ARTICLE: In Iraq, a Lull or Hopeful Trend?, By Joshua Partlow and Naseer Nouri, Washington Post, November 2, 2007; Page A01
Good, probing piece that asks the reader to think through the various possible reasons behind the apparent decrease in violence.
My sense: al Qaeda overplayed their hand and lost the capacity to stay embedded among Sunni. Meanwhile, the Shiia won the vast majority of the ethnic cleansing victories they sought.
You put those two things together with the surge and changed engagement policy of the U.S. military, and you've got a far quieter situation and a very welcome decrease in U.S. troop deaths.
Bush's timing was good. Petraeus took advantage of events and made a lot of smart moves. The Shiia have basically won.
But there's the problem of the unsustainability of our troop level, and so there's the question of how many regional stakeholders this administration creates in the meantime before the surge must inevitably end. If nothing happens, or if Bush pulls the trigger on Iran, which so many are calling for, then I think Iraq will once again become the proxy conflict for several players in the region, as will the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as will Afghanistan-spilling-into-Pakistan-or-the-other-way-around (not sure the direction matters there).
And Bush will leave office guilty of expanding conflicts in the region without moving the pile much on transforming the region into something better.
And that would be a real shame. So I hope Rice finally steps up, and I hope Fallon remains a calming influence among hot-headed politicians trying to outdo one another in calling for the next war.
(Thanks: historyguy)
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Comments (3)
Remember the "Fallout Maps" that used to be published? Back in the 50's we used to see maps that showed where nuclear fallout would be blown by the prevailing winds if the Russians attacked us or we attacked the Russians. I always wondered what the people in the "innocent" countries thought about when they saw the maps and the red lines that predicting the "hard rain" that would fall on their lands. We need some "fallout" maps now. Something to show us where the conflict will spread. Pakistan? India? Egypt? Muslims against Jews? Hindus against Muslims? Christians against everyone? And the Buddhists? Or are they Communists? Or will the new missionaries from Walmart and McDonald's convert everyone to capitalism? A new year is coming, and it will be an interesting one. Let us hope that the American people can look to competent new leadership. I don't know why...but I am optimistic. Tomorrow I will be with family and friends celebrating our one common holiday. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.
Posted by Ted O'Connor | November 21, 2007 1:35 PM
A couple of things.
First, I think there might be more reason for optimism -- remember how the big ramp-up in violence started: the Shiites were very patient, AQI operated almost unopposed until they blew up the golden mosque, then Sistani gave the word and it became the mayhem of suicide bomber vs. death squad. So the Sunnis turn on al Qaida and the Shiites shut down the death squads. The key here is that Shiite restraint comes close enough (time-wise) to the Sunni flip that you can believe that the flip and not a coincidental territorial gain is the cause of the new restraint.
This is precisely the deal you would try to broker, if you were trying to broker a deal, and you would pray that it works as well as it has. This makes me wonder if the past two years have been less of a wildfire and more of a controlled burn than they seemed at the time. Either way, I get the sense the clock has been reset and we might get a chance to rebalance without Paul Bremmer's help.
Now two questions:
First, does the reduction in violence change the Army's staying power at all? It seems like the new situation might be less stressful on both soldiers in the field and their commanders in Washington.
Also, have you heard any inside info you can share about the rumors of top brass quitting if there's an order to attack Iran? I think that was in the UK papers early in the year, but the charge is so loaded that no one can talk about it objectively.
Thanks.
Posted by J. deMolay | November 21, 2007 4:30 PM
Puzzled by your ongoing antipathy for bush. To expect that the big bang would produce the results you/we desire on such a small time frame i find very puzzling. It's not a reasonable expectation. It's taken China 30 years to get this far and because we haven't produced similar results in 4 you're upset? I suspect that in 10 years we'll be much further ahead in iraq than 10 years after Nixon visited China.
Posted by pat tryon | November 23, 2007 12:54 PM