Day: January 18, 2007

Iraqi View: The Surge Is a Very Bad Idea for So Many Reasons

Buck Banks

Canary in the mine shaft: Nadim al-Jabiri is a professor of political science at Baghdad University, a member of Iraq’s parliament, and the head of the Islamic Virtue Party (Al-Fadhila). He makes a pretty good argument why Iraqis think George Bush’s surge is a really bad idea:

Despite the overwhelming demands of the majority of Americans and Iraqis to end the war and occupation of Iraq, and despite the Baker-Hamilton report’s recommendations for de-escalation, President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki are designing a new “surge” targeting the Iraqi capital.

This will put an end to the participation of many Iraqi groups in the ongoing political process, because people like us will lose faith in achieving our goals.

and getting our country back through diplomacy.
Many Iraqis welcomed the first few steps President Bush took following the release of the Baker-Hamilton report recommendations, like pressuring Mr. Al-Maliki to include more Sunnis in the government, reconsidering the de-Baathification process, and re-evaluating the laws for distributing oil revenue. But the current Bush-Maliki plan for attacking Baghdad shows that the Baker-Hamilton report was not taken seriously enough. In fact, the new Bush-Maliki strategy is the polar opposite of that report’s major recommendations.

The new Bush-Maliki plan includes sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, mostly to Baghdad, and sending more Iraqi troops, mostly from the Kurdish militia “Peshmerga,” to Baghdad.

Increasing the U.S. troops will show Iraqis that the U.S. administration is against setting a timetable for withdrawing all the occupation forces. This will both increase and legitimize the Iraqi armed resistance to the occupation even more, and it will destroy all the other non-violent options. In addition, this will put an end to the participation of many Iraqi groups in the ongoing political process, because people like us will lose faith in achieving our goals
and getting our country back through diplomacy.

Sending the Peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurdish militia, to fight Iraqi Arabs will activate other militias and justify forming even more militias in the middle and south of Iraq. This could lead to increasing the civil violence, and might even spark an Arab-Kurd civil war that will be added to the current civil conflict that was fueled by the destruction of the Shia Shrines in Samarra in February of last year.

The current political plan of President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki in establishing a US-backed coalition that includes the few Shia and Sunni parties that are justifying the occupation and working to divide Iraqi into three separate regions will do nothing other than increase the violence and confirm sectarian divisions.

Iraqi political groups like Al-Fadila party, Al-Sadr movement, the National Dialogue Front, the Reconciliation and Liberation Front, and many other Sunnis, Shias, Kurd, and Turkoman groups can’t see any chance for this Bush-Maliki plan to succeed. Because, unlike our plans, this plan is not based on a political solution that can put Iraqis together in building a nonsectarian government that aims to stabilize Iraq and end any foreign intervention.

Poll: Vast Majority of GOPers Support Bush, War

Jon Ponder

Dead-enders: According to the new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, while almost two-thirds of Americans (60 percent) no longer believe the war in Iraq is worth fighting, fully three-quarters of Republicans remain convinced that America should stay in the middle of Iraq’s sectarian civil war:

By focusing on slight drops in Bush’s approval ratings, the Traditional Media overlook the threat posed to our national security by the blind, cult-like devotion to the president.

[Only about] one-fourth of Republicans said they did not believe the war was worth fighting, and a roughly equal number opposed the troop increase.

Even more alarming is the fact that a whopping 39 percent of Americans still approve of the job performance of George W. Bush, whose incompetence has been extraordinary by any rational standard.

In its analysis of these numbers, the Times, like most in the Traditional Media, focuses on the fact that support is diminishing slightly for the president and his war. But as long as Bush and his advisers know they have even this meager level of support they will continue to pursue their disastrous course in Iraq. By focusing on occasional slight drops in approval ratings, the media overlook the threat to our national security posed by this blind, cult-like devotion to Pres. Bush by a third of U.S. citizens.

Iraqi PM: Bush, Rice Comments Comfort Terrorists

Jon Ponder

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki responded yesterday to criticism of him and his government by Pres. Bush and Sec. of State Condolezza Rice, saying that their grim assessments were giving aid and comfort to terrorists:

“I believe such statements give a morale boost to the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort, making them believe they have defeated the American administration.”
— P.M. Maliki

Commenting on a recent statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he said, “Rice is expressing her own point of view if she thinks that the [Iraqi] government is on borrowed time,” humorously suggesting that it might be the Bush administration that is on borrowed time.

“I understand and realize that inside the American administration there is some kind of a crisis situation, especially after the results of the last election,” he said.

Maliki said suggestions by Bush officials that the U.S. did not fully support his government played into the hands of insurgents.

“I believe such statements give a morale boost to the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort, making them believe they have defeated the American administration,” Maliki said. “But I can tell you, they haven’t defeated the Iraqi government.”

The question this raises is whether Maliki is being told to act defiant toward his puppet masters in order to create an illusion of independence, or whether the puppet is truly cutting his strings.