Anthony H. Cordesman : "They lost Basra in 2005"

[k-robjoe]

"Expert: Brit Iraq policy boosted Shiites
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- British policy in southern Iraq has played into the hands of radical Shiite factions, a U.S. expert said.

"The British military position in the south is radically different from that of the United States," Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, wrote in a new analysis published Wednesday.

"The British long ago essentially ceded the two provinces they control -- Basra and Maisan -- to Shiite Islamist factions," Cordesman wrote. "They lost Basra in 2005 to rival Shiite extremist parties and essentially let most of the city become a no go zone unless they conducted active operations. They pulled out of much of the southeast to the north of Basra in 2006.

"The British soft approach has worked little better, if at all, than the American hard approach," Cordesman wrote. "The British were not defeated in a military sense, but lost in the political sense if 'victory' means securing the southeast for the central government and some form of national unity.

"Soft ethnic cleansing has been going on in Basra for more than two years, and the south has been the scene of the less violent form of civil war for control of political and economic space that is as important as the more openly violent struggles in Anbar and Basra," Cordesman wrote.

The total evacuation of remaining British forces from southern Iraq announced by Prime Minister Tony Blair "will in many ways simply reflect the political reality that the British 'lost' the south more than a year ago," Cordesman wrote.

"The Shiites will take over, Iranian influence will probably expand, and more Sunnis, Christians, and other minorities will leave," he wrote."

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070221-122518-3592r

[Bucky]

1. This is what happened to Europe after WW1 & WW2.

There were wholescale relocations of ethnic minorities in several countries then. It's sad, but it is a hedge against future wars... assuming you're ruthless enough about the cleansing. This same process is gonna happen in Baghdad and al-Anbar, but it'll be bloodier there. How bloody depends on how long it takes and how long it takes depends on how long the US government chooses to drag it out.

I'm about two years past "I told you so." I've already moved on to "God, please let it stop."
.

[TacticalPeek]

2. K & R

:kick:

[k-robjoe]

3. Telegraph

"The Telegraph" :

"Certainly the 200,000 Sunnis living in the area along with the tiny Christian population will face ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Shia majority.

Then the various Shia factions will turn on themselves before the strongest side emerges.

This will probably be someone from the Mahdi army, loyal to the troublesome cleric Moqtada al Sadr."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/21/nbasra121.xml

[malaise]

4. Neither Bush nor Blair

give a flying fuck. They have the oil.