The Speech, or George Bush: Midas of Crap
I’m disappointed that the troops being brought into Baghdad will not be given ponies. Unless everyone gets a pony, this plan hardly seems worth it.
I’m glad we have decided not to let the Taliban take over in Iraq. It’s too bad we’re going to continue allowing them to crawl back to power in Afghanistan, while we distract ourselves on a failed, aimless project in Iraq.
“The question is whether our new strategy will succeed.” The answer is “no.” Adding Iraqi military units that aren’t trained and which may well be part of the problem will not fix Baghdad, and leaving our troops in the midst of the city 24–7 will just leave them at the mercy of the sectarian insurgents. Clearing those insurgents out will require depopulating entire neighborhoods.
The idea that Maliki’s commitments are worth anything is somewhat dubious. He doesn’t even control all of his own ministries, why do we think that he can allow us into neighborhoods?
And Joe Lieberman gets to be the new Zell Miller. And John Kerry’s idea of expanding the military – an idea dismissed by President Bush 2 years ago – is now official dogma.
Iraq is a failure, and sending 20,000 90,000 more soldiers into that meat-grinder will just yield more blood. Invading the first time didn’t work, why would re-invading fix all the problems? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
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It has been suggested that the Iraqi government commits its best-trained shock troops, which happent to be Kurdish Peshmerga brigades, to quell the sectarian violence in Baghdad.
One could expect that Kurd troops would dispense order even-handedly to both Shia and Sunni, hence putting down sectarian violence and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.
We go forward with trust that the author of liberty will guide us through these trying hours.
The Kurds are only interested in securing their own slice of Iraq. One) they fear a Turkish invasion/ incursion to suppress Kurdish separatists and Two)there is another civil war going on for the posession of the oil-rich lands that are common to Kurdish and Arab regions of Iraq.
If the Kurds do send forces to Baghdad, it will probably only be a token contingent. Besides, the last thing they want is for Shias and Sunnis to turn on them — at the moment the divisions between the other two are giving them a clear run.
So lets get on with it!
WHEN are the democrats going to end the war!!!
MO MORE STALLS. WE want action now.
DEMOCRATS, end the war! Or we vote you out next time!
My gut feeling is closer to Toby on this one. The Kurds have made it clear that they most want an independent Kurdish state, and have little interest in what happens elsewhere. That means that they would be a good neutral force to use as internal peacekeepers, except that they don’t care about Baghdad.
Given that the Kurdish regions have relatively distinct borders, a partition that created such a Kurdish state would be pretty easy. The problem is that most areas with a Sunni presence also have substantial Shiite populations. Any partition that would create three states out of Iraq (a partition that will happen de facto no matter what we do) will have to deal with that large overlapping area, with Baghdad right at the center of the issue.
I’ve renamed a commenter here who posts under different names from an IP address usually used by trolls. Congress can only do so much to force the President to change policy. The President can veto any funding cuts and has shown a remarkable, probably unconstitutional, willingness to ignore any restrictions on his powers. The President has stated that he intends for American troops to be in Iraq when he leaves office, and it’s likely that the new Congress will have more luck pushing for marginally better policy in Iraq than in forcing an end to our occupation, at least while this President commands the military.