Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria to the rescue as Bush's plan meets resistance, insurgency strengthens

[ProSense]

January 15, 2007

LOSING BY WINNING?....Fareed Zakaria argues that the most worrisome possibility of George Bush's surge is not that it might fail, but that it might work:

If the 20,000 additional American troops being sent to the Iraqi capital focus primarily on Sunni insurgents, there's a chance the Shiite militias might get bolder. Colonel Duke puts it bluntly: " is sitting on the 50-yard line eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them."

So what will happen if Bush's new plan "succeeds" militarily over the next six months? Sunnis will become more insecure as their militias are dismantled. Shiite militias will lower their profile on the streets and remain as they are now, ensconced within the Iraqi Army and police. That will surely make Sunnis less likely to support the new Iraq. Shiite political leaders, on the other hand, will be emboldened.

....The greatest danger of Bush's new strategy, then, isn't that it won't work but that it will -- and thereby push the country one step further along the road to all-out civil war....The U.S. Army will be actively aiding and assisting in the largest program of ethnic cleansing since Bosnia. Is that the model Bush wanted for the Middle East?

The New York Times has more on why this might -- or might not -- happen.

Fareed Zakaria was one of the journalists at the secret Iraq meeting

Bush's plan to add troops fueling Iraq insurgency, Sunni scholar says

By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
January 15, 2007

AMMAN, JORDAN — President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has inflamed passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits to insurgent cells and outpourings of popular anger toward the U.S., the spokesman for the country's most hard-line Sunni clerical group declared Sunday.

"Iraq is like a fire," said Mohammed Bashar Faidi, spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. "Instead of putting water on the fire, Bush is pouring gasoline."

The association, which says it represents thousands of clerics throughout Iraq, shares the aims of the Sunni Arab insurgency. But it also reflects the views of a significant segment of the Sunni Arab population, which has largely turned to Islamic political ideologies since the downfall of the secular Arab nationalism represented by Saddam Hussein's regime.

During a 90-minute interview in his Amman office, Faidi voiced views that illustrated the seemingly unbridgeable gulfs between Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led government, the Sunni guerrilla movement fighting it and the U.S., which in the long term hopes to draw down its troops without permitting Iraq to slip further into sectarian civil war.

more...

Inside Baghdad's civil war

'The jihad now is against the Shias, not the Americans'

As 20,000 more US troops head for Iraq, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the only correspondent reporting regularly from behind the country's sectarian battle lines, reveals how the Sunni insurgency has changed

Saturday January 13, 2007
The Guardian

One morning a few weeks ago I sat in a car talking to Rami, a thick-necked former Republican Guard commando who now procures arms for his fellow Sunni insurgents.

Rami was explaining how the insurgency had changed since the first heady days after the US invasion. "I used to attack the Americans when that was the jihad. Now there is no jihad. Go around and see in Adhamiya - all the commanders are sitting sipping coffee; it's only the young kids that are fighting now, and they are not fighting Americans any more, they are just killing Shia. There are kids carrying two guns each and they roam the streets looking for their prey. They will kill for anything, for a gun, for a car and all can be dressed up as jihad."

Rami was no longer involved in fighting, he said, but made a tidy profit selling weapons and ammunition to men in his north Baghdad neighbourhood. Until the last few months, the insurgency got by with weapons and ammunition looted from former Iraqi army depots. But now that Sunnis were besieged in their neighbourhoods and fighting daily clashes with the better-equipped Shia ministry of interior forces, they needed new sources of weapons and money.

more...

[ProSense]

1. Saddam's Execution and the Revival of the Baath Party in Iraq

Monday, January 15, 2007

Saddam's Execution and the Revival of the Baath Party in Iraq

Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and the head of his revolutionary court were hanged early on Monday. An Iraqi government spokesman came out and said that Barzan's head came off during the hanging. I don't think most Sunni Arabs will accept that this was an accident, and likely they'll suspect sectarian revenge again.

These executions and that of Saddam Hussein himself have, according to the Iraqi newspaper al-Zaman, breathed new life into the Iraqi Baath Party and its successors, such as the `Awdah Party.

The four successor parties to the Baath are responsible for a significant amount of the political violence in Iraq. That violence continued on Sunday, according to Reuters. Another report on violence is given by McClatchy. Among the major incidents:
* Guerrillas using a roadside bomb killed one US soldier north of Baghdad and wounded another.

* Police in Baghdad found 40 bodies in the streets during the previous 24 hours, they announced on Sunday. These are typically victims of sectarian violence and show signs of torture.

more...

[Bake]

2. What's the mission again? To kill the Sunnis?

If so, we might pull that off. Of course, that will put the Shia in power. Hell, we're just doing THEIR job for them.

I just don't know anymore. Why are we there again?

Bake

[Supersedeas]

3. oh my...the Pottery Barn ain't what it used to be

[candice]

4. Al Que-da provides weapons to the Sunnis & then start attacking Shiites

...according to a recent Guardian article. The Americans were fighting the original insurgents, but Al Quad started the Civil War.

Who'd thunk a President of such caliber would have gotten us into the biggest mess in our history? Even the lovely Gulf I, in which Americans urged the Shiites to overthrow Saddam and then left them to be slaughtered by the remnants of the Iraqi Republican Guard , is coming back to haunt this country. Why would Shiites love American occupiers? Meanwhile, the contractors are making a bundle.

[NashVegas]

5. I Read the Guardian Article This Morning, and I Tell Ya What

If we play this right, we could get this whole thing over and done with, in 6 months to a year.

The solution I see is to assist the Sunnis, but quietly, like the commander in the article who allows them to be sold ammo, and turn a blind eye. At the very least, don't interfere.

The Sunnis know who their Shia opponents are; as long as the Shia's lay low, they'll be sitting targets. Now, of course that won't last long and eventually they'll come back fighting.

But, as long as the Sunnis are armed and can do damage, they have hope to bring Shia leaders to the bargaining table.

The Shias are fighting for control but the Sunnis are fighting for their lives. I'd say eventually they're going to have enough leverage to force a deal. Shias will give up some control and in exchange, Sunnis will accept the reality they are a minority party and learn how to work that.

Yes, more people will be killed while all that's going on, some innocent. But some things, you just can't stop. Sometimes, when you stop a fight in the middle of it, that jones remains no matter what and will flare up again.

When that's all done, we have our oil law, we keep a small number of troops there, for a limited time. And we prepare to accept that 5, 10 years down the road, that oil law is going to be scrapped.

[gratuitous]

6. Sure it could work Fareed

And you just might poop out a pill that cures cancer if you stick this fork into that electrical outlet. What's the matter? Why aren't you jabbing that fork into the outlet for all you're worth? I just told you it might cure cancer! You don't like cancer, do you Fareed? You don't want to see millions more people dying from cancer, do you? Stick that fork into the outlet, you pansy!

***ZZZZZTTTTT!!!!***

Aw darn! It just shot you 10 feet across the room. Fareed? Fareed? Hey, wake up man. I'm pretty sure that if you do it again, it for sure will work this time. Fareed? Whoof! You kind of stink, man. Maybe you should take a little shower first, kay?