Muqtada al-Sadr's ministers leave the Maliki government, saying they tried and failed to get Maliki to demand a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq. No doubt someone on the right will spin this as a positive development for the USA since it now affords us the chance of a Sadrist-free government in Baghdad and may give them a chance to restart a 2004-style two-front war in Baghdad. I'm not optimistic.
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Sadrists Say Goodbye
16 Apr 2007 09:28 pm
Comments (14)
Everything that happens in Iraq is positive. Ask Cheney.
Just think what would happen if everyone leaves--we could attack all our enemies: Sunni, Shiite, any old terrorist. Which will prove that we're winning. Like always.
my god, it took 21 whole minutes from matt's posting for someone on the right to spin this as a positive development! what is wrong with the right wing? there was a time when a right-winger would have stepped up in under 5 minutes: the team is really getting old.
more seriously, this simply points to the heart of the problem (as none other than general sheehan noted): there is no meaningful definition of victory that we can achieve. i'm reminded of those who claimed that the french lost in vietnam because they were chess players while the vietnamese played go: the french were simply missing one whole dimension of understanding.
They don't have a Sadrist free government, the ministers walk but the MP's stay and it puts a no confidence motion into play.
The transformation of the U.S. military into a Christian militia is almost complete.
If Maliki falls, who exactly are our troops fighting for?
Sadr is putting pressure on Maliki to get a timetable for U.S. withdrawl from Iraq, which Maliki cannot get as long as Bush is President. Assuming Sadr knows that, he may well be trying to bring down the Iraqi government. I don't understand why that would be to his or the Shiites advantage however, unless Sadr believes a deal can be struck with the Sunnis that the Shia could live with which would keep Iraq from flying apart once the U.S. is gone. Of course, the U.S. has its own agenda, and I don't think it includes leaving Iraq entirely. Since the current status quo of "staying the course, only a little more so" isn't working as advertised, time is on Sadr's side now.
I would like to remark on the stupidity of those who think killing Sadr would be a great idea. Idiots. All that would do is create a martyr and a cause that will fracture the Shiite population into two major factions who would quite likely end up fighting each other and make what's already a bad situation in Iraq even worse.
But if the Shiites are fighting each other, then they're not fighting us!
/winger mode OFF
Occasional visitors to the site might assume that the first comment was snark, which would be a tragic assumption indeed.
"Sadr is putting pressure on Maliki to get a timetable for U.S. withdrawl from Iraq, which Maliki cannot get as long as Bush is President."
Maliki could get a timetable tomorrow if he wanted to: simply hold a press conference and say he thanks the Coalition for its help and wants foreign troops out by X date. The reason he hasn't done that is that he wants Coalition troops there until he's sure that his own troops are strong enough to hold the country together and survive challenges from Sadr, Sunni insurgents, etc. Sadr, on the other hand, wants Coalition troops out before Iraqi government troops are capable of this, because their weakness increases his power.
The solution that Maliki and Bush should come to is to figure out a realistic time frame for getting Iraqi security forces to self-sufficiency, and a few months to this time frame as a margin-of-error, and then present that as a time line for the withdrawal of Coalition troops.
If it were up to me, I would make some radical changes to make this transition possible in a realistic time frame. First, I'd change the recruitment process. Let each Iraqi legislator nominate recruits and limit the recruits to single young men -- 17-19 years old. Since the Iraqi Parliament is roughly representative of Iraqi ethnic and sectarian groups, that should give us a fairly representative base to recruit from -- also a base more likely to be loyal to the government whose members have nominated them.
Second, make each of these recruits take a version of the U.S. Military's ASVAB test translated into Arabic, and accept only the smarter recruits. The U.S. Military considers this test to be the single greatest predictor of future performance; why we haven't been using it so far in Iraq, I have no idea.
Next, I'd ship all the guys who pass this test to the U.S. Put them up in dorm-like barracks on Army bases and make a Kurd bunk with a Sunni Arab, a Shiite bunk with a Sunni Arab, a Kurd bunk with a Shiite, etc. Have them spend a few months in English immersion 8 hours a day, plus a couple hours of physical training to get them in military shape. Spend time in the evenings socializing these Iraqis with U.S. Army officers and NCOs as chaperons/mentors -- take them out for pizza and video games at the P/X, whatever. Americanize them a little, away from the chaos of Iraq.
After a few months of this, they should be as ready as the average American recruit for basic training and advanced infantry training. Put them through that, and keep them diversified by sect and ethnicity down to the squad level. Six months later, you should have a bunch of reasonably competent Iraqi infantrymen.
Next, send these Iraqis back to Iraq, in platoons led by American officers and NCOs. After a few months in action, send some of the Iraqi troops who perform the best back to the U.S. for NCO or officer training. As these Iraqis return from training, gradually use them to replace the American officers and NCOs.
The bottom line of all this is that the U.S. military does a fairly good job here of turning untrained Americans into soldiers; there's no reason they can't do the same here for Iraqis -- but only if they start using similar methods.
One additional thing I'd do is add a golden handcuffs feature to the payment of Iraqi troops: hold half of their pay in trust for them, to be given to them at the end of their enlistment period - provided they don't desert, commit random atrocities, etc.
BTW, one advantage of this is it would reduce the number of American troops in Iraq, by moving much of their training function back to the U.S. Also, American-led, Iraqi platoons created this way might be competent enough to obviate the need for some regular American units.
Maliki could get a timetable tomorrow if he wanted to: simply hold a press conference and say he thanks the Coalition for its help and wants foreign troops out by X date.
Oh, please. Bush cares less for the sovereignty of Iraq than Clinton did for the sovereignty of Yugoslavia.
Timetable, whatever. Sadr gave the surge two months, and 400 people died in a market bombing and Parliament got bombed. Oh yeah, the bridge. Whether Sadr is opportunistic or under pressure from constituents, the US and Maliki still have not increased security worth a damn.
There have been reports that a major cabinet reshuffling has been in the works for months. The storyline back then was that the US was leaning on Maliki to purge Sadrist elements. This "resignation" seems opportunistically timed to precede that long planned expulsion.
I would also add that I don't think Sadr and Maliki are in opposition to each other on most important matters. Even this "demand for a timeline" seems like a bit of theater.
Further, Sadr and Sistani have recently forged a very strong alliance, and Team Shiite is in circle the wagons mode in general. Remember, Sadr is very useful to Maliki and Sistani - and the rest of the Shiite faction - both for his popularity and militia strength, and for his hardline anti-occupation posturing which can be leveraged to Team Shiite's advantage.
This, despite Sadr's frequent feuds with SCIRI elements (which, by the way, have been dying down a bit recently). That represents the wrench in the plan to maintain a strong, unified Shiite front. But for now, it appears to be holding. That is the overarching strategic objective of Sistani.
If I had to guess, these "resignations" seem like a little bone thrown in the direction of the Bush administration to convince them that Maliki really, really is interested in cracking down on militias (read: his political allies' armed wings - sure) and getting tough with Sadr.
But, as noted, Sadr's people remain in the parliament and might be getting some other consolation prizes as well. And rumors of a deep schism seem overplayed at this point. Though Maliki probably finds that narrative useful.
Matt, I think that you should have let us know that you had taken a job as William Gates' speechwriter; full disclosure, and all that.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gates18apr18,1,1104110.story?track=rss
Comments closed April 30, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
You mean having the psycho killers leave the government so that they can be legitimate military targets. Duh, Matt - that's very positive.
Posted by James Robertson | April 16, 2007 9:49 PM