In a year in which things have only sporadically seemed to improve in between waves of deterioration, it was a week of building tensions and an apparent settling of positions as the country moves towards another election in mid-December. First and foremost was the unrepentant declaration by the US government, that the still-mercurial goals of public safety and democracy would be the standards that must be met before the Iraq job is considered "done."
I should say now that the posturing on all sides is not necessarily a signal of the worst, especially given political realities. When we say that Bush has declared the battle will be fought until won, there's also no doubt that some measure of troop withdrawals will take place in 2006, if only the 12-20,000 who have served in a ramped-up security capacity for the constitutional and parliamentary votes.
There are still many who believe this nonsense about staying the course is only a hopeful buy for time in which a withdrawal of troops can be spun as the seeds of victory in Iraq. But if not tactically, in a politically strategic sense Bush has dug in. If you are going to run on the Bush coattails in 2006 as a GOP Congressperson, you are going to have to back the war full gonzo. That has frankly scared the bejeezus out of a lot of Republican insiders, but there it is.
The Iraqis are having their own moments of hyperbole, of course. Former interim PM Iwad Allawi claimed he was the victim of an assassination attempt as he attended a mosque in the holy city of Najaf. Juan Cole doesn't think much of the attempt, categorizing it more as an expected negative reaction to the cravenly political visit of a mosque by an unpopularly secular politician. Cole believes that the 14% his party got in the January elections will be a high water mark for him, and certainly having stones and shoes thrown at you is not good fodder for your next campaign ad. Someone is backing Allawi--and the shiny four color posters suggest it's someone with money--but the people aren't buying.
In other ominous declarations, the head of a hardline Sunni group and signatory to the Cairo agreements of last month is talking fraud:
Abdul Salam Kubaisi, a senior official of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, said the group would "reconsider the decisions" it reached with rival Shiites and Kurds at a national reconciliation conference last month in Cairo. The leaders had agreed that violence in Iraq should stop, U.S. forces should gradually withdraw and some detainees should be freed.
The agreement was hailed by the United States and other governments as an important step toward preventing the country from splitting into warring factions. But Kubaisi said the pledge to curb the violence had not been kept. He blamed the Shiite-led government's security forces and U.S. troops for the continuing attacks.
Another Sunni group claims solidarity, but as with the constitutional situation there are sects that run more moderate than these folks, so it's unwise to use this one group as a harbinger. However, these are the first signals I've seen about thoughts of a boycott, which contradict the US reports that Sunni are increasingly looking to participate politically.
Certainly eager to participate politically are the Shia, and Imam Sistani has sent out the word that it's good to vote--and by the way, vote only for one of the big three national religious parties...one of which is Moqtadr Sadr's group. The WaPo article mistakenly characterizes Sistani's call to the polls as a neutral one, not backing any party. Sistani clearly advocates a theocratic ballot, and refers to secular parties as "the dangerous ones." Furthermore, he notes ominously that he who wins the parliamentary battle, will control the true shape of a constitutional document wherein the hard questions were left for "later." In Sistani's eyes, "later" is Dec. 16th.
So what do you have? First of all you've got two Western-backed secularists in Allawi and Chalabi, who appear well funded and possibly the beneficiaries of an election fraud conspiracy, then you've got the hardline militant Sunni who will not participate if evidence persists of security force abuses from Badr and Sadrist militia under the guise of Iraqi police. The Shia who appear to be asserting control are not the moderates, and ideological impurity is being punished not only at the high political level (ie Allawi), but in the streets as hairdressers and liquor establishments are being harrassed. This only confirms the fears of the Sunni, who correctly sense that ideological purity is not going to work out too well for them. And you have a foreign occupation that claims it will not leave until somehow all these folks will come to the polls and agree to hash out differences over tea and pita. As I've quoted Dr. Phil before, "so how's that working out for you?"
--TJ
Comments