Basra: Behind the Scenes

...amazing that so much tragedy can be deemed such a success

"What did we just glimpse in the clash of Nouri al-Maliki and Moktada al-Sadr?"

What we just saw is a microcosm of what has been happening and what will continue to happen in Iraq, whether we are there or not. Our being there is a trade-off between being able to step in and save al-Maliki's face in a battle short-term and heightening the violence and hatred over the long-term. The WORLD will be better off if the US gets out of Iraq NOW and allow the different Iraqi factions to deal with their internal power struggles themselves.

I don't think we would have been happy if England or Germany had stepped into our US Civil War and decided to take the side of the North or South and just ended up splitting off factions from either side to fight England or Germany. We are simply being counterproductive at this point to the future of the country of Iraq.

But, then again, that would require Bush opening himself up to criticism for the HUGE mistake of getting us involved in Iraq in the first place. Better off for his ego that we continue to pour money and soldiers into Iraq to see the funds stolen by corrupt Iraqi government officials and our soldiers coming home in body bags or torn to pieces in a living nightmare.

what we witnessed was simply goofy. When you "cry wolf" and there is no wolf, that's bad. But it is just as bad as when you continually yammer "defining moment" and nothing gets better.
My spin on this in contained in my article "Bush Week".

Why is no one talking about what is required of the US by international law, as an Occupying Power?

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Al Sadr backed down. How this was a victory for him is a mystery.

perception, Christopher, is about more than body counts.

Christopher? Al-Sadr didn't back down. That is just the official story the Iraqi government released. Those reporting from Iraq say that what really happened is that the government went to Iran and negotiated the cessation of hostilities with al-Sadr there. If you start reading around you will find that the whole thing was an enormous mess. Al-Maliki didn't have a clue as to what he was doing, and his own troops were deserting rather than fight. That's hardly a resounding victory even if Bush says it is.

I didn't mention "body counts," Chris. I said Al Sadr backed down, as in he stopped the resistance to the government's offensive. Carolyn, you may be right, but Iran must be co-operating with the US, for them to cease fighting in Basra.

The Iranians think there's a new "template," where they can lose on the ground, but declare victory, politically. They did this successfully in Lebanon vs. Israel, and less convincingly in Gaza, since Israel vacated it. You can buy into the propaganda, but when the stuff hits the fan, I'll wager that the forces of freedom will defeat the Iranians' terrorist forces.

No Christopher: Iran is not cooperating with the US. They are working against us. They don't want the various factions there fighting one another when they could be killing us instead.

This is intersectarian violence in advance of the regional election coming up in the fall. The Prim Minister says that al-Maliki's statement that they didn't cut a deal with al-Sadr via Iran was put out there to allow him to save face. The translation of that is that he was lying to cover his ass for his failure.

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