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October 23, 2006
Crunch Time in Iraq
It's do or die time in Iraq, folks. I think our clock is running down fast.
Robert Kaplan, writing in The Atlantic, says that we can't just withdraw, because:
Iraq may be closer to an explosion of genocide than we know.
Ouch. Read the whole thing (hat tip NRO)
StrategyPage, usually a source of optimism, makes no bones about just how serious the situation is. It's "Crunch Time", they say:
The U.S. is giving the Iraqi government an ultimatum. Either the government disciplines military and police commanders who fail to perform, and cracks down on corruption, or American troops and money will be withdrawn sooner, rather than later. This would result in the large scale slaughter of the Sunni Arab population, and possible intervention by neighboring Sunni majority nations (particularly Saudi Arabia.) This could bring in Iranian participation as well, which is why Saudi Arabia participation would probably be unofficial, and mostly humanitarian (to take in many of the Iraqi Sunni Arabs who would flee such chaos.)
This has always been the downside of the United States leaving Iraq prematurely; the destruction of the Sunni Arab community. The U.S. has always been eager to avoid this, especially since similar situations occurred in the 1990s (against the Bosnians in the Balkans, and the Tutsi in Rwanda), and left more than enough blame to go around. But the ineptness of the Iraqi government, and growing calls from war opponents to "get out" has provided the U.S. government with an opportunity to tell everyone to put up, or shut up. While many in the Iraqi government would like to see the Sunni Arabs driven out, no one is looking forward to what would actually happen. Many Sunni Arabs would fight back savagely. There would be thousands of dead Kurds and Shia Arabs. But to many Kurds and, especially Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs have been acting pretty savagely for the last three years. In such a scenario, Iran would provide lots of weapons and "volunteers." This would leave the radical Shia militias stronger, and might lead to a civil war to decide if the next government is a religious dictatorship, or a democracy. The Kurds, who have been largely sitting out the fighting over the last three years, would assist the Shia Arabs, if only to insure that the Sunni Arabs were defeated.The plan is to give the Iraqi government a list of deadlines, and it's questionable if they will be able to meet them. The traditions of corruption, cronyism and tribal politics are difficult to overcome quickly. The Iraqis plead that democracy takes time, but it's election year in the United States, and democracy also means winning elections.
Posted by Tom at October 23, 2006 9:07 PM
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Comments
Today Gen. George Casey referred to the fighting in Iraq as "…a struggle for the division of political and economic power among the Iraqis."
"A struggle for the division of power" sounds like another definition of Civil War. Sure, Bush has been dedicated to "staying the course" (although now it looks like we are changing course)just like the adminstration tried to resist using the term 'insurgency' until is was such a blatant falsehood to deny the existance of an insurgency that they dropped that one too.
I agree with US analyst Anthony Cordesman, from Washington's Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who says: "Iraq is already in a serious civil war, riven by rising sectarian violence and ethnic violence between Arab Sunni and Arab Shi'ite and Arab and Kurd. Iraq's Government is not moving towards political conciliation and compromise at the rate necessary to keep this civil war from getting worse, discrediting the central government and potentially dividing the country. Existing security efforts cannot succeed without far more political conciliation and compromise than has taken place to date. They are at best buying time." Cordesman's potent warning is that "no mix of options for US action can provide a convincing plan for 'victory' in Iraq" because "the initiative has passed into Iraqi hands". He said: "The US cannot simply wait to see if its existing strategy and actions will work. They will not. The situation is spiraling out of control and the US must either strongly reinforce its existing strategy or change it."
Will we call up more reserves and send more troops to Iraq? Or will we begin some form of pullout (declare victory and withdraw)? I think we'll really see after the election.
According to an article in Military.com Vice President Dick Cheney this week delivered his opinion of how the Iraqi government is doing: "If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well."
Our Iraq puppets won't abide by the timeline, the vast list of 'elected leaders (have many have we been through in Iraq?) have utterly failed so far and with worsening violence, I doubt they can do it now. The situation can no longer be spun, it's clear Iraq is not doing "remarkably well", contrary to what Cheney says.
Posted by: jason at October 24, 2006 5:26 PM
