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| Iraq | |
| Iraq Restricts U.S. Forces | |
| 2009-07-18 | |
In a curt missive issued by the Baghdad Operations Command on July 2 -- the day after Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. troops to bases outside city centers -- Iraq's top commanders told their U.S. counterparts to "stop all joint patrols" in Baghdad. It said U.S. resupply convoys could travel only at night and ordered the Americans to "notify us immediately of any violations of the agreement." The strict application of the agreement coincides with what U.S. military officials in Washington say has been an escalation of attacks against their forces by Iranian-backed Shiite extremist groups, to which they have been unable to fully respond. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #9 I fear Zhang Fei may be correct, but if so Maliki would have to decide whether he is Arab first or Shia first, since the Shia Saddam path entails a huge risk of being made a puppet to Iran, which would not be appreciated by a lot of (most?) Iraqis - Iran-Iraq War, Book 2? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-07-18 15:08 |
| #8 I think of Shia militias as Maliki's Brown Shirts - ready to seize power at a moment's notice. The moment Uncle Sam leaves, I expect Maliki to assume the mantle of a Shia Saddam. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2009-07-18 14:39 |
| #7 It's not like it would take years for them to transition in a modern country that has all the financial and infrastructure advantages or even a lower threat level. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-07-18 13:43 |
| #6 They may not see themselves as having a choice. President Obama has made if very, very clear that he wants no more than a skeleton American force remaining in Iraq on the shortest possible timeline. If the Iraqis are to get any support from the American trainers as they climb a steep learning curve, they're going to have to get that support while the Americans are still there. The Iraqi message to President Obama being, "You can't fire me! I quit!" |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-07-18 13:41 |
| #5 Though alternative courses of action would not have produced painless magical success (the idiotic "standard" implicitly or explicitly applied - oddly - only to foreign military operations by our ridiculous "elites" and media, et al), these should have reduced the problems under discussion: * sovereignty was returned far too early * during the extended occupation period that should have occurred, a serious effort of intimidation/extermination should have been mounted against indigenous criminal networks - the biggest/best ones - esp. those with foreign ties to Iran or Syria * the longer and far more serious occupation would have provided a much better learning path for Iraq security force stand-up * Iran in particular should have been punished, its personnel killed, to to maximum extent feasible (that limit being drawn way out yonder over the horizon), and embarrassing connections to local thugs/politicians/et al emphasized, not hidden * Sunni terrorism should have been ruthlessly suppressed from the get-go, war should have been treated as war, absurd spectacles like Ramadi (the US in a stand-off with an enemy that should have been liquidated inside a week) avoided, and "hearts and minds" won the lower-cost, lower-violence, more effective way: demonstrating domination, power, competence (i.e. the very risky, situationally inappropriate, and much costlier goofy COIN stuff that's all the rage now strictly avoided) * the positive synergies of these approaches must be considered; knee-capping Iran and exterminating/compromising their local friends would have sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the Sunni "resistance", while a serious suppression of their insane violence would have finished the job; doing the obvious and effective things to suppress Sunni violence would have sucked the oxygen out of the Shi'a resistance environment, while the targeted efforts against the IRGC and their local allies would have finished that job As I said, not magic solutions, but given the circumstances, probably more effective than early sovereignty/feckless tolerance of Sunni terrorism/weakness shown towards Iran and thus towards the worst in the Iraqi Shi'a community/bizarre reliance on primitive political progress in a hobbesian environment where people sought security first. Oh, and deregulating energy in all forms would have been an obvious good way to such the oxygen out of the biggest mafia-building business that directly boosted the Shi'a resistance - fuel smuggling. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2009-07-18 13:13 |
| #4 Its their own throats they are cutting. If we leave completely, the next time we come to Iraq under hostile terms it will not be to stop and rebuild as we have done this time, it will only be to fly over and bomb until the rubble bounces. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-07-18 11:53 |
| #3 We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. anon |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-07-18 11:41 |
| #2 Yeah, what he said. It's time their nannying be ended by our military. We need them back here to fight our tyrants now. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-07-18 09:40 |
| #1 The four levels of experience are unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. This is a very important scale to remember, as it explains many facets of the learning cycle. Being aware of it both gives the student confidence, and lets the teacher know when to back off and let the student succeed or fail on their own merits. The Iraqis have been chomping at the bit to get control back, and they care less that they will be getting a lot of bumps and bruises, than that the fight is entirely theirs to fight. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-07-18 09:17 |