Posted on 04/22/2007 6:29:10 AM PDT by Valin
Honest Democrats should admit that they are in a predicament: The electoral interests of their party are at odds with the interests of the country in Iraq. If the surge fails, the Democrats stand to gain enormously in 2008. A Republican could try to depict himself as the candidate best able to manage retreat from Mesopotamia, but such a Nixonian approach, given how lamely the Bush administration has handled much of the war, doesn't seem compelling. On the other hand, if the surge works, and the Sunni insurgency and sectarian strife no longer convulse Iraqi society, the odds of Senator John McCain--or another Republican--succeeding George W. Bush go up considerably. The entire Democratic field, however, could end up looking wrong, faint-hearted, and politically reckless.
We highlight this Democratic contradiction since the party's character is being put to the test, as we see whether General David Petraeus's counterinsurgency tactics, which will seriously kick into gear in June, can rescue Baghdad and Anbar and Diyala provinces from the precipice. We don't know if General Petraeus at this late date can reverse the bloody dynamic that has developed in the Iraqi Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish communities. But militarily the United States is finally waging a counterinsurgency that makes sense: We are focusing our efforts on securing Iraqi lives and property. Incrementally, in many quarters of Baghdad, daily life for Iraqis appears to be getting better.
And politically, Iraq is coming alive again. A Shiite-led Iraqi democracy is taking root--an astonishing achievement given the concerted efforts of the Iraqi Sunnis, and the surrounding Sunni Arab states, to attack and delegitimize the new Iraq. The country's obstreperous, stubborn, highly nationalist, Shiite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, appears increasingly to be a man of mettle and courage. Slowly but surely, he is distancing himself from the clerical scion, Moktada al-Sadr, the overlord of the Sunni-shooting Mahdi Army. Maliki is so far holding his ground after the resignation of Sadr's men in his government.
This distancing was inevitable once the Americans reversed the disastrous tactics of former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid, which had allowed Sadr and his allies to become the only defenders of Baghdad's Shiites against the Sunni insurgents and holy warriors. Maliki and Sadr are not natural allies intellectually or temperamentally; Maliki's diverse and fractious Dawa party is of a different social milieu from the uneducated young men who give Sadr power. Although Sadr will surely continue to have a significant political following (his family name alone ensures that), his base of support even within Baghdad's Shiite slum, Sadr City, is not guaranteed, provided the central government can bring security and minimal economic opportunity. There are many reasons Sadr has not rallied his men against the American surge, which has already penetrated deeply into Sadr City with minimal resistance. One of those reasons is that Sadr would not be popular with many of the area's denizens if he did.
Since 2005, Sadr's calls for political demonstrations against the Americans have not been resounding successes among the Shiites. Although this may be news to Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who believes all is lost in Iraq, Sadr increasingly shows the anxiety of a pol who is nervous about his base, his allies, and his elected Shiite competitors. Not that long ago, many--perhaps most--Iraqis thought that the United States would soon abandon Iraq. President Bush's decision to back the surge has altered this perception, in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The effect of this on Iraq's politics has been enormously beneficial. The retreat of Sadr, the growing Sunni tribal unease, if not outright conflict, with al Qaeda in Anbar, and the growing self-confidence of Maliki are all, in part, results of President Bush's decision.
Prime Minister Maliki actually appears to be leading his Dawa party, an awkward, tense collection of deeply patriotic, semi-Westernized Shiite activists, into an embrace of parliamentary democracy. Although not a mass movement, the Dawa has prestige among the Shiites: It was the first organized expression of a Shiite political consciousness and was born, in part, from the mind of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (1935-1980), the greatest of Iraq's modern clerics and the font of the Sadr family's continuing charisma. If the Dawa embraces democracy, its commitment, along with that of senior clerics in Najaf led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, will likely ensure a lasting Shiite commitment to democracy--provided Iraq's current leading men aren't destroyed in an all-out sectarian war, a scenario that seems likely only if the Americans hastily withdraw from Iraq.
And Senator Reid should take note: As a Shiite-led democracy grows, the calls for an American withdrawal will increase. Which is fine. Iraqi nationalism is vibrant among the Shiites, especially those who are religious. And democracy in Iraq, as elsewhere in the Muslim Middle East, is unlikely to be particularly affectionate toward the United States. Iraqi democracy is much more likely to free American soldiers to go home than is chaos in Mesopotamia.
Critics of the surge often underscore the absence of a clearly defined post-surge political strategy. Echoing Rumsfeld and Abizaid, these critics believe that only a "political solution"--that is, Shiite and Kurdish concessions to the once-dominant Sunni minority--can solve Iraq's trauma. The Bush administration has largely been in agreement with this view, following a strategy since 2004 of trying to placate the Sunnis.
It hasn't worked. In all probability, it could not. Certainly an approach that centers on de-de-Baathification is destined to fail since the vast majority of Iraq's Shiites, and probably Kurds, too, oppose any deal that would allow the Sunni Baathist elite back into government. And de-de-Baathification is not about letting Sunni Arab teachers, engineers, and nurses back into the government job market. It's about the Baathist Sunni elite getting the power and prestige of senior positions, especially in the military and security services. If we really want Iraq to succeed in the long term, we will stop pushing this idea. Onetime totalitarian societies that more thoroughly purge despotic party members have done much better than those that allow the old guard to stay on (think Russia). Grand Ayatollah Sistani is right about this; the State Department and the CIA are wrong.
The Sunni insurgency will likely cease when the Sunnis, who have been addicted to power and the perception of the Shiites as a God-ordained underclass, know in their hearts that they cannot win against the Shiites, that continued fighting will only make their situation worse. Thanks in part to the ferocity of vengeful Shiite militias, we are getting there. And the growing realization in Iraq, and among Western oil companies, that substantial oil deposits exist in the Sunni Arab zone could prove helpful in assuaging Sunni fears about starving in the new Iraq. Even for Iraqi Sunnis, the signs for a better future are increasing. A livable democratic arrangement is there if Sunni Arabs choose to take it. One thing ought to be clear: Without President Bush's surge, the only thing Iraq's Sunnis can look forward to is war, death, and exile. If there are potentially influential moderates among Iraq's Sunni Arabs, the "surge" is their last chance to change the rejectionist temperament and tactics of the community.
So the surge deserves to be supported. This is not the time for talk of timetables for withdrawal--much less talk of a war that is lost. It isn't inconsistent to scorch Bush for his failures--and still to argue that the American blood we will spill in Iraq in the surge is worth the possibility of success. Do thoughtful Democrats really believe that the Middle East, America's long fight against Sunni jihadism, and our standing in the world against potential aggressors and bullies will be improved by a precipitous and mandated departure from Mesopotamia? The Democratic party is beginning to sound like an echo chamber for Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser for the most inept and calamitous Democratic administration of modern times.
We, too, have benchmarks for Iraq. The surge needs to show real progress in providing security by the beginning of 2008. American and Iraqi forces in Baghdad will have to figure out a way to diminish significantly the number and lethality of Sunni suicide bombers. Given the topography of Baghdad, the possible routes of attack against the capital's Shiite denizens, and the common traits of Iraq's Arabs, this will be difficult. If we and the Iraqis cannot do this, then the radicalization of the Shiites will continue, and it will be only a question of time before the Shiite community collectively decides that the Sunnis as a group are beyond the pale, and a countrywide war of religious cleansing will become likely.
If the U.S. military can change the reality and spirit of Baghdad, the rest of Iraq will change too. Contrary to the despair of so many, internal Iraqi politics will probably be the easiest part of this campaign. In the next few months, of course, things could go to hell. One suicide bomber killing the right Shiite VIPs could threaten all. Yet with Petraeus, Maliki, and Sistani in charge, things may work out. If they do, we can only hope that by the time they do, the leadership of the Democratic party will have ceased to have anything in common with those Sunni Arabs who have always wanted the new Iraq to fail.
The Iranian regime is fighting us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We must get rid of that regime.
How much money is the Democrat Party getting from the Sunni Arabs? From Muslims in general?
Typical puff piece, of the kind that has been popular from the Weekly Standard since 2003. The article does not even mention the empowerment in the south of Al-Hakim and his thuggish, pro-Iranian Badr Brigade.
I stopped reading here...
OK. That takes care of Joe Leibermann,... no wait,... he's an Independant that only associates with Democrats. So, what do we do to wake up the Democrats?
Thanks for spouting the “company line” Reuel. Have a nice day.
One cannot possibly suggest that democracy has finally come to the Middle East without first acknowledging just what a democracy is.
It certainly doesn’t exist simply because people emerged from a polling place with a purple thumb.
It certainly isn’t represented by a Parliament in which the ruling parties are primarily religious organizations with their own armed militias.
It certainly isn’t a democracy when the rule of law means “Sharia”, the state has an official religion, and practice of another faith can see you arrested, or worse.
That’ll do just to begin with.
Democracy is more than just a written constitution and an election; it is a cultural phenomenon, the end result of centuries of compromise, rational thought and very often, bloody conflict. You cannot “create” a democracy overnight, let alone create one in three years, in a region in which ‘freedom’ has no meaning (except the freedom to kill those in rival sects or tribes), where rational thought does does not exist separate from religious orthodoxy, and in which a myriad of traditions conspires to do nothing BUT eliminate personal perogatives and enslave the conciousness.
Islamic culture is nothing but inimical to the creation of a democratic state, and always will be. Only time will tell if Iraqis want freedom (or even figure out what to do with it once they truly have it), but if they even want it to the extent that most westerners have it, let alone to the extent to which we have it.
So keep beating the drum about “having brought democracy” to Iraq. The evidence of this sort of success is rather skimpy and the experiment is far from over. Perhaps one day, something that can be recognized as a democracy will emerge in Iraq, but for the moment, the jury is still out.
Particularly when that ‘democracy’ votes terrorist lunatics like Al Sadr into office and pretends that this is perfectly legitimate.
Leni
So, what do we do to wake up the Democrats?
A baseball bat comes to mind. :-)
I’ve stopped listening to the puff pieces, they are invariably wrong, and invariably turn into cheer leader pieces, and generally gloss over the fact that the failure of the Rumsfeld/Abizad/Casey strategy has perhaps fatally damaged support for this war in the US.
As Machiavelli told the french cardinal
“If you had understood politics, you never would have lost”
Distributed IO by PSYOP Auxiliaries and Volunteer Counter Propagandists
CIIDG ^ | 20070422 | Cannoneer No. 4
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821490/posts
Posted on 04/22/2007 2:01:57 AM CDT by Cannoneer No. 4
You’re absolutly correct! Mistakes were made (and are even now) being made...unlike every other war we’ve ever fought.
This sentence is so full of common sense that it should not even have to be expressed. Unfortunately, many people in this country just don’t get it, hence, we have the people in power that we have today. Why can’t they see that it was from our lack of action that has led us to where we are today?
Thanks for the posting.
ping
Perhaps a course of appetizers involving a couple of SCOTUS rulings along the lines of strict constructionist principles to upset the Democrats favorite apple cart should be offered. For the entree some super-hot Flash-Over scandal involving Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Harry Reid, John Murtha, and Nancy Pelosi. Nothing titillating mind you but something that is so totally revulsive to all and forces them to resign quickly for "personal reasons" and then let the press dig for the hidden dirt tabloid story that they so love to do. Lastly for dessert something light, say oh, .... something to totally shut down Al Gore and his EnviroReligion.
Hmm
“Stay the course”
“We do not need anymore soldiers in Iraq”
“We are turning over security responsibility to the Iraqi’s”
“Oil revenue will pay for this war”
“Donald Rumsfeld is doing a fine job”
“We are using a light footprint”
Who said that? Just 4 years in and NOW “mistakes were made”?
The surge will work, of that I am certain, the unfortunate thing is the surge should have happened in 2005.
Bump
penny for your thoughts
bookmark for later
all the political capital they have will be spent on portraying it as “lost”.
and AQ will cooperate and will, for the foreseeable future, be able to set off well timed bombs to be used by democrats in talking points of the day.
the swing factor is the media. at some point much of the MSM will have to begin covering the improving situation, question is can they hold off until after a democrat is in the white house (their preferred strategy) or will events force them to cover the improvement earlier?
And how long will we bleed the best and bravest of our youth to secure Iraqi lives and property? I tell you how long, as long as it takes for Iran to get some nukes, place them in the trunks of some cars and detonate them around the Green Zone.
We are placing concrete barriers around Sunni neighborhoods to protect them from shiites but the Iranian border is wide open. Ridiculous
First we are treating the Sunni like they are the innocent victims and second we are pretending that the enemy will not just move around to other places of Iraq, outside of Baghdad.
That's usually a given.
It seems there is a surprisingly large contingent here that is just as fully vested in failure in Iraq and the Democrats are.
Got it’s holes, but as a big picture, it’s pretty acurate.
“The surge will work, of that I am certain, the unfortunate thing is the surge should have happened in 2005.”
I respectfully disagree.
The unfortunate thing is that people who are supposed to know better forgot that wars are (still) fought by large numbers of trained infantrymen, with instructions to level everything in sight in an effort to kill and demoralize the enemy, and eventually, to demonstrate to those left alive the futility and inadequancy of their way of life.
This has been the model followed since the ancient days when men threw rocks at each other, and it’s still the only way to truly win a war today. You cannot “win hearts and minds” and “bring freedom to millions” until the regime and culture which pollutes those hearts and minds and enslaves millions is shown to be completely bankrupt, morally, spiritually, politically and militarily.
There can be no success in Iraq (even with a “surge”) until the underlying foundation of so-called Islamic culture has been torn down and exposed for the fraud it is.
Until then, all the elections and all the sacrifice of Americna blood and treasure will avail nothing. Particularly when it is fought by a military an dpolitical establishment which claims to have “learned the lessons of Vietnam” and then goes ahead full-thottle in repeating that conflict’s most basic mistakes.
But we can still hope, right?
The surge will however stabilize the areas that it takes place in, that will happen, there will also be massive car bombings because the Iraqi’s apparently are too moronic to piece together that vehicular traffic is the key to the insurgents strategy.
Sadly GWB seems to be acting with no sense of urgency, if the surge won’t be completed until July, and attacks though few in number and high in results continue, our soldiers may just be making a stopover in Iraq because they will no be there very long unless they find pocket change in the Congressional couches.
We need results, and instead we see foot dragging.
Get it done.
The menu could already actually be being prepared. Do an FR search on “’Smoking gun’ tape indicts Hillary.”
Agreed, but my point is that the time for ‘finesse’ is long past. The surge is intended to provide security to Baghdad 9and a few other areas) for just long enough to blunt the political backlash here at home.
The war was punted from the first day when Iraqi soldiers and the “dead enders” were allowed to surrender or melt back into the civilian population.
As for democracy, the Administration made a fatal mistake:it assumed that a) Iraqis know what that is, b) would know what to do with it, if offered, and c) believed that inside every Iraqi was an American dying to get out, and just for fun, d) that everyone would thank us for it all!
In short, it did not understand the CULTURAL battlefield, and it understood it less, it seems, than it understands the literal battlefield.
No surge will work unless it is concentrated on awfully effective, horrific combat operations against it’s enemies with the intention of shoving them and their ideologies off the battlefield. Permanently.
As for democracy, the Administration made a fatal mistake:it assumed that a) Iraqis know what that is, b) would know what to do with it, if offered, and c) believed that inside every Iraqi was an American dying to get out, and just for fun, d) that everyone would thank us for it all!
In short, it did not understand the CULTURAL battlefield, and it understood it less, it seems, than it understands the literal battlefield.
Bingo!
You have just outlined the reasons why I have a almost pathological disdain for the neocon’ political visions, there vision of a “stable middle east based on Democracy and done on the cheap” has led “we” Republicans to a very hard place indeed.
Al Qaeda is in Iraq however, and we must kill them, we cannot and should not “wrap it up” until they are destroyed like the mad dogs that they are, and always will be.
The surge and the troop should be fully funded, “perhaps” the US military shuld start making plans to not only build bases in Kurdistan, but to recognize Kurdistan as a nationa onto themselves, and let the sunni’s be ethnically cleansed as they are trying so hard to have done to them.
“You have just outlined the reasons why I have a almost pathological disdain for the neocon’ political visions, there vision of a “stable middle east based on Democracy and done on the cheap” has led “we” Republicans to a very hard place indeed.”
First of all, stop with the neocon/paleocon nonsense. If a crusade (not afraid to use THAT word) to bring democratic institutions to those who lack them is bad political philosophy, then we must disagree. My contention is that democracy in the Middle East is not impossible, only impossible when it’s being advanced under a “velvet glove” regime. The idea is perfectly sound; the method has left a LOT to be desired. When I hear a hard-line Paleocon like Pat Buchannan pine for the “good ‘ol days” of the Soviet Union and MAD, I have a hard time taking them seriously anymore.
If neocons have sinned in screwing the pooch vis-a-vis Iraq today, then Paleocons are guilty as all hell of leaving the Saddam Husseins of this world in power and supporting them when it suited their purposes (i.e. their portfolios and political requirements). They (Paleocons) further exacerbated this primary sin when, having the chance to make a real difference in the lives of millions, they failed to dethrone Saddam Hussein, left the Kurds defenseless, turned Kuwait back over to it’s monarchy, and kow-towed to the UN and the Saudis in the wake of Gulf War One.
The world would be quite different today were it not for Brent Scrowcroft, James Baker and GHWB and their bugaboo of “stability”. So different that we might not be having this discussion.
So the whole neo/paleo argument is moot. Both sides have mde their mistakes based on a totally skewed view of how the world actually operates and a fatal misunderstanding of human nature.
It is far too late for the mere appearance of force (i.e. a surge in selected neighborhoods), and well-past the time where a systematic disassembly of Iraqi society (brick-by-brick, block-by-block) will do much good. For better or for worse, we have left this in the hands of Iraqis, who’ll I’ll bet will f*ck it up even worse than we have, and then be re-absorbed into a resurgent Persian Empire, complete with nuclear weapons and unlimited oil wealth. The total lack of commitment from Iraqis is telling; not only do they not have clue one as to what opportunity has been given them, they have even less of an idea of how to initiate action.
Islam and Saddam have trained them well; They are mind-numbed robots, capable of reacting emotionally (and disproportionately) but not intellectually, and certainly not in the name of enlightened self-interest.
If neocons have sinned in screwing the pooch vis-a-vis Iraq today, then Paleocons are guilty as all hell of leaving the Saddam Husseins of this world in power and supporting them when it suited their purposes (i.e. their portfolios and political requirements). They (Paleocons) further exacerbated this primary sin when, having the chance to make a real difference in the lives of millions, they failed to dethrone Saddam Hussein, left the Kurds defenseless, turned Kuwait back over to it’s monarchy, and kow-towed to the UN and the Saudis in the wake of Gulf War One.
The world would be quite different today were it not for Brent Scrowcroft, James Baker and GHWB and their bugaboo of “stability”. So different that we might not be having this discussion.
And yet under the GHWB paradigm, the Kurds were able to organize themselves into a coherent and liberal western society. Which according to Necon dogma, should have served as a beacon for the rest of middle east.
Having a chance to make a real difference in the life of millions indeed, nothing like a war zone to make a difference in millions of people’s lives as well as hand the shia south of Iraq over to vassel of Iran status.
Which of course handed power over to Schumer and Pelosi et al, which of course will lead to Reid saying “This war is lost” which of course....
Save political dreams for poly science 101 classes, they have no place in reality. Not to mention that the Neocons relied heavily on UN authority (specifically the Gulf War 1 resolutions) the same UN that is now laughable?
One cannot have it both ways.
You cannot “win hearts and minds” and “bring freedom to millions” until the regime and culture which pollutes those hearts and minds and enslaves millions is shown to be completely bankrupt, morally, spiritually, politically and militarily.
I am actually now on a mission directly involved with teaching the Iraqis global practices and bringing them along into the current world market.
Yes, there has been lots of progress, but everything in Iraq tends to happen very S-L-O-W-L-Y.
Patience is a virture and an absolute necessity in Iraq. ;-)
Iraq: Al-Qaeda Tactics Lead To Splits Among Insurgents
By Kathleen Ridolfo
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/04/CA95FAFC-1E70-450A-A4BF-9417B05CAA3C.html
April 17, 2007 (RFE/RL) — The insurgent group Islamic Army in Iraq spoke for several armed groups when it criticized the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq last week for recent operations against homegrown Iraqi insurgent groups.
The Islamic Army claimed Islamic State assassinated more than 30 of its members after the Islamic Army refused to join the Islamic State — a “super group” that includes the Mujahedin Shura Council, formerly led by Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, and other smaller armed jihadist groups.
The Islamic State appears to have begun its campaign for dominance among armed groups in Iraq more than two months ago. Perhaps motivated by the need to establish dominance on the ground after losing support from locals in Al-Anbar Governorate in recent months, the Islamic State attempted to seize control over areas of Diyala Governorate, including Ba’qubah and surrounding villages. According to some reports by insurgent leaders, the Islamic State sought to drive out insurgent groups that refused to come under its umbrella through a campaign of murder and intimidation. It unleashed a similar wrath on the local population.
.........................
Al Qaeda has worn out it’s welcome in Iraq and badly overplayed their hand. From what I can draw from reports, locals are giving intel on Al Qaeda and they are getting their butts handed to them.
Pathetic, isn't it?
I'm amazed at all the experts on Iraq there are back home. A lot of them appear to be charter members of the Doom and Gloom Club.
The Iraq in the news and the actual Iraq barely resemble each other.
What is your impression on the Al Qaeda, local insurgency falling out?
I’ve seen the leftists attempting to spin it as a negative.
Thank you for your service
Well, it certainly isn't a negative thing, but I can see why the media would want to play it that way.
This is occurring in Anbar Province and I'm not there, but what appears to be happening is that a lot of the former Saddam loyalists have become weary of the terrorism and subsequent violence and have decided that a safe and secure Iraq is the way to go. So they are joining the "good guys" and fighting or at least ratting out some of the terrorists.
If this trend should continue and escalate, this is a very positive development.
I'm sorry I don't have any more detail, but I don't really have any connections over in Anbar. The people here are focused more on Baghdad's ongoing problems and that's mostly what I hear about in conversations with the locals.
“One cannot have it both ways.”
Who sai anything about having it both ways? I’m simply stating facts, and being intellectually honest.
Fair enough, there is a huge difference between apporaches to the problems, one sees democarcy as the answer, the other pragmatic pressure over a number of years.
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