Dateline Iraq

A very tense week in Iraq.

--The Shia Vice President Abdul Mahdi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
--Shia Parliament and SCIRI Leader Abdul Aziz al Hakim also was targeted this week after the Americans arrested his son.
--Moqtada al-Sadr finally broke his silence and issued a statement calling on the Shia not to support the new security plan as linked to the Americans. He argued (not without reason) that the push against the Shia militias has left them vulnerable to attack. The Sunni insurgents are too effective for the Americans with their numbers to stop. Plus the Americans are foreigners. They can't detect like only a native could, the signs and cues the differences, the ground, the people, etc.

As the AP correctly notes (linked via NYTimes):

A return to the streets by the Mahdi Army forces could effectively end the security effort and raise the chances of Baghdad falling into sectarian street battles -- the apparent aim of Sunni extremists seeking any way to destroy the U.S.-backed government.

This is the Abu Musab al Zarqawi policy (among others). The Shia have to be pulled into reprisal killings and the civil war igniting further in Baghdad. The Sunni are aiming to make the Shia believe they can not rely on the Americans nor the government in Baghdad, which is further mired in nonsense and backbiting (taking a cue from US Senate apparently). Sadr perceives this fact and gains his credibility from his anti-American, anti-"Sunni extremist" position.

This division I think is fundamentally what the President and his plan do not take into account. You can't be fighting both these forces simultaneously. As I said before, the learning curve for the insurgents shrinks the longer the occupation lasts. We have seen this before, a new plan is introduced a relative calm settles for a few days then the violence returns. A horrific bombing a school again this week. So sad.

I know many will argue and perhaps they are right, that the majority (by whose definition?) of Iraqis want peace and stability. That may be. I assume that, don't know it, not particularly convinced commentators here do I either. Regardless, these extremists on either side are substantial enough, armed, connected, are the powerbrokers, that an occupation and a non-political settlement can not work.

The prime reality I think is de-centralized expansion of power and violence. Bush is going against this grain with his attempt towards greater centralization, which can only mean Shia centralization which automatically means Sunni resistance. This is Joe Biden's point time and again and he's right in my opinion.

To show how out of it this administration is as all of the above is transpiring the Americans raid a Shia weapons cache and say Aha the Iranians are behind this. First of all weapons are being traded across that border all the time. It's called the Black Market. The Iranian government hardly needs to personally deliver these things--there are ways and means. Secondly, of course they are, their cousins are getting slaughtered. Why the hell wouldn't they be giving them help? What is this administration thinking? What the hell war do they think they are dealing with? This has gone to the levels of absurdity.

Civil Wars end one of three ways (as Biden correctly noted on Face the Nation a week ago)

1.A Strongman introduced---which is not going to happen, Hussein is dead.
2.An occupying power--which the US does not have the capacity to be. Even with a surge.
3.A Federalized political solution--a la Dayton Accords.

1 and 2 are impossible in Iraq. Maliki for all his ambition and bluster is not a strongman. Only Sadr could be but he wants a Hezbollah-like group, which exists first and foremost for his cadre, his people, and then only thirdly use of centralized political power.

1 and 2 are not going to happen in Iraq. Nothing else matters, surge or no surge. And 3 is not going to work with just Iraqi participants. Everybody, I mean everybody Syria, Iran, Saudis, Jordanians, Turks have to be in on this.

So instead of that, more press conferences about the Iranians in Iraq. As the President correctly reminds us repeatedly, Iraq is only one stage in the GWOT. As such, this President's policy for the long term viability of the GWOT has to be opposed. His diplomatic isolation, his attempts to widen the conflict (ally-less) into Iran, his incredibly short-sighted policies against Russia and China, and his no policy policy in Iraq.

Although props to the VP (might never say that again) for poking the Pakistanis. What are the chances anything will be done is my question. As weak as some of the Democrat positions on national security are, the appeal to focus on fighting groups that will actually attack our country--in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and possibly Iraq (although again they are a local AQ group not trans-national)--starts to look more attractive I imagine for the American public.