British Withdrawal May bring Militia, Iranian Influence
Najaf Bomb Kills 18
Rick Jervis of USA Today--reporting from Baghdad-- suggests that the British drawdown from Basra could allow greater Iranian and militia influence in the Shiite deep south of Iraq.
LA Times says that the British are drawing down in Iraq because they cannot fight both there and in Afghanistan without overtaxing their army and facing "operational failure."
A Marine was killed by guerrillas in al-Anbar; guerrillas shot down a US helicopter but the crew and passengers were rescued; a car bomb killed 16 and wounded 40 at the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Sunni Arab guerrillas are attempting to provoke Shiite militiamen to come out for revenge, knowing that they would likely then be curbed or shot by the US military.
Reuters reports on other political violence on Wednesday, of which there was a lot. The number of bodies found in the capital appears to have gone back up after a lull.
Guerrillas also struck at a second chlorine truck, causing Baghdad residents to sicken and go to the hospital with problems breathing. The guerrillas are deliberately attempting to use gases of various sorts to spread chaos.
Underestimating Vice President Dick Cheney's influence with Bush would be a big mistake. I don't think Condi Rice is on the same level at all.
The decline and fall of the coalition of the willing in Iraq.
David Ignatius reports on the growing anger toward the US in the Arab world. We are down to a 12 percent favorability rating. Ignatius rightly points to the security threats engendered by Bush's failures in policy and in public diplomacy.
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/22/2007 06:33:00 AM
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9 Comments:
YOu don't have to venture far from today's headlines for evidence that Cheney has the better of Rice. Lost in the bad news out of Iraq and whatever you call the coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith probate hearings was Condi's trip to Israel/Palestine. Seems she went to restart the peace talks per assurances made to Saudi, Jordan and Egypt, quid pro quo for support in Iraq.
Little did she suspect, I fear, that the night before her visit, PM Olmert would receive a call from BUsh ordering him to "go slow" with the new PA unity government. Now sort of thing can really screw up a business trip and indeed it did. She might as well have phone that one in. Literelly, it would have saved the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars not to mention another credibilty blow to the US.
If all this seems vaguely familiar, it should. You have seen this movie 2002-03 starring Colin Powell who made several furtive attempts to find the road to peace to Jerusalem in Jerusalem only to have Bush or Cheney publicly torpedo the effort
Nothing's changed in the Bush Court. You can count on that.
It is interesting that you mention Public Diplomacy efforts... As the opinion polls show, the Bush administration's efforts to spin the Arab and Muslim countries have failed, largely because they can't talk their way past their disastrous actions...
The true impact of these actions largely escapes the American public... After all, most Americans don't get exposed to the stark and bloody images of Bush's war, but Arabic news channels provide abundant coverage of the same... Iraq is still largely a clean and synthetic war for the US public, save for the occasional documentary on HBO or Sundance channel...
Among the American public that still supports the Bush war, there is largely a sense of detached resignation to the 'fact' that wars are always bloody, and freedom ain't free.. All of this, of course, is glib nonsense... The Bush war is failing to achieve its two main objectives - peace and stability with respect to US and Israeli presence in the region, and steady access for American oil companies to Iraq's fields (as opposed to Russia and China's growing presence)...
And as far as Public Diplomacy is concerned, well it can often boil down to a little more than dressed up propaganda training for government officials... Prof. Eytan Gilboa has been on the forefront of the Public Diplomacy movement for Israel, but one look at his writing shows that he comes from a point of view where the Israelis are the bearers of truth, and the Arabs are liars, and the press (mostly European) are fools for listening to the Arabs and ignoring the Israeli official line...
The problem in the ME is NOT that the press is ignoring the Israeli, or for that matter the US, officials... The 'problem' is that a slowly growing number of journalists are going to the street to find the reality of the Middle Easy - and that reality bites, hard...
Condi is no more than a whisper of a breeze against the black hole that is Dick Cheney. They say that if you stand real close to Condi, you can hear the ocean! To listen to her on the radio is to hear some empty Karen Huges script. She is, indeed, much ado about nothing.
Does it not seem obvious that Bush, having sacrificed the pursuit of Osama bin Laden to get Iraq, is now sacrificing the occupation (what's left of it) of Iraq to go after Iran?
It seems to me our natural adversaries are not the Shi'ia, but the Sunnis. (As it was after initially 9-11.)
"...pulling out of Iraq quickly, as many Democrats in Washington seem to favor."
Who are these many Democrats who favor a quick pull out. I can think of a handful, maybe. Why does he have to add this in there when it obviously isn't true. It doesn't add to the story. Its just a jab at the Dems.
In light of the recent Wapo Walter Reed Army Hospital expose', and the ancillary details of their outpatient support funding director who apparently runs his own rehab operation:
[February 22 2007] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Veteran's Benefits And The Muslim Nations - Five Years Into A War And We Still Don't Understand Muslim Culture At All
In Full
In The News:
The Iraqi resistance begins using improvised "Dirty Bombs", tanker trucks filled with chlorine.
3149 Dead Soldiers, and for what? Oil.
Recently, 3 killed in al-Anbar, 1 in Baghdad, and the resistance is starting to use concentrated small arms fire to bring down helicopters. It works, and anyone with a rifle can participate.
Political Rubble: Carson City Nevada Democratic presidential candidate forum... David Geffen, of Geffen Records and long-time Clinton supporter creates a stir by slamming the Clintons and backing Obama, Dennis Kucinich delivers the speech of the evening, claims the mantle of 'No Strings Candidate'. (no funding either, go figure....)
Nancy Pelosi angrily phones the White House about VP Cheney's statement in Korea regarding al-Qaeda winning if John Murtha's miltary appropriation plan is enacted.
Scooter Libby trial wrapping up with defense based on Libby's supposedly poor 'memory capacity'.
Two German clowns have been shot to death during a performance in Colombia (?!?!)
--30--
It seems to me that the british have had no curb on Iranian influence in the south, so how could withdrawing them influence that?
The only curb against Iranian influence would seem to be Sadr's Iraqi nationalist shia militias that appear to have won the major battle against the Iranian shia influences - can Sistani really be said to matter now? Sure there are still shia vs. shia battles and murders now, but Sadr really seems to have won the war, and all that is left is a few dead enders...wait, I've heard this before...
It is crazy, but even if the sunnis were partitioned away from teh shia, there would still probably be a civil war in Iraq.
"Sunni Arab guerrillas are attempting to provoke Shiite militiamen to come out for revenge, knowing that they would likely then be curbed or shot by the US military."
How do you know this? It was not in the article you referenced, and I am certain you cannot read the minds of the terrorists who did this - and claiming it was "Sunnis" without evidence is very misleading.
I have made comments before about how you claim it was "Sunnis" that did this or that - without evidence, and you failed to publish on your comments section.
Let's see if this one shows up there.
Why the heck aren't "many Democrats" in favor of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq? I thought that's what they used to win the elections in November? Or are they just their cynical, political machine stripes yet again, by ditching principles as soon as they get into power? (I suspect, with the exception of Webb and a few others, I know the answer to that. See Lady Hilary's refusal to apologize for voting in favor of a war that outsiders without her access to intelligence knew would be a failure).
On the British, while it's nice to see some government realize that Afghanistan is in danger of being lost and that it is the conflict that actually bears international legitimacy, you'd like to think that the Brits (and eventually the U.S.) would realize that they are victims of their imperial overstretch, not inadequate militaries.
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