What in the hell is * doing about Iraq?

[beachmom]

I have read a series of different takes and news stories on Iraq. Last night, I had decided we should withdraw immediately, it was so dire. My thinking was that if al Jaafari remains P.M., then we would essentially be protecting a collaborator with the Shiite terrorists -- al Sadr and his death squad militias (who, if you recall killed Casey Sheehan in April '04). However, today brings news that one Shiite has gone public that he thinks al Jaafari should step down. This is no guarantee that he will, but it's the first crack in the Shiite alliance's stubbornness on keeping him as P.M. Nevertheless, I am not hopeful about the political situation in Iraq (see my Iraq analysis at the end).

I'll take you through what's going on in Baghdad as told by the Kid (the 20 year old Iraqi college student). Just as a bit of background, he was featured in the NYT, he is a Sunni but has Shiite friends at school, and he loves western culture, especially music like Soundgarden, Metallica, and hip hop. He recently fell in love with a girl who unfortunately flatly rejected him. Some things remain the same regardless of what country you come from or what religion you practice.

Thursday, March 23, 2006
The Day I Tried To Go Home...




Thursday, March 23 2006

We are on the outskirts of Adhamiya, THE Sunni territory in Baghdad, largely Shiite National Guard have installed deployments on its outskirts, a convoy of three police cars, filled with members of the notorious Interior ministry forces, arrive and is stopped by the National Guard].

INTERIOR POLICE CAPT : I demand to enter the area
NATIONAL GUARD : You do not have jurisdiction here.
INTERIOR POLICE CAPT: You do not tell me what I have and do not have, we have business to do and we will do it whether you like it or not.
NATIONAL GUARD CAPT: We have an agreement with these guys, we do not enter and they do not hit us, You will not enter.
INTERIOR POLICE CAPT. : Them? We shall enter the place and kill them to the last Jihadist, Fuck them, and their mothers and daughters, we will go in there and tear up their asses, and rape down their mothers and sisters in every house.

(INTERIOR POLICE CAPT. shoots three bullets near NATIONAL GUARD CAPT's feet)

NATIONAL GUARD CAPT. : You did this...okay, then please step right ahead, but I should warn you, they are monsters.

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(INTERIOR CAPT. rides up his car and the three vehicles progress onward, NATIONAL GUARD CAPT. waits for a bit and then goes to MUJHADEEN, telling them of what happened)

MUJAHEDIEEN : Take your troops and leave the area.

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http://ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com/

I urge you to show this brave kid some love, and read his entire post. It is gripping, terrifying, and even has a few funny parts within the tense trip home from school, even including a character named "Jesus" and his dad "Big Jesus".

The drama above describes the ethnic cleansing taking place in Iraq that I am sure you have all read about. Shiites are moving out of Sunni neighborhoods and vice versa, and the Kid's story is how it is affecting people's lives.

Next, I read this NYT article which discussed the political situation above, but then it mentioned this:

The indication of President Bush's stance came Tuesday as he met with members of Congress who had just returned from Iraq. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said he had told Iraqi politicians that the continued presence of American troops should be directly linked to the formation of a government.

"That is a useful message for the Iraqis to hear," Mr. Levin said the president told him. "He looked me square in the eye and said, 'That is a helpful message.' "

Mr. Bush did not go so far as to endorse this approach, which would be a reversal of his policy, according to several officials. In public, the administration continues to say that American forces will stay as long as they are needed.

Mr. Levin, in contrast, has advocated linking the presence of American troops to political progress, a stance that Pentagon officials have called reckless. His views are influential among Democratic critics of the handling of the war.

Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also was there and confirmed in interviews that Mr. Bush wanted lawmakers visiting Iraq to send a firm message to Iraqi politicians. The president told the members of Congress "that you are a separate branch of government, with the right to make your views known," he said.

The president added that "sometimes Congress can express things differently than the administration, and it can be helpful," he said.

What? That last sentence for me is the equivalent of * saying he doesn't believe in God anymore! What does this mean? It can mean only one thing. * is plain out of ideas and doesn't know WHAT to do about Iraq (and I'm not talking about within the U.S. and his pathetic P.R. campaign, I'm talking about his dealings directly with the Iraqi government and what to do militarily). He's so desperate that he's telling Democrats that threatening U.S. troop withdrawals, the antithesis of his policy, is a GOOD idea. I don't know which * to despise more -- the strong-and-wrong-withdrawing-troops-will-be-decided-by-the-next-president schtick or the buffoon boy king who's behaving like he has a term paper due in an hour and asking his greatest political enemies what was THEIR paper about.

Finally, here's my analysis of Iraq. We are in the worst Catch 22 ever. People on the homefront are understandably very upset about American casualties, so the administration keeps talking about training Iraqis. So now we have "trained Iraqis" who are murdering their sectarian foes and absolutely cannot be trusted by the Iraqi people, while the American troops' patrols have gone way down. So now, our casualty rate has gone way down, but the Iraqis' casualty rate has gone way UP, and the country is in an ethnic cleansing tit for tat civil war, while our troops are more hunkered down and safe. In order for real law and order to be restored in Baghdad, those American troops are going to have to come out IN FORCE to patrol the streets, hopefully accompanied by some Iraqis forces. But that would inevitably mean and an uptick of American casualties which will be shown on TV screens and get Americans upset all over again. I want to give my fellow countrymen more credit, but the truth is that many of them really don't care or worry much about the Iraqis who die. So *'s policy seems to be to lose the war slowly while minimizing American casualties as much as he can, while lying non-stop about there not being a civil war in Iraq. But he has to know it's a big failure, which explains his bizarre comments to Levin.

I think we're at the point where we need to prioritize what our vital national interests are in the Middle East, and forget about ideology or idealism, and settle in for some cold hard realism governed by the facts on the ground. We have several areas at risk: oil, preventing a regional conflict, and preventing future terrorist attacks on American and western soil. Someone needs to tell the truth that THESE are our interests, and figure out a way to extricate our troops -- blood and treasury -- from Iraq while firmly protecting those vital interests named above. The dream of the U.S. helping in establishing a democratic and peaceful Iraq is over. It is time that everyone, not just Lefties or Democrats, face these facts, and replace that dream with preventing a future catastrophe, another words, creating the least worst plan of disengagement and then executing it, even if with heavy hearts.

[ginnyinWI]

1. it is horrifying

And I agree with you: * seems to be handling it by simply stalling and lying. Whenever he makes a mistake, instead of correcting his course he just lies and spins. And other people pay the price.

And it's all so heartbreaking that a lot of people just turn away helplessly. And the RW just spins it for another day. I can now fully understand how the German people during the holocaust looked the other way--because they were afraid and because they didn't want to face what their government was doing. They knew, but they didn't know. Each person feels so helpless. Us on the left are angry, and those on the right are in denial.

Every so often I listen to the RW comments from callers on Washington Journal to try to undertstand why * hasn't yet been ridden out of the WH on a rail, complete with tar and feathers! And some of them are really truly terrified that terrorists are going to come and behead them; they are beyond the reach of rational thought. That's why they think it's okay to detain any and all Arabs at Gitmo. They are scared out of their freaking minds!! And our so-called "leadership" likes it that way.

[beachmom]

2. Political situation truly dire

Per Iraq the Model (pro-American, pro-democracy, used to be a favorite of the RW):

Chances for a peaceful resolution of the current political crisis are getting thinner as some of the involved parties keep refusing to show any flexibility in handling the talks with other powers.

This originates from the fact that the differences between those rivals come mostly from sectarian and/or ethnic basis and not from disagreeing on this or that platform; the idea filling their heads is the ideological difference between the Sunni and the Shia. Actually this had become visible in the statements made by those parties, we hear them say 'our territories are under threat' or 'my sect is under attack' to the extent that speaking of Iraq as a whole has become a formality not fit for local consumption.
And I think this makes reaching a solution in a peaceful way very unlikely at this stage because the two sects were built on a fight over power in the first place and every turban whether 'white' or 'black' can't stop thinking of that thousand year old difference and they think that any accordance between them will essentially mean no more power for turbans.

He goes on to say that if Jafari is not named as P.M., then Sadr will withdrawal from the political process, essentially becoming what it has flirted with and been at times in the past: a full out second front Shiite insurgency.

Andrew Sullivan seems to have come to the same conclusion as I did yesterday:

I'm glad that Condi Rice and Jack Straw went to Baghdad yesterday. Add that visit, the president's remarks last week bluntly ruling out Jafaari as prime minister, and you can see how desperate London and Washington now are. They know that this is Iraq's last chance to avoid meltdown, and yet the Iraqi elites seem unable to make the small compromises necessary to save themselves and what's left of their country.

Even with all of the violence that has surrounded Iraq in the past, the * administration used their "two track" argument, claiming the political situation was much better than the military/security situation. Now that is gone. I fear all is lost for the Iraqis.

[sandnsea]

3. Our troops should not patrol

Our only mission there at this point is true terrorism. If the people of Iraq begin to see that these Iraqi groups have used the US troops as an excuse for violence, then they will also begin to demand the violence stop. I don't think who is or isn't in charge matters all that much, what matters is that the people begin to see their country differently. They either claim ownership and recognize they all have to live together and marginalize people like Sadr, or they're going to end up with another Saddam. That's what they need to be told. But our troops need to stay out of it, we never should have been doing the patrol, it's a recipe for disaster. They'd be much more useful controlling the borders and keeping weapons and terrorists out of the country.

[beachmom]

4. That is true if we hadn't destroyed their infrastructure and power

structure. We disbanded the Iraqi Army and de-Baathized the Iraqi government (civil servants, et al), and then we didn't provide enough security. Now we have rushed the training of Iraqi troops because we want to get out of there, and this has resulted in poor quality forces as well as them being drawn heavily from militias who show more allegiance to their sect than to the national Iraq. I actually think that most Iraqis want one country and don't want civil war; however, the Islamic clerics -- both Shiite and Sunni -- have caused a lot of trouble with their rhetoric, and the politicians in charge have been corrupt, too influenced by radical clerics, or just plain inept. In short, the Iraqi government of today is a failure, and the police cannot be trusted.

I agree with you that Americans patrolling the streets is a disaster. I also think that them NOT patrolling the streets is a disaster, as it allows the ethnic cleansing to continue unabated.

If we leave, we need to understand quite clearly what that will mean, but in the end, it may be the least worst option.