Losing Iraq

[ORAC]

How's that whole BO withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011 working out......

National Review Online: Iraq’s Army Chief of Staff Seeks ‘Stronger’ Ties with Iran (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/283274/iraqs-army-chief-staff-seeks-stronger-ties-iran-will-fulton)

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee today that “Iraq is ready to handle security without a significant U.S. military footprint.” The same day, an interesting report emerged in Iran’s state media. Multiple sources confirmed that the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, met Iraqi army chief of staff Lieutenant General Babakir Zebari today in Tehran. This is the Babakir Zebari who declared in August 2010 that the Iraqi army would not be “fully ready” to assume control of Iraq’s security until 2020.

Zebari stressed during their meeting that Iraq “must” establish “stronger” ties with the Islamic Republic. Jafari stated that “Despite efforts by the U.S. and Israel, which are the true enemies of the two countries of Iran and Iraq, they have not been able to drive a wedge between the two nations, the two countries, and their armed forces.” Zaberi also met with IRGC ground forces commander General Mohammad Pakpour on Monday. It seems that the Iraqi military does not share Secretary Panetta’s confidence.

[Trim Stab]

The only way that the US will ever be able to influence the region is if they use their power to force Israel to sign the Arab League Peace treaty!

[racedo]

Are US troops just moving down the road to Syria ?

[Fubaar]

Within five minutes of the last US troops leaving, in the Arab world, their departure will become another great Arab military victory over the infidel crusaders. Watch this space for similar headlines soon to be coming from Afghanistan. (Although some might agree that those reports from Afghanistan might contain some semblance of fact. Thank you Mr Obama.)

[Load Toad]

We've been there 11 years or so now - so how lond do we need for 'mission accomplished' then? Osama Bin Ladin is dead - I thought the whole point of being 'there' was to bring him to justice and remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction - so why are we still there?

[rh200]

so why are we still there?

A school of thought is its good practice to clean up the mess and do the dishes after a dinner party.

[FATTER GATOR]

Zebari stressed during their meeting that Iraq “must” establish “stronger” ties with the Islamic Republic

I would have been very surprised if Iraq had not sought some sort of a military 'understanding' with Iran.

The 2 countries share an enormous land border, Iraq desperately needs to secure their access to the Gulf for oil exports and they haven't exactly been the best of friends in the past. It's essential for them.

Can I draw a slightly tongue-in-cheek parallel with our relationship with the French?......

[Exnomad]

My late father served in Iraq (Mesopotamia) in WW1 . He did not think much of ii either. I wish our politicians occasionally studied history.

[racedo]

I wish our politicians occasionally studied history.

I wish they studied something other than the John Lewis catalogue and the guide on how to maximise expenses.

[ex-fast-jets]

Politicians??

Study??

Implies intelligence!!

If only!!

Educated, some, maybe, but worldly wise??

[racedo]

Educated, some, maybe, but worldly wise??

Idiot with a degree is still an idiot.

[ORAC]

And one dictator succeeds another?

Is Iraq Lost? (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/iraq-lost_614757.html)

With administration officials celebrating the “successful” withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, thanking antiwar groups for making that withdrawal possible, and proffering outrageous claims about Iraq’s “stability,” “sovereignty,” and the “demilitarization” of American foreign policy even as Iraq collapses, it is hard to stay focused on America’s interests and security requirements. Especially in an election year, the temptation will only grow to argue about who lost Iraq, whether it was doomed from the outset, whether the current disaster “proves” either that the success of the surge was inherently ephemeral or that the withdrawal of U.S. troops caused the collapse. The time will come for such an audit of Iraq policy over the last five years, but not yet. For the crisis in Iraq is still unfolding, and the United States continues to have a huge stake in the outcome. The question of the moment is not “Who lost Iraq?” but rather “Is Iraq definitely lost?”

It certainly seems so. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appears to be undertaking a deliberate and rapid strategy of driving the principal Sunni leaders out of his government and consolidating his personal control over parliament, the executive branch, and the security forces. He had been moving in that direction for several years, but generally with caution and occasional reversals.

The impending withdrawal of U.S. military forces and the revelation of a plot to assassinate him at the end of November seem to have brought his normally conspiratorial mind to fever pitch. He appears to have dramatically accelerated this Sunni purge after his meeting with President Obama in Washington.

Maliki has acted in the political realm with the same suddenness and determination with which he launched the military operation in 2008 that retook Basra from Iranian-backed Shiite militias. He has thus once again taken both Iraqis and Americans by surprise.

He began the escalation of the crisis by sending tanks of the Baghdad Brigade, commanded by his son, to surround the residence of Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, arresting several of Hashimi’s bodyguards and forcing confessions from them implicating Hashimi in terrorist plots—including one to assassinate Maliki. Almost before that news could be assimilated, he revealed an arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president and demanded a no-confidence vote in the Sunni deputy prime minister, Saleh Mutlaq. As Iraqi parliamentarians were mulling over that demand, Maliki let it be known that he had decided he had the power to fire Mutlaq without vote and that he had already done so.

Mutlaq and Hashimi have both fled to Erbil, where the Kurds are sheltering them. Maliki wasted no time, however, in demanding that the Kurds hand Hashimi over for trial, thus escalating a sectarian conflict into an ethno-sectarian struggle.

Events in the provinces are even more worrisome. Provincial councils in three of the four principal Sunni provinces (Anbar, Diyala, and Salahaddin) have declared their intention to form autonomous federal regions similar to the Kurdish Regional Government, in accord with the relevant provisions of the Iraqi constitution. Maliki has angrily denied that they have any such right, and has dispatched security forces to Diyala to prevent secessionist activities. Diyala has always been among the provinces most fraught with sectarian tension, and this political escalation is mirrored there by the reemergence of local militias, including Moktada al-Sadr’s Jaysh al Mahdi, preparing for sectarian violence. With both the Sunni political leadership and local Sunni groups seceding from or being driven out of the government, the stage is set for a return to sectarian civil war...............

[glojo]

Who seriously expected anything different?

When we withdraw from Afghanistan we will hear the exact same platitudes of how we leave it a better place ....blah, blah blah and the outcome in reality will be a brief uprising, the incumbent government will be replaced by a more radical one and those that supported the West will come to a very sticky end...

[The Sultan]

The only winning play in Iraq was never to start that useless waste of brave soldiers and to a lesser extent fortune for no purpose.

A Sadam led Iraq would have been better than what Darth Cheney left us.

The Sultan