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February 01, 2005
Iraq Review
This is an opportunistic time to review my thinking on Iraq, which hasn't changed a great deal since the last time I weighed in on the matter last year.
The >60% voter turnout in Iraq really speaks for itself, and I think that it's about time that people who have been stretching the boundaries of logic and common sense trying to find ulterior motives in the President's intentions ought to admit that they are full of crap. That, not surprisingly, includes a great many Iraqis themselves. But most especially, I'd like to send a boot to the head of those critics who made such a fuss about the meaning of the word 'sovereignty'. Remember that? Still skeptical?
I think that Friedman is dead on target about the Shi'a on stage. They are going to be conciliatory and recognizing the significance of their new legitimacy, they are going to be gracious while the world watches. Importantly, Iranian mullahs should be shaking in their boots. Their ability to suggest that their form of revolution is the only legitimate path toward islamic empowerment has just been savaged by the reality on the ground in Iraq.
For the first time since the LA Riots, I listened to Dan Rather drone on for more than 3 minutes straight and I'm not quite mortified but rather sorry for the old sap. He veers onto a tangent about poor roads, spotty electricity service and no garbage collection. It actually makes sense. So when asked, aside from security, what's holding back these bread and butter issues, he talks about shiite vs sunni and 'slipping into civil war'. Is it me or did he completely elide the question? Here everyone and their mama has been mumbling about Shiite vs Sunni, and then he asserts that the real issues are infrstructural, then when asked about progress on infrastructure he starts in about how the insurgents aren't going anywhere so many more Iraqi police and guardsmen have to be trained.
I'm not as convinced as some that the next government will have great difficulty mustering an army to give rebels the boot. The thing that convinces me that Iraqi nationalism isn't dead are my memories over the design of the new Iraqi flag. There are already reports that the Iraqis are starting to hand over more intel on their fascist bretheren.
Meanwhile not many I've head in the American press are willing to admit that there are secular forces in the Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni slates who will assert themselves. And as soon as the General Assembly begins their constitutional deliberations, these factions are going to have to be identified as well as their positions. No longer will the media have an out to suggest that the three 'groups' are going to rip each other to shreds or 'slip into civil war'. There will be real horsetrading politics going on. I predict that the anti-Bush spinners will focus purely on Iraqi foreign policy and [dis]regard for the US, and basing rights.
Let us recall a bit of the litany. Two days after Christmas, the international press was calling for Rumsfeld's head. It didn't happen. In November, we went hunting for 3,000 rebels in Falluja. We routed them. This past weekend more than twice that many Sunnis voted in the election, Sunnis from Falluja. The end of October saw the end of the Madhi Army. You don't hear anything about al Sadr any longer do you? Also back in those days, Kerry thought he could destroy the administration for missing 380 tons of high explosives out of 406,000 tons already accounted for. Back in the beginning of October, the whiners were sure that a single election wouldn't work and that the country was inevitably headed towards partition.
What would be a good thing to see right about now is some update on the Bremer Report. We haven't really heard anything about the infrastructure in Iraq. We know that 50+ people were murdered over the election weekend and that was a rather high number. That so many Iraqis did their duty and voted begs the unasked question about what they've been doing all these other days when the terrorist bombers are not so busy.
GWBush is still a mediocre president. Going to Iraq is still a good idea. American troops are still crushing militias in rebellion. Al Zarqawi will be the next idiot to get his due. Now back to your regularly scheduled pissing and moaning.
Posted by mbowen at February 1, 2005 10:55 PM
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