Hundreds of Mahdi Army Members Arrested
USA Today reports that “coalition forces have detained about 700 members of the Mahdi Army.” Many of its leaders are in hiding or have been arrested. In fact, General Petraeus said that “Iraqi government officials are negotiating with al-Sadr’s political organization in an effort to disband the militia”. 16,000 suspected insurgents are now being held in total.
‘Captain’ Ed Morrissey concludes: “Petraeus appears to be on the right track and gathering momentum. Congress represents the only real long-term obstacle to success.”
I cannot agree: USA Today makes clear that “top-ranking and rank-and-file militia members” have been arrested “during operations over the past several months, not since the start of the surge (at least: that’s how I’m reading it…). Thus when people proclaim that this is definite proof that the surge is working… their logic seems to be a bit flawed.
The news is – of course – good, even great, but that doesn’t automatically mean that the battle will be won as long as Congress doesn’t give up. Winning one battle doesn’t automatically result in winning a war.
13 Responses to “Hundreds of Mahdi Army Members Arrested”
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While I respect Captain Ed, who has one of the best grasps of what is going on in Iraq of any blogger, his statement that only Congress stands in the way of long-term success is idiotic on its face and unbecoming of a person of his experience and intellect.
Captain Ed has it exactly backwards: There are numerous obstacles to long-term success and Congress is not one of them.
To name some of those obstacles: No sign that the civil war is winding down, the insurgency and Iran’s role in it, an utterly dysfunctional Baghdad government, flagging support at home for the war, a panicked Republican Party that has lost its mojo.
I think Congress should support the surge 100%. Its a do or die moment for the Bush administration, and its the most public ast straw around. It should go forward as Bush wants it to, then either it succeeds which although unlikely would be nice, or it fails as all other plans from this administration have in Iraq. But after the surge failure even Bush will be unable to muster any support for another go and will have to face reality of the situation.
Some may think this is foolish as it will risk more american soldiers lives to acheive a political end, but I think not. The insurgents are not holding back any as is, and I doubt there would be a serious increase in casualties on our part simply because we have more troops there. Plus Congress is unable to stop the war as is without pulling funds from the troops which would in fact be undermining them in the field and should not be done. It really is the only smart option in both the short run and long run.
Th sad fact is, kids will die and be wounded for life because of this game. You can’t win this war, as it is not a ‘war’ in any traditional sense. It is ‘national building’ at the least and imperialistic at the worst. It is set up to fail. The U.S. has impressed no one with this and won no new fans. But a lot of young kids have died. Dead. Gone. or come home legless or with no arms or serious mental damage. And what is the ‘victory’ MVG? What is the situation you would call victory? You can’t define it because anything you put forward is so released from reality it would be ridiculous. You’re going to turn the middle east into Texas? Your going to slove 4,000 year old problems? You and the U.S. Military are going to ‘fix the world’? Your type of thinking is responsible for spending billions of dollars that does few U.S. citizens country any good. Money wasted and lives wasted. Surge or no surge, American troops can’t ‘fix’ the middle east. That’s why the smart Republicnas (or at least those with smart advisors) mostly took troops OUT of the area. Bin Laden (if he is alive) must love this. The U.S. spreading itself thinner and thinner. Wasting money going after teenagers with bombs strapped on their backs. 12,000 miles away the country is cutting money for schools, highways and hospitals. Ask the British who it went for them in trying to settle the middle east in the last centuries. Who won?
I’ve been thinking about Iraq more the last few days and I’m going to do something surprising and agree that the surge and the troops need to be given more time. Now, why would some who opposed the war and Bush from the beginning do this?
1. Waiting longer may cost more lives, but I’m not sure what the hell else to do and I’m no longer sure what is the best (or least bad) course of action.
2. Looking ahead to the next international crisis, I’m not sure if there is any sort of consensus about the “lessons” of Iraq (like the “lessons of Vietnam”), either among the general public or among the political elites. And I’m afraid that if we leave Iraq prior to some sort of general agreement on these lessons, we’ll find ourselves in a similar quagmire 5, 10, 20 years down the road.
A little off topic, but why did the WH spin machine not admit that thgousands of support troops would be required for the surge. Don’t feed us a line of BS, admit that the surge would be 50K troops, not 20K.
Go get ‘em! It would be particularly great if we could capture al-Sadr.
It’s a bonus if we get to kill or capture Hizballah “visitors” as well.
The surge will work for a while, but it will not be successful. After it fails, however, we may finally get out. Won’t it be nice?
I actually agree with Sam on having Congress let the surge go forward as planned except for one thing. What about that report that came out the other day saying that 8,000 more troops were to be sent for support, and the other from military leaders saying the extra troops would need to stay into next year to make any lasting difference. This may be true, but isn’t it one more trick by this administration that doesn’t want to admit to the true length or cost of this war to Americans??
My concern is: how will we know when the surge is over?
As a spectacular success is unlikely, it will come down to accepting some level of improvement, unless there is utter failure. I fear the return of ‘stay the course’ arguments, this time in re the surge.
I’m not sure how many years of arguing about the war this country can sustain without serious consequences. So far, people have stayed focused on shopping and argue and demonstrate only in fits and starts. If things drag on too long, however, who knows?
The only bright spot I see is that we do have a divided government. The Democrats and their calls for an end keep the president and al Maliki hustling. I hope.
Domajot:
If recent history is any indication, the surge will be over when the White House declares yet another new strategy.
Rudi,
Kagan wrote this back in January about the discrepancy in numbers of troops (the variance between what he had recommended- minimally 30,000- and what Bush had announced, 21,500:
Full article here.
I’m not sure why the administration didn’t choose to state the BCT and elevate the number of surge troops right from the start. My guess would be a political calculation with the belief that a smaller number of troops deployed would be more palatable to the American people, and yet if that was the strategy then it probably backfired; it seems that most people were far more critical of a surge of inadequate number of troops (plus there’s now a sense that there is mission creep when they announce more deployments).
Oops, here’s the link to the full article:
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25473/pub_detail.asp