Posted on 08/22/2007 6:50:32 AM PDT by SE Mom
"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," he said at a news conference in Damascus at the end of a three-day visit to Syria.
"Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere," Mr. al-Maliki said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Well, like I said, if I really thought this were our reason for maintaining a postwar military presence in Iraq, I would never have supported doing so in the first place.
I support doing so because I believe it's in our national interest. And it's in our national interest whether or not Iraq's government is good or awful in our opinion. That's why, to someone who is actually focused on our national interest, to say "he better accept our metrics or we're gonna pack up and leave!" just makes no sense. It's like saying to someone who owes you money, "pay me on my schedule or I'm gonna burn all the money in my own wallet!"
If we were going after AQI, we wouldn’t be spending so much time developing infrastructure, we’d have put that on the civilian gov’t.
Well, unless we deemed the civilian gov't incapable of doing so (which it seems to be), and unless we believed that building up Iraq's infrastructure was important to help prevent the conditions that allow AQ to gain a foothold (which is indeed what I believe).
Again: We have independent reasons of our own for wanting a presence there and doing those things, reasons having to do with our national interest. Saying "do XYZ or we're gonna leave, we swear!" demonstrates confusion about why we are there in the first place. We want a military presence there, we're not there out of some kind of weird charity. Again: if this isn't true, then we should get the hell out of there yesterday.
Show me where I said that.
Mine too. This whole notion of setting up "democracies" in Muslim countries is ridiculous, as will be proven in the long run. Self rule requires self discipline. A benevolent dictator is the best available scenario in Muslim lands. I hate to say that, but it's true.
When the Iraq gov’t appears to be in control of their own country, then he can talk. Right now the USA is attempting to establish control and he can leave that amateur psychology to the islamists.
I was talking about Iyad Allawi.
Of course- he’s a politician- all of em have to be looked at in that light- without any rose colored glasses;)
Yes, that's what I meant to say. Didn't catch my mistake till after I posted the comment. Thanks for the correction.
At some point in the future he will have to deal with Syria without a US presence in his country to back him up. Nancy Pelosi has her timetable, Maliki has his.
Anyone care to start an al-Maliki pool?
I’d bet he won’t last out the month.
You have indeed perceived it correctly, sir. You know just as well as I do how it feels to go into dangerous missions day after day while seeing the local military, who should be doing that job, cowering in their patrol bases. It's utterly infuriating and completely predictable in every neighborhood we go into.
I say November. The Democrats babbling about ousting him has actually delayed it and only made it more difficult for the Iraqis to replace him.
“I was talking about Iyad Allawi.”
Ahh. Yes, he’s a politician ;) I was obviously thinking Maliki...with very clear glasses (lol)
Maliki's power rests on the Iraqi Shia, and on balancing their pro-Iranian and pro-democracy factions.
He is signaling to Petraeus and the US that he, Maliki, is perfectly willing to side with Iran and its allies, if the US will not side with him, against the Iraqi Sunnis.
As far as Maliki is concerned, neither Iran nor Syria are enemies he cannot afford to associate with. Instead, the internal Iraqi Sunnis who have been murdering his people for a generation, are the enemy he cannot and will not associate with.
If the US makes him choose between making peace with the Sunnis as a condition for continued alliance with the US, or tossing the US and siding with Iran, in order to continue his war against the Iraqi Sunnis, he will pick Iran and war.
Because he simply will not, under any pressure, forgive the Sunnis for what they have done and are doing to his people and to Iraq. The US cannot make him do so. He can find allies against the Iraqi Sunnis, if we aren't willing to be those allies. If it means making the new Iraq pro-Iranian instead of pro-US, so be it.
He figures we are leaving soon anyway, and the real war for control of Iraq will start when we are gone. He intends to win that war and for Shia to rule Iraq when it is done. Whatever foreign allies he needs to bring that about, he will court. The US isn't offering, Iran is.
“I say November.”
September maybe? Funding for new leadership? A thought...
The part you can't comprehend is that the US is being beaten to a bloody pulp by two-bit Iran. But that is what is happening.
If the only way we're ever going to get out of here is when the Iraqi gov't can stand on its own two feet, then how is Maliki helping anything here? Basically, he and other supporters of the strategy are advocating an unlimited stay here. That's completely unacceptable.
That was the same perception shown in polls taken in Iraq during his tenure. The Iraqi people weren't starry-eyed about him - they just knew and acknowledged what was needed during the difficult times ahead.
When the histories are written the tragic irony of this whole sorry episode will be that while the Iraqi people and the American people understood and were willing to do what was necessary, they were both betrayed and undone by their own corrupt and incompetent leadership.
“His enemies are the Iraqi Sunnis. If we won’t help him against them, Iran will.”
Well, we’re all doing this chatting back and forth and in all actuality (though supressed by some in the recent past), the reality is the Maliki’s “government” sunni, shia and the others has already collapsed on him. The argument about the sunnis is moot, as they don’t account for all the others that have given up on Maliki. He’s gone, he knows it...now the Administration needs to find a way to spin it. I’m perfectly fine with spin in this instance.
Interesting analysis. Thanks for posting.
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