June 18, 2007
Another Day, Another Mosque
In case anybody's interested, a major Shiite mosque in the city of Samarra, called the Golden mosque, was blown up last Wednesday. For the second time. The following Saturday, regular as clockwork, as night follows day, Sunni mosques were bombed. In both cases, Iraqi security forces were simply brushed aside as the bombers went about their deadly tasks.
So much for building up the Iraqi police and military.
And can anyone doubt now, that there is a sectarian civil war in progress and that there is little the US can do about it.
Except perhaps, withdraw. And, perhaps, let the Iraqis fight their own sectarian battles;--on their own terms.
As T. E. Lawrence once wrote:
Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.
Lawrence wrote these words in 1917 and they are as applicable to Iraq today as they were to the situation in the Middle East in Lawrence's time.
Lt. General Petraeus, the Iraq Fall Guy?
Politicians and pundits who support the Iraq war are unanimous in their praise of the new commander of multinational forces in Iraq. Which should give the good general pause. For one thing the administration and its supporters expect miracles from him. They expect him to make everything in Iraq right, that's currently happens to be going wrong.
Iraq in general is as lawless and violent as it has been since the US invasion. Sectarian violence seems to be getting worse. Worse still, is the fact that the Iraqi political establishment has gone on vacation for a couple of months, which means vital political reforms will not be undertaken.
It looks for all the world like Iraqi politicians wants nothing to do with Mr Bush's ideas of reform. They just want to stay in power.
In any event, September 2007 is the magic month wherein we'll know whether or not the 'surge' is succeeding. Or so we are told.
So far it hasn't succeeded in any sense. Iraqi insurgents go on killing each other and US troops at about the same rate as before the surge. In fact, of course, the war in Iraq is lost. My own suspicion is that the politicians in Washington already know this, but are afraid to say so openly.
General Petraeus will be the one called on the carpet in September to explain to the congress what exactly is going on. He'll also be asked whether or not he senses in progress in Iraq. More than likely he'll have to say the administration's Iraq policy is a failure and that the best approach now, is for the US to withdraw from areas where sectarian violence is going on and take up permanent positions in out-of-the-way places to protect US interests in the flow of oil through the Persian gulf.
In any event General Petraeus is going to bear the brunt of the criticism for the president's Iraq policy.
And will, more likely than not, be its fall guy.
Posted 11:28 AM