere they occur, anytime
Mr. Fernandez: This sounds like a eulogy for the American occupation of Iraq. Are you packing it in?
I'm unconvinced that allowing Maliki to call the shots for our forces in Iraq will advance our position in the GWOT. While it may help to legitimize Maliki, it also plays to the favor of a pro-Iranian segment of the population.
It would sure help if Rummy indicated some sort of strategy there. I think the brainstorming sessions recently held by the Bush team indicates that they are out of ideas. I look for a drop in morale until someone steps up with a plan.
Gee, who could have foreseen that Iraqi candidates who ran for election as Shiite Islamists with deep ties to Iran would turn out to be Shiite Islamists with deep ties to Iran? My memory is getting a bit foggy with all the shifting in goals in rhetoric; Wretchard could you remind me why you thought the elections of these Islamists thugs constituted a victory? Did you honestly not know who they were or what they wanted for Iraq?
I agree with Rumsfeld that we are suffering from declining influence in Iraq, and Michael Gordon over at the NYTimes was just slipped a confidential slide from Central Command showing the whole misadventure sliding towards chaos. Why waste our troops in trying to impose a liberal peace on a fundamentally illiberal people?
Edward Luttwak once wrote that "An Unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflict and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively . . . War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violece." We can not impose a peace on the Sunnis and Shiites, it must be won in blood. It should be obvious that neither the Shiite Islamists (now legitimate through elections) nor the Sunni Islamists are our friends. It is time for us to pull out and give war a chance.
I should add that, when it comes to a missing serviceman, all bets should be off. Maliki may represent the sovereignty of a new Iraqi government but we gotta do what we gotta do.
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The last Marine that was a translator and "kidnapped", ended up in Lebanon where he turned hinself in.
Sent back to the States for investigation, the Marine went on home to Utah on leave, never to return.
We gotta do what we gotta do.
If Maliki wants more independence we should give it to him. We should end any involvement in providing for his personal security and the security of the government. It seems to me that he and his government have become all too comfortable and complacent wrapped in our security blanket.
Moreover, I'm not sure we lose anything if he is killed at this point.
rat:
Are you saying we should just forget about him based on what happened to the last guy?
“It is time for us to pull out and give war a chance.”
This seems like the noble thing to do. How far do US troops need to pull back to draw Iran and Syria into the conflagration?
US policy has deftly maneuvered itself into an un-winnable position with no way forward and no way back. Things went desperately to hell with the chain of events starting with Chirac and the president of Gasprom who, no doubt, influenced Turkey to deny passage of the 4thID, the Bremmer Imperium, Faluja I, tiptoeing around Mosque-ammo depots-garrisons, and the namby-pamby treatment of Sadr. The new government had the possibility of breaking the insurgency yet has yielded worst consequences. It’s been a disaster and now the administration looks to Iran and Syria to “help” stabilize the region… it makes me sick. Can we just give war a chance?
We cannot leave iraq at this point.
We can allow iraqis to kill one another
We can cut power & water to certain areas of the city
We can provide weapons and training to iranians that wish to go back to iran spread our love.
What is happening in iraq WILL happen in iran, syria, arabia, egypt, gaza and many other Islamic "true" believing places.
We should should tolerance and love by provide a free flow of hollow points and C4
The chinese have taught never fight an enemy head on... allow others...
Time to show the world our leadership is EXACTLY LIKE THEY ARE! We will TALK a great game, then quietly supply the arms to OUR friendlies to do our bidding.
Let the games begin...
Great idea What Is but the weapons that we have provided to the ISF have made their way into the hands of insurgents. What makes you think that there are any US simpatico Iranians in Iraq that we can arm and send back to their homelands. The flow of events seem to be going the other way.
“In the core of Iraq, what happens, happens.”
What happens in Baghdad stays in Baghdad. We need an operating understanding. Allow the US to dismantle the militias or be prepared to watch all go up in smoke. Frankly, a civil war in Iraq is the best remedy for these intransient belligerents, let god sort them out.
A civil war is useful because it would demonstrate, unambiguously, which group possesses the monopoly on violence.
Presently, no force has demonstrated this convincingly to any party, American or Iraqi or Iranian or Syrian.
There are still options other than abandoning the state to a cathartic doom.
The "give war a chance" drives home this notion that monopoly of violence must be demonstrated. Reconstruction is nice but it pays no impressions to those curious about who is most powerful in Iraq.
Consider the meaning of Grozny I and Grozny II and Fallujah I and Fallujah II.
No, just that we do not know what has happened to him. To assume that he was captured is no more accurate than to assume that he went AWOL.
There have been no demands, videos or a body delivered. Not the typical Insurgent behaviour when they have one of ours.
Think Fallujah contractors, the two soldiers that were butchered in response to the rape murder of that Iraqi family.
The disappearence of this trooper does not fit the "capture" profile.
True, rat.
Tough to make sense out of chaos.
It is much easier for the punditocracy to natter about John Kerry's boo-boo (which as I veteran I condemn), and no one to my knowledge is focusing on the big story out of Sadr City:
That the U.S. abandoned the time-honored tradition of using as many lives as it took to save the life of a soldier.
I know that HABU1 would consider the linguist kidnapped and apparently taken into Sadr City to be worthy of being half dead since he was half Iraqi, but he still was a soldier, by gosh, and the capitulation of the U.S. Command and White House to Al Maliki's order that the cordon thrown up after the kidnapping be taken down is far more obscene than idiot Kerry's utterance.
Well, it seems our trooper was no stickler for regulations.
I guess we take his mother-in-laws statement at face value and believe he was kidnapped, not AWOL.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. soldier kidnapped last week in Baghdad was married to an Iraqi college student and was with his wife and her family when hooded gunmen dragged him out of a house, bound his hands and threw him in the back seat of a white Mercedes, a woman who identified herself as his mother-in-law said Monday.
U.S. military regulations forbid soldiers from marrying citizens of a country where American forces are engaged in combat. There was no immediate comment from the military about the account of the soldier‘s abduction.
The military did not identify the soldier or give further details. A massive search for him by U.S. and Iraqi forces has been under way since the Oct. 23 abduction. The in-laws said the soldier‘s name is Ahmed Qais al-Taayie.
She showed an AP reporter photographs of the couple in Cairo, one of them dated Aug. 14.
...
"My daughters struggled with the kidnappers. One of them broke her hand and another had her hand cut in the struggle. They were begging the gunmen not to take him," said Nasser.
One of her sons, 26-year-old Omar Abdul-Satar, and Abu Rami, the neighbor, followed the kidnappers in another car, but turned back before they could learn where the gunmen were headed. They feared that they too may be kidnapped. Abu Rami has since left the neighborhood with his family and went into hiding, said Nasser.
It seems to me Mr Mullen has hit the nail on the head.
America has its interests, such as the safety of on its soldiers, and Iraq has it's. The 2 may have run together once, but they have diverged. So the US has to start thinking of its own interests in Iraq again and less about that of its ward, on the assumption that it is increasingly on its own. If that means reading Maliki the riot act or threatening him as the US can threaten the sovereign heads of other nations when its national interest is at stake, so be it. That should be the principle, I think. And in a way, its progress. However, the actual implementation is something that should be left to people in the field.
Every time I think of Sadr I remember the First Fallujah and my guess, though I have nothing to really back it with, is that the same cast of characters is pulling on the ends of this. The outreach and diplomacy types on the one side and the direct action types on the other.
No one seems to understand we have entered the era of
"The Fourth Way"
Revolutionary, really:
Being all-powerful, the administration has but to declare someone (anyone - Maliki, Chicoms, Syria, etc) an ally, and sit back and wait for the fruits of their co-operation.
Catherine:
As part of your journey back to reality, I suggest you read Ledeen's latest at NRO:
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Iran and W.
What does the president know, and when did he know it?
In noting that "America has its interests, such as the safety of on its soldiers, and Iraq has it's," Wretchard articulates (intentionally or otherwise) a salient reason for, pardon the term, cutting and running if Mr. "Our Man in Iraq" Maliki doesn't get religion not of the Shiite persuasion awfully quickly.
My morning constitutional begins with a tooth brushing, OJ and then a quick glance at CNN. I have had this dreadful feeling that I'm going to see a story of unspeakable carnage involving the deaths of many U.S. troops in the Green Zone or some other supposedly safe bastion. God help us, but I feel it coming.
Shaun, you left one thing out of your morning constitutional that, if added, may clear your thinking.
Eliminating something?
CNN?
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Odd how conservative pundits credit W with looking 20 years down the road, as if the thought itself is enough to carry the day.
Ledeen's first two paragraphs lead me to a different conclusion.
DR...
I think you're once again on the beam..it doesn't fit the kidnap profile.
Why on Earth would anyone turn on CNN for any reason?
2164..it's impacted
To speed up your Constitutional?
2164th: I didn't leave it out. I fit it in between CNN and coffee.
Habu1: You are such an abject coward. I challenged you several days ago to trot out your High and Mighty credentials -- war record and so on -- and you scurried into your rat hole. It's time to share with me and your fellow correspondents how your action- and thought-filled life -- you know, battles fought, challenges overcome, adversity thrust aside -- turned you into a constipated-minded bigot.
I was with David Crockett at the Alamo. Then later I was with Nathan Bedford Forrest at Chickamauga. Finally I was with the
Teufelshunde at Belleau Wood.
Now I'm dead. But thanks for asking. Hope all is well.
My morning constitutional.
Kinda has the ring of "What I did on my summer vacation"
Still hang'n with the Griswolds at WallyWorld?
My morning constitutional.
ROTFLMAO ..no,no we all care,honest.
Lots of interesting comments here. I'd make the observation that Bush and his administration has successfully "rope-a-doped" his political opponents through two presidential election cycles. At least domestically, he has chronically been "misunderestimated." He might have something up his sleeve for Sadr. After all, just because Rummy et al. haven't told us of a plan doesn't mean they don't have one.
Bush is a guy who's supposed to be dumb as a plant, but he's outfoxed the Dems at least twice and they still think he's an imbecile. I can only hope he can pull off something similar re: Iraq and Iran.
I think we are preparing to give the Iraqi's the same lesson that the Israeli's have just given the Palestinians; i.e., you wanted it, you got it.
Now, let's see you feed yourselves, build yourselves a government and act like civilized human beings.
My bet, further, is that they will fail. Across the board since we first went into Baghdad three years ago, we have treated the Iraqi's as adults and as partners, and across the board, they have failed to live up to that trust.
We will do what Mr. Maliki has asked us to do about the checkpoints in Iraq and there is going to be a bloodbath. Sunni's are going to start screaming about genocide and why don't we Americans *do* something ... and we'll be able to now say the equivalent of, "It's not in our job description."
Our job description, until told otherwise by Mr. Maliki, is to keep Iran and Syria at bay. Whatever level of civilization the Iraqi's want to achieve - it will now be up to them to do it.
They've already got a pretty good headstart on intramural killing a la the Palestinians. Let's see if they can figure out that mug's game and bring themselves back from the brink before their brothers in Gaza do.
Bush is a guy who's supposed to be dumb as a plant, but he's outfoxed the Dems at least twice and they still think he's an imbecile
Kerry says his "botched joke" was really about how Bush didn't do his homework in college and so Bush got "stuck in Iraq" but...uh...number 1, he never mentioned Bush at all at the time, and number 2, Bush and Kerry went to the same college and Bush got better grades. I know Bush messes up his words now and then, but you can't even get the GIST of what Kerry says unless he holds a press conference the next day to revise and extend his remarks.
Wretchard said:
"It is now possible — or at least it should be — to speak of the American "side of the bargain" as the limit of liability. America can only guarantee giving other nations a chance — as parents can only give their children chances — one can never guarantee absolute outcomes."
1. Iraq is now a sovereign nation, with a freely elected central government in place, a success;
2 Sadr is now operating within the government, no longer in rebellion, a success;
3. Roughly 5/6 of the Sunni tribes have indicated they will work within the government, no longer in rebellion, a success;
4. AQ has been damaged and has a reduced support base, a success; and
5. As a result, the Maliki government appears to be reasonably stable against internal threats, albeit at yet still largely ineffective and facing many internal political issues that only it can work out.
In this context, Wrechard's words above ring true.
.
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