Our Man in Baghdad

Via Ilan Goldenberg, Karen DeYoung reports that "Civil war has been averted in Iraq and Iranian intervention there has 'ceased to exist,' Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday."

One hesitates to call this yet another data point to suggest that it doesn't really make sense for our young men and women to be risking their lives in order that the US government might be able to continue spending vast sums of money to build up the armed forces under Maliki's control. After all, that conclusion might simply bolster the idea that it does make sense for our young men and women to be risking their lives in order that the US government might be able to continue spending vast sums of money to build up the armed forces under the control of rebels trying to overthrow Maliki's government. Since Bush now has us on both sides of the conflict, after all, Maliki looking unimpressive just cuts both ways -- just another awesome aspect of our endless war.

Comments

For your advice, they are not "our troops." I want nothing to do with these war criminals.

Nor is it "our war." It is yours.

Posted by McGuffy | September 25, 2007 3:54 PM

Is it me or can we agree that the Iraqi Shia and the Iranians are beating the pro war Americans at the propaganda game? I mean who comes off as reasonable and who comes off as deranged? I mean when the US fails at advertising you know that something is wrong.

Yeah McGuffy whatever, either you are a rock onto yourself who rejects your Americaness or you're a conservative agitator imitating a 1960s leftist to get a rise. Either way, yawn, boring.

Posted by Northern Observer | September 25, 2007 4:05 PM

Steny Hoyer's War: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose!

We have to fund them over there so they won't spend it over here.

When the Iraqi dinar stands up the American dollar will stand down.

Heckuva a War, Steny!

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | September 25, 2007 4:09 PM

"I can't stand this indecision coupled with a lack of vision. Everybody wants to rule the world."-Tears for Fears, circa 1985.

Posted by ProfD | September 25, 2007 4:15 PM

Maliki's learning the tricks of the trade, isn't he? His critics say there's a civil war going on. Bush says the Iranians are intervening in Iraq. So Maliki says there is no civil war and the intervention has ended. The media dutifully reports all three "viewpoints" and the truth is obscured still further.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | September 25, 2007 4:17 PM

"Civil war has been averted"? Here I thought Iraq was eyeball-deep in an ongoing civil war & it turns out that it's over even before it began. Is my face red.

Northern Observer: "Yeah McGuffy whatever ... or you're a conservative agitator imitating a 1960s leftist to get a rise." I'd choose the latter & add "a righty caricature of a 1960s leftist...".

Posted by raff | September 25, 2007 4:30 PM

I'm with Northern Observer.
Another thing though -- anyone else have trouble following Matt's sentence structure in this post? I'm used to rereading Proust's sentences a few times, but a blog isn't supposed to be like that. Maybe that's why there are only five comments so far.

Posted by Barry | September 25, 2007 4:32 PM

Well, seems like he basically told the Shiites at the Al Khoei center last night (one passes by it every coming into the city from LaGuardia, it's right on the highway) that it's all Al Qaeda's fault along with the legacy of Saddam: Iraqi Premier Breaks Fast at a Queens Mosque

Posted by artappraiser | September 25, 2007 4:35 PM

McCOY: I don’t have a solution. But furnishing them with firearms is certainly not the answer!

KIRK: Bones, do you remember the twentieth-century brush wars on the Asian continent? Two giant powers involved, much like the Klingons and ourselves. Neither side felt that they could pull out?

McCOY: Yes, I remember—it went on bloody year after bloody year!

KIRK: But what would you have suggested? That one side arm its friends with an overpowering weapon? Mankind would never have lived to travel space if they had. No—the only solution is what happened, back then, balance of power.

McCOY: And if the Klingons give their side even more?

KIRK: Then we arm our side with exactly that much more. A balance of power—the trickiest, most difficult, dirtiest game of them all—but the only one that preserves both sides!

....We are ruled by children.

Posted by brooksfoe | September 25, 2007 5:49 PM

It's Maliki's "Mission Accomplished" moment.

Posted by PR | September 25, 2007 6:03 PM

I don't know if he's our guy, but he is the product of an elected government. He is more legitimate than those factotums Richardson was dealing with in the 1990s for example. I would
like to know what promises were made to secure
the release of prisoners in that era; when he
served as envoy without portfolio prior to becoming UN Ambassador. Maliki is/was Daawa; which were driven from politics with the rise of Baathism in the 1960s. That drove their turn to direct action by the late 1970s; which culminated with the assasination of the 1st Sadr, and the attempt on Tariq Aziz.

Posted by narciso | September 25, 2007 8:59 PM

There's a much easier way to interpret this.

Maliki is simply lying.

Neither statement is true - the Iranians haven't left and the civil war is still very much on.

Unless you buy Petraeus's comment that Iran has pulled out all its agents in Iraq. This is highly doubtful, since Petraeus couldn't find any of them while they were allegedly IN Iraq!

Given that the assumption is that there are thousands, possibly scores of thousands, or even - if Colonel Pat Lang is correct - hundreds of thousands, of Iranian agents in Iran, it kinda makes Petraeus really look incompetent when US troops can only arrest a few above board Iranian delegations now and then.

So how does Petraeus even know how many Iranians are in Iraq?

As for the civil war, what evidence is adduced by Maliki for his statement?

None.

So why does anybody care what this puppet clown has to say? He has no power outside the Green Zone. He's a front man for the Dawa who are in turn the proxies for Iran, along with SCIRI (or whatever they're calling themselves now.) So what do you expect him to say? That the Shia are losing and that Iran - or the US - is the only thing keeping him from getting killed?

Not that the Shia ARE losing - they aren't. But they aren't winning either as long as the Sunni insurgency can continue operating with impunity.

Until exhaustion sets in or the power imbalance between the Sunni and the Shia is addressed by some circumstance, the civil war will continue unabated.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 25, 2007 11:17 PM