Reconciliation

As you'll recall, when the "surge" was announced in January, its stated purpose was to create the conditions for progress toward the goal of national reconciliation. We were promised a report in September on the surge's results. What we got in September was a very, very, very quiet admission that, in terms of its stated goals, the surge had completely and utterly failed. This combined with a loud insistence that the surge was succeeding in terms of some other goals, and that reconciliation was around the corner so why do you hate the troops and want al-Qaediranians to kill little children?

Now we read this morning that top Iraqi politicians want to abandon national reconciliation as a goal. They're not missing benchmarks or running behind schedule, they're just saying it's not going to happen. The surge hasn't worked, isn't working, and won't, according to Iraqis, ever work.

Comments

WaPo:

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

Well, that's great, I guess, except... are they going to be doing this while they're still shooting at each other? Maybe make a 'no shooting at the technocrats' pact? Or is this just a way of saying 'We Shi'a are in charge and you Sunni fucks can just deal!'?

Hrmm. Well, ok:

The fragmentation of Iraq's leading Shiite coalition, while potentially leading to more instability, paralysis in parliament and gun battles in the streets, might be an opportunity to lessen the reliance of politicians on their sectarian blocs, one senior government official said.

The government is seceding from democracy or something like that. It's Strongman Time!

max
['"I'll give all you peasants something to cry about!"']

Posted by max | October 8, 2007 8:41 AM

Yes, but Michael Moore is still fat!

Posted by Jeff S. | October 8, 2007 9:53 AM

Well, nobody in Iraq liked Biden's amendment either, so they don't want to reconcile but don't want partition. Each faction wants to rule a unitary Iraq. Looks like civil war.

Posted by bob mcmanus | October 8, 2007 10:10 AM

About the only thing that remains is for the Iraqi government to demand we leave ASAP. They will do so when most of the sides feel they're well enough prepared to fight it out. I'm thinking we're not that far away from this point.

Not that it would make a difference to our government anyway. Nobody tells us what to do, even when it's in our own best interests!

Posted by ProfD | October 8, 2007 10:56 AM

No offense, Matt, but when are you going to start talking about the oil law? It seems like every time you write about Iraq you run circles about the big elephant in the room and the prime mover of Iraqi politics. If you want answers look to the black gold--who's going to get it, and how long will we stay to extract it?

Posted by Scott Kern | October 8, 2007 5:34 PM

Well, supposedly al-Sadr is agreeing to work with SIIC (or SCIRI, or whatever they call themselves now) or at least stop shooting at each other. That's a plus for the Shia, but does nothing about the Sunni.

Although at one point, it seemed that al-Sadr might actually have a shot at getting at least some of the Sunni to go along with the government. I suspect that's fallen by the wayside as I haven't heard any more about it lately.

Scott gets it right, however: who's going to control the oil? The Kurds have decided - and there will be NO discussion of this in their opinion - that THEY control all the oil in the Kurdish region. Turkey is NOT going to like that.

The Shia control the oil in the south - and the Sunnis are NOT going to accept that.

Which means the Sunnis will make sure no oil goes out from anyplace they can get to. I'm not sure the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from various locations into other Sunni enclaves will solve that for the Shia, but if it does, the Shia will have one more element in their favor.

As I've said, this isn't going to stop until either exhaustion sets in on one or both sides, or somehow the Sunnis manage to find an external support factor that can offset the Shia numerical advantage, the Shia control of the government, and the support of Iran for the Shia factions.

And there is nothing the US can do about any of that except make it worse by being present.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 8, 2007 11:56 PM