I hate to sound cynical about these things. The best outcome in Iraq, if we lived in a fantasy world kind of like that depicted on FOX News, would be a rapid suppression of the insurgency with a stable, functioning more-or-less representative government taking power in Baghdad and holding the country together while avoiding civil war.
Now we have another grand offensive announced, sending Marines to carry out conventional-war assaults on supposed guerrilla strongholds: Casualties Mount as U.S. Launches Offensive in West by Solomon Moore Los Angeles Times 05/10/05.
On Monday, more than 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team 2 crossed into the north side of the Euphrates River. The U.S. troops prepared for a large-scale assault Tuesday in the region's scattered villages.
Marines hope the assault will flush out insurgent fighters who the Marines believe have made the Ramana region -- a conglomeration of well-irrigated riverside towns -- a safe-haven and training ground for foreign guerrillas. The 2nd Marine Division is responsible for security in Al Anbar province, a desert region the size of South Carolina that runs from Jordan in the south to Syria in the north.
"The insurgents we're fighting today are not the guys getting $50 to put (a roadside bomb) on the side of the road," said Regiment Commander Col. Stephen Davis. "These are the professional fighters who have come from all over the Middle East. These are people who have received training and are very well armed."
The Marines say that capturing or killing insurgents in these villages is key to pacifying Iraq. Recruits from western Iraq and much of the nation's Sunni Arab heartland fuel the insurgency.
It's a safe bet that after it's over, we'll hear announcements that we've yet again reached a tipping point, broken the back of the insurgency, turned the key, or some such thing. If it's true this time, unlike all the others, things should rapidly get better and most of the American troops should be home by Christmas. Right?
This week's Pentagon/Republican Party line on the war seems to be that it's "foreign fighters" that are the real problem. Coming in from safe havens. Outside agitators.
There's no question that jihadists from outside Iraq are coming in to fight American soldiers. For the jihadists, Iraq is the new Afghanistan. But the kind of attacks we've been hearing about, mulitiple attacks during the day all across the country, are most likely been done by Iraqis, many of whom were trained in the Iraqi army.
Meanwhile, to other observers it doesn't look so rosy. Juan Cole, commenting on the weekend insurgent strikes in Baghdad (2-Day Bombing total of 100 Dead ... Informed Comment blog 05/08/05):
Few commentators, when they mention such news, point out the obvious. The United States military does not control Baghdad. It doesn't control the major roads leading out of the capital. It does not control the downtown area except possibly the heavily barricaded "green zone." It does not control the capital. The guerrillas strike at will, even at Iraqi notables who can afford American security guards (many of them e.g. ex-Navy Seals). If the US military does not control the capital of a country it conquered, then it controls nothing of importance. Ipso facto, Iraq is a failed state. (my emphasis)
Robert Dreyfuss on The Quagmire Rolling Stone 05/05/05:
In private, however, senior military advisers and intelligence specialists on Iraq offer a starkly different picture. Two years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq is perched on the brink of civil war. Months after the election, the new Iraqi government remains hunkered down inside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, surviving only because it is defended by thousands of U.S. troops. Iraqi officials hold meetings and press conferences in Alamo-like settings, often punctuated by the sounds of nearby explosions. Outside the Green Zone, party offices and government buildings are surrounded by tank traps, blast walls made from concrete slabs eighteen feet high, and private militias wielding machine guns and AK-47s. Even minor government officials travel from fort to fort in heavily armed convoys of Humvees. ...
If it comes to civil war, the disintegration of Iraq will be extremely bloody. "The breakup of Iraq would be nearly as bad as the breakup of India in 1947," says David Mack, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state with wide experience in the Arab world. "The Kurds can't count on us to come in and save their bacon. Do they think we are going to mount an air bridge on their behalf?" Israel might support the Kurds, but Iran would intervene heavily in support of the Shiites with men, arms and money, while Arab countries would back their fellow Sunnis. "You'd see Jordan, Saudi Arabia, even Egypt intervening with everything they've got -- tanks, heavy weapons, lots of money, even troops," says White, the former State Department official.
"If they see the Sunnis getting beaten up by the Shiites, there will be extensive Arab support," agrees a U.S. Army officer. "There will be no holds barred."
Juan Cole again (Melting Pot of Blood Salon 05/06/05):
Iraq thus enters the new world of elected government with a great deal of suspicion being expressed about ethnicity. ...
The most dramatic instance of Sunni-Shiite conflict this past week concerns the death of Baghdad University student Masar Sarhan. He joyously threw a party when Ibrahim Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister. A member of the Shiite Dawa Party, Sarhan was expressing his solidarity with his party, which had won the office of prime minister for the first time ever. He was gunned down by three assassins. In reaction, Shiite students rioted on Tuesday, attacking Sunni Arab students and professors, whom they blamed for Sarhan's death.
In the meantime, Sunni-Shiite violence continued in a number of hot spots. ...
The entire Bush administration-driven political process since last November has worked at odds with its own goals. The U.S. military attack on Fallujah enraged most Sunni Arabs and spread the guerrilla war to previously quiet cities such as Mosul. As a result most Sunni Arabs were not able to vote or were too angry to do so. Sunnis ended up with only 17 seats in the 275-member Parliament. Attempts to put them in the new Cabinet have produced new wrangling and delays and bitterness. The Sunni question in Iraq is now on the front burner. Given all the explosives still missing in Iraq, that is a dangerous place for it to be.
But maybe if all the TV channels would only talk about the good news, everyone could feel fine about it anyway. Except people who are actually in Iraq, of course.
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