[Carlhole]

Pretty good brief analysis (at least for as long as the weekend):

[url=http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/24/on_the_brink_in_iraq.php]
On The Brink In Iraq
Robert Dreyfuss
February 24, 2006
[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TomPaine.com', 'I')n a paper for an Israeli think tank, the same think tank for which Wurmser, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith prepared the famous “Clean Break” paper in 1996, Wurmser wrote in 1997 : “The residual unity of the nation is an illusion projected by the extreme repression of the state.” After Saddam, Iraq would “be ripped apart by the politics of warlords, tribes, clans, sects, and key families,” he wrote. “Underneath facades of unity enforced by state repression, [Iraq’s] politics is defined primarily by tribalism, sectarianism, and gang/clan-like competition.” Yet Wurmser explicitly urged the United States and Israel to “expedite” such a collapse. “The issue here is whether the West and Israel can construct a strategy for limiting and expediting the chaotic collapse that will ensue in order to move on to the task of creating a better circumstance.”

Such black neoconservative fantasies—which view the Middle East as a chessboard on which they can move the pieces at will—have now come home to roost. For the many hundreds of thousands who might die in an Iraqi civil war, the consequences are all too real.

The bankruptcy of the Bush-Cheney Iraq policy is revealed in the fact that the United States has succeeded in pitting itself now against two major “resistance” groups in Iraq...

[duke3522]

OK Folks!

Looks like our good friends in Iraq are headed for a full blown Civil War if stuff like this keeps going on.

What scenarios does anyone see playing out if the Iraqis go at each other hammer and tongs? How will Iran play out in any civil war? Will the Kurds go ahead and establish an independent Kurdishstan? Will Turkey invade Kurdishstan? Will the war widen to other Muslim countries?

And, if the war widens, how will the war impact the flow of oil, and what effects will this have on western economies? Will Iraqis blowing each other up out a crimp in the driving habits of those of us in the US? Will Islamic unrest in Europe increase? Will GWB ever admit that “Things are going great” is not a statement that applies to Iraq?

And, most important of all, will an Iraqi civil war help bring PO to the forefront, or will the ICW (Iraqi Civil War) be the scapegoat for $3.50 gas this summer.

Duke of Indiana

[shakespear1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'It is also significant that the 1,200-year-old tombs of two revered Shi'ite imams were not destroyed. The Golden Dome is only about a century-old and can be repaired, and the US government has pledged to do just that. It is quite telling of contemporary journalism that this significant detail was omitted in most commentaries. The extent of an Iraqi civil war or the possibility of de-escalation may depend on this one vital factor. Till today, the exact details are not known.')

Article

If the above is true then whoever blew up the dome knew that it was something that was symbolicaly important but possible to rebuild. Had it been 1,000 yrs old then it would have been an act of much different magnitude and with a different message.

[rogerhb]

Robert Fisk doesn't think there is going to be a civil war because Iraq is tribal not sectarian.

What they want is the US out, and that is where the unity will come from. This was what happened to the British in the 1920s.

But he does think something is being stirred up by somebody, but he can't put his finger on it, and this is a chap who's been in the ME for 30 years.

[shakespear1]

That is interesting. 30 yrs of experience is impressive!!

Last night I saw a documentary about the killing of Massud in Afghanistan and the certain involvement of Pakistan intelligence. The same Pakistan that today is an Allie on the war against Terrorism The theory goes that he had to go before 9/11 happened. With him eliminated this would allow the US to enter Afghanistan.

Just before his death he was speaking out about the danger of Taliban and Osama on his trips to EU. Did he know something more from his spies? We won't know. But obviously no one wanted to help him out in a big way to defeat the Taliban and hence eliminate the Osama Factor. The end result being that the US forces stepped into this region in a big way and then moved on to Iraq as the Axis of Evil became more coherently defined.

[scw86]

I would disagree that Iraq is not sectarian. The majority of the insurgency is Sunni and the majority of population that is targeted are the Kurds and Shiites. The Sunni, Kurds, and Shia have many conflicting views in regards to government and religion. The Iran-Iraq war was largely sparked by Iranian support of Shia majority within Iraq in an attempt to weaken the Sunni back Saddam.

I have recently been doing research on the topic and I was surprised at the historical background. Many argue that the British Empire intentionally drew the borders of its colonies in ways that would spark conflict amongst ethnic and cultural groups so that these regions would not developed enough to threaten the British. Iraq was spliced together out of several previously separate provinces rather than having a nation arise from cultural and ethnic unity. The prospect of a civil war has far reaching implications and it could very well draw the majority of Iraq’s neighbors into the brawl. The only way I can see that can avert such a calamity arising now or in the furture would be to divide up the country into the pre-colonial borders or install another dictatorship.

[shakespear1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'The only way I can see that can avert such a calamity arising now or in the furture would be to divide up the country into the pre-colonial borders or install another dictatorship.')

To get to this will be next to impossible. Why? Oil

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '.')..he does think something is being stirred up by somebody, but he can't put his finger on it, and this is a chap who's been in the ME for 30 years.

[Zardoz]

(This story will disappear behind a paywall tonight, so I won't bother posting a link.)
From the Los Angeles Times:
[quote]Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War He supports the White House view that an early pullout would backfire, but he is bleak about the Sunni-Shiite conflict and says it could spread. By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer, March 7, 2006:
BAGHDAD — The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon. In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war.

For now, Iraq has pulled back from that prospect after the wave of sectarian reprisals that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, he said. But "if another incident [occurs], Iraq is really vulnerable to it at this time, in my judgment," Khalilzad said in an interview with The Times. Abandoning Iraq in the way the U.S. disengaged from civil wars in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Somalia could have dramatic global repercussions, he said.

"We have opened the Pandora's box and the question is, what is the way forward?" Khalilzad said. "The way forward, in my view, is an effort to build bridges across [Iraq's] communities." Khalilzad's central message that the United States cannot immediately pull out of Iraq jibed with Bush administration policy. But he offered a far gloomier picture than assessments made in recent days by U.S. military spokesmen.

On Sunday, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a televised interview that things in Iraq were "going very, very well, from everything you look at." Khalilzad's comments came just before key U.S. decisions are expected on whether the situation in Iraq has improved enough to allow for a reduction in U.S. forces this year. Army Gens. John P. Abizaid, who heads U.S. Central Command, and George W. Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, plan to meet with President Bush as early as this week to make recommendations on troop levels.

Military officials must decide this month whether to cancel deployments of several Army combat brigades — a cancellation that would lead to a reduction in the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq by midyear, from about 130,000 to about 100,000. For nearly a year, Casey has said that a "substantial reduction" in troops could occur in 2006, and cited spring as the time when the critical decisions would be made.

A reduction would signal the administration's confidence in progress in the country. On Friday, however, Casey said that war planners would take the recent violence as "certainly something that we will consider in our decisions." Without touching on the issue of troop reduction, Khalilzad described a highly combustible atmosphere in Iraq that dates at least to the polarizing Dec. 15 legislative elections, which handed Shiites a dominant role in the government.

"Right now there's a vacuum of authority, and there's a lot of distrust," said the diplomat, who is among the architects of the U.S. plan to reshape the political balance of the Middle East after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Samarra bombing and the subsequent outbreak of violent reprisals by Shiites against Sunni Muslims demonstrated that insurgents fully understand Iraq's fragility and will seek to exploit it, Khalilzad said.

"It indicates that they recognize this vulnerability of Iraq or this problem in Iraq, which they have tried to fan," he said. "There is a concerted effort to provoke civil war. The guys who want to start a civil war are there looking or considering other things they could do."

Khalilzad, who is actively and publicly involved in Iraq's government talks, repeated his weeks-long assertion that the best way to prevent civil war or large-scale sectarian violence is to form a government drawing from all of Iraq's disparate groups as a way "to build trust and narrow the fault line that exists" between Shiites and Sunnis.

"Once a national unity government is formed, the effort to provoke a civil war will face a huge obstacle," he said.

Shiite leaders loudly objected last week to Khalilzad's involvement in government talks, saying he was improperly taking the side of the Sunni minority.

"I have gotten some negative reaction," Khalilzad said, adding that he had not tried to intervene on the Sunni side. He said he had called for nonsectarian figures to run key ministries. "Sectarian Sunnis are as bad as sectarian Shias," he said.

In any case, Khalilzad said the U.S. has little choice but to maintain a strong presence in Iraq — or risk a regional conflict in which Arabs side with Sunnis and Iranians back Shiites, in what could be a more encompassing version of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, which left more than 1 million dead.

The ambassador warned of a calamitous disruption in the production and transport of energy supplies in the Persian Gulf. He described a worst-case scenario in which religious extremists could take over sections of Iraq and begin to expand outward.

"That would make Taliban Afghanistan look like child's play," said Khalilzad, an American of Afghan descent who served as U.S. envoy to Afghanistan before taking on the post in Iraq. The U.S. vision for a broad-based government "reflects the aspirations of the [Iraqi] people," he said. "If we were at variance with the aspirations of the people, we'd be in trouble."

Khalilzad said U.S. officials had tried to enlist the support of governments of neighboring countries, even exploring "modalities of setting up a meeting" with Iran. He named Iran and Syria as two nations that had been "particularly unhelpful" in Iraq. On Monday, Iraqi politicians continued to wrangle over the composition of a new government. Interim President Jalal Talabani announced a decision to convene parliament on Sunday, only to be quickly countered by Shiite political leaders who asked him to postpone the session.

Shiites have nominated interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari to serve a full term. Kurds and Sunnis have pushed to derail his candidacy. Khalilzad described such day-to-day political jousting as healthy. "They are bargaining. They are shadowboxing," he said. "This is a much better way than with guns."

Still, the politics of the gun spoke loudly Monday. Violence, much of it with sectarian overtones, left at least 18 Iraqis dead across the country as multiple car bombs exploded. One U.S. soldier was reported killed in a combat incident in western Iraq. Maj. Gen. Mubdar Hatim Hazya Duleimi, commander of the Iraqi army in Baghdad, was killed in western Baghdad, the U.S. military announced.

He was killed by a single bullet while driving in a long convoy shortly after 5 p.m., said Mohammed Askari, a Defense Ministry advisor. Duleimi, a Sunni, commanded a force that is seen by many as a counterweight to that of the Interior Ministry, whose Shiite-dominated police and commando units have been accused of extrajudicial killings.

The U.S. military reported Monday that a U.S. soldier had died Sunday as a result of "enemy action." The soldier was killed in rural western Iraq, although much of the insurgent violence in the country has shifted to religiously diverse urban areas, said a U.S. official who requested anonymity.

A car bomb in a crowded market in downtown Baqubah, a religiously mixed provincial capital about 35 miles northeast of the capital, killed at least six people, including two children, and injured 21. The bomb exploded as police and passersby gathered near the scene of a slaying, one of three fatal shootings reported in Baqubah. Gunmen killed three Shiite laborers in the Sunni town of Hawija, near the northern city of Kirkuk. A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol in Mosul killed an Iraqi civilian.

At least two car bombs and sporadic mortar fire shook the capital. A car bomb near a bank killed one person and injured five in the Dora district. A car bomb on the road to the Industry Ministry injured five. Another car bomb struck a police commando patrol in the Mustansiriya district, though there were no reports of injuries.

Yarmouk Hospital officials reported receiving at least three unidentified corpses from Sunni neighborhoods. Gunmen kidnapped a prominent university professor. Ali Hussein Khafaji, dean of the engineering college at Mustansiriya University, was taken by two carloads of men as he left home.

[woodman]

The only thing holding Iraq together was Saddam Hussein. It took a bad guy. We went in delusional and destroyed the only thing that could possibly hold that place together. So arrogant and so stupid of us. I suppose we could try to divide it up into three sections; Shiite south, Sunni, and Kurd north but no one in power anywhere would go for that solution. Those poor people. We really put the effin' to 'em.

[rogerhb]

I wonder if anyone listens to him.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'I') wonder if anyone listens to him.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'I') wonder if anyone listens to him.

[legit]

From the BBC article on the same matter

Mr Rumsfeld also said Iranian forces had infiltrated Iraq - something, he said, they would look back on as being an error of judgement.

[LadyRuby]

And overall, nearly 4 of 5 Americans expect civil war.

Bush popularity at a new low (better late than never...):

Bush's Approval Rating Falls to New Low

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ore and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.

Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq — the bloody hot spot upon which Bush has staked his presidency. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a 6-point jump since February.

...

The poll suggests that most Americans wonder whether Bush is up to the job. The survey, conducted Monday through Wednesday of 1,000 people, found that just 37 percent approve of his overall performance. That is the lowest of his presidency.

Bush's job approval among Republicans plummeted from 82 percent in February to 74 percent, a dangerous sign in a midterm election year when parties rely on enthusiasm from their most loyal voters. The biggest losses were among white males.

On issues, Bush's approval rating declined from 39 percent to 36 percent for his handling of domestic affairs and from 47 percent to 43 percent on foreign policy and terrorism. His approval ratings for dealing with the economy and Iraq held steady, but still hovered around 40 percent.

Personally, far fewer Americans consider Bush likable, honest, strong and dependable than they did just after his re-election campaign.

By comparison, Presidents Clinton and Reagan had public approval in the mid 60s at this stage of their second terms in office, while Eisenhower was close to 60 percent, according to Gallup polls. Nixon, who was increasingly tangled up in the Watergate scandal, was in the high 20s in early 1974.

[Zardoz]

I'm actually starting to think that Bush is toast.

70 percent of Republicans think civil war is coming in Iraq? Are you frickin' kidding me???

The key will be how much of a liability the Repubs in the House and Senate feel Bush and that low-life jerk Cheney have become. If it gets any worse at all, and an impeachment movement actuallly gets rolling, we'll see Dubya retired to Crawford before his disastrous term runs its course.

If the GOP members get to the point where they feel their own personal political careers are threatened by Bush and Cheney remaining in office, those two are gone. Game over.

[VoiceofDoom]

The other 30% know its already in progress.

[Eli]

Just some comments here.

Bush is in real trouble obviously, I think what has happened is he has finally pissed off his base enough that he will have real trouble as a leader. There are all kinds of issues on which he has ticked off what should have been his supporters. In the past however at least a few people would have come out and help carry him through any trouble, they would get out and defend him. But he has dropped the ball on so many issues like immigration and Iraq in the past that his base is tired of defending him, and now there are only a handful of people who will still defend him.

Bush has always relied on Congress and his supporters to come to his defense and rescue him on issues. The guy is not articulate enough to dig himself out of a situation, and this time instead of people defending him all you heard was the sound of crickets.

Now the repubs in Congress are getting so much heat from their constituents back home they are now worried about getting re-elected. Bush has sucked so bad that republicans could loose votes by standing with the President. He has not only wasted his own political capitol he has he has squandered theirs as well. Now every time an issue comes up the Congressmen are going to have to ask themselves if staying with the President is going to help them or hurt them back home. That spells disaster for a President that cannot speak.

With all the enormously difficult and divisive issues facing the US right now there is no way that Bush can talk his way out of it without the help of others. Unlike Bill Clinton, Bush cannot put a coherent sentence together much less articulate a complex thought. I really think he is in a word screwed.

[bobcousins]

Do you guys think that Congress will support a war with Iran?

There is a steady drumbeat of war that is so similar to the lead up to Iraq, it gives me a horrible feeling in my stomach. If our leader and your leader team up again and decide "what the hell, let's go down in flames. God made us do it", I hate to think what may happen.

Maybe this time I really should go on the "No war on Iran" march.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he other 30% know its already in progress.