Comments on: Bad news from Basra

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:22:47 +0000

A bunch of yobs on a Saturday afternoon, talking about football.

By: Tom McC

Tom McC — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:17:25 +0000

Does this mean Maliki still won’t get a cut of the black market oil sales from Basra but he’ll have to keep paying Sadr a portion of the government’s oil revenues?
Well, it was a plan anyway.

How about the ISF’s performance? Geez, I bet those guys wish they had their own armor, artillery and air power. I don’t know why they don’t just buy some, even though oil production is only what it was 5 years ago, they take in a lot more money.

By: HH

HH — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:11:03 +0000

The scope of Maliki’s blunder is becoming clear as more news leaks out. Reportedly, one of his top advisers was killed in Basra by a mortar attack, and US attack helicopters had to be called to drive off an assault on his headquarters.

Further evidence of Maliki’s powerlessness is the continued shelling of the Green Zone, which the US cannot stop short of massacring a large part of the Sadr City population.

None of this will stop Petraeus from brazenly reporting “improvement” resulting from his brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. Fantasy rules, and we are in the hands of fools.

By: leinad

leinad — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:50:42 +0000

Well, 2004 was a while ago. And if your militia sucks you aren’t going to survive four years of civil war in the Herbert Spencer/Thomas Hobbes/Han FeiZi wet nightmare that is Iraq.

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:54:40 +0000

What do you mean ‘triumphalism’?

No, but it’s true that they didn’t inflict many casualties in Najaf in 2004; a bunch of them got caught like sitting ducks in some cemetery and killed. They weren’t well-trained then, but maybe they are now.

By: leinad

leinad — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:35:07 +0000

108: Yeah, that was the snarky John Dolan (aka ‘Gary Brecher’ War Nerd) take on JAM circa 2004-2005, they’ve performed pretty solidly by accounts, though this time they’re taking on an underprepared and infiltrated Iraqi Army, not the US.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:31:22 +0000

By the way, I completely disagree with abb1’s assessment of the fighting capability of the Mahdi Army. In all the news reports I’ve seen, they have been fighting in short skirmishes and then withdrawing. I am nobody’s idea of a military man, but as I understand it, that’s actually quite a difficult manouvre to achieve, because the difference between “withdrawing” and “running away” (which tends to get you decimated quickly) is that in the first, everyone has to do it at the same time and while maintaining covering fire. Which takes both discipline and nerve. So I don’t agree with the proposition that Sadrists “only know how to die”, which looks like triumphalism to me.

By: mw

mw — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:28:42 +0000

@106
Wow, indeed. Maliki is toast.

By: leinad

leinad — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:42:34 +0000

And that ceasefire was made by two senior pols from ISCI and Dawa, with Sadr in Qom, brokered by Brig. General Qassem Suleimani of Qods Force, IRGC, over Maliki’s insistance that there would be no negotiations.

Wow.

By: Badger

Badger — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:34:08 +0000

text of the Sadr ceasefire statement is here

By: leinad

leinad — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:29:46 +0000

And there has now been some sort of ceasefire offer that the government has kind of acknowledged but apparently hasn't had much effect.

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:07:55 +0000

100:
We get to leave Iraq when Moqtada al-Sadr takes over.
Unless he’s the reason we’re there in the first place. Unless the fear of him or someone like him is the reason we were tricked into going over there and wrecking just about the entirety of what was left of the American dream.
Keeping in mind just about everybody agrees the official version of why we went to Iraq is b.s.
Then probably the official version of why we’ll leave will also be b.s.

By: The Fool

The Fool — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:10:42 +0000

ns said:

What a ridiculously academic style of writing. Sorry. To make things worse, I’m not even sure if the sentence you describe as subjunctive and conditional actually is subjunctive and conditional. “I think it was reasonable” is about as indicative as it comes. But if I were to point that out, I would be as academic as you.

Bwahahahahahahahaha. Neither one of you amateurs could academicize your way out of a paper bag. The subjunctive is not a tense—it’s a mood.

By: floopmeister

floopmeister — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:37:59 +0000

Heh, Muqtada’s insistence on maintaining the ceasefire has shades of Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. War is not a consensus issue. leinad

“It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion” Inge

By: mw

mw — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:44:51 +0000

When all is said and done, Nouri al-Maliki can only remain Prime Minister and stay in power with the political support of Moqtada al-Sadr or by using active US military support to quash and intimidate al-Sadr’s political base. By attacking al-Sadr, Maliki has abandoned the political path, and is attempting to preempt an unfavorable electoral result with military force.

Americans in general and the Bush administration specifically continue to underestimate Moqtada al-Sadr and the depth of his popular support in Iraq. No one should be surprised that Maliki (who did not even live in Iraq for 23 years before the fall of Saddam), has far less popular support than a nationalist majority firebrand who both fought Hussein and now rails against the “foreign occupiers” of his country (that would be us).

The reason why this war never ends, is that the Bush/Cheney administration specifically and the American people generally do not want to admit that the face of “majority rule”, and “regime change” and “victory” in Iraq is the face of Moqtada al-Sadr. We get to leave Iraq when Moqtada al-Sadr takes over.

A realistic “End State” scenario is an “accommodated” (or if you prefer “co-opted” or “bought-out”) Moqtada al-Sadr, or someone just like him. A popular theocrat, elected into leadership in Iraq, still railing at the “Great Satan” from his bully pulpit to maintain his popular support, but behind the scenes working with the US at the precise intersection of US interest in a stable Iraq, and his lofty personal ambition for power on a world stage. This scenario is not optimal, ok – it is actually pretty shitty, but – It would work for Iraq and would work for us, if we would just work behind the scenes with Moqtada al-Sadr and let him get elected, and pay him enough to want to work with us.