Posted on 12/27/2011 6:43:57 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki
BAGHDAD—Iraq's political crisis entered its second week one step closer to the potential dissolution of the government, with a call for elections by a vital coalition partner and a suicide attack that extended the spate of violence that has followed the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki—already battling to sustain his Shiite Muslim-dominated government in a standoff with Sunni coalition partners—faced a new threat on Monday as the party loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for the dissolution of Parliament and new polls.
At the center of the crisis are efforts by Sunni-dominated provinces to seek greater autonomy from the central government controlled by Mr. Maliki. Bahaa al-Aaraji, the head of the Sadrist movement's bloc in Parliament, said elections are needed because "present partners [in government] can't come up with solutions in addition to the threat of Iraq's partition."
But Mr. Aaraji said the proposal needed to be discussed further with the movement's Shiite partners, including Mr. Maliki, suggesting that his bloc might not push further.
Mr. Maliki has denounced the autonomy moves as attempts by his opponents to fatally weaken the central government. In recent days, he has sought to head off the Sunni efforts by trying to persuade members of Iraqiya, the Sunni bloc in his coalition, to break away from their bloc, according to representatives of both sides in the discussions. Mr. Maliki has offered several Iraqiya parliamentarians promises of ministerial posts and other inducements to split from the bloc, according to the representatives.
The stakes in the dispute were highlighted on Monday when a suicide car bombing near Interior Ministry headquarters killed five people and wounded at least 39.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I cannot imagine how our brave men and women must feel about news like this. I am sickened and angry.
I can't believe the al-sadr problem didn't get "solved" years ago.
The list, Ping
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Don’t worry Zero will blame Bush! This is so sick, Obama should be in an orange suit for this!
When I consider all the deaths and serious injuries to our troops together with the literal pissing away of our treasury on this shiite hole I want to cry. It was a fool’s mission and Bush was certainly a classic fool. With each passing day, I come to hate Bush more. He was a looser of a president and succeeded only in leading us to FUBO!
Unexpected
Unexpected
To have “solved it” would have been an outright political assassination of a recognized Shiite leader with a very considerable following. This guys faction is very significant like it or not...
As several conservative talk show hosts have already pointed out - the US has its hands in the creation of another Shiite hellhole...
Just one of many “gotchas” that occur when you are in the middle of another country’s politics...
=8-)
Bush did it. Then he stopped and brought the troops home. The media hated that! "Why'd he stop??""But Saddam is still in power!""We should have taken Baghdad!"
Then, years later, George W. Bush went to Iraq, toppled Hussein, set up a new government in Baghdad, and tried to rebuild the nation.
Turns out the media decided they hated that approach, once it was actually tried.
Also turns out that the elder Bush had better judgment. Nation building really is a fool's errand.
+1
Political assassination? It used to be fairly common practice to eliminate those who are directly responsible for the deaths of our troops. And you are correct - the guys faction (iran) is very significant, which is why it made even less sense to leave him alive.
I guess we'll see how playing by "Marquis of Queensbury rules" works out...
The mandate from the U.N. and Congress was never to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but always envisioned moving against Hussein in Iraq. The ceasefire ended and war began in 1991was resumed, because Hussein behaved in material breach of international obligations as reaffirmed in Resolution 1441. Nowhere in Congressional resolutions of 1991, 1998 and 2002, or U.N. Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 can one see expulsion from Kuwait or possession of stockpiles of WMD’s as a reason for confronting him with military action. Behavior in terms of threats, evasion, intimidation, and past use, not possession or occupation of Kuwait, was always the key. He was to unconditionally accept destruction or removal of all stocks and programs for WMD’s and for all missiles over 150-kilometre range. He was enjoined from committing, supporting or providing safe haven for international terrorism.
Resolution 687 incorporated 678 and 19 previous resolutions without amendment, and offered Hussein a conditional ceasefire in 1991. Instead he ignored the responsibility to submit a comprehensive declaration of all WMD stockpiles and programs, and missiles with greater than 150 kilometre range. He thwarted the program envisioned by menacing, eluding, and deceiving inspectors. The U.N. resorted to surveillance, analysis, and investigation to destroy material and disrupt programs until Hussein expelled them in 1998. He also continued forbidden involvement in international terrorism. In response, Bush #1, U.N. and Clinton ignored their responsibilities to deal with Hussein’s ongoing material breaches.
None of these resolutions were cobbled together like a middle schooler’s term paper. Diplomats and politicians laboriously parsed each phrase for clear focus on verbs instead of nouns; behaviors not stockpiles. The key words were guarantee, reaffirm, accept, submit, declare, yield, forgo, agree, inform, comply, cooperate, lie, omit, and thwart.
The U.N.’s ultimatums in Resolutions 678 and 1441 authorized disarming Hussein’s regime through military operations in Iraq “to restore international peace and security in the area”, and did not instruct the coalition to merely expel Hussein from Kuwait. U.N. precedent from the Korean War ensured the above phrase intended invasion of Iraq. The term “in the area” used phraseology, confirmed by the U.N. and Congress, authorizing military action above the 38th parallel to disarm North Korea. Everyone in the Security Council and Congress understood that a further material breach required ending the ceasefire, and resuming the war authorized by Resolution 678.
The Bush Administration squandered an opportunity in 2004 that will probably not come again. The Iraqi interim council of 25 ethnically and religiously diverse members produced the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) as basis for a new constitution. Its’ 39 articles were unique in the Arab world for conceiving republican, federal, democratic and pluralistic government guaranteeing rights for speech, religion, private property, etc. for all including Christians, Jews and former Ba’athists.
However, the U.S. marginalized this extraordinary, indigenous effort and the people involved, when approving a new interim government. It favored a U.N. brokered scheme touted by Algeria that was compatible with traditional Arab authoritarian rule. Iraq victory defined around the TAL was imperative and achievable for the GWOT by re-invigorating a unique Iraqi government with individuals such as those people.
Truly Bush was president and it was his responsibility. I think this is another case of him not exerting sufficient control over events as also exampled by his failure to veto bills and keeping around Clinton holdovers like George Tenet as CIA chief.
If this does turn into a mess I say to the Iraqi vets, join the club. We won the war twice in Vietnam, or rather the South Vietnamese did. During Tet they destroyed the all Viet Cong main force units leaving the NVA to fight most of the war. The big point there was not the 60,000 bodies, but the loss of face suffered by the Viet Cong because the South Vietnamese people fought them. In March 1972 the U.S. Navy allowed the ARVN to land on the flank of the NVA army the Russians developed for them in the mechanized European pattern. In the first case a Democrat administration lost its courage when the media pronounced Vietnam a quagmire. In the second case a Democrat Congress refused the money to re-invigorate the ARVN. They get to understand the worst enemies of the troops are in Washington D.C. and now Obama will do everything possible to ensure a bad outcome.
Too Legit to Quit
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/9301
Text U.N. Resolution 678
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/gopher/s90/32
Text U.N. Resolution 687
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/gopher/s91/4
Text U.N. Resolution 1441
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/scres/2002/res1441e.pdf
Korean War Resolution 84 (1950) of 7 July 1950
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3b00f1e85c.html
Great post.
Some of us agitated hard for a constitution for Iraq based on the same moral principles as our own. We were roundly ignored.
It won't work. moslems don't have moral values. Our Constitution requires a moral people to make it work.
That's probably the reason it's in trouble here and now.
Well, you may be right. But, we did enforce our principles on Germany, and Japan, and even South Korea. It seemed to work to some degree.
I never would have put a parliamentary system in place for Iraq. It’s a place that definitely needed full separation of powers and co-equal branches of government to provide more stability and continuity.
I don’t disagree. But what they really needed was a Constitution that guaranteed the individual unalienable rights of the people.
In confronting this and other expressions of terrorism, the United States should be considered a dependable, if difficult ally or enemy. The country benefits from an anomalous revolution resulting in the exhalation of personal liberty.
When the U.S. joined in founding the U.N., Eleanor Roosevelt extrapolated our national heritage into international humanitarian issues as the U.N. reestablished the principle of collective security. She wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She wrote that equal and inalienable rights for the human family encompass rights to life, liberty and security of person.
How hollow that declaration has become when Libya under Gadhafi could sit on the human rights council. I saw Libya’s position was restored as soon as an interim government began swirling about under the influence of numerous aspiring totalitarians.
Since 1948 over 130 independent nations have emerged from colonial empires. There peoples thought independence meant freedom. Instead many have found the pre-colonial norms of tribal warfare, famine, and disease, with prosperity only for the ruling elites of the dominate faction.
The U.N. is a tyranny promotion and perpetuation society and human rights are a purely delusional actively embraced by the intellectuals infecting our government.
Well, what do we expect when our own political class has abandoned our own founding principles, our Constitution’s stated purposes, all of them, and the explicit, imperative obligations associated with the particulars of it.
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