I’ll wager several plans exist to handle these issues.

Don’t fret.

Militias only have power because the public gives it to them out of fear. If there is no police force to protect you, a militia is the next best thing. As the central gov’t gets stronger militias lose power. The federalist system supported by most Iraqis will help both the central gov’t and the provinces, the same as it has the US, and over time the militias’ power will wane.

The one thing we don’t have to worry about is Iran. Iraqis will not follow Iran whenever they have a choice. They don’t speak the same language, share culture, or even like each other. Iraqis trust Americans more than they do Iranians.
Regards,
LT Nichols

Complaints MB4 has to ignore in order to smear all Iraqis (and all Muslims in other threads) as murder-bot slaves who have only themselves to blame for their woes.

MB4: Iraqis are scum! US out now!

The Apologist on October 16, 2007 at 4:56 PM

Actually, you are smearing me by saying that I have said thinks that I did not say.

Physician heal thyself.

It’s the Islam, stupids.

Unfortunately, cultural evolution stopped for those folks 1400 years ago. Hum, I wonder what that may have coincided with?

That’s just not true. It’s completely ahistorical. Lebanon, Baghdad, even Kabul in the early seventies were metropolitan cities with lots of liberals (Westernized Muslims) most of whom fled the Soviets and Islamists and Fascists when they took over in these places. The notion of Islam as permanent cultural retarder is just wrong. Only the fundamentalist version, practised by many, many, many, but not most Muslims, is an impediment to peace and prosperity. This is a meme that deserves a quick death. It undermines our efforts to push for reform and democratization in the Muslim world.

Clark1 on October 16, 2007 at 4:40 PM

Excellent point.

Look, Sadarists or AQI, anyone “laying low” just helps our cause. They may be marshalling forces for a future fight, but they are also establishing quiet and security as the norm. If they later violate that peace to assert control, they do so at the risk of pissing off the people enjoying the peace and prosperity. Look what happened to AQI when the Sunnis realized they were nothing but trouble.

In the end, I think Shi’ites tribes will be as happy with Iranian-backed violence as the Sunnis were with AQI.

Dead on. Allah keeps asking why does SCIRI and Sadr allow the Iraqi Army to establish a beachhead in the South? A solid worry for Sadr and Co because as they allow Baghdad to establish a working relationship with the South it undermines the citizens’ dependence on people they don’t like anyway. People who tell them how to live every moment of their lives. People they’ve followed only because there hasn’t been anything better thus far. People they’re complaining about to Rueters. Complaints MB4 has to ignore in order to smear all Iraqis (and all Muslims in other threads) as murder-bot slaves who have only themselves to blame for their woes.

MB4: Iraqis are scum! US out now!

In the end, I think Shi’ites tribes will be as happy with Iranian-backed violence as the Sunnis were with AQI.

their top priority should be making trouble for the United States to force a humiliating withdrawal. Set Basra on fire, let the war opponents in the west crow about it and point to it as an example of how the mission has failed, and then wait for the pullout.

That would be like the GOP setting a red state on fire to make the Dems look bad. There’s something else in play. Maybe they figured that the easiest way to get what they want is to let us think that we’ve won so that US forces will leave.

I sure didn’t see that coming. I need to start paying attention.

Why stir up violence now? Just wait a couple more years, get a bit more embedded in the area, and especially DO NOT do anything that provokes the US.

But you can bet the next president of the US will be tested, probably on day one.

Reuters wants to blame the United States for this but it’s no secret who’s responsible for letting Basra disintegrate.

It is no secret to me. It is not the United States and it is not Great Brittan. It is the Iraqis.

If the Dems win, or if Dem controled Congress force a pullout, they now control the oil in Southern Iraq.

Add in the Iran/Turkey alliance against the Kurds, who control the oil in the North, and with an American pullout you will have a serious problem.

Why fight for somthing that the Dems will just give you… why use your strength to win when you can use your enemies weakness.

Reuters wants to blame the United States for this…

..Maybe Iran has decided that Bush is just enough of a loose cannon to bomb them

That’s easy… blame BUUSCH!