A speck of optimism

[Hippikos]

Nah, just a quiet day in the Baghdad park...

[tw]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Nah, just a quiet day in the Baghdad park...

Not exactly. First some underlying facts. Maliki's government is (has been) a US puppet government. It cannot defend itself, does not have popular support, and would fall immediately if Americans left. Smart Americans are suggesting after 4 years, we should have left years ago. And so Maliki, et al have been doing something for the past few months that otherwise would never happen.

Maliki, et al has been negotiating with various insurgent leaders - secretly. Suddenly they realize that either they concede to reality or hang with Saddam. Sistani has (apparently) ordered Shia insurgent groups to rein in their war on Sunnis (and among themselves). Sadr, et al apparently have complied where control exists over their people.

What we have been seeing are the 'uncontrolled' still fighting - and pulling back.

What are details? We have not a clue. All this has been ongoing for months now - Americans having been cut out of the process. A process created only because Americans have finally gotten serious about leaving what cannot be won. Iraqis have two choices. Either massacre each other by expanding the civil war, or negotiating. That means even Maliki's hard line has softened since the Iraqi army and police are all but toothless. Maliki is only there because of 140,000 Americans. Suddenly reality has struck him - and many other major insurgent groups.

Well not all will comply. Watch what happens. If we did as the Iraq Study Group recommends, then the Iraqis may just decided to go the way of Lebanon - if we get lucky. That can only happen if we leave them to 'sink or swim' - not completely leave but move out as the ISG recommended.

A major and ongoing event from months ago may have just leaked out this week. Time to watch major players - especially Sistani.

[tw]

Iraq took a major downturn into greater civil war. Shia support for Iraq's government withdrew. Reason was that Maliki will not set a timetable for Iraq's enemy - US - to withdrawal. This is followed by bombings that killed 180+ while an American surge (with too few troops) was supposed to be reducing violence.

Interesting are excerpts from PBS's America at a Crossroad where Iraqi soldiers working with Americans to round up insurgent weapon caches are caught on tape saying the larger cache is safely elsewhere. Why do Iraqi Army units fail to follow up in supporting Americans? Why did S Vietnamese units do so poorly without being attached to American units / operations?

Deja vue ... complete with presidential lies about America winning the war, "we must fight them there or here" (Domino Theory), denial of who the enemy really is (surrogates for Russia and China), 'the message' that only got more Americans killed, liberation of people who did not want to be liberated, outright denial of basic military doctrine, a press that is reporting things too negative (when the situation was even worse), an enemy that successfully uses booby traps while not conducting frontal attacks (classic guerrilla warfare), outright denial of conclusions by a study group (the Wise Men), spending money massively and without accounting, and a complete denial that it was a civil war. Nam deja vue.

Hope was that a surge would be long enough and successful enough to permit all sided to start reconciliation. Hope is diminishing quickly this week. Either we start what the ISG recommends now or we accept thousands more death Americans, an Iraq that hates America, and a defeat that is even worse. George Jr continues to advocate 'big dic' thinking (ie we are winning) so that "Mission Accomplished" is not lost on his watch - as was Nixon's agenda. Both presidents being the few who are clearly anti-American - more concerned with a political agenda and with their legacy than in the United States.

Worse are the many who still deny how much worse it will become. Had we been Turkey or Greece and done this to Iraq, then we (as Turkey or Greece) would have been condemned alongside Serbia and Darfur as promoters of genocide.

While so many were watching lesser events (Imus firing; VA shooting), Iraq may have taken what an irreversible turn for the worse.