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Edited on Wed Dec-13-06 03:44 PM by mike_c
The Bush administration has painted itself into a very bad corner and they're beginning to see just how hopeless their position looks. Cheney and his band of evil gnomes advocate choosing sides in what is now undeniably a sectarian civil war. He wants to throw in with the Shi'a, pouring more money and firepower into the conflict on their side. This is consistent with supporting the al-Maliki government which, despite pretensions of "unification" is dominated by the majority Shi'ites.
The problems with this course are many, however, and they contradict other stated objectives of the ongoing Bush train wreck. One of the most implacable opponents of the U.S. occupation is the Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is also a powerful member of al-Maliki's government. Throwing in with the Shi'a will likely fragment them and either broaden the civil conflict or weaken the Shi'a themselves. The al-Maliki government is in a lose-lose situation here and it will quite possibly fall before long because of this internal divide among the ruling Shi'ite parties.
Throwing in with the Shi'a implies throwing in with Iran and Syria, which are closely allied with the Iraqi Shi'ites. The U.S. won't even talk directly to the Iranians. Admitting that they have common interests in Iraq is anathema to Bush administration officials and their neocon cronies. Any such common interests would crumble anyway-- there is no firm ground to stand on in that direction. Further, broader alliances are shifting in the region as the other players are becoming more vocal, threatening, and in the case of Hizbollah, much more successful. The government of Lebanon hangs in the balance, and the chances of being entrenched in the Iraq disaster when the larger conflicts begin to blow up are growing every day.
Saudi Arabia has expressed its support for the rival Sunnis in no uncertain terms, threatening to intervene directly if the United States withdraws from Iraq. It's hard to say whom is who's client state: the Saudis ours or we theirs. In any event, they exert enough influence to summon Darth Cheney for an audience with the king on short notice, and their displeasure could cripple the U.S. economy if they choose to make the point seriously.
So Cheney's proposed solution seems too bitter a pill for the Bush administration to swallow.
Alternatives include supporting the Sunnis rather than the Shi'ites in the sectarian conflict, except that they're the deadenders, Ba'athists, and insurgents against whom Bush justified the occupation in the first place. They largely oppose the al-Maliki government whom the Bush administration pinned its hopes on. Supporting them now would repudiate everything the administration has tried to do so far in Iraq, and would expose the war for the shambling idiotic lunacy that it is.
Simple escalation is another alternative, which might be better described as "painting the corner even smaller." Pouring more troops into Iraq is apparently the plan lobbied by the Pentagon and the generals, for whom fire power is the supreme panacea. They evidently advocate direct confrontation with Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Unfortunately, this will also likely lead to the fall of the al-Maliki government-- al-Sadr has so much authority in Baghdad that he was able to order a halt to U.S. operations in Sadr City through al-Maliki, who preferred standing up to the Americans rather than al-Sadr. Since al-Maliki is utterly dependent upon his puppet masters to keep him alive and drawing breath, one is left to wonder just who pulls his strings the strongest. Going after al-Sadr will quite likely bring down the "unification government" just as quickly as a withdrawal, and while it's hard to say how that will affect life in Iraq with any certainty, it's a cinch that it won't increase stability at all. The corner into which the neocons have painted us will grow smaller still.
Last, but not least, Bush must consider the wishes of the military-industrial complex captains of industry who pull the strings in Washington, and who will likely see to it that people quietly die and careers are destroyed if their hopes for middle eastern hegemony and perpetual war for perpetual profits are thwarted by "failure" in Iraq. These are the men behind the curtain, yanking the levers and pulling the ropes. It was their interests that James Baker's Iraq Study Commission ultimately represented. If Iraq is the hard place, they are the rock.
So all of the alternatives for Bush and his cronies look bad, worse, and totally awful. The Decider cannot decide. A pound or two of flesh is due but Bush is panicked at the prospect. So he dithers and delays, while the War Cabinet weighs its options and wonders how it got into this terrible corner in the first place.
My personal take is that there is no possible good solution. Furthermore, there is no one in the administration who can get us out of the corner they've gotten us into. They have no alternatives but to keep fumbling "forward" into whatever disaster awaits us because the alternatives are proximally worse for them, and the country be damned.
The only solution is to remove them from office and to scub the influence of militarists and indusrialists from our government. I doubt the latter is possible, frankly, but the short term solution to the corner we find ourselves in MUST begin with the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.
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