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Unstable, But Their Country
Posted By Cernig
Obama has gained a massive boost for his withdrawal plan with the Iraqi PM citing it approvingly by name - and that’s leading various rightwing pundits to claim that Democrats are poaching the success of the Surge (which they’re keen to remind folk that Edwards once called “The McCain Doctrine”) as, without the Surge, Iraq wouldn’t be stable enough for withdrawal talk.
That’s a bit revisionist, to say the least. For one thing, it forgets that many Dems called for more troops in Iraq (and a better plan than de-establishing the entire pre-existant Iraqi state) in the first place, but were told no by the Bush administration who stuck to its guns of no “Surge” for four long years. By the time the actual Surge came around, many Dems objected on the basis that the extra troops being sent were too little, too late and would put an intolerable stress on the military’s operation in Iraq and elsewhere - especially Afghanistan. We were wrong that there would be no widescale reduction in violence - but we didn’t factor in the Awakenings or Sadr’s ceasefire. No-one did, and it’s quite possible to imagine that without those two additional factors - which weren’t part of the original Surge planning but were quickly seized upon and capatalised upon by commanders - the Surge would have been just as much of a failure in a tactical sense as we imagined.
In a strategic sense, though, we were absolutely correct and the Surge was indeed a failure. Reconcilliation has been sidestepped, baulked and stymied at every turn acheter les viagra generiques meilleur marche by Maliki’s Green Zone elite, especially the Shiite Dawa and ISCI parties. Even now, with news that the main Sunni bloc has managed a return to government after months of being told their ministerial candidates weren’t Shiite enough, the only reason for this repproachment is that the Sunni and Shiite Green Zone exiles have found ample reason to form a temporary alliance against upstart political grassroots movements that threaten their exclusive hold on the government’s oil-fed coffers.
Provincial elections have become a bone of contention between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites - with Maliki using the armed forces as his allies’ main election campaign tool. The Sadrist movement is becoming increasingly restless in holding to its ceasefire. Anbar could still go rapidly to hell again as intra-Sunni rivalry threatens to derail both the elections and the handover of security from U.S. forces. Iraq is not a country that can be described as stable, nor is it a place where we can say with any equanimity that the massive violence of 2007 is a phenomenon it has moved past - and there’s no indication that situation will improve in the forseeable future. The Surge, therefore, has failed in its strategic goals.
But this doesn’t mean we should forget about withdrawal and stay until Iraq is “fixed”. It never did. For all his failings, Maliki is now publicly articulating one simple truth - Iraq belongs to the Iraqis. We didn’t break it and therefore own it, we simply broke it. Opponents of the long Iraqi occupation have known this all along; that no matter the situation it was primarily the responsibility of Iraqis to sort out as they might, as they wished. The shop owners are now asking us in no uncertain terms to leave their premises and it is incumbent on us, having overstayed our welcome by four years, to do so. The Obama/Maliki Doctrine isn’t capitulation and it isn’t surrender - it is giving Iraqis their country back.
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(AFP)
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