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Surprising Development
Reporters on the ground seem to have a limited capacity to figure out what's really happening in Iraq, so those of us who mostly depend on them for our information have a meta-limited capacity to pierce through the fog of war, but it looks to me from here like the Marines took the opportunity provided by yesterday's pause to rethink their strategy in Najaf in a very constructive way. None of the option they were facing a week ago were really fantastic, but now it looks like they just may be able to dispatch one of the Mahdi Army's two main components (the other being in Sadr City) without creating any undue backlash. As of Wednesday at about noon it looked to me like something terrible was about to happen. One potential fly in the ointment is that the Iraqi force slated to storm the Imam Ali Mosque may not be up to the job, but if they are, things should work out tolerably well.
August 13, 2004 | Permalink
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Comments
tolerably well for who?
Posted by: justa grata honoria | Aug 13, 2004 1:01:15 AM
David Koresh and Waco. Who is gonna care who is to blame?
But that is worst case scenario. I really have no idea how it will go down.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 13, 2004 1:05:52 AM
I don't either, but I must say that the Marine Corps is a remarkably adaptive bureaucracy, as bureaucracies go.
Posted by: Will Allen | Aug 13, 2004 1:26:52 AM
All the journalists I run into who are on R&R here (beirut) say it's a mess.
Instapundit posts some picture of some half-rebuilt wooden school and then follows with the ubiquitious "indeed."
Posted by: Jeff | Aug 13, 2004 1:35:16 AM
Would somebody provide a relevant link or pointer to a network news story, please?
Posted by: David Carroll | Aug 13, 2004 1:42:45 AM
bullshit.
SH stormed the Imam-Ali mosque during the 1991 uprising--all his later claims as a defender/adherent of the Islamic faith were further debased by the massive insensitivity demonstrated by the regime towards shia islam's holiest shrine. no matter who storms the mosque, they're going to see similar backlash/resentment/rejection
Posted by: AWW | Aug 13, 2004 3:16:09 AM
I dunno, dude. It looks to me like we backed off again, fearing a broader Shi'ite revolt. I'd keep an eye on the various resignations and fatwas. It's also worth noting that there's also fighting going on in Kut, Sadr City, Amarah, Nassiriyah, and Basrah.
Posted by: praktike | Aug 13, 2004 3:18:23 AM
They're now reporting that al-Sadr wasn't wounded after all, and is negotiating to be allowed to leave unharmed. I wonder where it'll go from there?
Posted by: John Owens | Aug 13, 2004 4:35:29 AM
We didn't nuke Mecca when Palestinian terrorists invaded the Church of the Nativity, held people hostage, and desecrated the altar. If we can handle that without going ballistic, we can darned well expect Muslims to handle our going after armed thugs who decide to hole up in a mosque.
Maybe some desensitization treatment is in order.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | Aug 13, 2004 5:53:25 AM
I agree with AWW. We may not see the '500 thousand-strong mob storms the presidential palace' kind of backlash, but there will be a backlash nevertheless.
The Waco incident caused Oklahoma city bombing two years later; this one may cause something similar to 9/11 five years from now. Everything in life comes with a price tag; there is a price to pay for everything.
Posted by: abb1 | Aug 13, 2004 6:48:39 AM
There would be no need to storm the mosque if it were not being used by Sadr as a fighting point. Any spin about backlash is exactly that - spin.
IMHO if Alawi backs off on finishing the militia then full blown civil war is the most likely alternative. It's hardly a surprise that dozens of ethnic, religious and political factions would compete for control of post-SH Iraq. The only unknown is which group ends up on top, and how much power the US wants to apply to assure a result.
In the long term Afghanistan and Iraq are experiments in the feasability of fighting limited-target, non-destructive wars. If the experiment fails, and we wouldn't know that for months, then the next US incursion into the ME will be WWII variety fire-for-effect. Nation building will begin from a big smokin' hole in the ground.
Posted by: Warthog | Aug 13, 2004 8:05:50 AM
There would be no need to storm the mosque if it were not being used by Sadr as a fighting point.
Talk about spin. There would be no need for Sadr to use the mosque as a fighting point if his country wasn't occupied by a foreign power.
Posted by: abb1 | Aug 13, 2004 9:08:33 AM
Iraq News
Cole
David C, these are my main two sources on Iraq. Besides Yahoo News (which now has buchu RSS feeds);Economist, Guardian, etc; various Iraqi blogs
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 13, 2004 9:41:43 AM
Whatever obvious "backlash" there may or may not be, I suspect this will make internal Shia politics more difficult for the likes of SCIRI and Dawa.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 13, 2004 9:44:50 AM
Even the small number of US forces in the Najaf area could level the city and parade through the ruins with Al Sadr's head on a bayonet if they wanted to. The US objective has been to keep a small footprint and to build up Iraqi forces to a strength sufficient to keep militias like Al Sadr's from directing the political outcome. That takes time. I can only assume that Al Sadr and his handlers forced this confrontation because they saw it as an opportunity to prove that the new central government was not yet up to the task. Whether that turns out to be the case remains to be seen.
Abb1. Your posts have more than a little of the jihadi viewpoint. I doubt that we are on the same side.
Posted by: Warthog | Aug 13, 2004 9:54:40 AM
There would be no need to storm the mosque if it were not being used by Sadr as a fighting point. Any spin about backlash is exactly that - spin.
Well, maybe so, but the fact of the matter is that we are going to be outspun by virtue of the fact that we are strangers in a strange land. Any goodwill that we may have garnered by deposing the hated Saddam seems to have evaporated, so ... it's best to imagine what the other other guy will think rather than assuming that he accepts our view of the world.
Posted by: praktike | Aug 13, 2004 10:01:00 AM
praktike: it's best to imagine what the other other guy will think rather than assuming that he accepts our view of the world.
I don't know how much of any reporting on Iraq I trust lately, but FWIW, the NPR reporting on Najaf the past couple days has indicated that "the other guy" (read: Shi'ite Iraqis in Najaf) are not big fans of Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia, and that many do blame him for "bringing the fight" to the Imam Ali Mosque and the cemetary.
Posted by: SoCalJustice | Aug 13, 2004 10:12:37 AM
Well, I see warthog is ready to set up business at the same old stand: 'This will be a damn fine democracy, once we've killed everyone and saved the city by destroying it.'
At least, with Negroponte in place, the Bushies can logically claim that they always intended for Iraq to be a mess, with every local government run by death squads, and Israeli agents in the Kurdish portions trying to provoke the Iranians into a fight.
Why, it's almost like...Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia...but no, that can't be!
Just tell yourself, "This is not Vietnam" 500 times and you'll be asleep before you know it...or maybe you already are.....
Posted by: serial catowner | Aug 13, 2004 10:25:07 AM
Better see Juan Cole's posting for the nature of the backlash already underway--resignations, fatwas, demonstrations in other cities, American bombings and killings in Kut and elsewhere not being reported in American news outlets--and for the lack of endgame planning, again. By assaulting the people that Saddam assaulted--Shiites--we are hastening civil war. Southern provinces are already talking about splitting away from Baghdad. Not much backlash? The possibilities range from open civil war to long term low intensity guerilla conflict, all brought on by what Cole calls American ham-handedness, and i call stupidity. Whatever is the purpose of this, besides propping up a short-term puppet and killing more Iraqis? No one disputes American efficiency at Killing Iraqis, but since we were told we were going to liberate them, what's the point?
Charles
Posted by: charles | Aug 13, 2004 10:36:05 AM
SoCal-
You're right about Najaf, which has more to do with control of the revenues from pilgrims than anything else. But look what's happened in Basra and Kut. Looks like trouble to me.
Posted by: praktike | Aug 13, 2004 10:36:57 AM
But look what's happened in Basra and Kut. Looks like trouble to me.
I think that's totally right. The local reaction is totally separate from the propaganda points (and incitement) being scored across the Muslim world.
Posted by: SoCalJustice | Aug 13, 2004 10:41:18 AM
A transitional Iraqi government that develops into a legitimate representative government, whether of the American model or not, is the best outcome that can be expected. There can be many paths to that outcome but I don't believe that any of them allow for the existence of independent militias.
There are 25,000,000 in Iraq of many different ethnic, religious and political persuasions. How many of those would choose a peaceful life over ideological hysteria? I don't know but I'd be willing to bet it's the majority.
Posted by: Warthog | Aug 13, 2004 10:47:57 AM
"Abb1. Your posts have more than a little of the jihadi viewpoint. I doubt that we are on the same side."
Posted by: Warthog
Shorter Warthog - blame the left for the right's screw-ups.
Posted by: Barry | Aug 13, 2004 10:57:05 AM
"There can be many paths to that outcome but I don't believe that any of them allow for the existence of independent militias."
Actually, since I doubt the Kurds will give up their independent militia, there may be no path without independent militias. Although Allawi may give them badges and call them the "Iraq Defense force, Kurdish Division".
The Shia areas may reach consensus enough to have a unified military, but probably not with Baathist thug Allawi as generalissimo.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 13, 2004 1:25:15 PM
...I don't know how much of any reporting on Iraq I trust lately, ...
This is easy, Justice: listen to what the government is saying and assume that the opposite is true.
...but FWIW, the NPR reporting on Najaf the past couple days has indicated that "the other guy" (read: Shi'ite Iraqis in Najaf) are not big fans of Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia, and that many do blame him for "bringing the fight" to the Imam Ali Mosque and the cemetary.
Maybe they do blame him, but on a totally different level. Aljazeera reports:
Sixteen of Najaf's 30-member provincial council resigned in protest at the US-led assault on the Najaf as fighting between the al-Mahdi Army loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr and US occupation forces entered its eighth day.
"We have decided to resign due to what has befallen Najaf and all of Iraq from the hasty US invasion and bombardment of Najaf," the council said in a statement to the press.
The council's resignations came several hours after the deputy governor of Najaf resigned in protest against the US offensive on the city.
"I resign from my post denouncing all the US terrorist operations that they are doing against this holy city," Jawdat Kadam Najim al-Quraishi, deputy governor of Najaf, said on Thursday morning.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081404X.shtml
Posted by: abb1 | Aug 13, 2004 3:27:42 PM
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