A rare voice of Realism on Iraq
I just read an article by Harold Meyerson (of Washington Post) on the realities we face in Iraq and how useless our policies there are, take a gander at a few extracts:
In the war's first phase, we engaged Saddam Hussein's government and, after it fell, pro-Hussein and other Sunni forces that waged a guerrilla war against us. In its second phase, we fought a group that hadn't even existed when the invasion began, al-Qaeda in Iraq. By our own military's admission, al-Qaeda in Iraq was never responsible for more than a small fraction of the violence there, but it was the group most implacably hostile to our soldiers and to much of the civilian population. In this, we were greatly aided by the Sunni forces that had been our main adversaries in the war's first phase but which had come to loathe al-Qaeda. As the Sunni resistance took up arms against al-Qaeda, we reclassified the Sunnis as friends and armed them, though they remained opposed to the Shiite-dominated national government we claim as our primary ally.
Now, according to the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Congress last week, our main adversaries in Iraq are the Shiite forces being aided by Iran, the Shiite power next door. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been largely confined to the area around Mosul, and most of the attacks on U.S. forces and on the authority of the Iraqi government, they said, come from Iranian-backed Shiite militias, many aligned with Moqtada al-Sadr, who has spent the past several months in Iran. Then again, Iran also backs the Shiite-controlled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- which is why it was Iran that negotiated the cease-fire between Maliki's forces and Shiite militias after Maliki's offensive against the militias in Basra ground to a halt.
The political underpinning for Maliki's government comes chiefly from anti-Sadr Shiite factions, most notably the Hakim family and its Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which was headquartered in Iran during much of Hussein's reign and, indeed, was actually founded by Iran's governing clerics. That's one reason Maliki's government accorded a rapturous public reception to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he visited Baghdad last month, while President Bush still slips in and out of Baghdad like a thief in the night. The pro-Iranian tilt of the current government, and almost certainly of any Shiite-dominated government, is the reason none of the Middle East's Sunni nations -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt or any of the rest -- has diplomatic relations with Baghdad.
and here's more:
Our war in Iraq, then, is different from all our previous wars because we are occupying a nation at war with itself, where groups take up arms against us because we defend a government to which they're not reconciled, a government that may itself pose a strategic threat to our interests. In such a nation, we accumulate enemies simply through our ongoing presence.
If our chief concern is, as we now assert, the spread of Iranian influence, what we need is a Sunni-led government, which could not attain or hold power in majority-Shiite Iraq save by force. That is, we need another Saddam Hussein, only this time, one less antagonistic to the United States. But this would be a resolution we could not support, because it would make a mockery of our entire misadventure in Iraq.
And this is the war that John McCain wants to wage until victory is ours. What no one -- including McCain, Petraeus, Crocker and Bush -- can do is articulate just what such a victory would look like.
Excellent piece. It also jells with the voices of the realistic objectors of the Bush II/McCain's policies in Iraq. Just ask the GOP supporters, who do we face in iraq? We will receive a cacophony of answers, which will clearly suggest that they either haven't been informed or do not care to be informed. Some still believe that we are revenging 9/11 attacks or punishing their perpetrators. Some believe we're still fighting al-Qaeda. These people are usually ignorant (purposefully or not) of what really is going on. And this ignorance is exactly the athmosphere, the necessary environment, for the Bush/McCain's policies to be carried out. Fortunately, with people like harold meyerson, actively speaking out and attempting to educate Americans, we may have a chance to impressing upon the voters the importance of breaking with the bloody and dangerous policies of the current administration on iraq and highlight the fact that the war they're fighting is benefitting them and not the rest of us.
In the war's first phase, we engaged Saddam Hussein's government and, after it fell, pro-Hussein and other Sunni forces that waged a guerrilla war against us. In its second phase, we fought a group that hadn't even existed when the invasion began, al-Qaeda in Iraq. By our own military's admission, al-Qaeda in Iraq was never responsible for more than a small fraction of the violence there, but it was the group most implacably hostile to our soldiers and to much of the civilian population. In this, we were greatly aided by the Sunni forces that had been our main adversaries in the war's first phase but which had come to loathe al-Qaeda. As the Sunni resistance took up arms against al-Qaeda, we reclassified the Sunnis as friends and armed them, though they remained opposed to the Shiite-dominated national government we claim as our primary ally.
Now, according to the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Congress last week, our main adversaries in Iraq are the Shiite forces being aided by Iran, the Shiite power next door. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been largely confined to the area around Mosul, and most of the attacks on U.S. forces and on the authority of the Iraqi government, they said, come from Iranian-backed Shiite militias, many aligned with Moqtada al-Sadr, who has spent the past several months in Iran. Then again, Iran also backs the Shiite-controlled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- which is why it was Iran that negotiated the cease-fire between Maliki's forces and Shiite militias after Maliki's offensive against the militias in Basra ground to a halt.
The political underpinning for Maliki's government comes chiefly from anti-Sadr Shiite factions, most notably the Hakim family and its Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which was headquartered in Iran during much of Hussein's reign and, indeed, was actually founded by Iran's governing clerics. That's one reason Maliki's government accorded a rapturous public reception to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he visited Baghdad last month, while President Bush still slips in and out of Baghdad like a thief in the night. The pro-Iranian tilt of the current government, and almost certainly of any Shiite-dominated government, is the reason none of the Middle East's Sunni nations -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt or any of the rest -- has diplomatic relations with Baghdad.
and here's more:
Our war in Iraq, then, is different from all our previous wars because we are occupying a nation at war with itself, where groups take up arms against us because we defend a government to which they're not reconciled, a government that may itself pose a strategic threat to our interests. In such a nation, we accumulate enemies simply through our ongoing presence.
If our chief concern is, as we now assert, the spread of Iranian influence, what we need is a Sunni-led government, which could not attain or hold power in majority-Shiite Iraq save by force. That is, we need another Saddam Hussein, only this time, one less antagonistic to the United States. But this would be a resolution we could not support, because it would make a mockery of our entire misadventure in Iraq.
And this is the war that John McCain wants to wage until victory is ours. What no one -- including McCain, Petraeus, Crocker and Bush -- can do is articulate just what such a victory would look like.
Excellent piece. It also jells with the voices of the realistic objectors of the Bush II/McCain's policies in Iraq. Just ask the GOP supporters, who do we face in iraq? We will receive a cacophony of answers, which will clearly suggest that they either haven't been informed or do not care to be informed. Some still believe that we are revenging 9/11 attacks or punishing their perpetrators. Some believe we're still fighting al-Qaeda. These people are usually ignorant (purposefully or not) of what really is going on. And this ignorance is exactly the athmosphere, the necessary environment, for the Bush/McCain's policies to be carried out. Fortunately, with people like harold meyerson, actively speaking out and attempting to educate Americans, we may have a chance to impressing upon the voters the importance of breaking with the bloody and dangerous policies of the current administration on iraq and highlight the fact that the war they're fighting is benefitting them and not the rest of us.