Comments on: We Won! So Let’s Go Home

By: krit

krit — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:23:16 +0000

It seems like a great moment to declare victory and let them fight it out among themselves. The Bush legacy will be saved, Petraeus success will give a boost to Republican fortunes and we can finally focus on the real al queda.

By: domajot

domajot — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:35:34 +0000

Elrod is so right.

I don’t see what the clear and obvious conclusion is, though. As you say, what happens now is the real issue.

Having invaded, the future of Iraq will hang around our necks forever, and the blaming will have some real justification.

Every argument for doing anything is based on predictions about a very uncertain future, where any number of drastic consequences seem equally possible.
Just coming home and letting the Iraqis have their civil war is not really politically (on a national or international stage) posstble, either, in the sense that every single event in Iraq will have a string to it leading to the US. We can physically leave Iraq, but we can’t leave our involvement in Iraq behind.

At the same time, the ‘political solution; as the signal for diesengagement is receding so far into the ruture, that it’s becoming more like a mirage.

Color me horrified and at a loss.

By: Shaun Mullen

Shaun Mullen — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:38:21 +0000

elrod:

Extremely well said.

By: Elrod

Elrod — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:29:28 +0000

The deeper problem is that it means the day of alliances between anti-AQI Sunnis and US military forces in Anbar and elsewhere may soon be coming to an end. The only way the US will be able to maintain the allegiance of Sunnis will be with money – but even that won’t be enough as the Sunnis’ goals are primarily political and not economic. The Sunnis vigorously oppose federalism in Iraq, which the SIIC (Hakim’s Shi’ites) support, because it would prevent oil expenditures from reaching the Sunni West and it would grant Iran more power in Iraqi affairs. So instead the Sunnis will keep focusing on taking over the central government again – as in the days of Saddam – and will use the US and its anti-Iranian rhetoric as a means to secure control over Baghdad. Of course, the Sunnis will first have to reclaim the neighborhoods they lost at the hands of the Sadrists.

AQI was largely a deadly distraction to the deeper conflicts within Iraq. Managing to piss EVERYBODY off, AQI overreached and convinced the entire population to rise up against it. But what happens now is the real issue.

By: john

john — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:27:50 +0000

Time to roll out the “Mission Accomplished” banner and bring in the aircraft carrier in for the photo-op.