You have to love the calm objectivity of McClatchy News Service headline: “Is ’success’ of U.S. surge in Iraq about to unravel?”
Now why on Earth would McClatchy, whose motto is “Truth to Power”, be wondering such a thing with a hope-filled headline like that? As it turns out, Moqtada al-Sadr, the guy who has been the single largest thorn in the side of peace in Iraq, is kicking up his heels once more. He’s doing that because the Iraqi government is kicking the dogsnot out of his Mahdi Army in Basra right now. So, with more and more of his fighters getting sent to the Great Virgin Depot in the Sky, he’s becoming a more desperate man. His latest temper tantrum, and that is all this is, shows his desperation and not an unraveling of the surge.
Right now, the only thing that’s keeping Mookie in the game are his very strong and immediate ties to Mad Mahmoud and the Mullahs in Iran. Indeed, Iran is at the very forefront of the shenanigans that are getting headlines in Iraq these days and if you don’t think that Mookie is the guy right in the middle of all of that, you haven’t been paying attention. When the US and Iraqi government talks about elements of the Mahdi Army loyal to Iran, they’re talking about the core of the Army, the guys cuddled up right close to Mookie.
What I don’t see, in any of these stories, is any threat at all to the success (and don’t you just love McClatchy’s quotes around that word?) of the surge. The Iraqi government – the one that’s democratically-elected – is kicking the shortpants off of the thug proxy of a hostile foreign country so badly that he’s gone into a snit and has decided to exert control in just about the only place he has a shred of real power. The only thing I see is Moqtada al-Sadr, who should have been killed years ago, scrambling to be relevant in an Iraq that doesn’t want nor need him. His life-expectancy is measured only in how quickly the Iraqi government believes it can crush the rest of his gang and whether they think we’ll stick around to back them up when Iran takes umbrage.
It’s the strong horse/weak horse thing again. You’d figure we would have worked that out by now. When we are the strong horse, Iraq goes well. When we are the weak horse, the Iraqi government runs off to Iran to make sure that there’ll be something left when the Islamists sweep Iraq clean. Right now we are the strong horse and thanks to the President and General Petraeus, we will remain the strong horse at least into late next year. Which means that Mookie has plenty of reasons to be very unhappy.
That, folks, is good news, regardless of how badly the fantasists at McClatchy want it to be otherwise.
(Basra story via Ed Morrissey, who rightly notes that Mookie can’t win in Basra even if he goes all-in and that the threat of his Mahdi Army was never a military one. Read his analysis…it’s pretty darned good)
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 03/25/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Nice post!
I noted a similar point:
“‘Why haven’t the Democrats declared victory in Iraq and suggested now is the time to go home? The answer is that they have become obsessed with fighting the last war – the last political war against George W. Bush.’
We can of expand “the Democrats” to include the party’s fanatical antiwar base, and presto, the notion of the last war against President Bush fits like a glove.”
McClatchy’s a disaster, but they did ring the bell just like Pavlov. The nihilist antiwar folks are just salivating this morning.