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 ...
It's worse than that.
There's nothing to solidify.
Kill as many bad guys as we can for as long as we can.
That's the game, now.
It's worse than that.
There's nothing to solidify.
Kill as many bad guys as we can for as long as we can.
That's the game, now.
Toast...
Another Baghdad Bob.
I think you may be right about phoney propaganda from the
Associated Press. The liberals ‘round here are getting more rabid by the second as the election looms closer. Imagine how they’ll be next November!
We pick the winner. The winner is not imposed on us by some apriori morality of the situation. It is clear to me that the most moral choice, if we care about that, is to support an alliance between the Shia and the Kurds, and that this is also the most expedient policy on straight Machiavellian principles ("the ruler of a new state must make all things new, subduing the proud and raising up the weak").
Are there Shia who are bastards? Sure. A lot of them with very strong prompting to it and excellent reasons to hate the Sunnis and all they have done, and are doing, both to themselves and to Iraq in general. Is that exploited by interested outsiders, including agents of Iran? Sure. So we have to outbid Iran for their allegiance, and we have to maneuver among the Shia we side with, to promote our clients and demote Iran's. That is how the game is played, absolutely elementary realpolitik 101. It is obscene that 4 years in we still have to talk about this and still haven't done it.
Should be have sidelined Sadr early? Of course. What is the strategy instead best designed to build him up? I'll tell you - letting the Sunni murder Shia with impunity and holding the Shia back telling them not to do anything about it. Then every frustrated Shia in Iraq who wants his community to defend himself, is driven in the arms of Sadr and Iran. That is what we have done. We have now taken it so far, we have driven the prime minister into the arms of Iran.
We should have let the Shia go after the Sunnis without restraint, as long as bombings originating in Sunni areas continue. We should have worked to exclude the Sunnis from the government, as long as (ditto). They should have been reduced to running for their lives to Jordan or Syria, or to turning in the diehards and the bombers themselves. No peace without a victory.
At the same time, we should have been encouraging the government forces to do this, not us, and not Sadr death squads. We should have marginalized Sadr by stealing his thunder, and framed him as an unneeded Iranian stooge. Tons of Iraqis told us this. Maliki told us this, Chalabi told us this. We decided this meant instead that they were too cosy with Iran.
We have played the whole thing as a tamp-it-down, get-em-all-to-get along pacification campaign, that tries to balance them all against each other. Balancing preserves all forces, but creating a government where they was none is not a matter of balancing, it is a matter of hegemony. A winner, someone who cannot be locally resisted without disaster. We are not such a force, we aren't permanent enough and everyone knows it. Neither is a government whose hands we have tied, because everyone knows it will not be permitted to hurt anybody seriously. Both the Sunnis and Sadr therefore have utter contempt for it.
It won't make a lasting peace, it won't stand up a dispassionate umpire government. There are rivers of blood and crime between them, and no one is going to forgive, or give up until they believe they have lost beyond all hope of recovery. We can destabilize the government as many times as we like before we go, Sadr or someone just like him will still be standing there offering a policy of outright victory to the Shia of Iraq, Iran will back that policy, the Kurds will be willing to settle for that outcome, and the Sunnis will get their balls handed to them on a plate.
We are just delaying Iran's victory. They already ran rings around us and kicked our tail.
Sunnis don't use car bombs on us (at least, not in Baghdad). Shi'ites use EFPs against us and have killed a hell of a lot of U.S. Soldiers with 'em. They're also directly associating with a nation very, very hostile to the U.S. that has also openly threatened the use of nuclear weapons.
So now tell me, who is the big bad guy sect now?
“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.”
The U.S. has been conducting joint operations with the Iraqis against the Iranian backed militias, with great success. The U.S. military is being ‘beaten to a bloody pulp by Iran’? You make Harry Reid look optimistic.
We're not doing this to get "regard" or a pat on the back. We're doing this because we find the notion of a failed-state, or a terror-supporting dictator rising to power, in Iraq unacceptable to our national security.
You keep saying it's for our national interest.
Well it had better be; if it's not, what the heck are we doing there?
The immediate effects of EVERYTHING we do here is for Iraqi national interests
Does that include our congressmen openly musing about changing their elected government?
You are saying that it doesn't matter if he's a roadblock.
It makes it more difficult. It doesn't change our objectives.
So we're going to keep pouring money and lives into this place, regardless if they're willing to accept the help?
Yes, I reckon, at least as long as we continue to find it unacceptable to allow Iraq to devolve into a failed-state, or for a charismatic terror-linked dictator to rise to power.
it's a whole other thing to expect us to shrug it off and keep going at it with smiles on our faces.
Don't smile then.
“He has publicly told Petraeus that he cannot work with him anymore, over Petraeus making short term headlines for surge progress by making all nice with the Sunnis and helping to arm them.”
When did he publicly make this claim? Are you using a fabricated story that has already been rebuffed:
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,144438,00.html
“To Maliki, that is treason within Iraq and siding with the enemy. “
Now you appear to be saying that reconciliation with the Sunnis is treason, according to Maliki. When did he make this claim? Wouldn’t his public statements urging reconciliation be regarded as treason then?
No pardon necessary. Good post & you make important points. Best,
“Maliki believes the Sunni will not accept their loss of power, other than through outright defeat. “
Source please!
“he wants us to leave”
Source please!
“Our military officers IN IRAQ are saying Maliki is part of the problem and ought to be replaced.”
I’ve heard our military commanders say that Iran is part of the problem, but I never heard them say Maliki was. Nor have I seen them call for his removal. Who are you referring to?
“WWJBD - “What would Jack Bauer Do?”) “
He would murder a U.S. agent like Chappelle in an effort to appease a bio-terrorist mastermind like Saunders. ;-)
Was he reacting to something the administration said or something Barak said?
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