Posted on 10/26/2005 6:01:15 AM PDT by strategofr
The new constitution was approved by 78 percent of the ten million Iraqis who voted. It took nearly two weeks to count all the votes. Most of the 22 percent who rejected it were Sunni Arabs, who turned out in large numbers. The Sunni Arabs indicate that they will turn out in large numbers again in December for the parliamentary elections.
The Kurds and Shia Arabs agreed to allow further changes in the constitution once parliament is in session. The Sunni Arabs are most afraid of being cut off from the oil money (nearly all the oil is in areas controlled by Kurds and Shia Arabs, and the new constitution gives local authorities first dibs on oil revenue). In the past, the Sunni Arabs had kept most of the oil revenue for themselves, and they miss it. Also up for negotiation are how many Sunni Arabs will be punished for crimes committed during the three decades of Baath Party (a largely Sunni Arab organization run by Saddam Hussein) rule. Millions of Shia Arabs and Kurds want revenge for murders and other atrocities committed, by Sunni Arabs, against friends and family.
Meanwhile, some Sunni Arabs are determined to get back power the old fashioned way, with force and terror. To that end, Al Qaeda staged a spectacular attack on the Palestine hotel on October 25th. Three car bombs were used, plus gunmen on foot. The whole thing was caught on a network of security cameras. Two car bombs were used to blast a breach in the concrete security wall, then a bomb filled cement truck was to go through the breach, detonate next to the hotel, and create sufficient havoc for over a dozen gunmen to enter and take foreign journalists hostage, and thus create a major publicity event.
The attack failed. The cement truck got stuck in the rubble at the breach, and Iraqi, civilian and American security troops quickly responded to the attack. An American sniper shot the driver of the cement truck, which led to the suicide bomber detonating the explosives while the cement truck was stuck in the breach. Some twenty people were killed in the attack, mainly al Qaeda and civilians who just happened to be in the area. Al Qaeda later took credit for the elaborate attack, and tried to salvage something from it. But the attack was a spectacular failure, and only adds to al Qaedas image woes.
The terrorists are seen as an insensitive (all those dead Moslem civilians) and inept (all those failed attacks) bunch of fanatics (all those improbable plans for world domination.) Iraqi Sunni Arabs have been, in the last year, backing away in their support for al Qaeda. Part of it is practical, because al Qaeda is seen as a bunch of homicidal losers.
There are also nationalistic, political, religious and ideological reasons as well. Iraqi Sunni Arabs have a high opinion of themselves, being the best educated group in Iraq, and the decedents of those who founded one of the world's first civilizations. The al Qaeda crew are largely supported, and staffed, by wealthy Gulf Arabs, especially Saudi Arabians. The Saudis are seen, by the Iraqis, as newly rich nomads, a bunch of camel jockey bumpkins taken by an extreme form of Islam (Wahhabism) that even most Saudis don't much care for. Iraqi Sunni Arabs are also not really keen on being just another province in the al Qaeda world Islamic religious dictatorship. Islamic conservative Iraqi Sunni Arabs prefer to practice Islam their way, not the al Qaeda or Wahhab way.
Without their Sunni Arab support, the largely foreign al Qaeda operatives are more vulnerable, and more of them are getting picked up each month. There are still hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs who will support al Qaeda by either keeping silent (when the cops come looking for information), or providing shelter and information. But most Iraqis see al Qaeda for what they are, killers of anyone who gets in their way, with a plan most Iraqis do not want any part of.
Unless the Iraqi army and police reach the point where they can pretty much control most of the territory inside of Iraq themselves by 11/2008, it is very likely that a Democrat will be elected President. This would mean all American troops out of Iraq by 6/2009 and an Iraqi government primarily controlled by Iran.
Consider that our enemy in Iraq, is the same enemy that we have here in United States: the worldwide organized hard left (WOHL). Consider the origins of the factions fighting against us in Iraq. One faction is Sunni Baathists who formally served Saddam Hussein. Saddam's Iraq was a client state of the Soviet Union. Their weapons were Soviet weapons. Baathism is essentially Communism without the atheism---a form of communism developed for the Arab world, where standard communism was unacceptable due to the population's strong Islamic beliefs.
Another major force arrayed against us inside Iraq, is the Iranians. They are providing arms, weapons, and fighters to the struggle against the Iraqi government and the Coalition. Iran is a major ally of Russia. Russia has built a nuclear reactor for Iran and and is planning to build more. Russia has provided major help to Iran's long-term project to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US. (see Iran's Nuclear Option, L. J. Venter, 2005.) The Russian government, currently controlled by Vladimir Putin, has denied providing this help, but admitted that the FSB might have done so without the government's authorization. Ironically, during the period in question (around 1997 if memory serves correctly), I believe Putin was in charge of the FSB! Hamas is, I believe, active inside Iraq---a group created by the Iranians.
Finally, while there is no proof of Russian links to Al Qaeda, it is suspicious that the Soviet Union was the primary creator of modern terror, which arose in the 20th century. After the demise of the Soviet Union, garden-variety modern terror, diminished all over the world. This "makes sense" because the Soviet Union was a major supporter of 20th-century terror, and when they broke up, Russia, supposedly got out of the terror business.
Nonetheless, it is suspicious that at virtually the same moment that the Soviet Union broke up and ordinary 20th-century terror diminished, Islamic terror appeared as a major force in the world.
Palestinian terror, which started under the basically nonreligious, Yasir Arafat, who was run by the Romanian KGB, (see the book Red Horizons, Ion Pacepa, 1987),seems to be evolving and shifting to be under new leadership---Hamas. Non-sectarian (Communist-related) terrorism, used by the Soviet Union to intimidate the world, shifts to religious-based terrorism, which weakened Russia claims to have nothing to do with,and even to be plagued by. Yet there are repeated claims that suppose the Chechen bombs have actually been set by the FSB. Golitzen did a scathing analysis of the first Chechen war---denouncing it as largely fake.
If you can accept the fact that the WOHL is our enemy in Iraq, you will realize that the greatest strength of our enemy is its abilities in the area of subversion. This means that, logically speaking, their main point of attack will be within the Iraqi armed forces.
It has already been reported by Strategy Page that the Iraqi Armed Forces and police have a tendency to allow men to join who were known participants in the insurgency. Even if this would be or has been corrected however, infiltrating enemies of the Iraqi government, into the Iraqi army and police force would be quite easy---especially for people guided by professionals from the FSB and GRU, as I suspect is happening.
If my assumptions are correct, this would now be the critical point of conflict in Iraq. The Iraqi government, in conjunction with assets provided by the coalition forces, must find a way to limit the effects of this subversion. Otherwise, it would be impossible for them to succeed.
This is incorrect.
Baathism is essentially fascism or more precisely Nazism, with the master race as Arab rather than Aryan.
An essential feature of Commmunism is its internationalist character, with the proletariat throughout the world united against their oppressors. Baathism very specifically is intended to unite racial Arabs (Muslim and Christian) against all other peoples.
It is fascinating that for five years the mass media has managed to constantly talk about the Baath party without ever mentioning its actual ideology. This is probably because they don't want the obvious parallels to Nazism to become apparent. Perhaps conservatives should start referring to the Baath party as the "Arab Nazi" party.
While the US and EU MSM almost ignores these elections, they are as important in a new order of global politics as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bush is right, the Iraqi people are hungry for the freedom long denied by Saddam's dictatorship or that would be taken away by the Islamofacists.
While I agree with your EXCELLENT analysis . . . not that it does any good to the leftist liberals . . . I try to always remind my fellow Americans what was entailed in our own struggle for independence.
Reasonable folks can disagree about when our own struggle started but most agree it started in 1764 -- when the Sugar Act was passed by the English Parliament to pay for the French and Indian War.
We all know we declared our Independence in 1776 but how many know our own Military Officers nearly rebelled against the authority of Congress in 1783 because of financial promises not kept . . . only to be dissuaded by George Washington?
Or that Rhode Island voted AGAINST the Constitution? Seems Senator Chafee's RINO roots go back a long ways, huh? LOL.
Or that the Constitution wasn't ruled to be "in effect" until 1788?
Or that George Washington wasn't sworn in as our First President until April 30, 1789?
And that we had another little tussle with Great Britain in 1812?
So . . . from AT LEAST 1764 to 1812 . . . we struggled for our own Independence. If my math is correct, that's 48 years. Yet we're now impatient with the Iraqis who have lived under tyranny for hundreds of years.
Actually there's really not much difference between Communism & Fascism/Nazism.
Or that Rhode Island voted AGAINST the Constitution?
Learn something new everyday!
So . . . from AT LEAST 1764 to 1812 . . . we struggled for our own Independence. If my math is correct, that's 48 years. Yet we're now impatient with the Iraqis who have lived under tyranny for hundreds of years.
Lets also remember it wasn't until 1920 that women were allowed to vote in federal elections.
Throw out the jihadists with the Baath water..
Agreed that there is significant overlap, especially with regard to how they actually treat people, as is inevitable between totalitarian ideologies.
However, the differences are highly significant. The two most important are: 1. organizing principle; 2. attitude towards private property and the market.
1. Communism has as its organizing principle the grouping of the proletariat (by extension all lower classes) throughout the world in a giant coalition against their oppressors in the upper classes. Nazism/Fascism has as its organizing principle the coalition of all classes in the nation (Fascism) or "race" (Nazism) against all other nations or races. This is a huge difference, which by itself makes Nazism/Fascism ideologically incompatible with Communism.
2. Fascism/Nazism, in practice if not always in theory, allowed considerable scope to private property and the market. Communism by its very nature was forced to destroy the market, as the promotion of human economic equality was its very reason for being. That this issue is critical is seen by the repeated examples of communist governments destroying their own economies in the attempt to stamp out capitalism. Any "Communist" party that abandons this purpose is no longer Communist in any meaningful sense. OTOH, Fascism/Nazism, to the extent it was an issue at all, saw the destruction of the market as a very secondary goal, to be taken up only after the complete victory of the nation/race over all opposition.
Fine with me.
Don't you find it odd that we hear repeated talk about how the Baathists are fighting us, but actual analysis of who the Baathists are and what they believe is almost impossible to find in the mass media?
When I saw the headline I knew what the source wouldn't be.
Sunnis turning out in December would be good news.
Thanks for the ping!
Good point. Yet we're so impatient with the Iraqis. I understand why the Libbers are impatient . . . because their anti-anything GW is for . . . but I don't understand why many conservatives are becoming impatient.
War was declared on us long, long ago by these Muslim Radical Pukes. To me, our only choice is whether we fight the war on their turf . . . or on the streets of EVERDAY America.
I don't want my children and grandchildren dodging bombs like Israeli children.
Never has a sadder but truer commentary been written. War was declared on us long ago . . . our only choice is where we fight this war.
Yes, Sunnis turning out in great numbers in December would be terrific! This information on the recent voting needs to be shouted from rooftops.
I'm shouting as loud as I can. Can you hear me? ;-)
Lot's of positive things going on, but not a whole lot of good reporting. If you've not yet seen Wretchard's blog, he's real good with the bigger picture:
http://www.fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
For the nitty gritty of the Iraq campaign Roggio is great:
http://billroggio.com/
Often there are good links on these sites. I make a point of mentioning such blogs as often as I can.
Oh yes, Michael Yon is great for on the scene reporting:
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/
It isn't only women and blacks who were rather "disenfranchised" by our Constitution, either. The "Papists" were REALLY looked down on, too, regardless of the "tolerant" language of the Constitution. I hadn't really understood how deeply that was, so I was astonished 1960, when JFK being Catholic was considered such a negative for his election chances, but if you explore the history of our country in early times, you can see that distrust of the Papists has run very deep throughout our history.
The Iraqis are doing very well, in a very short period of time, to have such an reasonable first cut at a constitutional government with quite a bit of equality for all, and this despite the terrorism of the FRAUDcasters and the Islamofascists.
It isn't only women and blacks who were rather "disenfranchised" by our Constitution, either. The "Papists" were REALLY looked down on, too, regardless of the "tolerant" language of the Constitution. I hadn't really understood how deeply that was, so I was astonished 1960, when JFK being Catholic was considered such a negative for his election chances, but if you explore the history of our country in early times, you can see that distrust of the Papists has run very deep throughout our history.
The Iraqis are doing very well, in a very short period of time, to have such an reasonable first cut at a constitutional government with quite a bit of equality for all, and this despite the terrorism of the FRAUDcasters and the Islamofascists.
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