Muqtada's Shift

Muqtada al-Sadr goes in for a little political repositioning, "reaching out to a broad array of Sunni leaders" and distancing itself from the US-backed, Shiite-led Iraqi government that it once supported. Sadr's swung back and forth on this kind of thing, so I don't think it need be seen as reflecting any true change of heart. Still, he seems like a pretty canny politician who has a better grasp than most Americans on the state of Iraqi public opinion.

Thus, when he has his minions saying things like "We want to aim the guns against the occupation and al-Qaeda, not between Iraqis" I think that's a sound indication that this is the political sweet spot in Iraq. That, in turn, is just another indication that if we leave Iraq, there'll be nothing left for Iraqis to do but turn on al-Qaeda; it's only the fact of the occupation that prevents the objective unpopularity of al-Qaeda from becoming the most salient thing.

Comments

"Still, he [al-Sadr] seems like a pretty canny politician who has a better grasp than most Americans on the state of Iraqi public opinion."

I agree with Matt on this point, and I'll posit that were it not for al-Sadr's anti-occupation 'muscle' the United States would have handed the Iraq government over to the Pentagon's pretenders. As the all-knowing yet not seeing Krauthammer had it back last November, "I think we made several serious mistakes -- not shooting looters, not installing an Iraqi exile government right away, and not taking out Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in its infancy in 2004 -- that greatly compromised the occupation."

Posted by The Other Alan | May 20, 2007 12:55 PM

That, in turn, is just another indication that if we leave Iraq, there'll be nothing left for Iraqis to do but turn on al-Qaeda

For once, Matt, I think your instincts have failed you. While Al Qaeda is probably unpopular as you say, I think if we leave there will be just as much, if not more sectarian fighting as there is now. It's not like all parties will just come together as a nation to root out a common enemy--far from it.

That is most certainly not to say I oppose our leaving forthwith.

Posted by Marshall | May 20, 2007 1:00 PM

"if we leave Iraq, there'll be nothing left for Iraqis to do but turn on al-Qaeda"
Your analysis might be right, but I've gotten to the point where I don't trust any prediction about Iraq.

Posted by Jason | May 20, 2007 1:29 PM

Lol Jason. This is Iraq - let no man fault you for stubborn incredulity.

Those who favor withdrawal need to start making this point, or making it louder. Or maybe the media just has to pay attention more.

The major arguments against withdrawl are, in my opinion, (1) the potential for massive sectarian bloodletting; (2) the abandonment yet again of the downtrodden Kurds; and (3) the unknowable consequences for the wider region.

I really do believe that Al-Qaeda has no political future in Iraq. In fact, if you wanted to unleash the most fantastic butchery on the enemies of the United States, you would probably withdrawl right now and let Sadr go to town. Hes a fervid nationalist - so we could count on him against the 'foreign fighters' we claim to hate.

Posted by Neal M | May 20, 2007 3:26 PM

I have yet to see a cogent argument that US military presense in Iraq has been a net security benefit for the Iraqi people. Marshall may be right, but equally he may be wrong, to date the assumption is that of course American occupation is a net benefit. But what is the argument, where is the actual evidence?

Because a lot of people who are willing to assert with calm confidence that it will all be worse if we left have been wrong about just about everything up to now.

I may just be a DFH, but I am a DFH with a hell of a better record than Friedman, Pollack and Beinart over the last four years. I have argued for years that the Ba'athist Generals have been using al-Qaeda and foreign fighters as convenient tools to be tolerated as long as they concentrated their efforts on Americans and Shi'ites. And events in Anbar seem to be bearing this out, al-Qaeda started targeting Sunnis and in doing so turned some of the local power structure against them. Which of course was touted as some sort of success by the Pentagon, rather than the internal power politics it represents.

Saddam's generals have not forgotten their skills with hanging opponents on meat hooks, and while all brown people might look and sound the same to us, they won't to Iraqis and Iraq as a nation was permeated from top to bottom by informants and secret police, turning up foreigners should be that hard a task. But for now allowing that crazy kid from Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Jordan to blow himself up attacking a US post or a Shi'ia mosque is probably considered a net gain to Ba'athists. At a minimum it means one less fundamentalist.

Leaving Iraq may or lot make things worse, but there is exactly zero evidence that our presense is making things better. And people who blithely talk about disarming the Mahdi Army are frankly delusional. For all intents and purposes Iraq is a 2nd Amendment Paradise. It is legal for every household to own an AK 47. How in that context can you disarm any group in any real sense? I don't know about the 'well regulated' part, but it is pretty clear that the entirety of Iraq is effectively part of a militia, it is just that not everyone has a uniform or is particularly willing to undergo military discipline. Still it is pretty clear that if Sadr says 'Go' things will get real ugly, real fast.

It is not in the interest of the Shi'ia majority for the Mahdi Army to disarm and submit to an American influenced secular Iraqi regime. So it won't happen. Who says? Well not Beinart, but then again who is money ahead listening to him?

Nobody has to listen to Digby and the DFHs that hang around him. But equally no one has the right to simply privilege their views on the basis of really nothing more than intuition about the probable effects of US pullout.

The 'turn the cornor' crowd has been making the very same arguments for about 11 Friedman Units. Some of us are a little tired of this and are willing to toss some FU's back.

Posted by Bruce Webb | May 20, 2007 3:44 PM

Neal,

as to 1) see post above, it might happen, it might not, but there is no hope that continued occupation will improve the situation

2) the 'downtrodden Kurds' have done quite nicely for themselves under the no fly/sanctions regime and there is no reason that the US cannot continue to provide security guarantees for them, perhaps to include military basing. I bet the Turks would be more than happy to have the US in place to keep the Kurdish government within bounds.

3) 'unknowable consequences'. Well see point one above. There is more than a whiff of 'White Man's Burden' floating here. There is little evidence that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria are not fully capable of handling their own state security without our help. Getting US soldiers blown up because we have some unknown knowns and some known unknowns is the same kind of cloudy reasoning that got us into this.

Posted by Bruce Webb | May 20, 2007 3:55 PM

My post was unclear.

I was not endorsing any of those arguments. I was merely affirming that they are the only ones with even a smidgeon of seriousness, unlike wild-eyed predictions on a longterm al-qaeda operation in Iraq, which is the subject of the post.

In any case, I agree with your rebuttal.

Posted by Neal Murray | May 21, 2007 12:59 AM

The slow witted yglesias notes sadr squealing like a pig and fails to ponder just why this is. Perhaps because the inevitable conclusion of doing so, that sadr is obviously feeling the pinch of the surge, is too terrible for yglesias to bear.

And his little thesis that on american departure the iraqi's would simply go about destroying al-qaeda is just retarded. If sunni and shia militia's have been slaughtering each other in the presence of two enemies why would we expect them to suddenly join forces with the departure of one? It is nonsensical and once again demonstrates what a low rank hack the boy is.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | May 21, 2007 3:25 AM

That presumes, of course, that the Shiite-led government doesn't begin to crack-down harder on Sunni resistance.

If they did, wouldn't the embattled, minority Sunnis turn back to al Qaeda for help?

Posted by Gregory Scoblete | May 21, 2007 11:29 AM