Bush, Maliki to Send More Troops to Baghdad
President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a lovely talk yesterday about “stuff,” to borrow one of Mr. Bush’s favorite terms. The Israeli war on Hezbollah and its aggression against Lebanon probably made their chin-wag “cordial” rather than “friendly.” Nonetheless, they agreed that Baghdad needed more security, and that means more US and Iraqi troops in the city. It also means that the Iraqi Civil War has entered a new stage in which the Green Zone government is becoming irrelevant.
The Iraqi situation, media reporting to the contrary, is much bloodier than the Lebanon spat. According to Al Bawaba, which bills itself as “the largest independent content producer in the Middle East,” the Lebanon death toll is approaching 400 over the last two weeks, with about 41 dead in Israel. Meanwhile, in Iraq, the body count averages over 100 civilian deaths a day. Moreover, the world knows that when Israel gets tired, the shooting is going to stop – sometime in August is likely. Iraq is a much more open ended affair; like a Broadway or West End hit show, it has run and run and run with no end in sight
Despite the occasional bit of good news, like the British handing Muthanna province over to the locals, the Iraqi Civil War is growing more violent and less contained. Prime Minister Maliki was absolutely right when he said that the big objective of the new security plan “is to curb the religious violence.” His government is aiming for an Iraq in which “there is no killing and discrimination against anyone.” Inshallah.
According to America's Secretary of Defense, Field Marshal Donald von Rumsfeld, the number of US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad has grown recently from 44,000 to 55,000. The new forces, whose number has yet to be made public, will be in addition to that build up. In any counter-insurgency, when the guerrillas force the regime to fight for the capital, it’s bad. Guerrillas are only effective where they are popular; otherwise, they get treated like bandits by the people, who eventually turn them in to the authorities. An increasing need for troops in Baghdad is about the worst news Washington could receive. It means the residents of Baghdad are not backing the Maliki government.
The Busheviks have put a brave face on it, saying that successes in other parts of the country leave some places secure enough that US and Iraqi forces can be transferred to the capital. That misses the point, though. Baghdad is up for grabs, and the writ of the Maliki regime ends where the Green Zone does. Unlike Richmond in a different civil war, Baghdad will not fall. Rather, it will suffer the fate of Beirut a couple of decades ago; it will be fought over until more bombs only serve to make the rubble bounce. The future is the Shi’ite militias against the Sunni militias, with the Green Zone government unable to rely on its army because the various commanders will take sides. For America, leaving Iraq looks less like “cut and run” and more like “duck and cover.” For Iraq, it is rapidly becoming what Italy was thoughout most of the 18th and 19th centuries, a geographical term rather than an actual nation.
© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.
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