Someone In The Way
Hammer Time:
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A15
The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had more than 15 months to try to pacify the Sunni insurgency by offering national accords on oil-sharing, provincial elections and de-Baathification. It has done none of these. Instead, Gen. David Petraeus has pacified a considerable number of Sunni tribes with grants of local autonomy, guns and U.S. support in jointly fighting al-Qaeda.
Petraeus’s strategy is not very pretty. It carries risk. But it has been effective.
The Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, however, is not happy with Petraeus’s actions. One top Maliki aide complained that they will leave Iraq ” an armed society and militias.”
What does he think Iraq is now? Except that many Sunni militias that were once shooting at Americans are now shooting at al-Qaeda.
The nature of the war is changing. In July, 73 percent of the attacks that caused U.S. casualties in Baghdad were from Shiite militants, not Sunnis. Maliki is no fool. As more Sunni tribes are pacified, he can see the final military chapter of this war coming into focus: the considerable power of the American military machine slowly turning its face to — and its guns on — Shiite extremists.
Of the many mistakes committed in Iraq, perhaps the most serious was to have failed to destroy Moqtada al-Sadr and the remains of his ragged army when we had him cornered and defeated in Najaf in 2004. As a consequence, we have to face him once again. The troop surge has already begun deadly and significant raids into Mahdi strongholds in Baghdad.
Sadr is hurting. On Wednesday, after many were killed in Shiite-on-Shiite fighting in Karbala, he called for a six-month moratorium on all military operations in order to permit him to ” rehabilitate” his increasingly disorganized forces.
At the same time, however, Maliki is denouncing us for overkill in our raids on Shiite areas. A rift between Washington and Baghdad is opening. It will only widen as long as Maliki is in power.
Now, Maliki is no friend of Sadr or Iran. He knows that if they ultimately prevail, they will swallow him whole. But Maliki is too weak temperamentally and politically to make the decisive move in the other direction — toward Sunni and Shiite moderates — in order to make the necessary national compromises.
So he hedges his bets. He visits Iran and, then, while on a Syrian visit, responds to calls for the Iraqi parliament to bring his government down by saying, ” Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria” and warning darkly that Iraq “can find friends elsewhere.”
Maliki is not just weak but unreliable. Time is short. We should have long ago — say, when national security adviser Stephen Hadley wrote his leaked memo last November about Maliki’s failure — begun working to have this dysfunctional government replaced.
Even the French foreign minister, upon returning from a recent fence-mending trip to Iraq, called for Maliki’s replacement. (One can discount his later apology as pro forma.) Such suggestions are often denounced as hypocritical and contrary to democracy. Nonsense. In a parliamentary system, a government serves only if it continues to command confidence.
Does anyone imagine that Maliki enjoys the confidence of the majority of Iraqis? If he does not, parliament, representing the people, has the perfect right to vote no confidence and bring down the government.
And then? Rather than seek a new coalition as a shaky substitute, the better alternative is new elections. And this time we must not repeat the mistake of election by party list, a system almost designed to produce warlord leadership and unstable coalitions.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, returning from two weeks of reserve duty in Iraq, noted that the August parliamentary recess was beneficial because it allowed the members to hear from angry hometown citizens demanding political compromise and peace. But the problem with the current system is that Iraqi MPs are not elected by their hometown citizens. They are chosen by party bosses.
A sample of the countries that have chosen this absurd form of democracy — Italy, Israel and Weimar Germany — gives you an idea of the balkanized, unstable politics that party-list systems inevitably produce. With a constituency system (members elected by a real geographic entity), the Anbar sheiks would be the ones sitting in parliament negotiating on behalf of Sunnis — not members of a faux-national Sunni party that represents very little.
New elections are not a panacea. They will take long to organize — which is why we should have been working toward this months ago. But the reconciliation from below that is actually happening in the provinces could — and logically should — be making national reconciliation possible in Baghdad. We can’t sit around forever waiting for Maliki.
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Keep in mind that our Congress led by the super brain, Jefferson, fled to the hills during our rebellion. Maliki could learn but it looks like we have to impose a realistic system on them.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:21 amWe do not need to be imposing new leaders or another new form of government on Iraq. Where are we in learning from history? The US and CIA did almost the same thing numerous times in South Viet Nam, replacing one leader after another, and getting progressively more ineffective leadership for the south Viet Namese each time for our efforts. If “WE” change the leadership there, what does that do for building the confidence of the new leadership in the US and it’s support of him/her/them? If the Iraqi people and parliament decide on a change in leadership, then we should support that decision, and help with the stabilization and security as we are doing now. Iraqis are increasingly developing the ability to oust the AQ, protect themselves locally and eventually nationally. We most likely will always have funds channled to them, aswe do with Isreal now.
What we cannot afford is to start going down the same slope to total confusion and mistrust of the US as the Democrats and liberals engenderd with the bungling of VN, and not listen to the socialists from France, the MSM, and Europe as a whole. France has shown it’s socialist governemnt is in need of much repair, and will ikely get it in the form of a more conservative, capitalist society, Europe as a whole with all the little socialist nanny states are bleeding red ink with their socialist programs and defeatist attitudes, and the MSM for all their liberal and socialist rantings are losing money as well because conservatives and the American Capitalist way of life has proven and continues to show that the American way of life that helped make this country great is sick of the liberal feces sandwich.
Don’t play into the liberal handbook , it will lead to worse problems in Iraq, and give the Dems more ammunition.
August 31st, 2007 at 5:29 amHoward Velt:
“Keep in mind that our Congress led by the super brain, Jefferson, fled to the hills during our rebellion”
The revolutionary Congress fled NY before it was about to be overrun by the British. That was an astute move on their part, considering the fact that the Brits would have hung them all as traitors had they stayed. What the fuck does that have to do with Maliki anyways?
Our young Congress continued to function despite the hardships of war during the Revolution. Maliki’s MP’s haven’t done squat.
If Maliki’s MP’s had half as many “brains as you call Jefferson” or a few like him…this whole matter would be solved by now.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:53 amAnd as I keep saying, though I agree with the writer on his salient points…it is not up to him or anyone else to change the goverment in Iraq. That’s the Iraqi’s problem to solve. The MP’s in Parliment can do that themselves. It’s their government not ours or the writers or the Democratz or anybody else’s. The government of Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq. They voted, they decided. It’s their call.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:57 amI agree with Brad W, “WE” have to let these people decide for themselves, no matter how painful it is to watch. Only by the Iraqi people democratically solving their problems, without our meddling, will they trust their ability to live and prosper in a democratic system.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:38 amShouldn’t the General be wearing a hazmat suit getting that close to maliki?
September 1st, 2007 at 2:25 amWestern security forces will probably have to be on station in the ME to help keep the peace until the oils all gone - after all, reaching agreement on a distribution of oil revenue is why the Iraq government is having a problem with finding political solutions. After the oils is depleted, then perhaps the residents can do what they want as long as they are peaceful world citizens.
September 3rd, 2007 at 5:32 am