The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has suggested that more troops may be needed in Iraq:
“We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,†Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan†was before the 2001 invasion by the United States.
Sounds like the move to unsell withdrawal is well under way.
So we’re to believe that the Maliki government will allow us to annihilate Sadr’s Mahdi army? That’s the theory? That the Iraqi “government” will give us a green light to destroy the power base of its leading supporter? Am I missing something here?
Or are we, rather, going to ignore the Maliki government and go after Sadr on our own? In which case how, precisely, do we go on training a Shiite majority Iraqi army shot through-and-through with Sadrists?
Or is it that we won’t touch Sadr or the Badr Brigades but only Sunni militias, in which case we’ll have taken sides in a civil war?
I am not getting this.
As I’ve repeatedly written here and commented elsewhere, MT, Maliki and the present government are creatures of the militias and, consequently, the Iraqi government is structurally incapable of dealing with the militias. That’s what was to have been expected given the history since March 2003.
I have never believed that victory was achievable in Iraq (victory defined as a stable, liberal, democratic Iraq friendly to the U. S.). And, indeed, Lounsbury may be right: we may be able to achieve nothing whatsoever in Iraq any longer or, for that matter, in the Middle East as a whole and we may as well go and hang our heads in shame.
Right or wrong I don’t believe American or, particularly, American leaders will see it quite that way. We have persistent interests in the region and will be willing to go to some lengths to attempt to secure them.
That’s why I believe as I’ve now written two or three times here that we’ll see a concerted effort by Democrats to unsell their previous positions. n And, again as I’ve written repeatedly, I also expect Republicans to lead the charge to the exits.
Do you not sometimes get the feeling that the people running things in Washington are a bit unhinged? There are times when it calls to mind Hitler in the bunker moving fantasy Panzer divisions.
I used to read news reports about Iraq policy and think, “well, that’s a mistake.” Now I often find myself just baffled, wondering what color the sky is in their world.
We’re going to do deals with Iran and Syria in between bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities and pushing Syria out of Lebanon, and put in more troops we don’t have, and train an army of Iraqis devoted to a government that doesn’t exist to destroy militias that are practically indistinguishable from the army itself, and retrain death squads posing as policemen . . .
Just reassure me on one point: these people have lost their minds, haven’t they?
I’ve used the same image myself in that context.
Well, as P. G. Wodehouse might say them seem far from hinged.